The heart-wrenching scenes of Middle East refugees washing ashore on Europe’s southern coasts have people in the West clamoring to rescue them.

The scenes of dying and desperate refugees are similar to a stream of light filtering through a prism. At one end there is the seemingly simple beam of light; at the other end is a an array of complex colors.

What we see depends on what part of the total picture is in our view. If we confine our attention to the tragic pictures of dead children washing ashore on Europe’s beaches, it all looks like a simple problem calling for a simple moral solution.

But the refugees are a diverse group and are coming to Europe’s shores for vastly different reasons. Those fleeing the bombed out rubble of Aleppo are different from those fleeing the economic problems of Istanbul.

Some tens of thousands have come ashore on the Greek island of Lesbos where desperate people fighting for survival have produced poignant scenes. Yet, Greece is dealing with economic problems that each day challenge its political and economic viability.

At a rail station in Hungary, refugees, all young males, hurl obscenities at the police, who are providing them with food and bottled water. The refugees throw the food and water on the rail tracks.

Some, eager to draw a parallel with the Holocaust, refer to these as incidents as scenes out of Auschwitz, but then no one voluntarily went to Auschwitz. No freed survivors greeted their liberators with obscenities as repayment for their kindness.

Knowing full well that the Christians’ precarious situation precludes them from qualifying for refugee status, the Obama administration has not seen fit to do anything about it.

The refugees are a product of a civil war  initially designed to overthrow Syrian strongman Bashir al-Assad. No large-scale military operation exists without financial and other support. That support came from wealthy Gulf Arabs seeking to block Iran’s hegemonic expansion. Whether the Gulf states were active participants is an open question. Their loose banking regulations and a lack of interest in stopping this process provided acquiescence, if not tacit support, to what was in play.

So, what was the plan of those who supported the war for dealing with the inevitable refugee crisis? In terms of the military balance between the combatants, this was going to be a long and deadly war. Yet, those who supported the war, including the Obama administration, could only thinking of eliminating the Assad regime, not about the inevitable humanitarian crisis.

Who do you think would win the Presidency?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from LifeZette, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

The war could not easily be fought to victory by either side. As a consequence, Syrian refugees have been flooding neighboring countries just as did Iraqi and Afghanis before them. But the Gulf States, which indirectly if not directly, bear responsibility for the conflict, have not taken in Syrian refugees.

Hardest hit by the conflict are the forgotten refugees, Christians and Yazidis, who do not qualify for United Nations refugee status, for to acquire that in a formal way means being processed in a United Nations refugee camp. Christians and Yazidis fear these camps because the Muslims that control the camps do not want them there.

The great irony is that while Muslim refugees turn to the Christian West to rescue them, Christian refugees are being blocked by some Muslim refugees from being rescued.

Knowing full well that the Christians’ precarious situation precludes them from qualifying for refugee status, the Obama administration has not seen fit to do anything about it, not even meeting with representatives of the Christian refugees.

Christians are also being denied official refugee status because they are being persecuted by non-state actors, ISIS, and are not victims of government persecution.

Chaldean Christians who have managed to come into the United States across the Mexican border have been incarcerated in San Diego. Although some of these Christians have relatives who will vouch for them and communities that will support them, they have been welcomed right into the security of a jail cell, generating appropriate moral outrage in the Caldean-American and Christian communities.

According to Middle East expert Raymond Ibrahim, the same policy of incarceration has not been applied to Muslims. Moreover, the Christians are also being denied official refugee status because they are being persecuted by non-state actors, ISIS, and are not victims of government persecution.

When Christian and Muslim refugees are housed together in public housing as they have been in Sweden, the Christians are forced to move out because of Muslim harassment and intimidation.

Related: Unchristian Refugee Policies

The Judeo-Christian ethos of compassion should extend to all people, and we should not ignore Muslim refugees who are victims of the carnage in the Middle East. In the aftermath of World War II, we did not ignore the plight of German civilians who were caught in the crossfire of that war. Yet, it would have been absurd to put their needs ahead of those who were the victims of German aggression.

The West needs to stand up and say that it is proud of its culture and institutions.

Helping Muslim refugees does not have to mean resettling them in the West where many will bring with them a culture that is antithetical to both Western values and the Christian basis of Western Civilization.

Among the truly displaced, there will also be those with a nefarious agenda, who will not be vetted.

Compassion, like charity, begins at home. The idea that a large number of Muslims can be incorporated in a pluralistic society of shared values and mutual respect has failed in Europe, as the Dutch have most prominently noted.

The West needs to stand up and say that it is proud of its culture and institutions. Anyone who wants to share those values is welcome. Anyone who doesn’t can find numerous countries that embrace a different set of values.

America welcomes people of all faiths who yearn to become Americans.

Those whose sought to change the structure of the Middle East need to be first in line to absorb their brethren and provide for their economic and social well-being.

For the West, compassion must also mean compassion for one’s own and the obligation to preserve for the next generation the culture we value.

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a senior fellow with the Salomon Center for Jewish Thought.