Germany Shows Signs of Strain from Mass of Refugees

At Der Spiegel, "'We're Under Water': Germany Shows Signs of Strain from Mass of Refugees":

The unceasing influx of refugees is creating tremendous uncertainty in Germany. Many towns and cities are calling for help and the government appears to be rudderless. Pressure is mounting for Chancellor Angela Merkel to act.

The road to the reception camp in Hesepe has become something of a refugees' avenue. Small groups of young men wander along the sidewalk. A family from Syria schleps a clutch of shopping bags towards the gate. A Sudanese man snakes along the road on his bicycle. Most people don't speak a word of German, just a little fragmentary English, but when they see locals, they offer a friendly wave and call out, "Hello!"

The main road "is like a pedestrian shopping zone," says one resident, "except without the stores." Red-brick houses with pretty gardens line both sides of the street, and Kathrin and Ralf Meyer are standing outside theirs. "It's gotten a bit too much for us," says the 31-year-old mother of three. "Too much noise, too many refugees, too much garbage."
Now the Meyers are planning to move out in November. They're sick of seeing asylum-seekers sit on their garden wall or rummage through their garbage cans for anything they can use. Though "you do feel sorry for them," says Ralf, who's handed out some clothes that his children have grown out of. "But there are just too many of them here now."

Hesepe, a village of 2,500 that comprises one district of the small town of Bramsche in the state of Lower Saxony, is now hosting some 4,000 asylum-seekers, making it a symbol of Germany's refugee crisis. Locals are still showing a great willingness to help, but the sheer number of refugees is testing them. The German states have reported some 409,000 new arrivals between Sept. 5 and Oct. 15 -- more than ever before in a comparable time period -- though it remains unclear how many of those include people who have been registered twice...

Astonishing, really.

As Pat Condell said recently, Germany's committing suicide to assuage its guilt from the Holocaust. It's not good.

Former English Defence League Leader Tommy Robinson Speaks at Massive PEGIDA Rally in Dresden (VIDEO)

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Tommy Robinson Speaks to 40,000 Strong Crowd at the Pegida Anti-Muslim Invader Rally in Germany."

And watch, via Ruptly:



PREVIOUSLY: "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West."

Smuggling Refugees Into Europe: The Untold Story

From Hugh Eakin, at the New York Review, "The Terrible Flight from the Killing":

The movement to Europe should not have come as a surprise. According to the UN, in 2014 a record 14 million people were newly forced from their homes in armed conflicts worldwide, and much of the staggering increase was owing to the wars in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, more than half of the total pre-war population of 22 million was now uprooted. With the ravages of barrel-bombing by the Assad regime, the terror of the Islamic State, and the growing inability of the international community to deliver aid inside the country, more Syrians than ever before sought refuge abroad.

In the first four months of 2015 alone, another 700,000 fled, many to nearby countries, the highest rate of any time during the war. Meanwhile, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, already overwhelmed with millions of Syrians, have been restricting entry, while the underfunded World Food Program has been drastically reducing food aid.

Other recent developments, though less noticed, had far-reaching effects of their own. Several countries in Africa, including Libya, and also many parts of Afghanistan, traditionally the world’s number one producer of refugees, have become increasingly unstable and violent in the months since international forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014. At the same time, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey, which had together absorbed more than five million Afghans in recent years, had begun taking aggressive steps to send them home or prevent them from staying; by this summer, tens of thousands of Afghans were joining the Syrians trying to enter Europe.

For the refugees themselves, the journey to Europe—requiring a series of up-front payments to smugglers of human beings, often amounting to several thousand dollars—is enormously costly and fraught with danger. More than 2,800 people have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015 alone. Others have fallen sick or died in encampments in Greece or in the backs of trucks in Central Europe.

On August 27, Austrian police found an abandoned Volvo refrigeration truck packed with the bodies of seventy-one refugees who had paid smugglers to drive them from Hungary to Austria but had suffocated en route; a day later, Austrian police stopped another smuggler’s truck containing twenty-six refugees, including three children who had to be hospitalized for severe dehydration. And yet, every day, thousands more have set out from Turkey for the Greek islands, including the young Syrian boy Aylan, whose lifeless body washed up on shore in Turkey after a failed crossing on September 2, shocking the world.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Europe of turning the Mediterranean into a giant cemetery; Andreas Kamm, the longtime director of the Danish Refugee Council, said that, without major changes, Europe’s incoherent response was headed toward “Armageddon.” For her part, Chancellor Merkel said that, unless other member states were prepared to step up and share the burden, the very basis of the EU and its Schengen system of open internal borders would be at risk of collapse...

An excellent review of the issues I've been blogging about for months.

Keep reading.

And ICYMI, "'The Invasion of Europe'."

