Frau Merkel makes a Palestinian kid cry on national TV

[politicus]

Nobody in Europe takes more refugees than Germany (even per capita they are second only to Sweden) and there is a real pressure on local communities in many places.

The world desperately needs a coordinated solution to the refugee crisis, but taking care of refugees in developed countries costs a lot more than doing it in poor countries - so you get to help fewer people, it gives incentives to continued human trafficking (with all the nasties that entail) and it blocks repatriation later on - it is not necessarily the best option.

Staying "on top" by taking immigrants is not really a viable option in an ethnically defined nation states - at least only up to a point. Adjusting to a lower population (and maybe lower living standard) is preferable to a lot of people. It is a legitimate political choice about what kind of society you want and not an expression of evil or stupidity.

[politicus]

Transition to what?

Anyway, the issue of refugees ought to be decoupled from that of entirely voluntary immigration (which is always going to be contentious as an issue; like it or not). Or at least it's not politically clever for people who favour better treatment of refugees to fail to do so.

It's only "politically clever" to decouple the issues if you support better treatment of refugees but heavily-restricted voluntary immigration, which is a position that not many people actually take.  Ultimately, people's opinions on those issues tend to be strongly correlated for entirely obvious reasons, and as far as I'm concerned the best way to actually win better treatment for refugees is to advocate for an open rather than closed society more generally, a society that will - not coincidentally - be more welcoming of voluntary immigration as well.

At least in Europe and East Asia that is a losing strategy.

[politicus]

What exactly is Merkel supposed to do here?

I'm not exactly a fan of the current government, but the recent reactions to anything Merkel, Schäuble and co. do have really made me realize how reasonable they are.

A large percentage of the forum has reacted with disgust to the crude stereotyping of Greeks (reasonably), but then decided to indulge in crude stereotyping of Germans. Anti-German sentiment is really at toxic levels around here.

Zionist scum.

What does this comment mean?

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=215622.0

[politicus]

So perfectly fitting for the xenophobic right's narrative. What an idiot.

She is a teen - not a politicans. And her views are pretty standard among Palestinians.