The Rohingyas are the new Palestinians, says Foreign Policy. Is that true for US Muslims?

A protest in Gaza on September 10 this year against Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims (Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Last week, I asked ‘Are the Rohingyas the New Palestinians?’ This week, Foreign Policy says they are. Definitively.

The piece, by Dr Craig Considine of the Sociology Department at Rice University, notes that the plight of the Rohingya is a rare moment of global unity for Muslim countries.

Dr Considine is writing a book titled “Muslims in America: Examining the Facts” and is presumably anxious to get a good measure of the community’s thoughts and feelings. As well as the reality of its actions. With respect to the Rohingya, American Muslims haven’t been particularly vociferous, which probably suggests they don’t feel emotionally involved and/or see little to be gained by inserting themselves into the debate.

That in itself indicates that if the Rohingyas are the new Palestinians, it’s a graduated status. They are the new Palestinians only up to a point.

Like the Palestinians, the Rohingyas’ plight – as the disinherited, the dispossessed and the damned – is heartrending and is increasingly seen as such by much of the world. But as with the Palestinians, the Rohingyas’ situation is not as easily addressed as the use of emotional adjectives.