'The Invasion of Europe'

I've been waiting for this video. Turns out Condell does just one video per month on average, at least according to the frequency of postings to his YouTube page. But no one speaks more forcefully on the pox of European Union corruption, and as the EU's institutional edifice has been collapsing like a house of cards, I've been checking over at his page for updates.

Here you go. The inimitable Pat Condell:

The Truth About the European Migrant Crisis

From Michael Teitelbaum, at Foreign Affairs, "The Truth About the Migrant Crisis: Tragic Choices, Moral Hazards, and Potential Solutions":

The actual numbers of people crossing the Mediterranean into European Union territory, insofar as the limited available evidence is credible, are daunting. During the first eight months of 2015, well over 400,000 people successfully made the fraught journey. In the first part of this year, about 80 percent were departing from the now failed state of Libya and landing on Italian soil  More recently, migrant smuggling activities from Turkey to nearby Greek islands have increased.

In increasingly raucous political and press debates in Europe and elsewhere, recent movements are being described as new “disasters,” “policy failures,” and even “invasions” that the EU and its member states have proven incapable of addressing effectively. In fact, such “irregular” migration across the Mediterranean is hardly new, but the volumes are indeed far larger than in prior years. So, too, are the numbers dying in the attempt. The International Organization for Migration in Geneva estimates that during the first eight months of 2015, more than 2,700 would-be Mediterranean migrants perished at sea.

The stark and widely disseminated images of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children transiting the Mediterranean in crumbling boats, and of the resulting humanitarian disasters at sea, are impossible to ignore. The heart-rending photos of a drowned three-year-old Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach were highlighted in print and online media worldwide. Such deeply disturbing images create daunting daily challenges for an EU already struggling with deep recessions, sustained high unemployment, terrorist attacks, economic and political instability in Greece, and challenges to the euro currency system. They provide useful political fodder for the strengthening populist and anti-EU parties and movements that have appeared in most of the 28 member countries. And they have stimulated a rising tide of violent attacks on facilities housing migrants—more than 200 such attacks in Germany this year, described by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as “unworthy of our country.”

TRAGIC CHOICES, MORAL HAZARDS

As they consider responses to these challenges, European government, advocacy, and media leaders need to keep in mind two important concepts: tragic choices and moral hazards.

The recent mass migrations pose deep moral dilemmas for European societies, of a kind that moral philosophers and theologians call “tragic choices.” These are decisions that bring into conflict the ultimate values by which societies define themselves, such as how to allocate scarce resources among very large numbers of desperate people.

The numbers of potential migrants now are exceptionally large. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that by the end of 2014, nearly 60 million had been forcibly displaced owing to persecution, conflict, and human rights violations—the highest level on record—and of these, it classified nearly 20 million as “refugees.” To these huge numbers may plausibly be added tens or even hundreds of millions more who would likely be attracted by any available option to migrate away from conditions of deep poverty, starvation, or environmental disaster.

In a world of widespread tragedy, what choices should humanitarian societies make to allocate assistance among these potential migrants? Are they obliged by international law and their own values to admit all who wish to come, whatever the effects? Must they give priority to resettling refugees, as defined by international law, over other migrants? And if so, are they obliged to admit all the 20 million counted as “refugees” by the UNHCR? If not, how should they deal with mass casualties among others who risk their lives to gain access to European countries?

In fraught debates about such moral dilemmas, the legal definitions and everyday usage of “refugees,” “asylum seekers,” and “migrants” have become profoundly confused. There is a vast literature on these definitions; suffice it to say that the 1951 UN Refugee Convention defines a “refugee” as a person outside of his or her country of nationality who is unable or unwilling “to avail himself of the protection of that country . . . owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” An “asylum-seeker” differs from a “refugee” only by geography, having already entered the country in which asylum or refugee status is being sought; those who are approved are called both “refugees” and “asylees,” injecting yet another source of confusion. Contrary to common usage, under the Refugee Convention, people who flee failed states, conflicts, or desperate economic conditions do not qualify as refugees or asylees unless they have a legitimate fear of persecution based on one of the five grounds listed above. But such desperate migrants certainly still deserve humanitarian concern.

On top of tragic choices, European officials must contend with moral hazards. In finance and economics, these arise when incentives or guarantees provided by governments or insurers have the perverse effect of encouraging banks, corporations, and individuals to take dangerous risks such as high “leverage” through heavy borrowing, risks that most would otherwise prudently avoid.

International migration itself should now be understood as a highly leveraged phenomenon. Many millions migrate and settle lawfully each year, but they are dwarfed by the dramatically larger numbers of potential migrants created by immense global economic inequalities and the proliferation of failed states and civil wars. These realities, coupled with nearly global access to modern media and transportation, mean that the option of migrating to more peaceful and prosperous countries is increasingly both known and attractive to potentially massive numbers of people—as but one incomplete measure, more than 1 billion of the 7.3 billion human population currently live on less than $1.25 per day.

