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The Regional Storm Hits Israel

November 5, 2015

The Regional Storm Hits Israel, Israel Defense, Amir Rapaport, November 5, 2015

bomb in SyriaAn aerial view of a bomb explosion in Syria (Photo: AP/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)

1. High Tide/Low Tide. When the “Second Intifada” broke out in October 2000, IDF used to refer to the riots and terrorist attacks in the Judea and Samaria area, as well is inside the territory of the State of Israel as “High Tide/Low Tide”, as each wave of riots was followed by a period of relative quiet, and then a new trigger emerged, leading to a wave of renewed violence, and so on.

Eventually, the “High Tide/Low Tide” incidents assumed a pattern of a murderous terrorist offensive, which took the lives of more than a thousand Israelis through suicide attacks, until the Intifada finally subsided in 2004.

The wave of riots and terrorist attacks that erupted about 15 years later, in the fall of 2015, appears to be connected, in some way or another, to the state of instability that characterizes many areas throughout the Middle East. For the last few years, the lion’s share of the fighting takes place in Syria, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions more became refugees.

The major question that arose within the Israeli defense establishment in the fall of 2015 was whether this latest wave of terrorist attacks marks the outset of a “Third Intifada”. Although outwardly the Israeli interest is to announce “This is not a new Intifada,” in effect, there is talk about a “new situation” and no one knows how it will evolve.

Analyses performed within the defense establishment point to a number of reasons that suggest that this is a significant wave of terrorism which could turn out to be prolonged, as well as to reasons that justify the claim “This is not a new Intifada”.

One of the reasons that this wave of attacks is serious and could be prolonged is the religious motive: the Israeli media does not speak about it too often, but the Arab world is raging around rumors or reports that Israel actually intends to change the status quo on Temple Mount.

Even when one attempts to fish only “comfortable” data out of the statistics of the latest terrorist attacks, it is impossible to ignore the increase, by tens of percent, in the number of violent incidents throughout the Judea and Samaria area as well as within the “Green Line” during the last few weeks.

On the other hand, one significant difference between October 2015 and “Black October” (following the outbreak of the Second Intifada 15 years ago), is that the Israeli security forces are currently operating freely throughout the Judea and Samaria area. Consequently, entering the hospital in Nablus did not call for tactical support by tanks and aircraft. During the Second Intifada, on the other hand, it took the IDF and ISA quite a long time before they succeeded in regaining control over the centers of the Palestinian cities, pursuant to Operation Defensive Shield, and even then, the control achieved was only partial.

The recent events erupted despite the fact that IDF and ISA operate continuously against terrorist detachments. In each of the last few years, 2,000-3,000 Palestinian inhabitants were arrested. 80% of them were sentenced by the courts to prison terms of several months minimum.

It is still difficult to predict how the events will evolve over the next few months, but in any case, it seems that we have “a new security situation” on our hands.

2. Vladimir Putin. Many people regard the regional instability as the direct result of the American strategy of minimizing US involvement in the region, due to separatism processes and shifting the focus of world attention to Eastern Asia and the Pacific region (among other things, owing to the reduced dependence on Arab oil).

The party that stepped very effectively into the vacuum left by the USA was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who currently positions himself as the regional “Sheriff”.

No one can overestimate the importance of the moves made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who deployed military forces to Syria this fall and continues to position himself as the strong man of the Middle East who never abandons his allies, while the USA has “transmitted” that her allies cannot rely on US support (as the USA had abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011).

This fall, the Russians deployed to Syria fighter aircraft that attack targets of the rebels opposing the military of President Bashar al-Assad. These moves were carefully coordinated with Iran, which, for her part, deployed hundreds of troopers (who are currently helping Hezbollah withdraw some of its forces back to Lebanon).

The Russian-Iranian move may have been intended to exert pressure on Saudi Arabia that supports the rebels, as well as to raise the price of oil, which is important to the economies of both countries.

Complicated? Even if there is no connection between the moves in Syria and the energy market, there is a definite connection between the fighting in Syria and the war raging in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. A solution in Syria may project on the war over there, as in both regions Iran and Saudi Arabia support opposing sides, with the conflict between the Shi’ite and Sunni factions of Islam as the backdrop.

Behind the scenes of the latest developments in Syria there has always been a Russian plan to bring about the end of the civil war in Syria by dividing it into areas of influence, with about 30% of the territory, in the Tartus and Lattakia area, remaining under control of the Alawite community of the current President, Bashar al-Assad.

Russia is interested in the sea ports in this area, and much less in maintaining Assad in control over a part of the disintegrated country. The Russians will not yield to the American demand to remove Assad from power until they have guaranteed their important interests. The party expected to pay the price is Israel, which may find itself, within a few months, facing a de-facto Iranian and Hezbollah domination on the other side of the border with Syria on the Golan Heights.

This situation could evolve despite the fact that Israel and Russia coordinate some of their respective moves, as indicated by the trip made by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s to Moscow last September, accompanied by the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, and Head of the IDF Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Hertzi Halevi, during which they met with “Sheriff” Putin.

3. Meanwhile, in the South. The good news come from the south, where Egypt under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is determined to defeat the forces of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State that operate throughout the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt, Israel and the USA cooperate closely in the context of this effort, owing to their shared interests.

El-Sisi regards Hamas in the Gaza Strip as an enemy, owing to the cooperation between Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is engaged in an on-going conflict with his regime.

Hamas itself is under tremendous pressure from different directions: from Egypt, which cuts off the underground tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip with the Egyptian territory, as well as from al-Qaeda and elements identifying with the Islamic State, who urge the leaders of Hamas to renew the fighting against Israel and occasionally even launch a rocket into Israeli territory in order to motivate Israel (which regards Hamas as the party responsible for such launches) to attack Hamas.

The reality that emerged in the Gaza Strip is yet another example of the complexity in our region. Iran, encouraged by the signing of the nuclear agreement with the superpowers, has renewed its support for Hamas, both financially and militarily (despite the fact that Hamas identifies with the rebels fighting against Bashar al-Assad in Syria and in Iran itself).

The positive bottom line is that Hamas, owing to its own considerations, does its best to maintain the ceasefire agreement reached with Israel following Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. That state of affairs remained in effect until the fall of 2015 but reality, as everyone knows only too well, is highly dynamic.

4. A Small Military. One of the most significant moves expected within IDF in November is the endorsement of the long-term plan for the coming five-year period, and the conversion thereof into an effective order for execution.

“Gideon” is the name of the new multi-year plan led by IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot. The plan is intended to rely on the long-term budget allocated to the IDF according to the recommendations of the Locker Committee, and will come into effect in 2016, after five years during which IDF have operated without a long-term plan, as the previous plan had ended as far back as during the tenure of Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi as Chief of Staff. The Gideon plan is intended to convert the IDF into a technological, cyber-based military organization, possessing fast maneuvering elements equipped with accurate, lethal weapons and enhanced sea and air branches. Above everything else, the most substantial investment will be made in intelligence.

