יום שישי, 5 באוקטובר 2018

Some see Christian First bias in Trump foreign policy


A White House official called any suggestion of religious favoritism 'demonstrably false.'



Evangelical Christians came out aggressively for Donald Trump in 2016. As president, Trump has returned the favor, delivering for the Christian right — not just at home, but also overseas.

Trump defied international opinion and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The White House rattled relations with NATO ally Turkey by imposing sanctions over its detention of an American pastor. Trump’s initial travel ban included exemptions for Christians. Senior administration officials have eagerly taken up a cause that happens to be a favorite of the Christian right: global religious freedom. And the State Department was quick to call the Islamic State’s persecution of Christians a “genocide.”


But for human rights activists, Democrats and even some Republican staffers in Congress, these and other policies appear to have come at the expense of other religious groups — especially Muslims.

Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem upset many Muslim leaders in the Arab world. Trump’s travel ban has been condemned for largely affecting Muslims overseas. The administration also has not yet applied the “genocide” designation to another well-documented slaughter of a religious minority — the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar.

“The sense that human rights apply universally doesn’t carry weight with most people in this administration,” said Sarah Margon, Washington director for Human Rights Watch.



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Even some supporters of the administration concede that its actions have created the impression that the Trump government favors Christians over other faiths, a perception fueled by the powerful influence Christian evangelicals wield in Trump’s electoral base.

“A lot of these policies and stances they’ve taken have been politically motivated to support the agenda of the Christian right,” said one person close to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “The perception issue — that should be a concern of theirs, yes.”

A White House official called any suggestion of religious favoritism “demonstrably false.” The official pointed out that Vice President Mike Pence — a main public face of the administration’s work on battling religious persecution — has decried the plight of numerous religious groups, not just Christians.

“Helping persecuted religious minorities abroad is a top priority of the Trump administration,” the White House official said.

For human rights workers, though, the case of the Rohingya has been a crystallizing moment. Some saw a stark contrast between the administration’s response to the atrocities in Myanmar and its response last year to the persecution of Christians by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

In the case of ISIS, top Trump aides were clear early on: They believed Christians were the victims of genocide, a designation with legal and political implications. While other groups, including Shia Muslims, were also covered by the designation, administration officials put a heavy emphasis on Christians.

“I believe that [the Islamic State] is guilty of nothing short of genocide against people of the Christian faith, and it is time for the world to call it by name,” Pence told a summit of Christian evangelicals in May 2017.

Although the Obama administration first declared that ISIS was carrying out genocide against Christians and other groups, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reaffirmed that verdict after word spread among Christian activists that the Trump administration might be reneging on the Obama-era declaration. Tillerson said he wanted to remove any “ambiguity” about where the new administration stood.

The administration has not been as vocal about the situation in Myanmar, where a massive crackdown by the Buddhist-dominated military more than a year ago killed thousands of Rohingya Muslims and forced 700,000 of them to flee to nearby Bangladesh.

A U.N. panel has already said that Myanmar military leaders should face genocide charges. Canadian lawmakers have reached the same conclusion. And the International Criminal Court is seeking ways to hold Myanmar responsible.

But Pompeo, who controls the administration’s deliberations on the subject, has not yet said whether he agrees that Myanmar’s military committed genocide. He has also not said whether the Rohingya were victims of the lesser, yet still serious, charge of “crimes against humanity.”


The Trump administration has not been as vocal about the situation in Myanmar, where a massive crackdown by the Buddhist-dominated military more than a year ago killed thousands of Rohingya Muslims. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

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