With such a large pool of migrants waiting in the wings, even small policy shifts on the part of countries seen as desirable destinations—admirable statements of humanitarian welcome for migrants or policy changes intended to provide migration benefits to smaller groups—can cause great swings in the movement of people. To this may be added the perverse incentives facing people who are able to meet the UN refugee definition but unable to obtain visas to be resettled as refugees in a European country. At risk of their lives, they can force the issue by paying smugglers to transport them to that same country in order to claim asylum. Indeed, several EU governments have formally stated that even the humanitarian sea rescue missions are encouraging greater numbers to pursue such high-risk journeys...

Vote to Approve Migrant Relocation Tests Limits of European Unity (VIDEO)

Things are coming to a head.

At the New York Times, "Plan on Migrants Strains the Limits of Europe’s Unity":

LONDON — After weeks of indecision, the European Union voted on Tuesday to distribute 120,000 asylum seekers among member states, a plan meant to display unity in the face of the largest movement of refugees on the Continent since World War II.

Instead, the decision — forced through by a majority vote, over the bitter objections of four eastern members — did as much to underline the bloc’s widening divisions, even over a modest step that barely addresses the crisis.

Nearly half a million migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe this year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a number that is only expected to rise.

The crisis has tested the limits of Europe’s ability to forge consensus on one of the most divisive issues to confront the union since the fall of Communism. It has set right-wing nationalist and populist politicians against Pan-European humanitarians, who have portrayed the crisis in stark moral terms.

“We would have preferred to have adoption by consensus, but we did not manage to achieve that,” Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, said after a meeting of home affairs and interior ministers.

Leaders from across the 28-member bloc will meet in Brussels on Wednesday for further discussions on how to respond to the crisis.

Mr. Asselborn said even countries that voted against the distribution of asylum seekers — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia — must comply. “I have no doubt they will implement these decisions fully,” he said.

But with the prime minister of Slovakia immediately threatening to defy the plan, the outcome was more than an example of the bloc’s inability to coordinate its policies — formidable enough through the long crisis over the euro and Greece’s debt.

The response to the refugee crisis so far has also raised profound questions about a failure of European principles, a trembling of the pillars on which the bloc was founded more than 20 years ago.

The European Union’s reputation, and its faith in Brussels, have suffered in the past few months, with sharp and vocal divisions among member states and continuing doubts about Greek economic sustainability.

The migrant crisis “risks bursting the E.U. at its weak seams,” said Stefano Stefanini, a former senior Italian ambassador now based in Brussels. “It’s more dangerous than the Greek drama and more serious than the euro, because it challenges fundamental European accomplishments and beliefs.”

With Tuesday’s vote, he said, “the cleavages only get deeper.”

Keep reading.

BONUS: At the Los Angeles Times, "Refugee crisis exposes a deep divide in European Union."

Hungary Arrests Migrants in Border Crackdown (VIDEO)

It's pretty interesting, at NYT, "Hungary Detains Migrants in Border Crackdown."

The crackdown is almost continent-wide at this point, because compassion!

Plus, video at Euronews, "'First arrests made' as Hungary cracks down on immigration."

America Can — And Must — Do More to Help Europe's Migrants. Really?

I don't know?

I'm sure we can take some, but we should be careful not to take too many. As Andrea Tantaros has warned, it'd be national suicide.

But see Julia Ioffe, at Foreign Policy, "Je Suis Refugee":

The reason I’m writing this in English — and that I have a column in Foreign Policy at all — is that 25 years ago, on April 28, 1990, my family arrived in the United States as refugees from the Soviet Union. It is a day the four of us mark every year because it was the beginning of a new, free, and prosperous life. Had it not been for the American Jews lobbying Congress and the White House on our behalf for years, had it not been for the Jackson-Vanik amendment, had it not been for the fact that the geopolitical struggle against the USSR was hitched up to its humanitarian ramifications, had it not been for Mikhail Gorbachev wanting to put a human face on socialism, I would be writing this in Russian. More likely, I probably wouldn’t be writing this at all.

I think often about April 28, 1990, and the two years my parents spent waiting in lines at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. It’s a moment that splits my life in two. What would my life have been like if not for all those political forces — and my parents’ foresight and dedication — that snapped my 7-year-old self on a radically different course?

I don’t know that my life would have been terrible, but I know that I would not have reconnected with my family’s Jewish heritage. I would not have gotten to follow my passion for history with some of the world’s leading scholars at Princeton. I would have a lot more health issues, and I would also probably be divorced with a couple of kids, living in a country that is increasingly hostile not only to its neighbors but to its own citizens. If I would’ve been anything like the friends and family we left behind, I would probably be scrambling for an exit — to Israel, Latvia, anywhere where the walls aren’t closing in like they are in Moscow.

Sometimes, my American life still feels like a dream and an accident. And in the course of it, I’ve come across many people whose lives are accidents, too — accidents far starker and more implausible than mine.

