New York Times Disturbed That ‘Europe Opens Doors That Were Closed To Others’

UPDATE: Zelensky applauded by EU parliament; diplomats walk out on Lavrov at UN

The New York Times is offended that the states in Ukraine’s neighborhood – Poland, Hungary, the Baltic nations, Romania — are willing to admit Ukrainian refugees, while having rejected Muslim migrants who have tried in the recent past to enter those same countries. Apparently the NYTimes considers this to be “racism.” The Times report is here: “For Ukraine’s Refugees, Europe Opens Doors That Were Shut to Others,” by Lara Jakes, New York Times, February 26, 2022:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed tens of thousands of people out of their homes and fleeing across borders to escape violence. But unlike the refugees who have flooded Europe in crises over the past decade, they are being welcomed.

Countries that have for years resisted taking in refugees from wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are now opening their doors to Ukrainians as Russian forces carry out a nationwide military assault. Perhaps 100,000 Ukrainians already have left their homes, according to United Nations estimates, and at least half of them have crowded onto trains, jammed highways or walked to get across their country’s borders in what officials warn could become the world’s next refugee crisis.…

As of this writing, here are now not 100,000, but half a million Ukrainians who have left Ukraine for Poland, to the west. These are genuine refugees, fleeing war, not economic migrants, like the Muslims who have for more then two decades been arriving from the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan, intending to settle in the generous welfare states of Europe, in order to take advantage of every benefit they offer, including free or heavily subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits, family allowances, and more. Indeed, these Muslim economic migrants try to end up in the countries with the most benefits, which means Germany, the U.K.,and the Scandinavian countries.

In Poland, government officials assisted by American soldiers and diplomats have set up processing centers for Ukrainians. “Anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state,” the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, told reporters on Thursday. His government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a border wall, a project it began after refugees and migrants from the Middle East tried to reach the country last year but ended up marooned in neighboring Belarus.

The military in Hungary is allowing in Ukrainians through sections of the border that had been closed. Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, Viktor Orban, has previously called refugees a threat to his country, and his government has been accused of caging and starving them.

Viktor Orban never said that “refugees” are a threat to Hungary. He claimed that Muslim migrants were a threat: “We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim…. That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots,” he wrote.

Muslim migrants into non-Muslim European countries of course have only meant trouble. Muslims are taught in the Qur’an not to take “Jews and Christians as friends, for they are friends only with each other (Qur’an 5:51). They are further taught that Muslims are “the best of peoples” (3:110) while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6). Why would Europeans want to continue to let into their countries, now that they have had such unhappy experiences with Muslims, millions of people who regard them as “the most vile of created beings,” and have no desire to be integrated into a society of Infidels? Muslims know that by rights it is they who should be ruling over non-Muslims, not the reverse. They are determined to pocket every conceivable benefit that non-Muslim states and peoples provide, regarding these benefits as theirs by right, a kind of proleptic jizyah that they have every right to exact from the Infidels. And Muslims are instructed too, in the Qur’an, to “fight” and to “kill” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts” of the Infidels. The leaders of Poland and Hungary, who grew up under Soviet rule, learned from their countries’ experiences the effects of an aggressive and rigid religion, as both Communism and Islam happen to be.

Farther West, Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria said that “of course we will take in refugees if necessary” in light of the crisis in Ukraine. As recently as last fall, when he was serving as interior minister, Mr. Nehammer sought to block some Afghans seeking refuge after the Taliban overthrew the government in Kabul.

The Times wishes us to be scandalized by Chancellor Nehammer’s welcome to Ukrainians when “as recently as last fall” he was blocking Afghans “seeing refuge.” Why should we be? Chancellor Nehammer has nothing to be ashamed of; he sees clearly the difference between the Muslim Afghans, who in the West have already shown how difficult it will be to civilize and integrate them into the larger society. There is no such problem with Ukrainian refugees.

