There is a Disease Within American Jewry

 

American Jewry is four-fifths Liberal-Leftist, three-twentieths Conservative and one-twentieth undefined independents. This was proven not with the initial first election of Barack Obama but the around three-quarters of American Jewry who actively voted and supported President Obama’s reelection. These were Jews who supported a candidate purely along political lines. The fact that President Obama in his first term proved beyond any doubt that he was virulently anti-Israel, was anti-Semitic, and was working to destroy the United States and arm Iran to be capable of threatening every other power in the world in time, and he was making that time far shorter. President Obama had in his first term proven to love Shia Islam, prefer any Islam over the Democratic West, regarded the West as weak and vulnerable and knew that if he could cripple the United States, then Islam would triumph. He did realize the best he was able to do was weaken the United States and that he would require followers to finish the destruction of America. Not to worry, the next election was all sewn-up; America was primed to elect their first woman as President. Well, almost. The Democrats chose the wrong woman. Almost any other Democrat woman would have won, even Nancy Pelosi and especially Elizabeth Warren, anyone but Hillary. Yes, even a dragon might have won over Donald Trump. One must remember that the Republican candidate was Donald Trump, not exactly a mainstream pick. Given the choices in our image below, we believe even, or especially, the candidate pictured at the bottom could have defeated Donald Trump, especially if there are debates. Kidding aside, about the only two candidates who would have given Donald Trump the easy path to the Oval Office are Hillary and Pelosi, the rest would likely have easily defeated Trump. Even Nancy Pelosi might have won, as it was the corruption of Hillary Clinton which sank her, but not the corruption alone. Beyond just the corruption was the weaseling and prevaricating that Hillary Clinton displayed, there was jumping from one excuse to the next as soon as any weakness appeared in the previous excuse always attempting to remain one reason, one explanation, one excuse ahead of failure and being caught. It was not so much the excuses as the paranoia with the complete lack of reason which was too similar to the lies and runaround with lies to hide the truth from the death of Ambassador Stevens, aide Sean Smith, and security officers and former Navy Seals Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty in the Benghazi terror attack which came unpleasantly immediately before the election for President Obama’s second term. The excuses and diversionary tactics during the final drive of the Obama campaign was too closely imitated by Hillary Clinton’s attempt to handle the e-mail server scandal, her part in Benghazi and any other detracting events which included fainting spells, repeated lying, avoidance issues plus her apparent fear of appearing in public except in controlled events with vetted attendees. Hillary Clinton was avoiding the public while Donald Trump was wallowing in the public adoration or jeering, he ate it all up apparently loving almost every moment of it. Still, polling of American Jews revealed close to 80% support for Hillary Clinton and even higher polling numbers believing that Donald Trump was anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Trying to tell fellow congregants that the exact opposite was the reality was a great way to always have lots of space between you and the others at services and plenty of freedom reaching the hors d’oeuvres.

 

Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren or a Dragon, Tough Choice

 

The American Jewish population is overwhelmingly liberal or leftist and registered as Democrats or Green Party. The remainders are split between Libertarian Party, Independent, not registered and actually some Republicans and a few other strays in other parties. This has made it extremely unlikely for any Republican candidate for President breaking 30% of the Jewish vote since General Eisenhower. Richard Nixon managed it in his run for his second term while Ronald Reagan managed it in both runs plus George H. W. Bush in his first term and Romney hit exactly the 30% mark. Obviously, the Democrat candidates for the Presidency can rely on receiving well over half of the Jewish vote, second only to their vote percentages in the inner-city Blacks. These are probably the most reliable voting blocks in the Democrat bag. This is not true throughout American history as before 1900 the Jewish vote went predominantly for Republican candidates starting with Abraham Lincoln. Records going back before that were not found. Where the percentages for Jews lining up on the democrat side of the ledger appeared to average between 65% and 72.5% average depending on the period of the Twentieth Century is chosen and easily continued thus far into the Twenty-First Century and has no hints of changing but for the fact that the one thing one must always expect is that over time things change.