The greatest concern among quite a few elements within the defense establishment pertains to the size of the military, as the new plan calls for the demobilization of quite a few units. One of the principles of Israel’s national security concept since the days of David Ben-Gurion is the need to maintain a strong, substantial military force, based on hundreds of thousands of reservists. The principle is still valid, but in effect, the emphasis is placed on intelligence, air power and commando operations. The substantial ground army, along with its massive tank OrBat, is reduced dramatically – which is inconsistent with the aforesaid principle.

5. Defense Exports. Nearing the end of 2015, the Israel Ministry of Defense and the Israeli defense industries embarked upon a massive sales effort. Between October and December, they will take part in not less than five major defense exhibitions in the USA, South Korea, Japan, Colombia and Thailand.

Even if that effort proves successful, the statistics for 2015 will indicate that Israeli defense exports still follow the downward trend that began in 2014. At best, the defense exports for 2015 will amount to US$ 5 billion, as opposed to US$ 7 billion in 2013.

The main reason for this decrease is the end of the global campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Several major deals that are still on the agenda, mainly in India, can still change the picture before the end of 2015 and lead to a positive trend in terms of the scope of exports. In any case, the contribution made by the defense exports, which amounts to billions of dollars, to the Israeli economy and to the Israeli security resilience is immense. The massive proceeds enable the Israeli defense industries to continue to invest funds in research in order to develop products at the cutting edge of technology.

Categories: Defense of Israel, IAF, IDF, Intifada, Iran, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Putin, Russia - Israel, Russia - Syrian war, Sisi
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Cartoon of the day

November 5, 2015

H/t Dry Bones Blog

 

D15B04_2

Categories: Europe, Humor, Islamic invasion
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Iran attacks, cyber edition, Power Line

November 5, 2015

Iran attacks, cyber edition, Power Line, Scott Johnson, November 5, 2015

Jay Solomon reports in today’s Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Detects Flurry of Iranian Hacking” (accessible via Google here). The Israel Project’s Omri Ceren takes note and comments in an email message (with the usual footnotes!) that I thought readers would find of interest:

The WSJ revealed last night that there has been a “surge” in Iranian cyber attacks against U.S. officials, journalists, and activists who work on Iran. At least some of the attacks have been successful.

The attacks were launched using the laptop of American-Iranian businessman Siamak Namazi, who was arrested and imprisoned in mid-October. It appears the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized Namazi’s computer, made him log into Outlook or Gmail or whatever program he uses, and then sent malware-infected emails to people in his contact list, who then opened up those emails. The Journal had previously published hints of the story: last week the outlet reported “Iranian intelligence agents ransacked [Namazi’s] family home in Tehran and confiscated his computer, and have since been launching cyber attacks on some of his email contacts” [a]. Journalist Robin Wright subsequently revealed she and State Department officials were among those targeted from the confiscated computer [b]. This new Journal story reveals that the cyber-offensive is widespread and that “Obama administration personnel… have had their computer systems hacked.”

The full article…runs almost 1,500 words. Background on some of the angles:

U.S. politics (sanctions) — “Lawmakers have called for the White House to ramp up sanctions on the IRGC… ‘Iran’s threatening behavior will worsen if the administration does not work with Congress to enact stronger measures to push back, including… targeted pressure against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard,’ Sen. Mark Kirk… said Friday” — Lawmakers are talking about a policy menu that has three tiers of potential targets: (1) Just the IRGC personnel involved in Namazi’s arrest, e.g. by having the Treasury Dept. tag them as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) (2) the entire IRGC, e.g. by having the State Dept. designate the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) [c] (3) Iran’s non-nuclear infrastructure (ballistic missile development, human rights violations, terror promotion, regional expansionism, etc), e.g. by supporting Congress in renewing the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) of 1996.

Middle East geopolitics (U.S.-Iran entente) — “President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have voiced hopes that the Iran nuclear agreement reached in July could spur greater cooperation between Washington and Tehran on regional issues… Iran for the first time took part in international talks aimed at ending the multisided war in Syria” — Foreign Policy revealed last night that Obama personally intervened with the Saudis to allow Iran to take part in those talks [d]. The Associated Press had already assessed over the summer that “coziness” between the Iranians and Obama administration officials was “the new normal” [e]. The Iranian cyber-offensive – plus the arrest of Namazi, plus Iran’s arrest last month of U.S. resident Nizar Zakka, plus the new joint Iranian-Russian military offensive in Syria, plus Iran’s recent launch of a ballistic missile in violation of UNSC resolution 1929, plus this week’s widespread Death to America celebrations throughout Iran [f] – risks making the administration look naive.

U.S. National security (cyber) — “The IRGC has used cyberwarfare against other Iranian-Americans and people tied to them detained in recent years… Computer experts have noted that by hacking a target’s contacts… the number of people associated with that target can grow exponentially” — The Iranians have been spear phishing US government targets for years. In May 2014 a computer security firm revealed the existence of a three year Iranian cyber-campaign – the “most elaborate social-engineering campaign” the researchers had ever seen – targeting U.S. military officials, Congressional staffers, diplomats, lobbyists, journalists, and so on [g]. Last spring the American Enterprise Institute published a report assessing that the then-impending nuclear deal would “dramatically increase the resources Iran can put toward expanding its cyber attack infrastructure” [h].

The WSJ story will get wrapped into the broader debate about the wisdom of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). When the article went live last night Reuters took it to the White House for a response, and got a “no comment” on background [i]. As today rolls along, administration spokespeople will shift more explicitly to the usual line about Iranian aggression: they’ll say that of course they have concerns about Iranian behavior, but the nuclear deal was never premised on Iranian moderation, and they’ll add that they can still respond to Iran with options in theory. They’ll refuse to identify any specific pushback they intend to implement in practice.

That move has been a staple of administration messaging for months, but may not satisfy journalists or lawmakers in the aftermath of the Namazi arrest and cyber attacks. The policy menu outlined by the Kirk letter provides a range of options – SDNs, FTO, ISA – and should allow the White House to work with Congress on a calibrated pushback. At the bottom level it suggests sanctions against the specific IRGC officials in the specific intelligence unit who seized Namazi and used his laptop to hack American officials. Imposing sanctions at that individual level is quite literally the least the White House can do in response.

