This Week’s Misguided Jew Award and the Migrant Crisis

To compare the migrants situation to Nazi concentration camps is inaccurate, demeaning to victims of the Holocaust and cheap political virtue-signalling, no matter how hard Ms. Pildis and other leftists attempt to cloud the debate.

There are few subjects as incendiary and as divisive as the migrant crisis at the southern U.S. border. To the left, it is a simple matter of helping people in need, while to those leaning to the right politically, this is a humanitarian crisis but it is also a matter of national sovereignty and controlled, legal immigration.

Unfortunately, as is the case with most major issues, someone always finds a way to needlessly introduce a Jewish element into the debate. In this particular case, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez appeared to be comparing the migrant holding centres to Nazi concentration camps, even invoking the ‘Never Again’ dictum associated with the Holocaust. She was immediately and roundly criticized by numerous prominent public figures, Jews and non-Jews alike, for her erroneous and demeaning analogy, but you knew it was just a matter of time until Jewish apologists rushed to her defense and somehow found a way to blame Donald Trump for any and all sins occurring at the border.

Nobody captured that combination of historical revisionism and political partisanship better than Carly Pildis in the June 24th edition of Tablet Magazine.

First, she blames America for the passing of six migrant children who died while in American custody since September 2018. Her exact words: “These kids, and what my country did to them, keep me up at night.”

The fact that not one of these kids died as a result of mistreatment by American officials or caregivers is irrelevant to Ms. Pildis. The uncomfortable truth is that their parents transported fragile and already-ailing children on a grueling journey with no guarantee of sustenance or safe haven. It is also a fact that the Democratic Party refuses to allocate emergency funding to the U.S. agencies caring for the migrants or to consider legislation that will address the entire immigration/amnesty dossier. And it is also a fact that Barak Obama’s administration was every bit as unhelpful as the current administration seems to be, hence it’s a bit rich for Ms. Pildis to blame Republicans for their inaction or incompetence on this file.

‘Junior Congresswoman from the Bronx’

Next, Ms. Pildis attempts to trivialize the comments of Ocasio-Cortez, first calling her just a ‘…junior congresswoman from the Bronx”, someone so low in the pecking order that no one ought to pay her any attention. She then suggests that the critics of Ocasio-Cortez’s Nazi comparisons are obsessing over “technicalities” while she and other proper-thinking people are focusing on what matters, that is, the plight of the migrants.

Ms. Pildis, you do know that it’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time, right? A decent person can be critical of Ocasio-Cortez’s insensitivity and distortions whilst still caring deeply about the migrants and their heart-wrenching situation.

I daresay most Americans would like to see the migrants treated respectfully and humanely, but it is neither disrespectful nor inhumane to suggest that much of the ills befalling these people is of their own making, and that America, like every other country in the world, has the right to decide to whom it will permit entry.

And please don’t compare the Central American migrants seeking U.S. refuge for economic reasons, and who are not facing extermination if they return to their countries of origin, to Jews turned back prior to World War Two when barring their entry condemned them to a near-certain death sentence.

Indeed a Crisis

This migrant crisis (and it is indeed a crisis when more than 100,000 illegal immigrants cross the border in a single month) must be dealt with judiciously and promptly. Both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to the current morass, the problem will not be solved without a cooperative approach, and there must be an immediate allocation of sufficient funds to ensure migrants are housed and fed and have access to medical care.

But to compare the migrants situation to Nazi concentration camps (and make no mistake, those are the camps to which Ocasio-Cortez was referring) is inaccurate, demeaning to victims of the Holocaust, and cheap political virtue-signalling, no matter how hard Ms. Pildis and other leftists attempt to cloud the debate.

So step forward, Ms. Pildis, and accept this week’s ‘Misguided Jew Award’. You managed to prevail in a very crowded field.