 

What has been unexplainable about the elections in the new century has been the complete lack of concern by the majority of the Jewish voters for what is presumed by many to be their most important of issues, support for Israel or even their second most important issue, whether candidates have a history of anti-Semitism. Everything else was presumed to be fluff according to the historic polling and thus relegated to the inconsequential. These assumptions died if not in the initial election of Barack Hussein Obama, definitively in his reelection though the numbers do reveal some concern for these two presumed main issues for Jews. There had been numerous mentions of suspicions as to potential anti-Semitic feelings with his attending services at the church of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. When additionally it was reported that Barack Obama had claimed that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was like a father and was his mentor as well as had performed the marriage ceremony between Barack Obama and Michelle LaVaughn Robinson and that he was friends with Rashid Khalidi and even gave the speech at the party given in Los Angeles when Rashid Khalidi was moving to a new position. Further, there were reports of Barack Obama attending events honoring Louis Farrakhan as well as having had a private meeting with him. All of this made a pressing impression that Barack Obama very probably had less than acceptable feelings towards Jews and even stronger evidence of his potential to work against Israeli interests. By the end of President Obama’s first term, his view of Israel and determination to work for her demise had become unavoidable to anyone who was paying even the slightest attention. Still President Obama received approximately 70% of the Jewish vote according to polling in his second term election. The evidence for Hillary Clinton was beyond that for even President Obama to the point that Israeli supporters would refer to the evidence as definitive. Still, American Jews voted beyond 70% for Hillary Clinton in her run against Donald Trump. There is no explanation for the voting habits of American Jews except that they will vote for the perceived most leftist and liberal candidate regardless of all other considerations. That is it, plain and simple, American Jews will vote at a minimal rate 70% for the left most major candidate which currently means they will vote regardless of all else for Democrat candidates.

 

Then there is the good news, the American Jewish votes are definitive in determining the actual results of any single state in exactly zero states. That is correct; they are a definitive block of votes absolutely nowhere in a Presidential election, period. The greatest influences by state from top to bottom are listed here. The top ten with percentages are:

5.86% New Jersey
4.25% District of Columbia
4.07% Massachusetts
3.99% Maryland
3.28% Connecticut
3.28% Florida
3.18% California
2.69% Nevada
2.31% Illinois
2.29% Pennsylvania

 

As is rather obvious, the Jewish influence on Election Day is minimal at best and at the bottom, South Dakota at an overpowering 0.03% is absolutely inconsequential. This makes the media’s obsession with the support of the Jews in elections is completely out of all proportions. There are few if any states where the Jewish vote could ever influence with the only real potential being New Jersey, Florida, Nevada or Pennsylvania. And really, what are the odds that the small percentage of Jews would be the deciding factor in any of even these states, statistically next to nothing (see map below). Still, we hear incessantly about the Jewish vote as if it really mattered. Why?

 

Percentage of Jewish Population of the United States by County 2000

 

So, the truth is out. The main influence that Jews have on elections is, at best, two fold, money and planning. Believe it or not, that is the good news for them for now, but not for long. There is a new self-interest now entering or soon to enter the political scenes across the developed world as this interest has designs on controlling the developed world. This interest is the Islamic peoples, or at least their leadership, both of them. The real interesting thing is that there are two distinct and rivaling major leaderships in the Islamic world, the Sunni and the Shiite. The Shiite is less complicated as it is led by Iran uncontested. The Sunni are more complicated as there are numerous nodal points of power, Saudi Arabia is the most obvious, Egypt and Turkey are another pair and then there are the numerous terrorist such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Palestinian Authority and Islamic State to name a few. Their money will make the Jewish money pale by comparison, and this is already starting within the Democrat Party in the United States. The British Labor Party has been coopted and if we were to look around the remainder of Europe, we would most certainly find other parties being influenced. These infiltrations are not at the national stage as of yet, but in the Islamic dominated neighborhoods and with some of their sympathetic leadership who choose to ally with them, possibly in the hopes of gaining power. Whatever the influence of the Islamic interests now, their influence is increasing and will continue to grow and there is little which any other influences will be able to do in time. Politics in much of the developed world runs on two major items, funding and ideals. The problem is for too many the ideals are overly malleable and thus influenced by the money or the promise of future power or a crucial voting block. Whatever their promises now, they will disappear or have a very strict demand coming in the future. For those taking the offered reward now, I hope they will enjoy being a good Muslim and meeting the pillars of Islam, there are worse things in life.