[a] http://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-american-executive-arrested-in-iran-1446164677
[b] http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-hostage-in-iran-again
[c] http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/257399-time-to-designate-irans-revolutionary-guards-as-terror-group
[d] http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/04/syria-crisis-tests-newfound-detente-between-washington-and-tehran/
[e] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dd9010d400be449d88076da5aa85b05e/once-unheard-us-iran-exchanges-becoming-new-normal
[f] http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:a55c0f82739f4ee7902e1dd2fd1cb7c9
[g] http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/05/iranian-hackers-target-us-military-officials-elaborate-social-media-scam/85417/
[h] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/16/report-iranian-hackers-eye-u-s-grid.html
[i] http://www.businessinsider.com/r-iranian-military-hackers-focus-on-us-administration-officials-wsj-2015-11

Categories: Iran - cyber attacks on U.S., Iran - sanctions, Iran scam, Obama and Iran, Obama's America
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“We Did What We Learned: Attacking Christians”

November 5, 2015

“We Did What We Learned: Attacking Christians,” The Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, November 5, 2015

(Please see also, ‘Islamophobia’ in America vs. murderous Christophobia in the Islamic world. — DM)

  • Western “mainstream media” and academia continued to exonerate Islam in deceptive op-eds, such as the Huffington Post’s “ISIS Violates The Consensus Of Mainstream Islam By Persecuting Christians,” by Qasim Rashid, a recipient of Saudi largesse, by way of Harvard University’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center.
  • A 12-year-old girl, raped by an Islamic State fighter, was told that “what he was about to do was not a sin” because she “practiced a religion other than Islam.”
  • “In school I only learned about Islam. Parts of our teaching were about destroying Christianity. So we did what we learned, by attacking Christians … Our teachers would tell us every time there was a new church in town and we were told to go and attack the people and destroy the church. So that is what we did.” — Tofik, a former Muslim cleric who converted to Christianity.

Throughout the month of August, the Obama administration and the so-called mainstream media kept insisting that Islam does not promote the persecution of Christians — all the while ignoring the direct testimonies of those who have undergone it.

According to Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda,

All the statements [by U.S. government and media] have not condemned strongly what damage it [persecution of Christians] is doing. What they are saying is just “This is not the true Islam. This is violating the picture of Islam.” The issue for them is the image of Islam, but none of these statements speak about the victims, about what has been done to the victims, they are not even mentioned. And that is one of the questions our people have. [Author’s emphasis].

Warda added that persecuted Christians are “being denied visas, while others who have participated [in the violence] or at least were silent, can go.”

Father Douglas al-Bazi, an Iraqi Catholic parish priest from Erbil, who still carries the torture scars he received nine years earlier at the hands of jihadis, denounced the Western refusal to accept reality about Islam:

I’m proud to be an Iraqi, I love my country. But my [Muslim] country is not proud that I’m part of it. What is happening to my people [Christians] is nothing other than genocide. I beg you: do not call it a conflict. It’s genocide… When Islam lives amidst you, the situation might appear acceptable. But when one lives amidst Muslims [as a minority], everything becomes impossible…. Wake up! The cancer is at your door. They will destroy you. We, the Christians of the Middle East are the only group that has seen the face of evil: Islam.

Meanwhile, Western “mainstream media” and academia continued to exonerate Islam in deceptive op-eds, such as the Huffington Post’s “ISIS Violates The Consensus Of Mainstream Islam By Persecuting Christians,” by Qasim Rashid, a recipient of Saudi largesse, by way of Harvard University’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center.

The rest of August’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts:

Islamic State: Savagery and Sex Slavery

Mokhls Youssef Batk, an Iraqi Christian, was blinded by the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) after he refused to convert to Islam.

The “caliphate” threatened that captive Christian women would become sex slaves unless they were ransomed with money. It posted images of three Assyrian Christian women who were previously abducted. The women hold pieces of paper on which their names and a date — July 27, 2015 — are written: “It is feared they will be sold to ISIS fighters if a ransom is not paid for them.”

A 12-year-old girl, raped by an Islamic State fighter, was told that “what he was about to do was not a sin” because she “practiced a religion other than Islam.” IS also made clear in a 34-page manual released by its Research and Fatwa Department that “sex with Christian and Jewish women who were captured in battle is also permissible.”

Jihad on Muslim Converts to Christianity

Uganda: After he learned that his family had converted to Christianity, a Muslim man went berserk. Issa Kasoono beat, strangled, and left his wife for dead. He also severely beat their two teenage sons for the crime of apostasy. The youngest son managed to flee and bring help from the church where, three months earlier, the Muslim mother and sons had accepted Christ. Due to injuries from the strangling, Kadondi, the mother, lost her voice, has difficulty eating, and requires extensive surgery. According to a local source: “The mother and Ibrahim [older son] Kasoono were seriously injured. Ibrahim was hit with a blunt object, had his right arm broken and has stomach pains, while the mother was strangled and sustained neck and throat injuries.” Although Uganda’s population is 85% Christian and 11% Muslim, attacks on converts to Christianity are on the rise, and include the recent murder by poisoning of a mother, and the gang rape of a teenage daughter of a Christian pastor.

Somalia: A Muslim convert to Christianity (name withheld) managed to escape from Al Shabaab — the dominant Islamic front — but only after the jihadis chopped off four fingers from his right hand while interrogating him about his conversion. Another man, 31-year-old Sharif, fled his home after his conversion to Christianity was exposed: “My association with a visiting white missionary landed me in trouble… I feel sad because I cannot see my family, because if I return back to Somaliland, then the government will arrest me.” His wife and four children — aged 8, 6, 4, and 1 — have also relocated to an undisclosed town: “I am not sure what will happen to my wife and four children. I am praying that God will provide for their basic needs. Pray for me that one day I will see them.”

Pakistan: Khurram Naveed, 33, a Christian man, and Sobia, 25, a Muslim woman, are on the run. Sobia discovered Christianity through Khurram and decided to be baptized. Since they got married and had two daughters, her parents, Muslim neighbors, and imams have repeatedly tried to convert them to Islam or face the consequences. In the words of Khurram:

“Since we got married we have had to change places many times… Wherever we go, people ask about my beloved wife’s conversion. Sometimes, imams try to force us to convert to Islam, issuing terrible threats…. My wife, I and our children have had to flee from place to place. We feel threatened as soon as people find out about my wife’s Muslim past. However, running from one place to another is not easy. There are so many problems…. Until now I have to change job six times, and finding new employment is not easy. But we need security for our life and we ask for help from the people of God.

Horn of Africa: A former Muslim cleric, who converted to Christianity and is known as Tofik, explained in an interview what Islamic preachers teach about Christians in mosques and what such converts can expect. For the previous 24 years, he had trained to become an imam at an Islamic madrasa: “In school I only learned about Islam. Parts of our teaching were about destroying Christianity. So we did what we learned, by attacking Christians once we finished our training.”

Tofik said he was taught that Christians are evil and that he and other students should steal from and kill them: “We beat them, attacked the church and burnt their Bibles. … Our teachers would tell us every time there was a new church in town and we were told to go and attack the people and destroy the church. So that is what we did.” Due to a series of dreams, he eventually embraced Christ. News of his apostasy spread quickly, especially among his own tribe:

They reacted by coming to my home saying, ‘This brother is dead.’ In our culture, when someone dies their property is shared. So they destroyed my house, setting it on fire, and they took my cattle, and the remainder of my property. They then falsely accused me of burning another house, so I was jailed and taken to court. It was only in the court process that the witnesses proved their dishonesty by having contradicting testimonies.

