In a speech laying out her plan to fight terrorism, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton bashed the recent calls to block Syrian refugees after Friday’s Paris attack
Clinton kicked off the Thursday speech, given at New York’s Council on Foreign Relations, by implicitly criticizing the anti-refugee hysteria that has overcome American politics since 129 people were killed by Islamic extremists.
“After a major terrorist attack, every society faces a choice between fear and resolve,” Clinton said. “The world’s great democracies can’t sacrifice our values or turn our backs on those in need. Therefore, we must chose resolve and we must lead the world to meet this threat.”
The line also served as a contrast to a remark that brought scrutiny to Clinton during Saturday’s debate, that the war against the Islamic State “cannot be an American fight.”
Clinton went on to lay out her detailed platform to address the rise of terrorism in the Middle East, before returning to the backlash against Syrian refugees and Muslims in general since the attack.
“Muslim Americans are working every day on the front lines in the fight against radicalization,” she said.
She argued that “slamming the door on every Syrian refugee, that is just not who we are. We are better than that.”
“It would be a cruel irony indeed if ISIS can force families from their homes and also prevent them from finding new ones,” she said.
“This is not a time for scoring political points,” she added.
