Archive for February 2016

Gay Rape, Masked Men and Sheep in Restaurants

February 27, 2016

Gay Rape, Masked Men and Sheep in Restaurants, Gatestone Institute, Ingrid Carlqvist, February 27, 2016

♦ So far, nine out of ten people seeking asylum in Sweden have not had identification. You can then adapt your background story to increase your chances of being granted asylum.

♦ Stockholm’s Chief Press Officer had written that the police might be perceived as racist, and therefore should not report physical descriptions to the public. Ironically, it is the journalists who have more or less forced the police to stop using descriptions such as skin color – by labeling the police “racist” every time a person of color appears on a wanted list.

♦ “There are those who wish to make this an issue of ethnicity. It is not. It is an issue that concerns culture and values. Our free and open society is founded on personal freedom, Western humanitarianism and Christian ethics. These values must not only be upheld, they must be defended.” — Ebba Busch Thor, leader of the Christian Democrats party, in Svenska Dagbladet

January 4: After an autumn of chaos, when huge numbers of asylum seekers flooded into Sweden, the government was finally forced to implement border controls on its border with Denmark. Now, only those with valid identification documents are allowed to board trains and ferries to Sweden — effectively keeping people who have destroyed their IDs out of the country. How long it will take before most asylum seekers bring identification papers — genuine or fake — remains to be seen. So far, nine out of ten people seeking asylum in Sweden have not had identification. They can then adapt their background stories to increase their chances of being granted asylum.

January 5: The alternative news site Nyheter Idag reported that two 15-year-old boys living at an asylum house for “unaccompanied refugee children,” in the small town of Alvesta, were detained on suspicion of raping a younger boy. When the victim reported the incident, the police were alerted and the 15-year-olds were brought in for questioning. One of them has confessed to some of the accusations.

January 6: In another case of homosexual child-rape, two men who claiming to be 16-years-old were arrested on suspicion of raping a boy at an asylum house for “unaccompanied refugee children” in Uppsala. The rape was discovered when the younger boy visited a hospital, along with his legal guardian. One of the suspected rapists was released after being questioned by police, but is still under suspicion. The other was remanded into custody.

The most publicized rape of a boy so far is now awaiting a verdict from the Court of Appeals. In December 2015, two 16-year-olds were sentenced by the District Court to juvenile detention for eight and ten months, respectively. The sentences stand out as extremely lenient, considering what was done to the 15-year-old victim. All involved parties came from Afghanistan and lived in the same asylum house for “unaccompanied refugee children.” One day, the older boys asked the 15-year-old if he wanted to come to the store with them. On their way back, the older boys pushed the 15-year-old onto a muddy field, hit and kicked him, shoved mud into his mouth, and then raped him — twice. They warned him that if he told anyone, he would lose his “honor.” That night, however, the boy broke down and told the staff at the asylum house what had happened.

January 9: The alternative news site Nyheter Idag revealed that the respected daily newpaperDagens Nyheter had covered up a story about the sexual assaults of girls and women (mainly by Afghan men) at the “We Are Sthlm” music festival in 2014 and 2015 — after knowing about at least one of the incidents for a year and a half. Dagens Nyheter, which routinely brands alternative media sites “hate sites,” hurried to place the blame on the Stockholm Police — who partly accepted it. National Police Chief Dan Eliasson promised to investigate why the information had been kept secret.

January 10: An opinion poll showed that 59% of the Swedes support the border identity checks implemented a week earlier. Even in the southern province of Skåne, where many commuters are affected by trains delayed to and from work in Denmark, the identity checks have a solid approval rate. 62% of the people polled in Skåne said that they thought the border controls were a good thing.

January 11: The total number of asylum seekers to Sweden in 2015 was made public: close to 163,000. The most common nationalities were Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian. Afghan arrivals increased exponentially, especially in the form of “unaccompanied refugee children.” 7,049 “children” sought asylum in Sweden in 2014. In 2015, that number had exploded to an unfathomable 35,369 — 66% of which came from Afghanistan. Sweden has now decided to start age-testing asylum seekers claiming to be children. Until now, the “child’s” word has been taken at face value. Officials at the Immigration Service were even instructed not to question anyone who appears to be under the age of 40.

January 12: Rumors flew among liberal Swedish editorial writers that it was, in fact, Russian president Vladimir Putin behind Nyheter Idag’s big revelation about the sexual attacks at the music festival in Stockholm. Isobel Hadley-Kamptz, a former employee of the newspaper accused of the cover-up (Dagens Nyheter), tweeted:

“We know that Russia is actively working to spread disinformation in other countries to lower cohesion and trust. We also know that the populist right-wing campaign is operating on the thesis that society is not to be trusted (especially not the media). And yet, when a populist right-wing site with clear connections to Putin starts a campaign against DN [Dagens Nyheter] and the media, reasonable people go along with it?”