One of my closest friends is the son of a man who, at the age of six, was whisked out of prewar Prague by Sir Nicholas Winton as part of the Kindertransport that saved so many and yet so very few Jewish children. A friend from high school recently posted the desperate letters her German-Jewish grandfather sent to the United States, hoping someone would sponsor him as a relative, trying to escape the swelling sense of danger that was slowly squeezing him of oxygen. One of the first friends I made at college was a Bosnian Muslim refugee. We spoke sometimes of the sheer wonder that the two of us, two refugee kids randomly plucked from a bad place and planted in a good place, should end up at such an elite institution. Last fall, I attended the wedding of a friend, the granddaughter of Armenian refugees from the genocide, and a Bosnian refugee who had escaped Banja Luka on his own as a teenager.

All of these people’s lives in America are accidents of history and politics. Had war not come to Banja Luka or Prague or Berlin, had there not been rumors in 1988 that there would be pogroms in Moscow to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the christening of Rus, we would’ve lived on in those places. Some of us would have been born as other people, sure, but we would’ve found a certain blinkered happiness in things because we would not have known an alternative life...

Hmm... Very moving, but it's not Jewish refugees by the tens of thousands --- even hundreds of thousands --- now flooding Europe's borders, and soon our as well. It's Muslim refugees, and if folks think they've got "no-go zones" in Europe now, just wait until after this latest wave of migration plays out.

It's a warning for the United States, that's for sure. Even warmhearted stories like Ms. Ioffe's can't mask the dangers of untrammeled migration flows to the U.S. Think of Kathyn Steinle, and then imagine Charlie Hebdo-style attacks on top of that. That's what's awaiting the U.S. if we succumb to suicidal compassion and open our borders to the Third World hordes.

Still more at the link.

Eastern European Nations Protest Massive Flood of Third World 'Refugees' (VIDEO)

All's not well with the migrant crisis in Europe, especially in Eastern and Central European countries.

Here's video, at Ruptly, "Czech Republic: Thousands rally against EU refugee policy," and "Poland: Thousands of nationalists rally against refugees in Warsaw."

At the New York Times, "Eastern Bloc’s Resistance to Refugees Highlights Europe’s Cultural and Political Divisions":

WARSAW — Even though the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been asked to accept just a tiny fraction of the refugees that Germany and other nations are taking, their fierce resistance now stands as the main impediment to a unified European response to the crisis.

Poland’s new president, Andrzej Duda, has complained about “dictates” from the European Union to accept migrants flowing onto the Continent from the Middle East and Africa.

Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, says his country will accept only Christian refugees as it would be “false solidarity” to force Muslims to settle in a country without a single mosque. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, calls the influx a “rebellion by illegal migrants” and pledges a new crackdown this week.

The discord has further unsettled a union already shaky from struggles over the euro and the Greek financial crisis and now facing a historic influx of people attracted by Europe’s relative peace and prosperity.

When representatives of the European Union nations meet on Monday to take up a proposal for allocating refugees among them, Central and Eastern European nations are likely to be the most vocal opponents. Their stance — reflecting a mix of powerful far-right movements, nationalism, racial and religious prejudices as well as economic arguments that they are less able to afford to take in outsiders than their wealthier neighbors — is the latest evidence of the stubborn cultural and political divides that persist between East and West.

When joining the European Union — as the former Communist countries have done since 2004 — nations are asked to pledge support to a raft of so-called European values, including open markets, transparent government, respect for an independent media, open borders, cultural diversity, protection of minorities and a rejection of xenophobia.

But the reality is that the former Communist states have proved sluggish in actually absorbing many of these values and practicing them. Oligarchs, cronyism and endemic corruption remain a part of daily life in many of the countries, freedom of the press is in decline while rising nationalism and populist political movements have stirred anti-immigrant tensions.

“People must remember that Poland has been transitioning from communism for only 25 years,” Lech Walesa, who led that country’s independence movement, said in an interview. “Our salaries and houses are still smaller than those in the West. Many people here don’t believe that they have anything to share with migrants. Especially that they see that migrants are often well-dressed, sometimes better than many Poles.”

Few migrants, in fact, are particularly interested in settling in Eastern Europe, preferring to head to Germany or Scandinavia, where social welfare benefits are higher, employment opportunities greater and immigrant communities better established. In that sense, migrants are aligned with leaders in Eastern and Central European capitals, who frequently argue that the 28-member bloc should focus first on securing its borders and figuring out a way to end the war in Syria before talking about mandatory quotas for accepting refugees...

More.

Photo Credit: London's Daily Mail, "Eastern Europeans complain about the new migrants: 'Go Home!'"

The Third World on the Move — Germany Adds Border Controls to Stem the 'Migrant' Invasion (VIDEO)

John Derbyshire's got a must-read post at VDare, "The Third World Is On The Move. This Will Get WAY Worse Before It Gets Better."

