Sunday 6 September 2015

The Practical Template for Solving the European Migrant Problem.

The problem facing Europe is not only the vast number of migrants that are flooding that continent. It is that, from past experience, these people do not escape the Middle East. They bring the Middle East with them with all the baggage that contains.  The social fabric breaks down. It becomes increasingly difficult to discern the traditional and indigenous society as governments try to accommodate the overwhelming weight of strangers that do not know their customs and do not speak their language. 

Multiculturalism was a dream. It failed. It became a magnet for millions of unwanted migrants. In its place is a nightmare of unmanageable proportions.

The migrant problem has become a huge destabilizing headache for Europe. It shouldn’t be. The solution should be closer the hand for the migrants that originate in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Had these migrants been Jewish you can be sure that Israel would have taken emergency measures to accept and absorb them into the Jewish State. By these migrants are not Jewish. The vast majority are Muslim and they all speak Arabic. Therein lays the solution.

The host countries must be the rich Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. They have vast stretches of land, far greater than in Israel, for example, in which these people can be accommodated and given productive lives.

To the west of the Libyan ports, from where thousands of migrants set out of a perilous Mediterranean journey, lies Algeria and Morocco. Europe would be advised to pump large sums of money into these countries to absorb fellow Arabic-speaking Muslims.

It must be asked why these Arab nations have remained cynically silent. There can only be one reason. They are as equally reticent in accepting these migrants as Europe is, but this is the point, surely? Most of the world is reluctant to be swamped by scenes we have witnessed. It does, therefore, lead to the need to distribute the responsibility and the Arab world, which is responsible for the mayhem and destruction that has wrought the migrant whirlwind, must be forced to open their gates to people of the same faith and of the same tongue.

While Europe agonizes over their moral conscience as they cope with the humanitarian crisis, the Arab leaders have not expressed any remorse or compassion over the fate of their fellow Arabs and co-religionists. This cannot stand!

European nations individually, or via the European Union, must call the Arab League to demand that they accept the bulk of the migrants. 

Let the Christians be accepted into Europe. Let the Muslim Arabs go to Muslim Arab countries, and let Israel accept the Jews, the Druze and Kurds for permanent or temporary shelter.

This division of labor is the simple and most practical way of solving the current migrant problem. It will also be the template for similar problems in the future.

Barry Shaw is Senior Adviser on Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.




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