After being released from jail, Tofik continued preaching Christ and even inspired more than 200 people to convert:

“As a result local villagers were upset. So again, they attacked me physically and burned my house…. The attackers assumed I was dead, so they threw me into the compound. Then they looted the small kiosk I owned and proceeded to loot and burn my children’s properties. They said they have killed the lead figure and now our area is free of his activities. They started shouting and singing.”

Jihad on Christian “Blasphemers”

Egypt: Medhat Ishak, a 35-year-old Christian, was arrested for handing out Bibles to Muslims outside El-Arab Mall in Sixth of October City. Mall security guards turned him over to national police, who accused him of evangelizing. The day after his arrest, a judge amended the charge against Ishak to “defamation of a revealed religion” and ordered him held for 15 days. After his term ended, the judge extended his detention for another 15 days. Ishak’s attorney, Rafik Rafaat, suspects the judge will keep extending the detention order, in violation of Egyptian law, until the case falls out of the public eye. Then he will hand Ishak a prison sentence of one to five years, in accordance with the defamation charge. This is because there are currently no charges against “evangelism” under Egyptian law. Handing out Bibles or even promoting Christianity does not constitute “defaming” Islam. “The word ‘blasphemy’ means that he was insulting the other religion [Islam], but he didn’t do that, and he didn’t talk about Islam or prophets or anything like that to be accused of blasphemy,” said the Christian’s lawyer. “So, now we are surprised that the attorney general accused him of blasphemy when he did not commit any act of blasphemy.”

Pakistan: Protestant Christian Pastor Aftab Gill and three other Christians from Gujrat were accused of blasphemy for having used the word rasool (“messenger” or “apostle”) during an event made public by their community, the Biblical Church of God. Local Muslims grew angry, saying that, as rasool is one of the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s attributes, Christian use of the word is blasphemous. But Christian activists say that because the word simply means apostle and appears in Urdu Bibles as such, it was used in that generic sense, and that the Christians were not trying to blaspheme. Muslims were nevertheless about to burn Christian homes and a church, but police managed to restore calm before the situation escalated. Unitan Gill, Pastor Aftab’s younger brother, said that local Muslim businessmen are jealous of the Christian family’s success in running a local grocery store, and that it was Muslim grocers who brought this matter to the attention of the police.

Islamic State Destruction of Syrian Churches

The Islamic State “caliphate” released a video showing its militants razing the ancient Mar Elian monastery to the ground. In the video, the jihadis can be seen removing the remains of Saint Elian, after whom the monastery was named, from their ancient stone sarcophagus, and then gleefully desecrating his bones. The church was built on the spot where Saint Elian was killed by his father, a Roman officer, for refusing to renounce Christ. Earlier, IS abducted an estimated 250 Christians from the monastery and its surrounding villages, many of whom were women and children.

1330Islamic State jihadists in the midst of destroying the ancient Mar Elian monastery in Syria.

On Sunday, August 23, a rain of mortars fell on a Damascus neighborhood. Two shells hit the roof of the Maronite church. Nine people were killed and about fifty were wounded. A nearby Catholic parish was also damaged. According to Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar, “Part of the war in Syria is to live under indiscriminate bombing, a kind of Russian roulette which is always unpredictable.” Survivors tell the archbishop that those who die are better off, because they “will not have to see and live this cruel tragedy without end.”

Pakistani Dhimmitude

The Christian minorities of the “Land of the Pure” continued to be treated as third class, unwanted “citizens.”

Muslims attacked and severely beat a Christian family after a Muslim boy mocked a Christian boy by saying that his pregnant sister-in-law will “give birth as their cows and buffalos do.” The Christian boy reciprocated with an insult, and the Muslim boy began to beat him. Later in the evening, the Muslim boy and his brothers went to the Christians’ household and attacked the entire family. While beating the pregnant Christian women, they yelled, “You cannot be pregnant without permission of Muslim master who pays you.” After visiting the family, a human rights group stated that the “Christian Community is facing all sorts of discrimination and disgrace from their land Lords, neighbors, or where ever they live or work. Christians have no right to respect, education, free living and now they are under observation/mockery of giving birth, now our majority brothers [Muslims] will decide whether the Christian women will give birth respectfully or like animals.”

As torrential flooding spanned across various regions of Pakistan and washed away thousands of homes, Christians in Kasur received little humanitarian aid and were left to starve. Their two options — to receive help from Muslims or the government — was either to convert to Islam or willingly accept becoming modern-day slaves. According to Wilson Chowdhry, the president of the British Pakistani Christian Association, while Muslims in the region have benefited from temporary shelter, clean water and food provided by governmental agencies and Muslim charities, Christians have been left without those bare necessities and medication needed to fight illnesses. Said Chowdhry:

We are aware that this community has previously been offered aid from Muslim charities if they convert but they never accept conversion. They hold strong to their faith. They believe God will be their provider. These families have literally been struggling without food. Churches have opened up their doors but can’t provide them much aid because the churches themselves in the region are struggling. We are talking about a very rural part of Pakistan.

Chowdhry added that as desperation started to get the best of the Christian population in Kasur, many ended up signing bonded labor contracts in order to receive aid from Muslim landlords.

In a separate incident, a few days after a Christian man stopped two Muslim brothers from harassing Christian girls on their way to church, the two brothers broke into the Christian’s home, and beat and shot him. The man was later taken to a hospital, where he was reported in critical condition.

Boko Haram’s Slaughter of Christians

Jihadists from the Islamic organization Boko Haram slit the throats of sixteen Christian fishermen on the shores of Lake Chad in the Nigerian state of Borno. The increase in such incidents is supposedly in retaliation for the Chadian government’s efforts against Boko Haram around Lake Chad. According to Bishop Ramolo, “The Chadian President Idriss Deby has declared open war against the Islamists, and these acts represent an attempt at revenge.”

A Christian leader, stabbed in April by rampaging young Muslims in Kaduna state, suffered a relapse after an initial recovery. Pastor Emmanuel Danjuma of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, while visiting a Muslim-majority region of Nigeria, was attacked by Muslims reportedly angry about election results. “They called me an infidel and attacked me.” The pastor was clubbed and stabbed several times. A village elder apparently ordered the youths to stop. “I don’t know what happened then, as next I found myself in a hospital in Saminaka town. After a few days, my situation deteriorated and I was transferred to this Christian hospital.”

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some — by no means all — of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.

