Immigration, politics and the West's foreign policy

In the decade I lived in Tokyo from 1998 to 2007, Japan resisted advice, including from U.N. circles, that mass immigration would help it solve the problem of sluggish economic growth. As we see the destructive impact of migrant communities on foreign policy and domestic cohesion of Western countries, Japan could be forgiven for having a sense of schadenfreude.

For over two decades, I have argued the U.S. cannot construct a world order in which all others must obey global rules and norms but Washington can exempt itself from them whenever, wherever and for as long as it likes. The sense of U.S. exceptionalism rooted in self-belief as a uniquely virtuous power led to the proclamation of an imperial doctrine of unchallengeable military dominance.

The director of policy planning in the Bush State Department was Richard Haass. He refuted the allegation of U.S. unilateralism or isolation. Rather: “What you’re going to get from this administration is ‘a la carte multilateralism,’” he explained in July 2001.

The U.S. stayed out of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, yet refers other countries to the ICC and demands China’s compliance with UNCLOS. It led NATO into intervening to force Serbia into accepting the independence of Kosovo; Russia has cited this precedent for its actions in Crimea. It engaged in an illegal war on Iraq because of alleged weapons of mass destruction proliferation but has bolted from or hollowed out many other arms control agreements.

Small states put their faith in the protection of international law, which the U.S. disdains unless it suits its interests. Small states pin their hopes on a functioning U.N. system, but Washington dismisses it as irrelevant unless supportive of its desires.

I have previously highlighted the Global South’s parting of ways from the West on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, says an article in the Financial Times, Islamic countries insist: “If you describe cutting off water, food and electricity in Ukraine as a war crime, then you should say the same thing about Gaza.” Former NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer explains: “We, the West, do not call the shots any more, and the Global South says: ‘Please, we have a voice as well which you have neglected for some time.’”

The answer, of course, is that Ukraine did not send over a death cult to slaughter 24,000 (in proportion to Israel’s population) civilians, elderly, women and babies in a score of Russian villages.

Western countries have fretted over Islamophobia in their midst but not equally about the prevalence of intolerant illiberalism and Jew hatred in the Muslim communities. On the same day that a 100,000 strong pro-Palestinian march took place in central London, the police pressured the organizers of an anticipated 30,000-strong pro-Israeli prayer walk in Golders Green, a Jewish area of London, to cancel the event.

This is not just a case of Palestinian sympathizers in the U.K. parliament. Few London MPs can afford to ignore the reality of 1.3 million Muslims who live and vote in the capital, comprising 15% of its population. At a Hizb ut-Tahrir (an Islamic fundamentalist group) demonstration outside the Egyptian Embassy, one speaker asked: “What is the solution to liberate people from the concentration camp called Palestine?” “Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!” came the answering chant.

I wrote recently about the diplomatic rift between Canada and India following the murder of a Canadian Sikh near Vancouver in June who was a fugitive from Indian justice on murder charges. Derek Burney, with a 30-year career in the Canadian Foreign Service and a former ambassador to the U.S., wrote in the National Post that when Canada’s security agencies had inserted a reference to “Sikh extremists,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bowed to pressure from the ethnic community to excise the reference. “If Sikh or other extremists are violating our laws, they should be prosecuted and if convicted, deported,” Burney wrote. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Former Trudeau foreign policy adviser Omer Aziz explained on Sep. 22 how Canada’s “ethnic domestic battles” are “distorting our long-term foreign policy priorities.” In a hard-hitting Op-Ed in the National Post on Oct. 24, columnist Tasha Kheiriddin wrote: “Instead of standing for principle and the interests of our nation and its allies, the Trudeau Doctrine is dictated by diaspora politics and his party’s re-election prospects.”

She illustrates this with examples over the past year where Trudeau has courted the votes of Chinese, Sikh and now Muslim communities. Muslims make up nearly 10% of people in Canada’s big cities. On the current Gaza crisis, fractures within the ruling Liberal Party have made it difficult for Trudeau to offer steadfast support to Israel. A small but significant number of his caucus want Canada to recognize the sufferings of occupied Palestinians also.

In Australia, chants of “Gas the Jews” were heard around the world as the most shocking explosions of Jew hatred in a Western democracy. A local imam in a state of exultation led his followers in chants of “Allahu Akbar” as he expressed happiness, elation and pride at the Hamas attacks. NSW Police escorted the crowd from the Town Hall to the Opera House that had been lit up in a mark of tribute to the murdered Israeli victims. Jews were told to stay away and the only person arrested was a lone Jew, for waving an Israeli flag.

Western Sydney federal Labor MPs Tony Burke and Chris Bowen have been too timid to condemn Hamas or the protestors. And on Oct. 24, the local council of Canterbury-Bankstown, a Sydney suburb with a strong Muslim presence, decided to fly the Palestinian flag. David Adler, president of the Australian Jewish Association, described this as “incomprehensible,” insensitive in the timing and “highly offensive” to the Jewish community.

The pro-Hamas demonstrations, nowhere more pregnant with historical resonance than in Berlin, should serve as a wake-up call to the poison taking deep root in Western societies.

The 100-year old Henry Kissinger fled Nazi Germany aged 15. After the painful scenes in Berlin of mass celebrations of the Hamas attacks, he lamented: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different cultures and religions and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country.” Europeans have revived the debate about the threats from the creation of “parallel societies” when immigrant groups insulate themselves from host societies and import quarrels from their homelands.