Commentary: We praise Albright and others for their bold moral stand against Muslim hatred

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Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and actress Mayim Bialik said they would register as Muslims if President Donald Trump creates a registry of Muslim Americans. Albright, who served under President Bill Clinton, cited her Jewish ancestry in her statement Wednesday on Twitter.

Albright’s parents converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1941 after their native Czechoslovakia disintegrated at the hands of Hitler. The family eventually immigrated to the US in the late 1940s.

Trump is considering a temporary ban on refugees from Muslim-majority countries such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia. During the presidential campaign, he also floated the idea of registering American Muslims in a database.

Albright, who campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the election season, repeated her stand during a conference call with the Refugee Council USA on Thursday.

Bialik, a star on “The Big Bang Theory,” echoed Albright’s words on Wednesday and also cited her Jewish heritage. Albright and Bialik join the list of other prominent Jews to criticize the Muslim registry idea. Speaking Saturday at the Women’s March on Washington, feminist icon Gloria Steinem said to the crowd that if Trump forces Muslims to register themselves, “we will all register as Muslims.”

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Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt started the call just after Trump’s election in November. Greenblatt, who is also Jewish and committed to fight anti-Semitism, also proclaimed that as a proud Jew he would register as a Muslim if one day American Muslims would be forced to register their identity under President Trump’s regime.

President Trump is proving himself unable to think and understand the implications of hasty and thoughtless orders he has been issuing one after another. He gives the clear impression that he cannot formulate a policy, he is dismantling America’s international image as a great country. He is there to follow an agenda of destruction.

The Muslims are not helpless, they are the Second largest religious community in the US. The Muslims contributed immensely in building America with their oil and petro-dollars.

We have faith in American people that sooner than one thinks President Trump will have to listen to the American people or get himself rejected. His idea of ‘America First’ means isolating America from the world to make America first in one.

President Trump, perhaps, does not know that Muslim extremism has been created as a counter reaction to the brutalities of a section of the American armed forces. He is ignorant of the reality that side by side with the West, all Muslim countries have been fighting ISIS and other extremist Muslim groups. He does not know that more Muslims have been killed by the extremist groups than others.

But we find no words to applaud the actions of former Secretary Albright and other like her for opposing the blind hatred against the Muslims. In a climate of unrelenting fear and hatred, they represent the voices of reason and justice. We feel President Trump is a threat to America’s greatness.

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