 

Politics is changing and the electorates are changing, and the two are not heading in the same direction in every country. The speed with which the changes will take place will also vary but will inexorably progress. What this will mean will depend on more variables than we could even begin to cover or even explain how they might intersect. The two main influences can be described and their intersection point will be of paramount importance. One is the progress Islam manages to make with its inroads into the political structures of the developed world. It will also matter on the extent of their influence and whether they eventually control many or, as in some cases, both major parties in nations such that it will not matter who wins elections and make new parliaments or are elected President or Prime Minister. Their rise to take power and how they will utilize their newfound power will matter. The other matter is Islam itself. Islam is facing a critical juncture which most do not even see coming but is coming just the same. There are leaders in this effort, most we in the western world do not know by name but we should be glad that they are working to improve the world and Islam along with that world. President Sisi may be among, if not, the most notable, and has already stuck his head out while speaking at Al-Azhar University imploring that they teach a more flexible version of Islam which is capable of existing alongside other religions and no longer expecting to conquer and rule the world. He has implored them to teach more from the Mecca Quran and minimize the Medina Quran, the differences which we gave a small introductory article which many readers have added their own links with much more and interesting information. The future is full of unknowns of which some very important particulars include, or even crucially depend, on Islam. That is what will make the world continue to be of interest and continue to give us all the more to write and discuss.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Let’s Talk Middle East Conflict, Minus One Overly Blamed Nation

 

We are going to do something which the average person would believe impossible, discuss conflicts in the Middle East, which includes North Africa and the entirety that goes by the initials MENA, without mentioning Israel other than this once. Yes, that is not only possible but necessary such that people can learn how solving the Palestinian issue would not bring peace to one of the most troubled areas on the planet. There are a number of separate wars going on in Libya alone. In the capital city of Tripoli the government’s forces hold a little more than the offices of the Parliament, the President and the other government buildings and their residences, and only because they reside very close to this central area in Tripoli. There are usually a minimum of two rebel groups at any time fighting the government as well as one another. Often there are more than two as these clans believe that they should be the ones running the country and that Libya is their personal playground. These clans also fight against any terrorists who they believe are trying to take over their areas which they actually do control. The terrorists fight to retain their training grounds. Benghazi is also an open warfare zone with no real governance which controls the entire city but it is the second largest concentration of government military forces. As the government forces do control the port of Tripoli there does exist some trade which is mostly necessities as well as arms and ammunition to keep the government in control. Further, Benghazi, Tobruk, Surt and the other major ports are often changing hands as different groups will exert the necessary force to take the ports when they are expecting shipments from their arms merchants. As some European and many Middle East and Asian arms dealers are making a fair profit, the risks of doing business with the different clans and terror groups operating in Libya is worth the risks involved. Needless to say, the violence in Libya does not always stay in Libya; it often crosses borders into Egypt, Algeria, Chad, Niger and even the Sudan. One of the main arms providers is the Sudanese government and arms dealers taking side action arming the Sudanese neighboring nations including Libya but excluding South Sudan as this is not permitted by the Sudanese government.