The idea of Putin’s supposed involvement in the Swedish media business was apparently not considered strange by either Dagens Nyheter’s editor-in-chief, Peter Wolodarski, or the prominent columnist, Andreas Ekström, of the respected daily newspaper Sydsvenskan, who both lent their support to the claim that Putin is a puppeteer of the Swedish media.

January 12: Middle-aged men pretending to be teenagers have the right to round-the-clock care in Sweden. The cost is astronomical, but never questioned. If you are 103 years old and Swedish, however, you do not have the same right. A woman recently learned this when she asked to be moved into a nursing home. She suffers from heart problems, angina and dizzy spells, and she has a pacemaker. She uses a walker, but because of the dizziness, her balance is off and she frequently falls. When home-care service helpers come in the evenings she feels uneasy: the caregivers are mostly complete strangers to her. But the municipality did not feel that these ailments were enough to allow her into a home with constant supervision. The 103-year-old woman had to sue the municipality in an Administrative Court, where she finally received a favorable verdict.

January 12: Another cherished myth turned out to be true: the one about police covering up crimes committed by immigrants. The Swedish police, when trying to track down criminals, have explicit instructions not to include descriptions of suspects which could be construed as “racist.”Svenska Dagbladet broke the story after a confidential letter was leaked to the newspaper. The letter had apparently gone out to all police personnel in September 2015. Stockholm’s Chief Press Officer had written that the police might be perceived as racist, and therefore should not report physical descriptions to the public. Ironically, it is journalists who have more or less forced the police to stop using descriptions such as skin color, by labeling the police “racist” every time a person of color appears on a wanted list.

January 13: The leader of the Christian Democrat Party (Kristdemokraterna), Ebba Busch Thor, wants to deport asylum seeker who are sex offenders — even if they have grounds to be granted asylum. In an opinion piece in the conservative daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, she wrote:

“If asylum seekers to Sweden commit sex crimes, they should have their asylum application rejected and be swiftly dispatched out of the country. Even for people with residence permits, deportation should be a much more common legal effect.

“There are those who wish to make this an issue of ethnicity. It is not. It is an issue that concerns culture and values. Our free and open society is founded on personal freedom, Western humanism and Christian ethics. These values must not only be upheld, they must be defended.”

January 14: An 18-year-old was indicted for a hand grenade attack against a police van in the Stockholm suburb of Tumba last year. He was charged with attempted murder and various other crimes: two aggravated robberies, weapons offenses, harboring a criminal, and one mugging.

1262 (2)On January 14, an 18-year-old was indicted for a hand grenade attack against police in Stockholm last year. Left: A police van is riddled with shrapnel (left) from the hand grenade attack. The four policemen in the vehicle at the time could have been killed if the van had not been armored. At right, the Malmö police bomb squad disarms a hand grenade found in Landskrona, on September 22.

January 16: The issue of possible media cover-ups of important news in Sweden kept engaging people. “The idea that the media covers things up,” stated Jesper Strömbäck, a professor of media and communication studies, “is reminiscent of a conspiracy theory… To deselect, sometimes, certain information is about news values.”

Strömbäck’s statement led columnist Sakine Madon to ask her colleagues on Facebook and Twitter if they had ever been asked to tone down or avoid topics that could “benefit the [immigration-critical party] Sweden Democrats”? One experienced journalist replied that at several news organizations, there had been an unspoken policy not to favor the Sweden Democrats and thus contribute to “xenophobia.”

But one does not reveal editorial secrets and get away scot-free. Ms. Madon had to endure a wave of harsh, and mostly unfair, criticism. She wrote in response:

“Instead of engaging in this childish mudslinging, journalists should ask themselves questions such as: What do we do about this problem? Where do we draw the line between activism and journalism? Should we be openly opposed to SD [Sweden Democrats] , or should we stick to being neutral?”

January 18: Two men were indicted for animal cruelty, after they had slaughtered sheep according to halal slaughter [permitted Islamic method of animal slaughter] at a pizzeria in Falkenberg. Halal slaughter does not allow for stunning the animal, and is illegal in Sweden, so the men tried to sneak the two sheep into the restaurant. They were, however, observed by a witness. When the police arrived, the sheep were already dead and lying on the concrete floor in a pool of blood.

