Immigration Law

The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail (Deuteronomy 28:43-44).

I would not presume to advise the French on what to do about their Muslim populations. After the riots of not-so-distant memory, after the French cleared their streets of burnt-out cars, after they had finished rebuilding the burned schools, there was no shortage of talking heads on television handing out free advice with all the confidence of hindsight. Frankly, I get a little tired of all the worn out generals and colonels and ex-CIA operatives treating us to their expertise, and advising a government that no longer needs or wants their advice. If they’re so smart, why aren’t they running the country? Now, there's one very useful book on the market. I think it may be the most important book written so far about terrorism, about Islam and about what we’re facing in the world. It’s Tony Blankley’s, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? Blankley can’t resist offering advice any more than any other pundit, but before he does, he offers facts and analysis that I hadn’t seen anywhere else. I came away from his book far less confused about what is going on than I was before I read it.

Most Americans pay little attention to what goes on in Europe and our media does very little to help. When Moslem hoodlums were burning thousands of cars across French cities, including Paris, we got a lot of pictures of burning cars, of young thugs throwing Molotov cocktails at the police, but we got very little understanding about what was going on or why. And when they did try to tell us why it was happening, for the most part, they got it wrong.

In fairness to the media, they’re in the business of making money. It is all too easy to forget that, when you’re watching news programs. If we get bored with the program and switch off, they can’t sell their commercials so they keep the news buzzing with action. And their analysis is more combative than it is enlightening. That’s what made Tony Blankley’s book such an eye opener. Some time ago, he wrote in The Washington Times:

When, seven months ago, I finished writing my Book, The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?, London had not been attacked by Islamic terrorists, the Tate Museum in London had not removed an art exhibit because it offended radical Muslim sensitivities, and France had not yet experienced the explosion of violence from elements of its Muslim populations in its no-go zone communities. The fact that I predicted all these events in my book was not the result of clairvoyance. It was merely the result of a normally intelligent person looking at the facts and their rather obvious implications without the blinding effect of a politically correct mentality.

And for me, it was the facts that were riveting. Part of the shock was realizing how much we in this country simply do not know about what has been happening in Europe. We don’t read the European press and it seems the news hounds in this country don’t read it either. They had to take notice, finally, when Paris was burning, but even then they left us in the dark, probably because that’s where they were. Political reporters in this country pay attention to what heads of government do overseas—chancellors, presidents, prime ministers. They follow all these people around and report to the world on what these leaders are doing and saying. But if the press has a clue as to what the man in the street is thinking, they don’t bother telling the rest of us.

According to Tony Blankley, events in Europe, going on right now in the streets and coffee houses, are telling a different story. They’re telling careful observers that the people our newsmen are covering now in Paris and Bonn, heads of governments, are going to be turned out of office in the not-too-distant future. The man in the street is fed up and governments are already leaning to the right across Europe. They have to pay attention to where the man in the street is going because these are the people who vote.

Blankley went on to say that the Muslim parts of Paris, Rotterdam and other European cities are already labeled no-go zones for ethnic Europeans, including armed policemen. As the Muslim populations and their level of cultural and religious assertiveness expand, European geography will be claimed for Islam. Continuing to quote:

Europe will become pockmarked with increasing numbers of little Falujahs that will be effectively impenetrable by anything much short of a United States Marine Division. Thus as the fundamentalism expands into Europe and, perhaps to a lesser extent, American Muslim communities, not only will Islamic cultural aggression against a seemingly passive and apologetic indigenous population increase, the zone of safety and support for actual terrorists will expand as well.

There are parts of Europe where this is already the case. According to a German news magazine, “The veil of multi-culturalism has been lifted, revealing parallel societies where the law of the state does not apply.” Now think about that. It is true in Europe, but not so true here—yet. In Europe there are zones where the laws of the German state for example, or the laws of the French state simply do not apply. They can’t be enforced and the people who live there enforce their own cultural laws. This is not merely the future; in Europe, it is now. And as Tony Blankley observed, all this stuff is third or fourth page news to American news sources. Nobody is paying any attention. In the waning days of the new French insurrection, Blankley wrote this:

Soon the violence of the last two weeks will be seen as the opening of an event of world historic significance. Even when the current violence subsides, even when the French government attempts to placate its radical Muslim population by offering more welfare benefits and programs, it will not be the end of the story. A new benchmark of the possible will have been established. The flaccid and timorous response of the French government will only increase the radicalizing Muslim’s contempt for western cultural weakness.

Tony Blankley went on to cite Paul Belien writing from Brussels about the same time, who observed: “It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularized welfare states of old Europe, it is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The youths do not blame the French; they despise them.”