And you know, they're coming to America. Andrea Tantaros tweeted the other day, "Taking Islamic refugees would be suicide. It's an easy way for ISIS to infiltrate US, & where does it end? We have enough immigration probs."

Well, in any case, humanitarian Germany, where the "migrants" were just welcomed with "open arms," has established "temporary" border controls to stem the invasion. At the Telegraph UK, "German border controls mark sudden shift in refugee policy":

Germany announces emergency border protections after weeks of leading Europe's response to the migrant crisis.

Germany’s announcement on Sunday that it was instituting emergency border protections marks a sudden shift in its response to the refugee crisis.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was hailed as a saviour after her government said last month it expected to take in 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers this year alone.

Germany also became the EU first country to suspend the so-called Dublin protocol, which mandates that refugees seek asylum in the first European country they enter, by declaring last month that all Syrian refugees could remain in Germany regardless of the country through which they entered...

Keep reading.

Tens of Thousands Demonstrate in Europe in 'Day of Action in Solidarity With' Refugees (VIDEO)

At WSJ, "Tens of Thousands Demonstrate in Europe in Support of Refugees":

Wave of sympathy contrasts with protest in Warsaw against plan to take in migrants.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Europe rallied on Saturday to express sympathy toward migrants seeking refuge in the region amid the largest migration of displaced people since the end of World War II.

About 30,000 people converged in Copenhagen, according to city police, carrying banners such as “Refugees Welcome.” The rally, as well as smaller gatherings in other Danish cities, was calm and peaceful, police said.

In Hamburg, Germany, more than 24,000 people demonstrated against xenophobia and racism, said a spokeswoman for the city’s police. She said they were mostly peaceful but police briefly used water cannons after some stones and firecrackers were thrown.

Demonstrators also marched in London to pressure the British government to take in more refugees. Among those in attendance was Jeremy Corbyn, just hours after being elected as leader of the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party.

The rallies further highlight the political rift created by the exploding migrant crisis in Europe. The hundreds of thousands of people seeking refuge this summer have left Europe divided between nations on transit routes on one side and those countries migrants see as preferred destinations on the other.

The president of Hungary, one such transit route, defended his country’s tough migrant policy on Saturday.

“These migrants don’t come from the war zone, but from camps in Syria’s neighboring countries Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, where they were in safety” and thus didn’t flee for fear of their lives, but for wanting a better life, Viktor Orban told German tabloid Bild in an interview. “Personally, I can understand this, but there is no fundamental right to a better life. There’s only a right to security and human dignity.”

Earlier this month, Hungary’s premier courted controversy by saying the country’s borders must be defended as Europe’s identity was rooted in Christianity, while most of the migrants arriving on the continent were Muslims.

Europe is struggling to handle its largest flow of migrants since the aftermath of World War II. Why is the crisis happening now? The WSJ's Niki Blasina explains.

Mr. Orban’s tough stance drew criticism from Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.

“To put refugees on trains in the belief they would go elsewhere reminds me of the darkest time on our continent,” Mr. Faymann told weekly magazine Der Spiegel in an interview, in a reference to Nazi Germany. Mr. Orban “acts irresponsibly when declaring everyone a migrant for economic reasons. He consciously uses a policy of deterrence,” he said.

In the Polish capital, about 7,000 people led by fringe nationalist groups protested on Saturday against the government’s plan to take in more than 2,200 refugees over the next two years.

“It’s a war of two civilizations,” said one of the Warsaw rally’s leaders...

Still more.

Europe's Indifference to Syria's Refugees

Well, indifference, and "identity politics."

From Caroline Glick, at the Jerusalem Post:

The war in Syria broke out nearly five years ago.

Hundreds of thousands have already been killed in the conflict. Ten million people – nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population – have been displaced. For the past four years, millions of Syrians have been living in refugee camps in neighboring states – first and foremost in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Most of the refugees now arriving in Europe are coming from these camps, rather than directly from Syria. Rather than help them either resettle in the lands to which they fled, or take action on the ground in Syria to enable them to return to their homes, the Europeans largely ignored them.

Part of the reason Europe has ignored Syria, of course, is indifference. So long as it’s happening “over there,” the Europeans really couldn’t care less.

But indifference alone does not explain how Europe has been taken by surprise by a humanitarian disaster of the magnitude now unfolding at its borders.

Identity politics have played a key role in shaping Europe’s failed Middle East politics – in Syria and throughout the increasingly destabilized Islamic world.

Identity politics distinguish between various groups based on how they fall on a spectrum of “oppression.”

Western nations, led by Europe and the US, are all classified as “oppressors,” due to their “imperialist” past.

The Islamic world writ large is classified as “oppressed.”