January 18: The number of sexual assaults in public bathhouses skyrocketed in January. Newspapers were filled with stories about “cultural clashes” in bathhouses. Distressed bathhouse staff members called for adults to take responsibility for the “unaccompanied refugee boys” who grope girls. On this particular day, an asylum seeking 16-year-old was arrested by the police when he, along with a gang of other immigrant youths, molested a 15-year-old Swedish girl. “At some point he tried to run his fingers under the bottom of her bathing suit. The youths also touched her breasts over the bathing suit and grabbed her legs,” the county police officer in charge, Kenneth Sundin, told the local daily newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning.

January 18: Female bus drivers in Lessebo felt they had no choice but to call in sick after being harassed by newly-arrived migrants. The altercations have mostly been about migrants trying to use invalid tickets, and not accepting the driver’s refusal to let them on board without proper travel documents. Evenings and nights have been particularly troublesome. According to one bus operator, the problems could have been avoided “if the Immigration Service staff had handed out written information in several languages that explained to the newly arrived immigrants what the rules are.” Some drivers, to avoid trouble, simply let the migrants do as they pleased. One father, for example, demanded that as his wife had an appointment to visit a prenatal care facility, his whole family be allowed to travel for free. The driver was told to shut up, and finally gave in and let them ride the bus for free.

January 18: The National Alliance for Sexual Enlightenment (Riksförbundet för sexuell upplysning), RFSU, demanded mandatory sex education for all “unaccompanied refugee children.” However, the Alliance did not want just any old dusty sex education — it demanded that the classes should be conducted from a “norm-critical gender perspective.”

After the recent reports about sexual assaults against women in Stockholm, Kalmar, Cologne and other places, RFSU said it felt that the time was right for young men from highly patriarchal societies to become “norm-critical.”

In an op-ed, RFSU wrote: “Sex education built on a gender conscious and norm critical foundation has turned out to be a key factor not just to strengthen the youths’ health, but also to counteract gender based violence. This is true of all young people, regardless of background. It is a right and a possibility that Sweden must not neglect.”

January 19: The huge influx of young men to Sweden has given the country a skewed gender balance that is quite unsettling, according to Professor Valerie M. Hudson, of the Program on Women, Peace and Security at Texas A&M University. In the Swedish daily Göteborgs-Posten, she wrote: “My research shows that there are several negative consequences to society when imbalance in the gender distribution increases, something that Sweden needs to have a serious discussion about.”

The imbalance is overwhelmingly due to immigration. The extremely large migration to Sweden in 2015, in which 71% of the immigrants were males, has increased the imbalance in gender distribution significantly. “From official immigration statistics,” she went on, “one can conclude that at the end of 2015 there were 123 16-17-year-old boys for every 100 girls in the same age span.” Comparatively, China, which has one of the world’s largest imbalances in gender distribution, ‘only’ has 117 boys for every 100 girls in the same age group. “Having studied gender distribution in China and India for 15 years, it is amazing to me that Sweden has a worse imbalance than either of these two countries.”

In the article, Professor Hudson also lists several reasons why gender imbalance is dangerous, and wonders: “How is it possible that Sweden, one of the most acknowledged feminist countries in the world, does not seem to care about such sharp fluctuations in gender distribution?”

January 19: At the school Sjumilaskolan in the Biskopsgården area of Gothenburg, anarchy is said to be prevalent. According to a report from the School Board (Skolinspektionen), the school’s teachers are afraid of their own students. At Sjumilaskolan, about 60 languages are spoken; fewer than a third of the students pass all subjects; violence, threats and abuse are commonplace, and no adults at the school dare put a stop to any of the misconduct. Last semester, shootings occurred in the schoolyard, and now several students say that they do not dare to go to school anymore.

The School Board report states:

“Some teachers have told us that they themselves have been in verbal and physical conflicts with students, and that the teachers are sometimes afraid that students will kill each other. The teachers describe a general anxiety at the school, and also tell us that they feel there is a risk that riots will occur in the high school.”

In November 2015, about a week after the School Board’s inspection, there was indeed a riot at the school, during which students smashed chairs, tables and paintings in one of the classrooms, and the teachers had to call the police to stop the unrest. The School Board now demands that Gothenburg municipality immediately address the problems at Sjumilaskolan. If the problems have not been dealt with by April 29, the municipality will face a 700,000 kronor ($82,000) fine.

January 20: Former terror suspect Mutar Muthanna Majid demanded one million kronor ($117,000) in damages from the Swedish government. According to his lawyer, Peter Ataseven,“He was suspected of very serious criminal activity. But above all, he has suffered from the media coverage, since he was depicted as a terrorist and has had his name and picture publicized.”