This is something no one in this country seems to grasp. Whenever you pick up the news magazines or you hear the comments by the talking heads, people are trying to explain why it is that the Arabs are so angry at the injustice they have suffered; about the way that they have been treated by the host country. And that’s all people in this country seem to understand. Most of the media have missed the story completely. Talking heads criticize the French for isolating the Muslims in their country in ghettos, but that is not the picture seen from Europe.

Paul Belien goes on to report: “Look what a typical radical Muslim leader, the leader of the Brussel’s based Arab-European League has to say: ‘We reject integration when it leads to assimilation. I don’t believe in a host country. We are at home here and whatever we consider our culture to be also belongs to our chosen country. I’m in my country; not the country of westerners.” Where was he? He was in Belgium. Or, consider the statement of a radical German-Islamist that Tony Blankley recounted in his book. This from a German Muslim:

Germany is an Islamic country. Islam is in the home, in schools. Germans will be outnumbered. We Muslims will say what we want; we’ll live how we want. It’s outrageous that the Germans demand that we speak their language. Our children will have our language, our laws, our culture.

I said I would not presume to advise the French. I don’t know enough. But the difficulties Europe is having with immigrant populations serve to throw biblical immigration law into sharp relief. The Bible offers solutions that can be summarized by two simple, easy-to-understand, principles: (1) drive out or destroy the incorrigible elements who will not be assimilated; (2) welcome and assimilate the rest.

The Palestinians are exhibit number one of a people who could not/would not assimilate with Israel. And the problem in ancient times is the problem today. It was a competing religion. Then it was Baal. Now it is Allah.

Shortly after handing down the Ten Commandments and an assortment of judgments apropos of the circumstances they faced in the wilderness, God added this:

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries (Exodus 23:20-22).

This is a good start. God would be an enemy of their enemies. Israel was headed toward the promised land. They would have to fight for it, but God would fight on their side: “For mine Angel shall go before you, and bring you in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off” (v.23).

What Israel would face was a particular set of people with whom they were to attempt no accommodation, no assimilation. Their cultures, particularly their religions, were simply incompatible. The people were also corrupt beyond imagination. Just how corrupt they were will be discussed in the next chapter. The six listed tribes were people who would never assimilate with Israel but would, in the end, corrupt them if they stayed. God goes on to develop the theme:

You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days (Exodus 23:24-26 NASB).

Every vestige of their religion was to be eradicated from the land, for it would undermine the laws God gave them—laws that had a lot to do with health as it turns out. Implicit in this statement is that there would be health issues in assimilating with a pagan population.

I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets ahead of you, that they may drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate, and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land (vv. 27-30 NASB).

We will learn later that this transition plan also required Israel to fight. It wasn’t going to be easy, but God would fight on their side. Just how big was this land to be? “And I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you” (v. 31).

But for this to work, no deals could be made with these people, no treaties, no covenants, and zero tolerance for their religion. They were not even allowed to take residence in Israel (vv. 32-33).

Now as brutal as this is, the alternative was to become corrupted and eventually destroyed from within by the people they didn’t drive out. This is the picture Tony Blankley is drawing for us in Europe right now. The Europeans have invited these people in to provide a work force. But many are people who refuse to assimilate. They won’t learn the French language, nor will they learn German. They want to have their own government, their own schools, their own religion. It is their stated goal to eventually make Europe their own country. But consider what God said to Israel: “You had better get rid of these people.” There are some religions and some cultures that are completely incompatible, incorrigible, and corrupt.

Now in the modern politically correct way of thinking about this, it sounds like Israel was to be a racist, exclusive, xenophobic society, but that’s not the whole story. In Israelite law, aliens were not only welcome in Israel, they were to be treated with respect and consideration. They were to have all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of one who was Israelite born. That said, Israel was not to become a multicultural society.

The word “multicultural” is going to be very much in the news, and we need to think long and hard about the issues it raises. “Multicultural” is not synonymous with multi-racial. You can have all kinds of people of different nationalities, races and ethnic groups living together in one culture. But once you allow the cultures to separate in an attempt to create a multicultural society, as Europe has done (and as some in this country believe we should do), you are headed for trouble. What the Law of God said to the aliens who lived among them was, “If you are going to live here, you will have to become part of the culture.”

Israel was given explicit instructions regarding strangers, aliens who had come to sojourn among them: “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21). But wait. What about those people they were to drive out? These instructions seem contradictory.

We need to pause here to get some terms straight. The word, “gentile,” is commonly used to describe any person who is not a Jew, but that is not the correct usage in the Old Testament. In fact, the singular “gentile” isn’t found there. It is always “gentiles.” The Hebrew word is goy, in the sense of a massing of people, and it means “nation.” Usually, it is a foreign nation, but Israel is also spoken of as a goy, a nation.