Categories: Christianity, Christians, Foreign policy, Islamic culture, Islamic nations, Islamic perversions, Islamic slaughter, Islamic war on Christians, Obama and Christianity, Obama and Islam, Obama and morality
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Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships

November 5, 2015

Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 5, 2015

(Please see also, US senior commander says US will not provide arms ‘as of now’ to YPG units. And why isn’t Iran on the list?  — DM)

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Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships are the opposite of everything that America stands for. They are places where human rights are a myth and terrorism a virtue. They are everything that we should reject. But instead their tyrants and terrorists are the good friends of their man in the White House.

**************************

Michelle Obama is heading to Qatar, a state sponsor of just about every Islamic terrorist group you can name, on a mission of “gender parity” accompanied by late night comedian Conan O’Brien.

That makes sense since the idea of equal rights for women in Qatar is a joke.

Qatar charges rape victims with adultery, has no law against domestic violence and women need permission from their male guardian to get an education, a driver’s license, a job or to leave the country.

Women aren’t equal in Qatar. They’re property.

But Qatar is one of Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships. Secretary of State John Kerry recently launched an economic dialogue with Qatar. Qatar got a free pass to smuggle weapons past the NATO blockade of Libya even though the administration knew the weapons were going to terrorists.

While Qatar was buying weapons from Sudan, a country whose leader is wanted for crimes against humanity, to pass along to Islamic terrorists in Syria, the State Department was clearing Qatar to buy American weapons. Qatar was, of course, a Clinton Foundation donor.

The Reagan administration had cracked down on Qatar for illegally getting its hands on Stinger missiles. The first Bush administration had forced Qatar to destroy them. But these days we are the arms dealer for a nasty tyranny that has ties to terrorists. Or as the State Department report politely stated, “U.S officials are aware of the presence of Hamas leaders, Taliban members, and designated Al Qaeda and Islamic State financiers in Qatar.” These nice folks share a country with U.S. Central Command.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda bigwig who planned 9/11, was tipped off by a member of the Qatari royal family and the former Minister of the Interior which allowed him to escape.

That made it the perfect place to host the “moderate” Taliban for negotiations that went nowhere. It was also where Obama sent the 5 Taliban commanders after their release.

When meeting with the Emir, Obama claimed that “Qatar is a strong partner in our coalition to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.” But Qatar has allegedly funded and armed ISIS and other Al Qaeda groups. Islamic State financiers and supporters comfortably move around Qatar flying their ISIS freak flag.

Vice President Biden and Germany’s Development Aid Minister Gerd Mueller were forced to apologize for accusing Qatar of financing terrorists because some truths about our “ally” simply could not be spoken. Meanwhile an Egyptian intelligence document reportedly claimed that Qatar had provided anti-aircraft missiles to ISIS.

But Qatar is only Obama’s second favorite Muslim dictatorship and state sponsor of terror. Topping the list is Turkey, which just underwent another ugly Islamist election defined by accusations of fraud.

Obama had spoken of building a “model partnership” with Turkey between “a predominantly Christian nation and a predominantly Muslim nation”.  The United States, Obama said, is not “a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation”. He suggested that “modern Turkey was founded with a similar set of principles.” But the Turkish Republic has long since been ground under the wheels of Erdogan’s Islamist Turkey whose model is the Ottoman Empire and whose ruler lives in a billion dollar palace.

A little insight into Erdogan’s view of Islam can be gained from the fact that Turkey’s tyrant was once sent to prison for reciting an Islamic poem with the infamous lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the minarets our bayonets, the domes our helmets and the believers our soldiers.” It’s not surprising that Erdogan’s Turkey supports most of the same Islamic terrorist groups as Qatar including Hamas.

While Turkey still has elections, it is increasingly an Islamist one-party state where the political opposition, journalists, prosecutors and even police can be locked up by the forces of the regime.

And much of that controversy stems from a criminal investigation into arms smuggling to terrorists.

Having helped create the mess in Syria, Turkey has become a waypoint for Syrian Muslims invading Europe. Once shunned by Germany, whose Turkish Muslim settlers are his strongest base of support, the refugee crisis sent Merkel and the Europeans with hat in hand to beg Erdogan to stop the invasion.

But Obama has always been Erdogan’s faithful friend. When the Islamist wanted to build mosques in this part of the world, Communist Cuba turned him down, but he got his $100 million mega mosque in Maryland.  Millions calls Erdogan another Hitler, but Obama calls him “my friend.”

Another friend of Obama is the Sultan of Brunei. Obama called the Sultan, “My good friend” and rolled out a $6 billion green energy financing scheme for Brunei and Indonesia; two Muslim countries that violate human rights like it’s a spectator sport.

While Obama was palling around with the Sultan of Brunei, his “good friend” was bringing back Sharia law complete with stoning gays. The Sultan also banned Christmas and the Chinese New Year while urging “all races” to unite under Islamic law.

African Christian countries that outlawed homosexuality had faced pressure and criticism from the White House, but Obama had no lectures on human rights to offer his good Islamist friend.

Neither did Hillary Clinton whose Clinton Foundation had received millions of dollars from the regime.

But the most explosive allegations about Brunei, like those about Qatar and Turkey, involve Al Qaeda. In one of the more controversial uses of the “super-injunction” in UK law, the ex-wife of the Sultan had filed a gag order against a British businessman involving allegations that the Sultan of Brunei had met with a senior member of Al Qaeda, funded the terror group and even that “the claimant knew or suspected from conversations with her ex–husband that there would be major terrorist attacks on the UK (7/7) and Israel.” There is of course no way to verify the truth of these allegations. But the Islamization of Brunei parallels the goals of groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Obama has many “good friends” among the tyrants and terrorists of the Muslim world. But one of them is both a tyrant and a terrorist whose illegal regime is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers.

Muslim terrorists in Israel stabbed an 80-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man just this week. They did it because the PLO’s media operation, under President Abbas, told them it was their way to paradise.

Or as Abbas, the dictator whom Obama described as “someone who has consistently renounced violence”, said, “We bless every drop of blood, that has been spilled for Jerusalem…blood spilled for Allah…Every Martyr will reach Paradise.”

The blood includes the blood of elderly women and children, and the blood of families murdered together. Every murder is funded by US foreign aid because every terrorist knows that he can count on a lifetime salary from the PLO. The PLO paid out $144 million to terrorists last year alone.

Some terrorists have even confessed that they tried to kill Israelis to be able to pay off their debts.

Hillary Clinton and the State Department were sued by terror victims for funding terrorism in Israel. But nothing has changed. And when American terror victims won a lawsuit against the PLO in America, Obama’s people stepped in to protect the interests of the PLO against its victims.

The PLO is funded by hundreds of millions in American foreign aid. Over the years, $4.5 billion was spent on promoting “Palestinian democracy”. There is now less democracy than ever because Obama’s PLO pal doesn’t bother with elections. He just takes the money and runs a totalitarian terror state.

Obama’s favorite Muslim dictatorships are the opposite of everything that America stands for. They are places where human rights are a myth and terrorism a virtue. They are everything that we should reject. But instead their tyrants and terrorists are the good friends of their man in the White House.

