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Syria, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Somalia are the countries selected by US President Donald Trump for "extreme vetting" in a arduous immigration process that allows entry to few, and already takes two years. Let's take a look at the logic behind Trump's decisions and measure the real potential impact of his decisions that have set off airport protests all over the United States due to his fear over "Muslim extremists" entering the United States.



Relations with Israel are at the top of the list for Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a senior advisor in the Trump Administration who is Jewish and 100% pro-Israel as Trump claims to be. It does seem odd that Trump & Kushner remain unconcerned over their failure to add to the list, countries where Jews are essentially banned, including Saudi Arabia, where no Jews are so much as allowed, United Arab Emirates, which exists under a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on Jews, and Egypt, which has a Jewish population in Cairo that numbers exactly 11.



All of these nations that many consider antisemitic, with laws and decrees that expressly target Jews, failed to make the list of suspected terrorist havens, yet countries that are on Trump's list do have Jewish populations and in the case of Iran and Syria, historic laws ensuring that their minority Jewish populations are protected

Syria and Iran



Syria has had a Christian and Jewish population for centuries, particularly in Damascus. Both have been largely targeted, along with Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, during the US-backed terror campaign against Syria that has raged over the last five years. Article 3 and Article 33 of the 2012 Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic guarantees freedom of religion. Article 3 stipulates: “The State shall respect all religions, and ensure the freedom to perform all the rituals that do not prejudice public order; The personal status of religious communities shall be protected and respected.”



The brutal and tragic war in Syria that Russia recently helped wind down, was driven by US political leaders and media in their call for regime change and it is inescapably true that the worldwide influx of Syrian refugees that US President Donald Trump has halted from entering the US, is a problem entirely created by the United States itself.

Hypocrisy and contradiction seem to rage across the board wherever US politics are involved in the Middle east.

Journalist Eva Bartlett and US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D) - Hawaii, both in recent weeks gave blistering reports after visiting Syria, about US support for terrorists and the fact that the Syrian armed forces have not been responsible for the fear and murder that has gripped the Syrian population, causing so many to flee for their lives. From gas attacks to targeting civilian neighborhoods, it has been the work of US backed terrorists including al Nusra Front, ISIL, the Free Syrian Army and other groups, not the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.



Iran also has strong laws protecting its minority Jewish population. In fact, Haroun Yashayaei, a Jewish film producer in Iran who chairs the board of the Tehran Jewish Committee and serves as the leader of Iran's Jewish community, said, "Take it from me, the Jewish community here faces no difficulties." He also states clearly that Iran’s Jewish population is in no way associated with Zionism or Israel. Yashayaei is among thousands of Iranian Jews who participated in protests leading up to the 1979 Revolution.



It is no surprise that Americans do not know about Iran's Jewish population, and equally unsurprising that few in the US comprehend the position of Iran's Jewish community toward Israel, the so-called Jewish state that serves out human rights violations the way McDonald's tosses hamburgers out of a drive-thru window. Not that Americans ever hear about it in mainstream news.



Due to media portrayal, very few in the west realize that not a single American was killed during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, where 52 US citizens were held for 444 days. Americans also fail to realize that the people behind Iran’s revolution released all American hostages who were African-American and female immediately, stating at the time that they did not wish to hold people who suffered such inequality in America. Iran had been under the boot heel of the US political puppet the "Shah" for many years, suffering torture and totalitarian rule to gas prices cheap in America. The understanding of Iran that most Americans share is simply part of the Israeli-influenced western media disinformation campaign designed to demonize Iran when the country has not attacked a nation outside of its borders for hundreds of years.



The other countries listed by Trump are troubled places without question, but colonialism and war seldom produce happy scenarios, a lesson we see all over the world today.

Sudan's post-colonial emergence is a study in division. Religiously diverse, the southern part of the country, largely Christian, reeled when it fell under Sharia law in 1983. David D. Chand explains in his book, "The Sudan's Civil War: Is a Negotiated Solution Possible?" that while Muslims in the north were required to adhere to the law, "non-Muslim citizens to the status of second-class citizen in the land of their birth." Ha'aretz writes that, "The Jewish community in Sudan dissolved after 1956, when the country became independent and joined the Arab League."

Iraq, a battleground of war for years thanks to the false "WMD" (Weapons of mass destruction) claims of the George W. Bush Administration, does not have a measurable Jewish population today, Yemen has a very small number of Jews, as does Somalia. Libya has seen its Jewish population dwindle to zero over the years.



The Illogical Paradox: Saudi Arabia and Israel



I'd like to think every remotely intelligent western person has wondered about this one. Why would Saudi Arabia, an oil rich nation that is entirely Muslim and doesn't have or allow a single Jew to live within its borders, maintain an amicable relationship with Israel, a Zionist regime that continually kills Palestinians and annexes their historic land?

There are after all, separate laws in Israel for Jews and non-Jews. Palestinian Muslims live under occupation and great oppression, including military attacks and endless checkpoints. It would be logical to assume that this might be a sore point with the country that possesses Mecca, the most sacred place of all Muslims. Saudi Arabia in truth, is a radical Wahhabi government wherein followers obey religious rules and edicts that have been created by living men, rather than strictly following the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad. Public beheadings, laws banning women from all kinds of opportunities, including driving... these are the modern traits of the US ally, Saudi Arabia.

Trump Has it All Backward



Nations whose citizens are connected to the deadly attacks on 11 September 2001 hail from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt; all strong US allies. None made the list.



Earlier today, CNN's Fareed Zakaria quoted figures from the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank founded by Charles Koch, stating that from 1975 to 2015, not a single US citizen has been killed by a citizen from any of the seven named Muslim majority countries.



However in contrast, 2,369 Americans in that same window of time, have been killed by citizens of Saudi Arabia, 314 Americans were killed by United Arab Emirate citizens, and 162 Americans have been killed by citizens of Egypt.



Americans are witnessing a political circus that relies, more than any previous presidential administration, upon political disinformation. Void of any form of logic or fairness, Trump is politically grandstanding with support from a base that by all appearances, is shrinking with each step he takes.

*(No Muslim Ban / Peace for Iran - protest and march, White House to the US Capitol - Jan 29, 2017. Image Credit: Tracy Lee/ flickr).