All groups that receive “oppressed” status are immune from judgment, much less resistance from those who fall on the side of the “oppressors.”

Given this taxonomy, Europeans along with the sectors of American society that have embraced identity policies are incapable of recognizing, much less taking action against, radical Islamists.

Those who are oppressed by the “oppressed” of the Islamic world – the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, for instance – can receive no sustained protection from their jihadist oppressors by the “Muslim-oppressing” West.

The immunity identity politics confers on “oppressed” population groups adheres even when those groups themselves engage in oppression...

More.

Hungary Prime Minister Warns of 'Far-Reaching Consequences' in EU's Refugee-Sharing Plan (VIDEO)

At the Wall Street Journal, "Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban Pushes Back Against EU Migrant Sharing Plan":

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday warned the European Union not to impose a plan for sharing migrants across the bloc onto his government, ahead of a key meeting of EU ministers to discuss the issue on Monday.

EU officials have said they hope the bloc will give the proposal, which would see 120,000 asylum seekers distributed among the bloc’s member states, political backing on Monday. Trying to raise the stakes, European Council President Donald Tusk warned he will summon leaders to Brussels later this month if Monday’s meeting fails.

Although Hungary could benefit from the plan, by seeing asylum seekers who have registered in the country moved elsewhere, Mr. Orban warned of “far-reaching consequences” if the EU pushed ahead with the plan on Monday without his backing.

“It’s not possible to make decisions without the elected national leaders,” Mr. Orban said in a news conference in Budapest.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive, put forward its proposals on Wednesday in a bid to stem the biggest migration crisis facing the region since the aftermath of World War II. Under its plan, 54,000 people who have arrived and registered in Hungary, would be sent to other EU countries.

The plan needs approval from a majority of national governments, meaning it cannot be vetoed by Hungary alone. Top EU officials have said if the proposal wins political backing on Monday, it should be formally signed off in October.

Speaking in Cyprus on Friday, Mr. Tusk—who organizes and chairs EU leaders’ meetings—said that if ministers fail to agree on Monday, “I will have to call an emergency meeting of the European Council still in September.”

If the decision is passed on to EU leaders, the plan would need the backing of all heads of government, including Mr. Orban. It would also delay the implementation of the proposal.

For his part, Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said his country wouldn't support the EU plan because the priority should be “to gain control over the outer border of the European Union.”

In the first eight months of 2015, Hungary registered 170,000 people who crossed its border illegally on their way from countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have come through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary in hopes of reaching more affluent and asylum friendly states in the EU, notably Germany.

Diplomats in Brussels say Hungary also argues that the redistribution plan will end up attracting more migrants to the EU. They note that since many of the asylum seekers arriving in Hungary quickly leave the country, there may be little incentive for Hungary to sign up to the plan.

If Hungary doesn't participate, the diplomats said, Germany has said it would be happy to take Budapest’s quota—meaning people who have arrived in Germany could be moved to other EU countries like France or Belgium. A spokesman for the German interior ministry didn't comment...

Still more.

European Union Proposes Distribution of 160,000 Refugees

Yeah, that oughta work.

Shoot, Juncker was heckled.

And 120,000? 160,000? What's another 40 thousand or so asylum seekers, meh? We've got room to spare!

At WSJ, "EU’s Juncker Proposes New Refugee Quota Plan as Bloc Struggles to Respond to Migrant Wave":

STRASBOURG, France—A top European Union official on Wednesday proposed redistributing 160,000 refugees across the bloc, but acknowledged that wouldn’t go far enough to address the largest flow of migrants to the continent since the aftermath of World War II.

The EU has sputtered in its attempts to craft a coherent approach to the crisis amid competing national interests and insistence by some countries—particularly in the poorer east—that taking in refugees must be voluntary.

The new plan, which has to be approved by a majority of EU governments, is the second attempt by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to help Greece, Italy and Hungary, the three countries on the front line of the crisis. The plan also seeks to speed up procedures across the bloc to send back migrants who don’t qualify for asylum.

“I do believe that given the gravity of the situation we face, this proposal is quite modest,” Mr. Juncker acknowledged at a news conference, adding that nearly 500,000 people have made their way to Europe in the past year.

But he pointed out that earlier even more modest plans were rejected by EU leaders and that if “we had taken decisions back then, perhaps we would have saved a lot of lives.”

Over the next two years, most EU countries—excluding the U.K., Denmark and Ireland, who have opt-outs from Europe’s common asylum system—would be required to take in a total of 160,000 refugees in hard-hit Italy, Greece and Hungary.

Germany, which is the main destination for migrants entering from those EU border states, is one of the architects of the proposal and hopes to diffuse the stream of people who would try to seek asylum there.

Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her call Wednesday for the EU to agree to binding rules, saying Mr. Juncker’s proposal was a “first step of a fair distribution” but more is needed.

According to German government estimates, some 800,000 people are expected to apply for asylum there this year alone.