Categories: Abbas, Brunei, Dishonor, Erdogan, Foreign policy, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Obama and Islam, Obama and morality, Palestinian heroes, Qatar, Turkey
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US senior commander says US will not provide arms ‘as of now’ to YPG units

November 5, 2015

US senior commander says US will not provide arms ‘as of now’ to YPG units, Hurrinet Daily News, November 5, 2015

(Certainly not! The Kurds are the best, if not the only, local forces serious about fighting the Islamic State, et al. Besides, our delightful democratic ally, Turkey — a bastion of human rights and freedom — doesn’t want us to. — DM)

truck with gunAFP photo

“Obviously the Turks have concerns. You know, they’re our partners and allies. We’re going to address those concerns. We’re going to work with them to achieve our common goal, which is to defeat ISIL,” Warren said.

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A senior U.S. commander based in Baghdad, Iraq, for the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) said his country, as of now, was not providing arms to the People’s Protection Units (YPG). 

“As of now, we are not providing weapons or ammunition to the YPG. The weapons that we’ve provided thus far, with the ammunition that we’ve provided in our one airdrop executed, was for the Syrian-Arab coalition,” Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL, told reporters via teleconference from Baghdad.

“As of now, future resupplies will also go to Arab-vetted Syrian opposition members,” he added, after a reporter said a senior defense official had recently said the YPG would not be getting any ammunition or weapons. “So, you know, as of now, that’s where our policy stands.”

Turkey regards Syrian Kurdish YPG units in the same category as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with which the state has been in an armed fight for over 30 years, with a death toll of over 40,000 from both the camps. The state had launched a peace process to solve the Kurdish problem in the country in the early 2010s, which was later halted by the state during the run to Turkey’s general elections on June 7.

Responding a question on whether or not the U.S. would talk to Turkey about the issue, Warren said they were in “very close contact” with Turkey.

“Obviously the Turks have concerns. You know, they’re our partners and allies. We’re going to address those concerns. We’re going to work with them to achieve our common goal, which is to defeat ISIL,” Warren said.

Categories: Department of Defense, Kurdish fighters, Turkey
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Op-Ed: Europe reacts to its impotence by taking it out on the Jews

November 5, 2015

Op-Ed: Europe reacts to its impotence by taking it out on the Jews, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, November 5, 2015

Germany’s Muslim population will quadruple to an astonishing 20 million within the next five years (2020), according to a demographic forecast by Bavarian lawmakers. The German government will receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, and possibly even more in 2016.

France’s Muslim Population will be more than 10 percent by 2030. And according to the study British Muslims in Numbers based on the 2011 census and undertaken by the Muslim Council of Britain, the British Muslim population already witnessed a 75 percent increase over the past ten years, an “unprecedented” population growth according to Prof David Voas of Essex University.

It is the same scenario everywhere in Europe. The “old continent” is experiencing a devastating phenomenon of demographic self-liquidation and spiritual immolation which has no precedent in the Western civilization’s history.

Europe is finding it impossible to control its borders against Muslim migrants. And how is Europe reacting to this existential and physical impotence? By taking it out on the Jews, or, by displacement, the Jewish State. This makes the Europeans feel good because they are making themselves look good to their Muslim populations by doing something they, the Muslim population, will approve of. They are thus appeasing their growing Muslim minorities of whom they are afraid by betraying, again, the Jewish people.

This is how to explain the fact that for the first time since Germany did so 70 years ago, the European Union has just imposed a special label on Jewish products.

This is how you explain the fact that Europe’s mainstream is condemning Israel’s security forces for defending herself in this new terror wave.

This is how you explain the fact that Europe is opening her trade to Iran’s anti-Semitic regime while imposing sanctions on the Jewish State.

This is how you explain the fact that, from Oxford to Bordeaux, hundreds of European academicians are undertaking a boycott of Israeli universities.

This is how you explain the fact that anti-Semitism has become the common currency on most of Europe’s streets.

Europe doesn’t want to live under the psychological burden of Auschwitz forever. All the Jews are living reminders of the moral failure of Europe and this leads to the projection of guilt and shame on Israel as “the occupier” and “the aggressor” and on the remaining European Jews.

Indeed, it’s a tragic but unavoidable process: an Islamicized and moribund Europe will be a Jew-free continent and it will lead the battle of delegitimation against the State of Israel.

Categories: Europe, European Union, Hijrah, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic culture, Islamic immigration, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Multiculturalism, Palestinians, Palestinians and Jews
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‘Islamophobia’ in America vs. murderous Christophobia in the Islamic world

November 5, 2015

‘Islamophobia’ in America vs. murderous Christophobia in the Islamic world, Front Page Magazine, Jack Kerwick, November 5, 2015

(‘Jewophobia’ appears to be at least as prevalent. — DM)

Cross

As organizations like CAIR and their allies wax indignant over “Islamophobia” in America, Muslims around the globe are visiting the worst sort of cruelty upon the Christian minorities in their midst.

For instance, over a span of four days, from October 19-23, the Indonesian government succumbed to the demand of Islamic “extremists” and demolished nine churches.  Six days earlier, on October 13, Muslims unleashed a torrent of violence that left a church burned to the ground and a person dead.

And in the course of this single day, 8,000 Christians found themselves displaced from their homes.

The government has deported them.

According to a local church activist, someone who self-identified only as “Rudy,” Islamic militants issued an ultimatum to the Indonesian government: Either raze these Christian churches to the ground or “the radicals will deploy around 7,000 people” to besiege this Christian community.

The organization Open Doors, a group dedicated to “serving persecuted Christians worldwide,” reports: “Church members wept as they watched in despair [as] civil police officers [began] hammering down their worship houses.” As of this juncture, over 1,000 “churchless believers are prohibited from raising temporary tents to hold Sunday worship services.”

The predominantly Islamic country of Bangladesh is a place where Christian women are regularly subjected to unspeakable violence.  Open Doors states that “two out of every three women in Bangladesh will experience gender-based violence in their lifetimes.” Furthermore, the United Nations’ “Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women” has found that “girls are regularly harassed and abused on their way to and from school,” a phenomenon that is the function of the fact that “sexual harassment is often seen as ‘part of the culture.’”

One young woman who has fallen victim to this culture is Susmita Chambugonj.  Back in May, the 20-year-old was assailed by five “youths” who dragged her into a microbus.  While inside, Susmita was raped by two of her abductors.

The current “refugee crisis” has hit Syrian and Iraqi Christians particularly hard. Open Doors informs us that Christians in these countries “have had their homes marked by ISIS,” and “some come from historically Christian towns that were obliterated.” Moreover, some Christians are discovering “that they are being discriminated against when it comes to receiving aid.”

In Africa, stories of Islamic-on-Christian oppression are even more grisly.  At the same time, these same stories supply us with proverbial textbook exhibitions of Christian heroism.

