Nineteenth-century Americans were on safe ground when they inscribed the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

A comparatively new country, the United States needed the destitute of Europe – the Irish, the Jews of Russia – to expand their nation. There was no question of referring to the Irish “poor” as “economic migrants” or to those Jews “yearning to breathe free” as “asylum seekers” or “political refugees” from the Tsar’s pogroms.

In the decades to come, however, the world assumed that the “huddled masses” could be returned in safety to their land of origin. Thus US and other “Christian” nations decided that survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide should go back to what had been their homes in “Western Armenia” (Ottoman Anatolia). And many hundreds of thousands of Armenians lingered on the edge of Turkey in the hope that the victors of the First World War would return them to lands no longer controlled by their Ottoman Turkish killers.

America’s Near East Relief was the first great humanitarian organisation of its kind, and the millions of dollars which it raised in the US saved the lives of countless Armenian refugees – especially orphans – scattered around the Arab world.

Now comes a deeply moving book by University of California human rights professor Keith Watenpaugh who has studied the history of humanitarianism in the Middle East from the files of the League of Nations, the UN’s poor old predecessor.

In the years after the 1914-18 war, the international community abandoned the Armenian “right of return”. Watenpaugh’s research takes in the work of the Aleppo Rescue Home, whose Danish director Karen Jeppe wrote in 1922 that “the Armenian is possessed of a wonderful gift ‘to create bread from stones’.” The quotation is based on Matthew 4: 3-4 and suggests that the Armenians have such resilience that they can perform miracles – and survive as a people.

Watenpaugh’s book, the author acknowledges, “was written at a time when the contemporary ‘Middle East’ descended into a humanitarian disaster that, in its degree of suffering and international indifference, resembles the one that occurred during and following the First World War.”

How right he is. Only of course, the world changed. The humanitarian Americans of the 19th century who welcomed the pogromed Jews of Russia were far less keen to give sanctuary to the Jewish victims of Hitler. Before the Second World War, like European nations, they turned them away. And after the Holocaust, they preferred that Jewish survivors should go to their “true” home in Palestine rather than settle in the US.

British power in Palestine collapsed and 750,000 Arab Palestinian refugees were created. Their existence today and that of their descendants remains a humanitarian scandal. But somewhere, the history of that “today” ended and another scandal began. In the break-up of the present-day Middle East to which Watenpaugh refers, Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria and Egypt – like those Armenians who headed for America and Europe in the 1920s – have generally been received by “Christian” countries. But most of the refugees today are Muslims fleeing Muslims and they are not receiving the same generosity.

Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Show all 33 1 /33 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Desperate for entry to the EU, the group of migrants risked being washed away by the sea at Ventimiglia rocks, June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Stranded migrants spend night on rocks - theywere supplied with emergency blankets after a cold night next to the sea, June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants climb in the back of a lorry on the A16 highway leading to the Eurotunnel in Calais, June 2015 Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A police officer sprays tear gas to migrants trying to access the Channel Tunnel on the A16 highway in Calais, northern France, June 2015 PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants jump out of a lorry after being discovered by French gendarmerie officers AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A migrant sits under the trailer of a lorry AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A Belgian navy sailor passes life vests to migrants sitting in a rubber boat as they approach the Belgian Navy Vessel Godetia, June 2015 AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants on the Belgian Navy vessel Godetia after they were saved during a search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, June 2015 AP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Iraqis wait as they are detained by Hungarian police after crossing the Hungarian-Serbian border illegally near the village of Asotthalom, Hungary, June 2015 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Syrian refugees walking on train tracks through Macedonia on the Western Balkans migration route, after entering Europe through Greece, June 2015 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A group of migrants huddle together during an operation to remove them from the Italian-French border in the Italian city of Ventimiglia. Italy and France engaged in a war of words as a standoff over hundreds of Africans offered a graphic illustration of Europe's migration crisis. Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano described images of migrants perched on rocks at the border town of Ventimiglia after being refused entry to France as a "punch in the face for Europe", June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A migrant is carried by Italian police in Ventimiglia, Italy. Police reportedly removed migrants from under a railway bridge, June 2015 EPA Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants queue after disembarking from the Royal Navy ship HMS 'Bulwark' upon their arrival in the port of Catania on the coast of Sicily, June 2015 GIOVANNI ISOLINO/AFP/Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A Syrian child holds a drawing as he waits to disembark from Belgian Navy vessel Godetia at the Augusta port, Italy. Around 250 migrants from Syria arrived at the Sicilian harbour from a Damascus refugee camp, June 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A dinghy overcrowded with Afghan immigrants arrived on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Afghan child migrant is helped off a rib on the gReek island of Kos, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Afghan migrant girl holds the hand of a woman as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Afghan migrants crossed part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Afghan migrants arrive on a beach of Kos, May 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Rescuers help children to disembark in the Sicilian harbor of Pozzallo, Italy in April 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A boat transporting migrants arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation at sea, April 2015 Getty Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Armed Forces of Malta personnel in protective clothing carry the body of a dead immigrant off Italian coastguard ship Bruno Gregoretti as surviving migrants watch in Senglea, in Valletta's Grand Harbour, April 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Rescued migrants talk to a member of the Malta Order after a fishing boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others retreived by the Italian Coast Guard vessel Bruno Gregoretti at Boiler Wharf, Senglea in Malta, April 2015 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A boat of would-be immigrants near the Italian island of Lampedusa. Most of those crossing the Mediterranean headed to Italy in December 2014 Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict The Sierra Leone-flagged Ezadeen vessel, carrying hundreds of migrants, is towed by the Icelandic Coast Guard vessel Tyr in rough seas in the Mediterranean sea off Italy's south coast in January 2015 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Hundreds of migrants seen on board the decks of the Moldovan-flagged Blue Sky M cargo ship - believed to be carrying 700 illegal immigrant altogether after it docked at the Italian port of Gallipoli in the early hours of 31 December 2014 EPA Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Hundreds of migrants seen on board Blue Sky M after it docked at the Italian port of Gallipoli in December 2014 Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict A crowded boat of rescued African migrants off the coast of Sicily in October 2014 AFP Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants of sub-Saharan origin being rescued last month as part of the Mare Nostrum operation in Italy in October 2014 EPA Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Italian Customs Police boat takes illegal immigrants on board off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy in September 2014. Some 40,000 migrants have died since the year 2000, more than half of them in the Mediterranean Getty Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Migrants are pictured on an Italian navy ship after being rescued in open international waters in the Mediterranean Sea between the Italian and the Libyan coasts in August 2014 Reuters Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict Firemen and policemen evacuate the dead bodies of migrants from a boat on July 1st, 2014 in the port of Pozzallo, Sicily GIOVANNI ISOLINO/AFP/Getty Images Migrants' desperate boat journeys to Europe Migrants fleeing conflict An Italian navy motor boat approaches a boat full of migrants making its way to Europe. The boat was carrying almost 600 people – but some 30 died during the journey in June 2014 AP

I’ve walked around their refugee camps in Lebanon, amid squalor and disease, and talked to mothers who have already lost their children. Last week, I watched them by the hundred streaming towards the Macedonian border with Greece, sweltering in the heat, beaten by border guards in their attempts to enter central Europe. They are tough, resilient, not unlike those Armenians who could “create bread from stones”.

The Americans provided “safe haven” for the Kurds of Iraq in 1991 – after the Kurds had risen against Saddam at America’s bidding. But there are no more safe havens; the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre this weekend is proof enough. And while we now save these people from the waters of the Mediterranean, we do not want them.

Why? Because they are Muslims and not Christians – or “Westerners” as we prefer to call ourselves today? I fear so.

The UN relief organisations, MSF, the Red Cross, Oxfam and the rest cannot hope to protect or resettle the new exodus from the crumbling Middle East. International humanitarianism cannot overcome national sovereignties. If Greece eventually collapses, what will we do with millions of Greek refugees on the edge of our shrunken “Europe”? Treat them with contempt as EU ministers were doing this weekend? Or allow them to dribble north into “our” lands because they are Christian and not Arab Muslims?

Alas, we now treat each refugee on the grounds of their race, religion or purpose of flight (“migration”). We do not treat them as human beings. And thus we betray all our religions and all our cultures.

I have met no one with an answer to this great moral dilemma of our times. But here is the joint statement of a US-sponsored conference in 1927 which acknowledged that international aid was administered with a pro-Christian and anti-Muslim bias after the earlier Middle East catastrophe: “People [in] the field would rather have less money and a statesman-like programme than large sums for objects that are not carefully thought out…”