“It’s not possible to set a limit and to say ‘We don’t care beyond that and it is then an issue for two or three or four countries,” she said. “This must be a European responsibility and only then will all member states care about the causes of migration” and help address conflicts driving people to flee to Europe...

More.

Plus, at Der Spiegel, "A Continent Adrift: Juncker Proposes Fixes to EU's Broken Asylum Policies."

Hungarian Camerawoman Petra László Caught on Tape Tripping Refugee Children (VIDEO)

She's a "right-wing nationalist"?

Watch, "Hungarian Camerawoman Fired for Tripping Refugees Trying to Escape Police."

At the Guardian UK, "Hungarian nationalist TV camera operator filmed kicking refugee children."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Pictured: Astonishing moment a Hungarian camerawoman deliberately TRIPPED migrants who were fleeing police - including a father carrying his terrified young child."

She's been fired.

Main Migrant Routes to Europe

At the Economist, "Migration in Europe: Looking for a home":

Asylum-seekers, economic migrants and residents of all stripes fret over their place.

Europe's Slow-Motion Refugee Crisis Highlights Failures of Western Democracies

Well, I'm not sure if it's "slow motion," actually. But certainly there's a failure on the part of the Western democracies, and not just with slowing the refugee inflow, but in tamping down the Middle East jihadi threat in the first place. You reap what you sow.

At the New York Times, "Exodus of Syrians Highlights Political Failure of the West":

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Arresting images of desperation on the West’s doorstep have brought Syria, for the moment, back to worldwide attention: refugees cramming into train stations and climbing border fences; drowned Syrian toddlers washing up on beaches, a girl in polka dots, a boy in tiny shoes.

It was never any secret that a rising tide of Syrian refugees would sooner or later burst the seams of the Middle East and head for Europe. Yet little was done in Western capitals to stop or mitigate the slow-motion disaster that was befalling Syrian civilians and sending them on the run.

“The migrant crisis in Europe is essentially self-inflicted,” said Lina Khatib, a research associate at the University of London and until recently the head of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “Had European countries sought serious solutions to political conflicts like the one in Syria, and dedicated enough time and resources to humanitarian assistance abroad, Europe would not be in this position today.”

The causes of the current crisis are plain enough. Neighboring countries like Lebanon and Jordan became overwhelmed with refugees and closed their borders to many, while international humanitarian funding fell further and further short of the need. Then, Syrian government losses and other battlefield shifts sent new waves of people fleeing the country.

Some of these people had initially thought they would stick it out in Syria, and they are different from earlier refugees, who tended to be poor and vulnerable, or wanted by the government, or from areas hard-hit early in the civil war. Now those departing include more middle-class or wealthy people, more supporters of the government, and more residents of areas that were initially safe.

One of those, Rawad, 25, a pro-government university graduate, left for Germany with his younger brother Iyad, 13, who as a minor could help his whole family obtain asylum.

They walked from Greece to save money, Rawad reported via text message, sleeping in forests and train stations alongside families from northern Syria who opposed President Bashar al-Assad.

People like Rawad and Iyad have been joined by growing numbers of refugees who had for a time found shelter in neighboring countries. Lebanon — where one in three people is now a Syrian refugee — and Jordan have cracked down on entry and residency policies for Syrians. Even in Turkey, a larger country more willing and able to absorb them, new domestic political tensions make their fate uncertain.

As the numbers of displaced Syrians mounted to 11 million today from a trickle in 2011, efforts to reach a political solution gained little traction. The United States and Russia bickered in the Security Council while Syrian government warplanes continued indiscriminate barrel bombing, the Islamic State took over new areas, other insurgent groups battled government forces and one another, and Syria’s economy collapsed.

For years, Yacoub El Hillo, the top United Nations humanitarian official in Syria, has been warning that with the Syrian crisis — the “worst of our time” — the international system of humanitarian aid has “come to the breaking point,” especially as protracted conflicts pile up around the world, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere.

“This is the price of political failure,” he said in Beirut in March, declaring that the breakdown of the aid system results from the strategic stalemate over Syria. “This is a direct affront to international peace and security.”

He said that it cost the United States $68,000 an hour to fly the warplanes used to battle the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, while the United Nations has received less than half of the money it needs to take care of the half of Syria’s prewar population that has been displaced.

For neighboring countries alone, just $1.67 billion of the needed $4.5 billion for 2015 has been received. For those displaced in Syria, $908 million has been given of $2.89 billion needed. This week, World Food Program benefits were canceled for 229,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.

“It is not really a question of money,” Mr. El Hillo said. “It is a question of in which pot the money is sitting.”

Few refugees have been accepted by the regional and global players that have supported combatants in the conflict. The Gulf Arab states and to a lesser extent the United States have armed and trained rebel groups, while Russia and Iran have armed and financed the Assad government, but those powers have devoted much less to humanitarian assistance. Politics also intrudes on aid, with the combatants trying to restrict aid to areas held by their opponents...