Earlier in the year Boko Haram paid Habila Adamu a visit at his home.  When the militants informed Habila that they were “looking for him” in order to end his life, he replied that he had been looking for them as well—but in order to share with them the Gospel of Christ.

The predators weren’t impressed.  When Habila refused to recant his faith, his persecutors shot him in the face and left him for dead.

Thankfully, Habila survived.

Joshua, however, did not.  Joshua was 18 years old.  A member of a family of farmers, he worked in a factory during the dry season.  One day, Islamic militants showed up at his place of employment and proceeded to separate those employees who were Muslims from those that were Christians.  Then, they wasted no time in murdering the Christians one by one.

Initially, Joshua was in another room with some other employees. They watched through a window as the mass murder unfolded.  When an Islamic woman and fellow employee of Joshua begged the latter to deny his Christianity, he refused. Joshua was blunt: “No,” he told her, for “I am a Christian and they are killing my brothers.”

Joshua continued: “I am also going out there. I am not going to stay here and pretend that I am a Muslim.”

Joshua was martyred along with nine young men.

Even as I write this, the Christian community in Turkey has become the object of a systematic, relentless campaign of death threats.  According to Open Doors, the targeted are being blasted for being “heretics” who have “chosen the path that denies Allah[.]”

In Pakistan this past July, Saddique Azam, a veteran school teacher, was promoted to the position of “headmaster” at an elementary school.  Azam is a Christian.  For months, he was repeatedly threatened by Muslims who believed that the office of headmaster should be held by a Muslim.  Azam refused to resign.

Then, on October 6, three of his Islamic colleagues who worked under him physically attacked Azam.

Azam recounted his experience: “Three Muslim teachers entered the school, went into my office and waited for me there.  When I entered the office, I was alarmed to see them.  I asked them the reason for the visit and they launched a tirade of warnings against me to withdraw and resign from teacher headship.”

From the beating, Azam sustained a severe injury to his left eye.  Things could’ve been worst had it not been for other staff that stopped the assault.

But witnesses reported that while they pummeled Azam, his Islamic assailants mocked him by referring to him as “choora,” an anti-Christian epithet used by Pakistani Muslims. “Choora” connotes the “sweeper” or “untouchable” caste.  “You are a ‘Christian Choora,’” his victimizers shouted. How, then, “can you be a headmaster and be given seniority over us?”

The next time that we hear about the “Islamophobia” that Muslims in America allegedly face, let’s recall the face of real religious persecution: the persecution that truly defenseless Christians suffer at the hands of Muslim aggressors throughout the Islamic world.

Categories: CAIR, Christians, Human rights, Ideology, Islamic culture, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on Christians, Islamophobia, Middle East, Obama's America, Religion
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The Full Flowering of Western Decadence

November 5, 2015

The Full Flowering of Western Decadence, American Thinker, J. Robert Smith, November 5, 2015

Angela Merkel is double-downing on making Europe the stopping point for what eventually could be millions of Muslim refugees.  Throughout Europe, that is, not just Germany.  Reported Bloomberg Business:

Repeating her insistence that Germany “will do this,” Merkel said European Union initiatives hadn’t gotten far enough and that she will push for a permanent distribution of refugees across the 28-member bloc.   

It’s a curious — or perhaps not so curious — aspect of human nature: the insistence on spreading one’s pathology, of co-opting others in one’s sickness, this as a means of attempting to validate that one isn’t sick.  How can one be off if everybody else is in sync with you?

Elitists — of a leftist stripe — in Europe and the U.S. demean Western values and virtues; this is a career choice for many of them, particularly since the 1960s.  To varying degrees, Western elitists loathe and act to subvert the civilization that produced them, nurtured and gave them their success and standing.  There’s a sickness to this, akin to destroying one’s home (all the while rationalizing the destruction as improvements).  There’s a fundamental sickness of the soul that dwells in the anti-West left.

With Frau Merkel, compassion or humanitarianism is just dressed up degradation, cultural, societal.  It’s given a Christian casing.  It seems to be delusional in Frau Merkel’s instance.  It’s a variant of the sickness that plagues the West.

In this latest crisis of the West, Frau Merkel insists that millions of Muslims added to the millions already calling Europe home pose no threat to the civilization there.  Never mind the plentitude of experience with Muslims in Europe over two generations, chiefly.  Never mind that simple observation of the Muslim faith in practice in other lands among alien cultures leads to a simple conclusion: Western Civilization and Islam are irreconcilable.  Both can inhabit the same planet, but their precincts must be distinct.  Given the historic and present aggressiveness of the latter, the former would do well to be constantly vigilant.  On second thought, nay.  Western Civilization needs a rebirth, a revitalization of appreciation, and an assertive defense in the teeth of Mohammedan offensives. 

Islam is proving to be a recidivist faith; you can take the religion out of the Dark Ages, but not the Dark Ages out of the religion, goes the trope.  Islam remains what it has been from the outset: a creed of blood and conquest.  Not, mind you, the blood of the lamb and the conquering of hearts.

Merkel’s belief that Muslims can be situated in Western Europe without injury (dare say, fatality) to the peoples and cultures whose ancestries there are deep in time, is plain loony.  The religion of bloody conquest will keep doing what it was built to do by Mohammed centuries before.  It’s practically an organism driven by instinct, not brains.  Future historians will have a field day making sense of elitist worldviews that permitted the surrender of their territories to aliens practicing a hostile faith.

Western Civilization has been assaulted (from within) and crumbling in Europe for a century.  Godlessness has taken hold.  Vacant materialism reigns.  But not among immigrant Muslims, of course, which serves them well in their rise to dominance in Western Europe.  Faith lends a sureness that faithlessness cannot hope to confer.  Or in the case of Frau Merkel, a misguided, gooey interpretation of Christianity opens the gates to the very peoples intent on destroying Christianity (let’s broaden that to “Judeo-Christianity”).

It’s doubtful that many Western Europeans, long having been schooled that “For God and Country” is disreputable — it being freighted with chauvinism and exploitive of the West’s unwashed Third World betters — are likely to take to the ramparts in defense of what remains of their civilization.  The battle cry, “For godlessness and the welfare state!” rouses whom?  How many aging Germans, French, Brits, Italians, Spaniards, et al, will fight to the death under E.U. banners?  Quite probably, after convulsions (not all Western Europeans are godless creatures of the E.U.), masses of Europeans will “turn Turk.”  Better to switch than fight and lose one’s head.  Europeans with means will flee Sharia Law.

This may sound fantastic to some, or far distant to others, but those of us in our middle years or younger may live to witness the Fall of Western Europe — and in dramatic fashion, given the rapidity of events.