 

There is a very good reason that the Sudanese government has made the providing of arms to South Sudan a capital offence, they are still fighting a war and committing a slow genocide against the Christians and Animists and act as if nobody in the world has recognized South Sudan as a separate nation. As long as the world, including those who have recognized South Sudan as a separate nation, do nothing of consequence to protest the nascent country from its far stronger and well-armed former rulers, the killing will continue. There have been some troops provided by the African Union. The United Nations also has sent troops to South Sudan. The problem is what is really necessary would be an entire army, which is not what has been sent. Back in 2013 the United States took what it claimed was measures to assure the genocide in South Sudan would be relieved by allocating one-hundred-fifty Marines and a few aircraft to the Horn of Africa from where they were to be capable of evacuating people under threat in South Sudan. As is said repeatedly in Bill Cosby’s routine on Noah, “Right!” Our new United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated this week that refugees were fleeing cities and towns and that “The security situation continues to deteriorate in parts of the country and the consequent impact of this ongoing conflict and violence, has reached catastrophic proportions for civilians,” A United Nations report stated, “The rise of militias under the loose command of the SPLA or rebel commanders is spreading the fragmentation and dislocation of its territories, which risk, if this trend continues, remaining out of any government control for years to come.” The United Nations further reports that the numbers of refugees currently seeking relief is beyond one and a half million.

 

Now we can slide over to Somalia which is only a real country on maps for lack of a better means of describing the area. Like Libya there is no actual ruling government but instead a series of gangs ruling their territories with iron fists and warring with each other trying to increase their domain. The people have to make sure they are aware of which gang is currently ruling their block of homes as that will also define where they are allowed to shop and who they may visit. Crossing from one region to the next carries varying degrees of danger. Some of the gangs along the shoreline engage in pirating for a living seeking pleasure yachts, merchant ships and even passing warships which are traveling without escort. These pirates have varying levels of gall living by the code “no guts, no glory.” They have attacked European, Asian, Australian, Canadian and American shipping and anybody else who comes within their range. Their method is to use a larger ship which remains out of sight but relatively close and smaller craft attack the target vessels and attempt to board and commandeer the ship then demanding ransom for the ship, crew and cargo. They check the cargo for anything they might desire or need to keep for themselves and will take any weapons they find an board the ships they take. There has been some degree of international efforts to bring this to an end but for the most part ships take their own risks coming out of the Red Sea after passing through the Suez Canal.

 

Of course that means they need to make their way through the Bab el-Mandeb Straights without being struck by Houthis shelling out of Yemen. The Houthi rebels in Yemen are Iranian backed and attempting to conquer all of Yemen to give Iran a base from which to attack Saudi Arabia from the south. This will come in very handy should Iran decide to attack Saudi Arabia from Iraq and the north mainly the northeast of Saudi Arabia which has the majority of Shiite Muslims as well as most of the oil fields. Additionally, Iran has made friends with Qatar and has made overtures claiming than Oman and Bahrain are actually breakaway Iranian provinces. Much like China keeps threatening that they will one day rejoin Taiwan to the mainland as it is simply a breakaway province, Iran makes the same claims on Oman and Bahrain. Bahrain has a Sunni monarch and a predominantly Shiite population. During the Arab Spring (boy was that a joke and a complete disaster from the word go thanks in part to President Obama who had a hand in these failed revolts with great assistance from Hillary Clinton and the European Union) the Shiites in Bahrain revolted and things appeared to be heading for real troubles, that was until Saudi Arabia used the multi-lane causeway highway to send troops to quell the revolt. The Shiites left their Mosques on Friday all revved up to overthrow the monarch when they found tanks, armored personnel carriers and heavily armed Saudi Arabian troops at both ends of the block so everybody calmed down and went home. Sure there were a few short outbursts of violence which were immediately quelled. The entire Arab Spring in Bahrain ended that Friday with barely a whimper. Similarly, the Shiites in the northeast of Saudi Arabia thought about staging an uprising but were quickly persuaded to remain calm. That thought of rising up was so short it did not even make a single news cycle.