Still more.

Migrant Crackdown Sows Chaos in Europe

At WSJ, "European Efforts to Stem Migrant Tide Sow Chaos on Austrian-Hungarian Border":

German chancellor warns of need to share burden across EU; Austria steps up border, highway checks.

Austrian and Hungarian efforts to stem a growing tide of migrants sowed chaos along their frontier on Monday as Germany’s chancellor warned that Europe’s open-border policy was in danger unless it united in its response to the crisis.

In Austria, police toughened controls on the border, triggering miles of traffic jams as they checked cars and trucks for evidence of people smuggling. They said they were compelled to conduct the highway searches after discovering the decomposed bodies of 71 people, most of them believed to be Syrian refugees, in an abandoned truck last week.

Authorities also stopped and boarded several Germany-bound trains overcrowded with hundreds of migrants, refusing entry into Austria until some of them got off. Migrants had packed into the trains in Hungary earlier in the day after officials in Budapest abruptly lifted rules barring them from traveling further into the European Union without visas.

Such temporary checks remain in accord with the Schengen Agreement, which allows people to travel freely across the borders of 26 European countries that have signed onto the treaty. But in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned that some countries could move to reintroduce systematic passport controls at their borders—unless EU governments agreed to more equally bear the burden of the bloc’s escalating crisis, “Europe must move,” she told reporters in Berlin. “Some will certainly put Schengen on the agenda if we don’t succeed in achieving a fair distribution of refugees within Europe.”

Ms. Merkel’s warning—aimed at governments in the bloc’s east that have resisted taking on a greater number of migrants—marked her most direct intervention in the fraught debate between those European countries, such as Germany, Italy and France, that have called for a fairer distribution of migrants across the bloc, and those that have opposed binding quotas.

The comments also came as a rebuttal to opposition politicians and some members of the chancellor’s ruling coalition who have accused her of being slow to address the crisis. Echoing comments she made last week in a German town shaken by three days of antimigrant riots, Ms. Merkel urged her compatriots to welcome those fleeing war or persecution while warning that economic migrants, namely those from Southeastern Europe, couldn’t expect to settle in Germany.

“If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then [Europe’s] close link with universal civil rights will be destroyed and it won’t be the Europe we wished for,” she said.

The warning from the Continent’s most powerful leader has weight: The chancellor has repeatedly described free movement in Europe as a core value of the bloc. Her comments underline the pressure that the record wave of migrants arriving on European soil is putting on the region’s most exposed member states—mainly countries at its periphery, such as Hungary, Italy and Greece, as well as Germany and Sweden, which have received the bulk of migrants since the crisis started early last year.

Schengen rules have been contested before amid rising migrant numbers. In 2011, France and Italy called on the EU to impose tighter border controls in an effort to stop the influx of migrants unleashed by North African unrest. But the EU failed to reach a concrete agreement over how Europe should handle the wave.

Germany, which was the destination for 40% of asylum seekers in Europe last year, has repeatedly said the bloc must agree on binding quotas for the redistribution of refugees across the EU. The number of arrivals has soared over the summer months, forcing the government to nearly double its forecast for migrants this year to 800,000 from 450,000—equal to almost 1% of Germany’s population.

“We face a huge national challenge that concerns all of us, it will be a central challenge not only for days or months but as far as we can tell for a longer period of time,” Ms. Merkel said.

Germany said last week that it would allow Syrian refugees to stay in the country regardless of where they first entered the EU—both for humanitarian reasons and in an attempt to speed up the review of asylum claims filed by Syrians.

Still, Ms. Merkel said the German government had been in touch with Hungary over what she called Budapest’s misunderstanding that all Syrians could travel to Germany without having to register in Hungary. The chancellor insisted Hungary should register migrants who arrive there and review their asylum applications.

Still more.

Europe's Migration Crisis: Hungary Builds Barbed-Wire Fence as Immigrant Siege Continues (VIDEO)

This is becoming one of the more fascinating spectacles of European politics that I can remember, even more amazing than the recent financial crises.

Watch, via Telegraph UK:



And see Elizabeth Price Foley, at Instapundit, "EUROPE’S BORDER CRISIS: Hundreds of thousands of “refugees” from the Middle East and Africa are crossing the Mediterranean, seeking a better life in Europe."

BONUS: From last week at the New York Times, "Migrants Race North as Hungary Builds a Border Fence," and "Europe's Halting Response to Migrant Crisis Draws Criticism as Toll Mounts."

Hungary Accused of Treating Refugees Inhumanely as Migration Crisis Worsens

Oh man, this is just awful.

At the Telegraph UK, "Refugees left to bake in the heat for hours without food, shelter or medical aid on Hungary's border with Serbia."