Putting Trump’s temporary travel ban in perspective

The hot topic of the week is President Trump’s travel ban stopping citizens from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan from entering the United States for 90 days. Large protests are popping up around the United States and world leaders are outraged. The mainstream media is whipping people up into a frenzy, but really not reporting the entire story – just the part where Trump is the evil dictator for banning Muslim-majority countries. 

Do a little research and you’ll find something interesting; sixteen countries, all Muslim majority, forbid admission to Israeli passport holders. They are Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi, Arabia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Of those, eight (Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) do not allow re-entry to people with evidence of travel to Israel. Go to Israel for business or vacation? Sorry, you are not welcome back. 

A quick look at this map shows you that every Muslim country in the Middle East except Jordan, Turkey and Egypt ban Israel citizens from entering. I’ll bet you lunch it’s because the U.S. and Israel basically bribe them with aid money and military equipment. Have you seen how awesome and western the Turkish and Jordan Air Forces are? 

Every country on Trump’s list besides Somalia forbids an entire people, almost all Jewish, from ever entering the country. Not 90 days, but a lifetime ban. I’m sure if Somalia had a government they would ban Jews too. There were no protests on the streets of those countries. In fact, you likely saw celebrations when these laws were enacted. 

Locally, two UMass Dartmouth professors were detained at the airport for a few hours and in response 100’s of articles were written and the university held a press conference where dozens of media outlets attended. I don’t recall this same attention when the entire Middle East banned all Jews from their countries, but I digress. 

Let’s forget for a moment that Presidents and legislators from sixteen majority-Muslim countries banned all people of the majority Jewish country from ever entering their country. Let’s forget that they did it with no protest or outrage from the mainstream media around the world. Let’s focus on Trump’s “Muslim ban.” 

The common theme, and lie, that is going around the world is that Trump banned Muslims from entering the United States. But once emotion and politics are pushed aside, you realize it’s not true. There are roughly 50 Muslim dominated countries in the world and Trump temporarily banned citizens from 7 of them. Quick math tells you 43 Muslim countries were not added to the ban list. Out of the top 10 countries with Muslim populations only Iran is on the list. 

In fact, the top 5 countries with the largest Muslim population, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Egypt are not on Trump’s list. That’s about 700 million Muslims, or more than twice the population of the United States, are not affected by Trump’s temporary ban. Add the other 38 countries not on the list and well over a billion Muslims are not effected. So, let’s stop calling this a Muslim ban. 

You can disagree with Trump’s 90-day ban on citizens from from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan, but make sure you know all the available information. Not only do these countries already ban entire people from entering their country, they are dangerous places.

ISIS dominates much of Syria and Iraq and the governments in these countries are as corrupt as they come. Iran’s leadership despises America, do you think they will cooperate with U.S. immigration laws? Somalia has no government to speak of – it’s a lawless land. Yemen has been going through a civil war since 2015 and did you know that Al-Qaeda set up their new base of operations there? Libya is the place where President Obama help overthrow a dictator and then we had Ambassador Stevens and other Americans killed not to mention ISIS has a strong foothold now. Sudan? Slavery and terrorism are major problems there.

These seven countries are on a temporary travel ban from entering the U.S. because they are dangerous places to live with a large number of people that want to do harm to Americans. To protest this travel ban, while ignoring the ban on Jews shows ignorance and political bias. To make this about Trump is not only silly, but dangerous. 

Editor’s note: This article as written Michael Silvia who served 20 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force. The opinions are his alone.