ADL 'deeply disappointed' with GOP governors for refusal to accept Syrian refugees

Masslive.com ^ | Nov. 17, 2015 | Conor Berry

[ruination]

BOSTON - The Anti-Defamation League said it is "deeply disappointed" with GOP governors, including Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, for refusing to accept Syrian refugees after Friday's ISIS attacks that killed 129 people and injured more than 430 others in Paris.

"This country must not give into fear or bias by turning its back on our nation's fundamental commitment to refugee protection and human rights," Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said Monday, urging governors to keep their doors open during the humanitarian crisis.

"Now is precisely the time to stand up for our core values, including that we are a proud nation of immigrants," Greenblatt said. "To do otherwise signals to the terrorists that they are winning the battle against democracy and freedom."

Baker said he will not allow Massachusetts to accept any Syrian refugees until he learns more about how the federal government plans to screen them. "I would say no as of right now. I'm not interested in accepting refugees from Syria," he said Monday. "I would need to know a lot more than I know now before I agree to do anything."

After the Paris attacks, Baker and fellow Republican governors in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin announced they would not take in refugees trying to escape the violence in Syria, USA Today reports.

The concern, according to the Republican state leaders, is that Syrian refugees seeking resettlement in the United States might include people with terrorist ties. As of Monday evening, only one Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, had joined the chorus of GOP governors opposed to accepting refugees.

President Barack Obama has called on the U.S. to accept up to 10,000 refugees from Syria, where fighting has displaced millions, but Baker and other state leaders remain skeptical. However, the governor did not entirely rule out accepting refugees in the future, if the feds establish an appropriate vetting process.

The ADL, which fights anti–Semitism and promotes fair and humane immigration policies, has called Europe's current migrant crisis "the worst since World War II." The Jewish community is particularly affected by images of Syrians – more than half of the refugees hail from Syria – being uprooted from their homeland "only to find they are unwanted anyplace else," Greenblatt said.

"Many of these refugees are fleeing the same terrorists who perpetrated the horrendous attacks on Paris," he said.

The ADL has joined with several other Jewish organizations to form the Jewish Coalition for Syrian Refugees in Jordan in response to the humanitarian crisis resulting from Syria's civil war.

[af_vet_1981]

Yes. Actually I do care. My fundamentalist and Baptist friends have this fetish for the modern-day nation-state of Israel, with little or no knowledge of the disposition of the Jewish people after the events of the first century AD.

Ah, so this is why you care.

Which disposition of the Jews do you think your fundamentalist and Baptist friends have with little or no knowledge of, and why do you call their support for the State of Israel a fetish ? That rhetoric suggests to me there is another layer, under the pink, as it were.