“It’s different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying during an interview on a national TV program. “We’re talking about neighborhood help.”…

“Neighborhood help”is exactly what is being offered the Ukrainians. These refugees are part of the same Western civilization, and share the same religion, Christianity, with those in Europe with whom they seek temporary refuge. The Ukrainian refugees plan to return to their country as soon as the war is over. The Poles, who already have experience with the Ukrainian Gastarbeiter living and working in their country, know how well they integrate, as fellow Slavs, and at the same time, know that they intend ultimately to return to Ukraine. Their behavior is quite unlike that of Muslim economic migrants who seek entry to European countries in order to better their lot, not by hard work, but by taking every advantage of welfare states that lavish billions of dollars worth of benefits on them. Countries like Poland and Hungary are seen as way-stations by Muslims hoping to make it to the most generous welfare states, such as Germany, the U.K., and the Scandinavian countries. Unlike the current refugees from Ukraine, the Muslim economic migrants have no intention of returning home, as long as they can take advantage of that cornucopia of benefits.

“Diplomats and experts said European states that are willing to take in Ukrainians might be trying, in part, to highlight Russian aggressions against civilians by offering a humanitarian response. “If you think of causing the refugee crisis as one of Putin’s tools to destabilize the West, then a calm, efficient, orderly response is a really good rebuke to that,” said Serena Parekh, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and the director of its politics, philosophy and economics program.

“On the other hand,” said Ms. Parekh, who has written extensively about refugees, “it’s hard not to see that Ukrainians are white, mostly Christian and Europeans. And so in a sense, the xenophobia that’s really arisen in the last 10 years, particularly after 2015, is not at play in this crisis in the way that it has been for refugees coming from the Middle East and from Africa.”…

Serena Parekh should be more careful with her language. What she calls European “xenophobia” is neither European nor xenophobic. The Europeans are not against all foreigners, which is what the word “xenophobia” means. Nor are they against all non-white immigrants. Based on sad experience, many are unwilling to admit more Muslims into their midst, for Muslims, they now realize, carry with them in their mental baggage, undeclared, the conviction of Muslim supremacism. Why should any country in Western Europe be apologetic for admitting Ukrainian refugees who are “white, mostly Christian, and Europeans” while keeping out those who are in thrall to Islam, a fanatical faith which uncompromisingly divides the world between dar al-Islam and dar al-harb, the Domain of Islam, where Muslims rule, and the Domain of War, where Infidels rule? We have seen the effects of millions of Muslims now living in Western Europe, where the large-scale presence of Muslims has led to a situation for the indigenous non-Muslims that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than would be the case without that large-scale presence.

When the NYT upbraids the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, especially Poland an Hungary, for allowing in Ukrainian refugees while keeping out Muslim migrants, it ignores the following:

1. The Ukrainians are fleeing an active war zone. They have a reasonable fear of being killed if they remain.. Most Muslims are economic migrants, arriving in Europe not to flee hostilities, but to better their financial condition by taking full advantage of benefits offered by the welfare states of Western Europe.

2. The Ukrainians share a civilization and a religion with those who are now willing to give them temporary refuge. Muslims knocking at the gates of Europe do not.

3. Muslim would-be immigrants are adherents of a faith that teaches them to shun non-Muslims as friends (5:51). Muslims are taught to “fight” and to “kill” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts of” the Infidels. How likely is it that people taught such things can ever integrate into a society of Infidels? See Qur’an 2:191-193, 3:110, 3:151, 5:51, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, 98:6.

4. Muslims who manage to be admitted to European countries are masters at obtaining every possible benefit – housing, medical care, education, family allowances, and more – soaking up much of the social welfare spending that had been intended to be spread among the indigenous poor in those countries.

5. Muslims in Europe try to impose the Shari’a, or law of Islam, on their own community, ignoring as best they can the manmade laws of the Infidels.

6. Muslims in Europe have shown a desire to keep non-Muslims physically out of their neighborhoods. There will not be any Ukrainian “no-go zones.”

7. Muslims in Europe exhibit much higher levels of criminality than the non-Muslims in whose countries they live. In France, for example, Muslims make up 7.5% of the population, but ar 70% of the prison population. In the U.K., Muslims make up 6.6% of the population, but nearly 20% of the prison population. And Muslim crime tends to be violent, with a much higher percentage of rapes and murders than in the non-Muslim criminal population.

8. None of these facts mentioned above appear in the New York Times story “Europe Opens Doors That Were Closed To Others.” We are left to conclude from the Times report that baseless prejudice, racism, islamophobia are what explain the failure of some European states to admit Muslims with open arms as they do the Ukrainians who are now being admitted.

9. I beg to differ with the Grey Lady. Don’t you?

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