The Islamic State wants you to hate refugees.

'As the Syrian refugee crisis mutated from a regional problem to a global one, security concerns have increasingly been cited as a justification for keeping borders closed and refusing to resettle migrants. This argument has gathered momentum in the wake of the attacks in Paris on Friday, after a Syrian passport with the name Ahmad al-Mohammad, a 25-year-old born in Idlib province, was found near the body of a suicide bomber. French authorities say fingerprints from the suicide bomber match those of someone who passed through Greece in early October.

If one of the Paris attackers really did make his way from the Middle East, through Greece, and into Western Europe, it will raise big questions on the continent about the tens of thousands of other refugees traveling along this route. In the United States, 13 governors had said as of mid-afternoon Monday that they will not allow Syrian refugees to be resettled in their states.

It is undeniable that the huge numbers of refugees and migrants reaching Europe do represent some kind of security threat — anything involving that many people arriving in such chaotic situations would. However, it is not only deeply unfair to paint all of those arriving with the same brush — it is also self-defeating.

All of the other suspects in the Paris attacks appear to have been European citizens. In fact, large numbers of citizens from France, Britain and other Western nations have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight, suggesting that the problem is not so much those coming from over there but those who are already here. Nor are these people necessarily the ones with familial links to the Islamic world: There have been a number of European converts to Islam who have traveled to join the Islamic State, and vast numbers of European Muslims have repeatedly condemned the actions of the Islamic State.

Perhaps one of the most persuasive arguments against equating refugees with terrorists is simple: It's exactly what the Islamic State wants.

The very same refugees entering Europe are often the very same civilians who face the indiscriminate violence and cruel injustice in lands controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (though, it should be noted, many in Syria are also threatened by the brutal actions of the Syrian government). Globally, studies have shown that Muslims tend to make up the largest proportion of terror victims, with countries such as Syria and Iraq registering the highest toll.' >>>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/16/the-islamic-state-wants-you-to-hate-refugees/