 

Egypt is next on out little tour and is currently largely complacent. They had their Arab Spring and threw out military rule and President Mubarak and replaced him with the predicted Muslim Brotherhood candidate, President Morsi. President Morsi was advised by Turkish President Erdogan to take a slow and steady approach to Islamizing Egypt but paid that no heed. He took off on a radical program of change trying almost overnight to make Egypt a Muslim Brotherhood run totalitarian hellhole. This was met with a public already in revolt mode and they rose up again and demanded Morsi’s head. General of the Army Sisi took the hint and removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power and held new elections. Having the most recognized name in Egypt and having just saved the day, surprisingly Sisi who had stepped down from General of the Army ran and won the Presidency of Egypt. So Egypt is now safely back under military rule for intents and purposes and appears happy to be so. The one problem is the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai Peninsula is filled with terrorists from al-Qaeda and Islamic State to Hamas and even Iranian backed groups. They attack Egyptian military outposts with varying degrees of success. They often attack the border outposts between Egypt and Gaza in order to allow the flow of terrorists, arms, and contraband into and out of Gaza where Hamas and Islamic Jihad share control. What is interesting about Gaza is that Islamic Jihad is supplied by Iran amongst others and Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood thus provisioned by them and also on occasion they are given rocket engine technologies and even rudimentary guidance systems from Iran as Iran will even arm Sunnis if they are attacking Iran’s favorite target. Egypt has yet to put down the menaces in the Sinai Peninsula and they have even been cleared to use whatever troops and equipment they need and they are apparently fighting a losing battle, or at least not completely reaching a totally peaceful situation. Perhaps they never should have accepted the Sinai Peninsula back when they made peace between President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin.

 

Turkey is also involved in a war which few appear to care to mention. They are claiming to fight against Bashir al-Assad in Syria as well as against Islamic State but somehow the majority of their efforts appear to be barely across the border. They seem preoccupied, or at least President Erdogan is preoccupied, with the Kurds. Turkey could actually make a great agreement and win an ally for life if they would simply allow the Kurds to form their own nation out of northeastern Syria, northern Iraq and at the worst a few tens or hundreds of square miles of southeastern Turkey where the population is majority Kurdish. The United States or other groups would probably handsomely reward Turkey for the lost lands, give a relocation allowance to any Turkish non-Kurdish citizens desiring to leave the Kurdish nation and return to Turkey and all could be settled. Even if Turkey refused to sacrifice a small portion of land, the Kurds in Turkey would likely relocate if they were granted recognition as a nation as was promised them by the British (we all know how good the British are on their promises when oil is involved). Turkey has been bombing and using ground assaults backed by heavy armor against the Kurds who have largely been fighting the Islamic State. Apparently Turkey would prefer the Islamic State on their border than the Kurds, there is no accounting for taste.

 

Middle East & North Africa (MENA)

 

Then there are the wars outside of Yemen and Gaza where Iran is a major player. We are referring to Iraq and Syria where Iran is attempting to rule Iraq through proxy and reestablish Bashir al-Assad as the ruler of Syria. Bashir al-Assad has lost almost the entirety of his nation to the Islamic State, a number of other rebels, a Kurdish section which is simply attempting to protect their own people as well as the Yazidi refugees they took in after rescuing them when the rest of the world twiddled their thumbs, President Obama leading the thumb twiddlers. Iran has a friend in Russia who are actually fighting simply to retain their Mediterranean Sea port privileges such that they retain a warm water port capable of allowing ships to enter the Atlantic Ocean year round without having to pass through the Dardanelles in Turkey, an iffy situation at times. That is why the majority of the Russian operations center around Latakia and the port facilities located in that Mediterranean coastal city. Latakia is also in the central region where the Alawite Tribe resides which also happens to be Bashir al-Assad’s allies and tribal alliance and they along with some of the Druze except they have largely withdrawn and are simply, as are the Kurds, defending their own people and lands from the Islamic State and any other threats. They are safe from the Russians, Iranians and Syrian Army and even most likely the Hezballah forces from Lebanon who are supporting Bashir al-Assad as if Syria was their own country and not Lebanon. Hezballah is there because Iran insisted they fight or else Iran would have cut them off and they would then be facing the rest of Lebanon ready to dispose of the Hezballah terrorists who have been ruling Lebanon through their military threat. The one benefit of Hezballah fighting in Syria and taking the casualties in numbers far higher than are admitted is they are unable to attack any others including but not limited to the Christians and other minorities in Lebanon.

