Why Do Jewish Leaders Want Anti-Israel Refugees?

... The major Jewish organizations have certainly been in the forefront welcoming Syrian refugees [For Jewish Groups, Syrian Refugees are a Reminder, Not a Threat By Ron Kampeas, JTA.org, November 24, 2015; As Anti-Refugee Sentiment Builds, Jewish Agencies Push for Settlement, Greg Salisbury, JewishExponent.com, November 25, 2015]. This seems bizarre, given the well-known anti-Jewish, anti-Israel sentiments common among Muslims.

The Jewish leaders’ own rationales—which we should take seriously—generally derive from how they view the past. And it’s the fact that Jews were sometimes denied the ability to flee Hitler’s Germany.

But in privileging their own perceived interests, the Jewish organizations obviously are not taking into account the legitimate concerns of Americans about refugee resettlement’s impact on terrorism, social cohesion, unemployment, crime, and welfare costs—not to mention the ethnic genetic interests of whites. The entire issue is seen through the lens of Jewish memories. There is no attempt to make a case that admitting “refugees” will actually benefit America— the vast majority are uneducated and cannot be expected to contribute to a First World economy. [An ill wind, The Economist, January 23, 2016,]

Moreover, even granting that denying refuge to Jews in the 1930s was indefensible (and I don’t agree) there are solutions to the refugee problem that would not mean more unassimilable, non-White immigrants. Thus Trump has already proposed providing a Mid-East safe zone.

But why are Jewish organizations so sanguine about immigrants who harbor anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli attitudes?

Given that Jewish organizations do not promote anti-Jewish immigration to Israel—or, indeed, any non-Jewish immigration to Israel—we can rule out high humanitarian principles.

Rather we must seek an answer in terms of Jewish perceptions of their self-interest.

But for an evolutionary psychologist, this immediately presents a problem. There are several mechanisms implicated in the evolved psychological basis of ethnic conflict, But the most relevant: people have negative stereotypes of outgroups, and to discriminate against them. So why would Jews promote admitting people into Western countries even though they (like everyone else) are inclined to see the migrants negatively?

For Jews living in Western societies, however, the migrants aren’t the only outgroup. Western peoples and cultures themselves are an outgroup— see my book Separation and Its Discontents. Hence one would expect Jewish negative attitudes toward both immigrants and the host white culture.

So Jewish attitudes could be analyzed as simply whichever outgroup summons up the greater hostility. And Jewish attitudes are primarily determined by their hostility towards whites...

As reflected in their statements, first and foremost is the perception that racially-conscious, racially-homogeneous Germany turned against Jews during the National Socialist period; and that other European and European-derived countries (such as the U.S.) failed eagerly to accept Jewish refugees.

Lack of racial/ethnic homogeneity in diaspora countries is therefore seen as making Jews safer (see, e.g., here, p. 246).

Moreover, Jewish intellectual movements—prototypically, the Frankfurt School—have successfully portrayed ethnocentrism among Europeans as pathological—hence talk about the “virus” of anti-Semitism. Fear and loathing of White, Christian America runs deep. It is seen as a far greater threat than importing a substantial but relatively small community of Muslims, even if they are prone to terrorism and anti-Jewish attitudes...

The late Lawrence Auster, a Jewish convert to Christianity, framed Jewish attitudes in terms of a “slippery slope” argument:

Book referenced above:

The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements Revised Edition, by Kevin MacDonald