Goy is not the word for “stranger.” The word for stranger is ger, derived from the verb guwr, which means “to sojourn.” The people who lived in Canaan before the conquest were tribes of people who were often at war with one another. It was a way of life. There was no way these people could have been assimilated into Israel en masse. On the other hand, the stranger is an individual who can easily be assimilated. Attempting to take in an ethnic group that worshiped another God would be a disaster.

But the stranger, the sojourner, who arrives in Israel for trade or for work was to be treated as a guest. That said, the stranger was bound by the laws of the land: “Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 24:22). If that law were applied today, we would say to people who come to live among us, “You are welcome here, but you must live under our laws, learn our language, go to our schools, and accept our culture. All this is required, but then we will treat you like one of us.” There is more:

For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regards not persons, nor takes reward: He executes the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loves the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).

When we have immigrants who come to our country, God says we should love them, because he loves them. We are not to reject them or persecute them, but to treat them well. That said, there is no call to leave them as a completely isolated, separate culture in our midst. They must, in return for our hospitality, accept our culture and our laws. There is more:

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 23:9).

And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God (Leviticus 19:10).

The stranger is entitled to your welfare program on the same basis as those born in the land. But in Israel, welfare was not brought to you. You had to work to get it. Israel was to love the stranger, to accept him as one born in the land. That said, the stranger was expected to respect the religion of the host country. When it came to the Sabbath, they were told to shut down their work:

But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates (Exodus 20:10).

There was, in Israel, both cultural and religious assimilation. You were welcome to come and set up shop, but not to keep it open on the Sabbath. This is not the religious assimilation that says you have to believe what we believe. You just have to practice what we do. Israel was not to be a multicultural society. To strangers they said, “You’re welcome here, but you must assimilate, you learn the language, you learn the culture, you live by our laws, or you get out.”

The reason was the protection of their religion. It was possible for a stranger to participate fully in the religion of Israel if he chose to do so. And this is something that it seems hardly anybody understands.

And thou shalt say unto them, Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers which sojourn among you, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, And bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer it unto the LORD; even that man shall be cut off from among his people” (Leviticus 17:8-9).

What a surprise. Far from being banned from the temple, as they were by the first century, strangers were actually permitted to offer a sacrifice. But, if he does it and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle, to offer it to Jehovah, that man shall be deported—i.e., cut off from the social contract. In other words, if you’re going to worship our God, you must worship our God the same way the rest of us do. Our civil laws and our religious laws apply to you just like it would if you were home-born.

And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourns among you (Leviticus 16:29).

The cultural and religious assimilation of strangers included the most common aspects of daily living—even to the point of fasting on the Day of Atonement.

If I could summarize God’s Law for the modern nation, it is to avoid multiculturalism like the plague. Require the people who immigrate to France to become French, speak the language, learn the culture. The same thing is true here. If a person wants to immigrate to this country, he should learn English and respect our culture, our history, and our religion.

And it’s that last that’s part of the problem. France, the government more than the people, has walked away from their religious faith. Here in America, there are those trying to take us down the same path. And if you expect the strangers to assimilate with your culture, you have to have a culture. That is a warning that God gave to Israel that should be taken very seriously. In a long discourse, he said to them:

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth (Deuteronomy 28:1).

The LORD shall cause your enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before your face: they shall come out against you one way, and flee seven ways (v. 7).

But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee (v. 15).

A multicultural society is an unstable society and it will fall to those who know who they are and who know where they’re going. That is the danger France is facing today and the United States will be facing tomorrow.

Tony Blankley believes that Europe has three choices: One, the government gets on top of this, restricts civil liberties for Muslims, takes all necessary action from imprisonment to deportation, and puts an end to the problem.

Two, rising vigilantism by the man in the street will lead to much bloodshed but will solve the problem that way. Vigilantism is on the rise in Europe and we don’t hear very much about this in this country. It’s much bigger in Europe than most Americans realize. Tony Blankley’s hope is that it will begin to put the pressure on the governments in Europe who will turn and do the right thing.

Three, Europe will roll over and accept the eventual domination by Islam, which, at last, will leave the United States completely isolated.

I suppose I could say that Tony Blankley is optimistic long term, but he seems to expect a lot of bloodshed and some radical changes in western society. According to him, mainstream opinion in Europe has recently abandoned political correctness and wants to halt the inroads of Islam from Norway to Sicily. Governments, politicians, and media are laying aside doctrines of diversity, insisting that Islamism (as the French call the fundamentalist form that pervades the housing estates) is incompatible with Europe’s liberal values.

Even a left-wing French intellectual, such as commentator Jacques Juilliard, said that the left’s long-standing tolerance has been used as an agent for the penetration of Islamic intolerance. That is a stunning admission and a warning for everyone. In this country, I don’t look for a change in national direction from mere persuasion. We can argue about this till hell freezes over and nothing will change. But let one dirty bomb make lower Manhattan uninhabitable for a thousand years, and hell will freeze over.