World

Jewish group in Germany urges limit to refugee influx

Sooner or later we won't have a choice but to set an upper limit, says Josef Schuster

Afp November 23, 2015

Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, attends a press conference following his election in Frankfurt am Main, central Germany, on November 30, 2014. PHOTO: AFP

BERLIN: The Central Council of Jews in Germany called Monday for a limit to the migrant influx because of problems with integrating the mainly Muslim newcomers, earning a quick rebuke from a pro-refugee charity.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has opened the doors to asylum seekers fleeing conflict in Syria, and arrivals from the war-torn country and other trouble spots are expected to reach one million this year.

"Sooner or later we won't have a choice but to set an upper limit," the council's president Josef Schuster told Die Welt daily.

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"Many of the refugees are fleeing the terror of the Islamic State and want to live in peace and freedom, but at the same time they come from cultures where hatred of Jews and intolerance are an integral part.

"Don't just think about the Jews, think about the equality between men and women, or dealing with homosexuals," he added.

Schuster's comments were criticised by non-government group Pro Asyl, which said it was unfortunate the Jewish group was sharing the same position as the conservative Bavarian CSU party.

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"It's disconcerting when the CSU and the Central Council of Jews are in fact demanding that we suspend the European Convention on Human Rights," said Pro Asyl's head Guenter Burkhardt.

He stressed that article 33 of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention bars signatory countries from sending asylum seekers back to places where their lives or freedom are threatened because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion.

COMMENTS (2)

S.R.H. Hashmi | 9 years ago | Reply The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, has called for a limit to the migrant influx because of problems with integrating the mainly Muslim newcomers. However, the remarks were strongly condemned by a pro-refugee party in the West Germany where the people, the government and Chancellor Angela Merkel have extended a very warm welcome to the refugees, in perfect demonstration of the spirit of a true humanist. Giving his reasons for opposing the entry of refugees, Josef Schuster said “Many of the refugees are fleeing the terror of the Islamic State and want to live in peace and freedom, but at the same time they come from cultures where hatred of Jews and intolerance are an integral part.” While describing the people of the Middle East as Jew-haters, Josef Schuster is ignoring the historical fact that as compared with the rest of the world, Jews received better treatment in the Middle East which accounts for the fact that Middle-Eastern countries had substantial Jewish presence until the illegal grabbing of Palestinian land as well as massacres of Palestinians by Israeli Zionists changed the overall environment. Those interested in information about this can get enough details by searching ‘Zionist massacres against Palestinians. It will be interesting to find out Josef Schuster’s view about Israel which gives instant, automatic citizenship to Jews who land in Israel, despite them having no physical contact with the territory for centuries, and to accommodate whom Israeli authorities regularly dispossess Palestinians of land on which they have lived for generations. In the last attack alone, Israel killed over two thousand innocent men, women and children in besieged Gaza, in addition to demolishing nearly a hundred thousand dwellings apart from doing substantial to infra-structure. And it is again Israel which, through its insatiable greed for land, regularly scuttles various peace initiatives for a two-state solution which the international community considers to be the only just solution for the Israeli-Palestinian problem. In fact, a some years back, there was talk in Israel that Arabs holding Israeli citizenship, who form twenty percent of the Israeli population should be stripped of their citizenship and pushed over to Jordan which is already a Palestinian state in existence. And here is Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who accuses Middle Eastern people of hatred towards Jews, and on that count, wants their entry in Germany drastically curtailed. Karachi

G. Din | 9 years ago | Reply The day is not far off when Germany will regret the Merkel Folly. Neither the world, nor the Islamic world is fooled by the ostensibly pious intentions of this folly. The underlying purpose for this charity towards Muslims is to co-opt Muslims now in dire circumstances to take on the burdens of a rapidly ageing and vanishing white population at the cheapest cost. If French and German Muslims of earlier immigrants have turned against their countries only after a couple of generations, we just have to wait for the next generation of fleeing Syrians and Iraqis who will join those disaffected now. To paraphrase a famous proverb: "You can cheat a person many a time, you can cheat many persons just once, but you can't cheat all the people all of the times."

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