 

Our final stop is at the Afghanistan and Pakistan end of MENA. We left out some of the nations at the far end of northern Africa where one of the major problems is Boko Haram who are bloodthirsty Islamist terrorists who often kidnap Christians and even other Muslims and sell them into slavery. They specialize in selling to the sex slave industry and thus most often target young women and boys. Their other main effort is to murder Christians and Animists, something which sounds familiar from the South Sudan. Boko Haram operated largely centered on northern and central Nigeria and the neighboring areas even south to Mali. Meanwhile, Afghanistan and Pakistan consist of large areas which are considered tribal and the government rarely enters these zones as the tribes are well armed and do not recognize the governmental right to their areas. Too often these tribal areas will war with one another and then they make their money off of allowing terrorists to train and make a lucrative business from poppies. The heroin trade is something the government does not fight as they too benefit from the trafficking in illicit drugs. Until there is introduced another cash crop the farmers will grow and sell the easiest and most profitable crop they can raise, poppies. The flowers are almost as pretty as the profits. Needless to point out but where you have such profits there will always be violence as the tribes desire to expand their fields and taking the tribe next door’s fields is the quickest way to making more profit. Additionally, there is the constant state of conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, a nation which appears on older maps and had the distinction of having to be colored white because it had so many neighboring nations on its border that it needed it own color and white was the best one not in use anywhere else. That concludes our Middle East conflict roundup leaving one nation obviously ignored, imagine all this without mentioning the nation always considered the source of the Middle East conflict chart. Perhaps the rest of it is not so peaceful after all.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Trump Accepting Minorities Means More than Just Christians

 

Trump excluded minorities from the immigration temporary ban, which might surprise many as to the numbers and different minorities exist throughout these seven nations listed in President Trump’s order, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. Perhaps we should start with a quick reference of the population of each of the nations in question. So, on with the show.

 

 

Iraq consists mostly of differing tribes such as Kurds (some being Muslims), Bedouins (some being Muslims), Feylis, Yazidis, Shabaks, Kaka’is, Armenians, Circassians, Persians, Mandaeans, Sabians, Bahá’ís and Doms. The minority religious makeup is Christianity accounting for 0.8% of the population while the rest practice Mandaeism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism, a minor smattering of Jews who remaining in Iraq and other religions. Iraq is on the verge of failing as a governance as the Sunni central zones and the Shia majority in the south are in conflict and the Kurdish north has allied with the Kurds of Syria but are being targeted by the Turkish forces which cross into the nation claiming to attack terrorist groups when in reality they assist terrorists against Assad and more so against the Kurds. If the Kurdish areas from the Syrian northeast, the northern areas of Iraq and the Kurdish regions in northwest Iran were united, they could form the promised nation of Kurdistan and take in any Kurds wishing to relocate from Turkey thus removing the perceived threat by Kurds to Turkey and potentially ending the bloodshed.

 

Syria also has a number of tribal minorities including Kurds, Armenians, Turkman, Aramaic Assyrian, Chaldean, Yazidi, Druze, Syriacs with religious minorities numbering Christian 10% which includes Greek Orthodox, Greek Christian, Latin Catholics, Protestants, Maronites, Uniate, and Nestorian as well as Druze 3% and a minor smattering of Jews who remain in Syria. The war in Syria has more sides than a set of dice and the nation has no operative governance and has completely failed as a nation.