About a century ago, in a mere 52 months, Europe’s empires reduced themselves from the zenith of their global powers through ruinous war; through murder-suicide.  World War I precipitated the decline of Europe.  Subsequent revolutions and wars (and the isms that sparked them) furthered the decline.  What remains in Europe today — regardless the veneer — is hollowness, a palpable played-out quality to the entire affair.  No wonder, whether through Merkel’s twisted compassion or other elites’ world-weariness or still others’ hostility, there’s an unspoken desire — only recently appreciated among das Volk — to turn out the lights and hand over the keys.  Maybe the Muslims deserve it more and can do a better job.

Lest we be accused of only pointing fingers at Western Europeans, the sickness that infects their elites, infects ours.

Decades ago, it was said that Americans had an infatuation with everything French.  Anything fashionable came from Paris, whether clothing, cuisine, décor, art, music — you name it.  Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was a Francophile.  Even France’s post-WWII existentialism (remember the names Sartre, Camus, and Malraux?) found audiences and adherents here for a time.  Given existentialism’s tendency toward nihilism, it may have more currency now than we suppose.

The joke in days of yore was that Europe’s American cousins were always a step or two behind Europe’s fashions.  Americans aped more than originated.

So, too, with ideology.  American leftism is derivative.  It’s lifted from Europe and applied with all its destructive force here.  Its chief contributions to the cause are operational: Alinsky’s rules and Cloward-Piven, for examples.

As with European leftism, the American version has long ranged beyond economics to attack the moral, religious, and cultural underpinnings of society.  Marriage and family have been targets for decades.  Homosexual unions — and whatever variants follow — are merely extensions of the attack.  Boys thinking (or pretending to think) they’re girls and hanging out in girls’ locker rooms or restrooms and cosmetic sex changes aren’t about ending “gender distinctions” (art cannot trump nature); they’re advanced to degrade minds and trash souls; to muddle then lay low moral reasoning.

The flood of illegals into the U.S. is preponderantly from the south.  Hispanics aren’t Mohammedans, yet they bring their own set of troubles.  No need to catalogue the stresses they impose on society.  President Obama — no believer in American exceptionalism, as his record indicates — has begun importing Muslim refugees.  Red state Idaho is the preferred destination currently.

Along with Frau Merkel, soft-minded Christians here have persuaded themselves that charity means bringing the enemy into the midst of innocents.  Wasn’t it the Good Shepherd’s job to keep the wolves at bay?  Muslims transplanted from Syria or wherever to Idaho or wherever are a welcome sign of “diversity” — diversity being nondiscriminatory and inclusive of anybody other than conservatives.  These Christians (let’s toss in plenty of Jews) suffer from willful ignorance and conceit.  Both sins in their ways.  Both symptoms of a greater malady that afflicts the West.  The critical question lingers, is the West beyond cure?

Categories: Asylum seekers, Europe, European Union, Hijrah, Islamic culture, Islamic immigration, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Merkel
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Anti-air missiles in ISIS hands also imperil Saudi, Jordanian and Israeli skies

November 5, 2015

Anti-air missiles in ISIS hands also imperil Saudi, Jordanian and Israeli skies, DEBKAfile, November 5, 2015

Shut_up

The Ansar al Sharia terrorist organization in Libya, which attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and murdered the American ambassador in 2012, has the very missiles capable of shooting down large airliners flying at high altitudes: Russian-made ground-to-air Buk missiles, which have a range of between three and 42 kilometers. This ultra-violent Islamist terror group has very close operational ties with ISIS-Sinai, and very possibly smuggled the missile system into Sinai from Libya.

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The British Cobra (emergency cabinet) decision of Wednesday, Nov. 4, not to send airliners to or from Sharm El-Sheikh, where 20,000 British tourists are stranded, further strengthens the assumption that the Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 was downed over Sinai Saturday by a terrorist missile. It confirms that air traffic over Sinai and landings at Sharm are under threat from the ground – else why leave a large group of Britons under virtual siege in the Egyptian Red Sea resort? London said that the suspension of flights to Sharm was “indefinite.”

Moscow early Thursday accused London of being moved to this action out of hostility to Russia rather than security concerns.

Downing Street released a statement Wednesday saying: “As more information has come to light, we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device.” This statement was criticized by Egypt as “premature” – not a good omen for the conversation Prime Minister David Cameron is due to hold with his visitor, Egyptian president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, later Thursday.

The British government has therefore stubbed toes in Moscow and Cairo without coming up with an emergency plan for evacuating its citizens from Egypt, whether overland to Cairo by bus or by sea aboard ships picking them up at the Red Sea resort and sailing through the Suez Canal.

This lack of initiative is a sign of confusion and uncertainty.

So far, the drawn-out deliberations and prevarications by officials in several countries regarding the crash of the Russian plane are meant for one purpose: to gain time for doing nothing about ISIS in Sinai. Neither the US, Russia or Britain is ready to send forces to the peninsula to confront the terrorists head-on.

The Ansar al Sharia terrorist organization in Libya, which attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and murdered the American ambassador in 2012, has the very missiles capable of shooting down large airliners flying at high altitudes: Russian-made ground-to-air Buk missiles, which have a range of between three and 42 kilometers. This ultra-violent Islamist terror group has very close operational ties with ISIS-Sinai, and very possibly smuggled the missile system into Sinai from Libya.

A number of intelligence agencies are aware of this and so a flock of leading European and Persian Gulf airlines lost no time in rerouting their flights to avoid Sinai straight after the Russian air disaster.

By causing this disaster, the Islamist terrorists coolly aimed for four goals:

1.  Retaliation for Russian intervention in Syria

2.  An attempt to destabilize the regime of Egyptian President Fattah Al-Sisi

3.  To show up the inadequacies of the 63-member coalition that the US formed in its effort to fight ISIS

4. To parade before the world the Islamic State’s operational prowess, its ability to shoot down the large passenger planes of the world’s biggest powers.

For five days, intelligence and flight safety experts dismissed the claim of responsibility that ISIS issued on the evening of October 31, maintaining that it was not to be taken seriously because no proof had been provided to support the claim – as if the charred fragments of the plane spread across tens of kilometers of desert were deniable.

In the second of its three messages, ISIS repeated its claim Wednesday, Nov. 4, promising details of how it downed the plane at a later date.

While more and more Western governments are coming around to accepting that the Russian airliner’s crash was caused by an explosive device, DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources repeat that they cannot rule out the possibility of a missile. The argument made on Wednesday in Washington and London that terrorist organizations do not have missiles capable of downing such planes is are simply incorrect.

ISIS-Sinai’s possession of an advanced ground-air missile system does not only endanger planes in the peninsula’s airspace, but also those aircraft flying over the Suez Canal as well as parts of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. One of the Egyptian president’s main purposes in his London visit was to try and persuade Prime Minister Cameron to join an Egyptian military operation against Ansar al Sharia in Libya and so eliminate a major prop and arms supplier for ISIS-Sinai. He does not hold out much hope of success.

Categories: Britain, Egypt, Islamic State, Middle East, Rocket attack, Russia - Syrian war, Russian aircraft down, Siani, Sisi
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