Want Trump to denounce anti-Semitism? He already has in a big-league way

Over the past couple of weeks, the mainstream media has consistently attacked President Trump over what they say is a failure to denounce the ‘increasing’ number of anti-Semitic attacks in the country. On Tuesday, however, he stated these attacks are “horrible and painful,” to publicly address the situation. It should be noted that President Trump has never endorsed anti-Semitic behavior. In fact, in every aspect of his life he has supported Jews whether it be in a business sense, family sense (his daughter obviously) and even a financial sense (he has donated to Jewish causes). Everyone also made a fuss when he told a Jewish reporter to sit down while the reporter was asking a question; yet the reporter himself didn’t get upset with Trump and afterwards even claimed to understand why Trump did so. The point is though it is not necessary to have to defend Trump being against anti-Semitism, I will in a unique way that has not been discussed until now.

President Trump’s travel ban has been even more scrutinized in the past few weeks and the legality has been tied up in court. While the president apparently gets ready to sign a new executive order on a very similar travel ban that should not be deemed unconstitutional in court, I see it a connected to anti-Semitism. It is safe to assume that anti-Semitic attacks in this country are perpetrated by anti-Semites. So, who are the anti-Semites in this country? They include people of various religions, races, ethnicities, etc. Who are the anti-Semites around the world? Well, there are so many it is almost hard to believe. Per an ADL survey from 2014/2015, with a total adult population of countries surveyed of 4,161,578,905 individuals, an estimated 1,090,000,000 individuals harbored anti-Semitic attitudes. Not surprisingly, most of the countries with the largest percentages of anti-Semitic individuals were Muslim majority countries. This is where the anti-Semitism and travel ban tie in together. President Trump has said he will work to rid this country of anti-Semitism. One key way to start doing so is by not allowing more individuals who harbor anti-Semitic views into this country.

Let’s look at some of the countries included in the travel ban, starting with Yemen. From the ADL’s data, an estimated 88% of adults in Yemen are regarded to harbor anti-Semitic views. Excluding people traveling here from Yemen that could potentially be terrorists, it is likely a large majority of those travelers will have anti-Semitic views (This is also not just talking about being anti-Zionist). In Iraq that number is even larger at 92%, astonishingly. In Libya, the estimate of people harboring anti-Semitic views is 87%. It is not a coincidence that in all three of these countries, Jews have been basically kicked out over the past 100 years to the point where no Jews live there anymore. In Iran, the number was only 60% (which is still sizeable, but compared to the other three does not seem as vast). Unlike the other three countries there still are Jews living in Iran, which could be one explanation for the lower number. Also, it is said that in Iran many citizens disagree with the government’s ideology, which could offer another explanation. Yet, unfortunately with its current rulers the world is a much more dangerous place. Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism; therefore, it is hard to trust who would be coming here from that country because of the government’s ideology. There was no data available for Sudan, Syria (would probably have been hard considering what’s going on there) and Somalia (there has basically been anarchy there for a while). However, it is highly probably that adults in these countries have similar levels of anti-Semitic feelings as in Iraq, Libya, Iran and Yemen.

While the purpose of President Trump’s travel ban is not based at all on this idea I have outlined, it is the reason I have come to support it after initially being against it. Assuming the new travel ban executive order is within legality (probably will allow those with green cards to come in and out of the country as well as a few other minor changes), I will support it and stand up for the president’s right to sign such an order. To reiterate, I am not calling everyone from these countries terrorists and my main view isn’t that there will necessarily be a large risk of a terrorist coming in from one of these countries. Rather, it is looking out for the well-being of the Jewish people in this country, my family and myself. Seeing what is happening in places like France, where Jews are becoming less and less safe, is scary. I do not want this country to have a similar fate. America has always been a country where Jews have had freedom; and while there has been anti-Semitism since the first Jews arrived here, there has never been a great worry about being persecuted. The goal here is no anti-Semitism, and President Trump has already found a way to stop an increase, even if it is inadvertently.