 

Iran also has a sizeable Kurdish minority (10%) many of which are Muslim but likely not banned by President Trump’s order. Turkmans Balochs and Arabs make up two percent of the population each while sixty percent of the population being of Persian extraction Azeris making up most of the remaining population at sixteen percent. Iran has a tiny minority of non-Muslims totaling less than one percent of the population consisting of a mix of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian. Iran is probably the most stable country in governance but qualifies for the list as the largest state funder of terrorism worldwide.

 

Libya is a mix of mostly Muslims tribes mostly ruled by their strongest clan with each tribe warring with their neighboring tribe. The violence between the many tribal factions even made terrorist training camps unsafe to such a point that many packed up and left for safer climes. The situation has only worsened progressing from bad to worse after the dethroning of Muammar Gaddafi leaving a central government barely able to rule the capital of Tripoli. The uncertainty of the entire region was made evident with the murder of United States Ambassador Chris Stevens as well as his aide Sean Smith along with former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods who both went down fighting throughout the night finally succumbing to mortar fire from al-Qaeda terror groups who were seeking to gather as many MANPAD anti-aircraft weapons, the same weapons which the Americans who were murdered were attempting to intercept and send on to Syria to assist the American backed Syrian rebels.

 

Sudan has a small Christian population consisting of Nubian Coptic, Coptic Orthodox and other groups of Christians in the Nuba Mountains who have declared their area to be a new nation recognized as South Sudan, Animists of several roots and persuasions. Like Yemen the Sudan and South Sudan are warring as the Muslims from the Sudan, the northern half, are trying to unify the breakaway nation which is largely Christian and Animist. There have been too many genocidal assaults against the South Sudan and the nation is in turmoil with the South most resembling a failed state.

 

Yemen once had a sizeable Jewish population but the Jews are now mostly held in a government compound for their protection as otherwise they would rapidly become an endangered species, its Christians are divided into Roman Catholic, Anglican, Ethiopian Orthodox and Tewahedo, and there exists a smattering of Hindus. The real problem with Yemen stems largely from it being engaged in a civil war with the sides being aided by outside national forces. The Houthi tribes are being supplied, trained and even assisted by Iran while the former government and Sunnis are receiving aid from Saudi Arabia. Yemen has all the signs of a failed state.

 

Somalia is predominantly Islamic and tribal with a small minority of Christian and traditional Animists who reside in the south. Somalia has been without any measurable governance for the last few decades with tribal warfare and piracy being rampant across much of the nation with no reasonable end in sight. Somalia probably qualified well ahead of the rest, but how would we know.

 

Many of these minorities are persecuted by the Islamic majority governments spending much of their lives in a sort of hiding keeping a low profile. Often ministering to these minorities is a life threatening career as they are a central target whenever the government seeks a distraction or a group to blame. This position is often filled by Israel but these minority populations are target one when something closer to home is required. Ignoring this exception or attempting to make it appear as if it was only about religion is inaccurate as the Kurdish and Bedouin tribes are often largely Islamic. The President’s order was not about Muslims as much as it was about terrorism which was likely the same reason that Presidents Obama and Bush also named these same nations for additional precautions during their administrations. But why lay everything out in the open when there is a new President to smear. Yes, Trump brought this on himself and deserves much of the scorn being heaped upon him but the media also deserves some truth serum as they pretend such limitations on immigrations have never existed before.

 

Remember that there are a small number of those who would be permitted entry into the United States who are Jews. This stands in stark contrast to during World War II when despite the State Department and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knowing about the extermination camps and the Final Solution to eliminate Jews, Homosexuals, Roma and other “undesirables” that FDR refused to permit Jews attempting to escape the advancing Nazis to enter the United States while the British refused them entry to the areas under the British Mandate. FDR is rumored to have stated that the United States did not need any more than a minority of Jews and he feared permitting additional Jews into the United States. At least this time the Jews will be permitted to escape potential persecution should they so choose. There will also be numerous Islamic minority peoples who also will be permitted entry along with Christians and Animists among others. And for the record, Islam is not a race and encompasses membership from virtually if not every racial group on Earth.

 

Beyond the Cusp