What prompted the Security Service to arrest Muthanna Majid on November 18 — why he was suspected of preparing terrorist attacks, raising the threat level in Sweden to a four on a five point scale and unleashing a massive manhunt — is still a mystery. The police at the time seemed confident, and most media outlets published the name and photograph of the suspect. The next evening, November 19, a large police force apprehended Majid at the asylum house in Boden where he lived. He was questioned, but three days later, the District Attorney decided to release him; he was no longer suspected of any wrongdoing.

January 24: The Stockholm police warned that they could no longer cope with the pressure of dealing with the Moroccan street kids running wild in the city. There are hundreds of young men from Morocco and other North African countries staying illegally in Sweden, mainly in Stockholm and Gothenburg.

SVT Nyheter, a public television news program, talked to a police officer who asked to remain anonymous:

“These guys are a giant problem to us. They steal things everywhere and beat up the security guards at the central train station. They grab girls between their legs and slap them when they protest. The police all know about this. The situation is abysmal – I would never let my children go to the train station; no policeman would.”

A few days later, some vigilantes seemed to have decided to “clean up” the streets. According to several media sources, a large gang of masked men at the Stockholm central train station handed out flyers that contained messages along the lines of “enough is enough!” The flyers encouraged people to take the law into their own hands, find any street kids in the area and “give them what they deserve.”

When the incident was widely publicized in the mainstream media, suddenly the street kids were renamed “unaccompanied refugee children.” Strangely, the police have yet to receive a single complaint about abuse from the street kids, and there is a question if any attacks ever took place at all.

January 24: Mauricio Rojas, who for many years was the “integration policy” spokesperson for the Liberals, wrote in a column in Svenska Dagbladet:

“A country once characterized by a remarkable sense of solidarity — all the things the Swedish welfare state represented — has in a couple of decades been transformed into a multi ethnic community, where the bonds of fellowship between people have been significantly weakened.”

Rojas, once an immigrant from Chile to Sweden, had been considered too rough on immigrants; he was therefore outmaneuvered by the Liberals. He left the Parliament — and left Sweden — in the fall of 2008, and moved to Spain. Now and again he makes an appearance in the Swedish immigration debate. Few Swedes would have dared write what he wrote:

“These changes raise concerns for many people and pose important questions about the future towards which we are heading, in terms of national fellowship. We know how things were, but no one knows how they will be, and there are many who feel that Sweden has lost its soul and become a multicultural chaos. That is why nostalgia and a painful sense of alienation are growing in this country, but also a desire to pause, or at least slow down, the speed of transformation.”

January 24: Sweden’s universities and colleges had looked forward to a replenishment of their budgets by a total of 303 million kronor (over $35 million), but the money has been withheld. According to Social Democratic Minister for Higher Education and Research, Helene Hellmark Knutsson, the money will instead go to covering the “hugely increased costs in 2016 due to the large number of people fleeing from war and terror, and seeking asylum in Sweden.”

January 24: Another case of homosexual rape was uncovered at an asylum house, this time in the southern town of Ljungby. The police arrested a 22-year-old migrant, suspected of having molested a 15-year-old boy where they both lived.

January 25: 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher was stabbed to death by one of the residents at the asylum house for “unaccompanied refugee children” where she worked. The killer, Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, claimed to be 15 years old and from Somalia, and as in Sweden no medical age determination is routinely performed of those claiming to be children, the man was placed among teenagers. When the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, covered his detention and made fun of the Swedish authorities’ having accepted his claim of being 15 years old, the Swedish mainstream media labeled the Daily Mail a “hate web site,” much like the alternative Swedish media web sites, Avpixlat and Fria Tider. For some reason, the Daily Mail blocked most of their articles about the case for Swedish readers. Legal reasons were cited, but many speculated that government censorship was involved. In February, when the Immigration Service finally concluded that the suspected killer was not 15 but over 18 years of age, the correction was laconically reported by the Swedish media.

January 26: The Svea Court of Appeals increased the sentence for Congolese immigrant Loran Guy Mogi, who murdered his pregnant girlfriend, Therese Eriksson, in the town of Vårgårda. In the District Court, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison and deportation, but the Court of Appeals increased his sentence to life in prison: “Add to this,” the Court of Appeals wrote, “that (the woman) was pregnant and that the pregnancy was rather far gone, which X (the accused) was well aware of. In the Court of Appeals’ estimation this is a highly aggravating factor, because X by strangling the woman not only killed her, but also a budding life. In light of these facts, the court feels that the penalty value is life in prison.”

Caution – Politically Incorrect | The Vicious Snake

February 27, 2016

The Vicious Snake, Donald Trump via You Tube, January 18, 2016

H/t Puma by Design, February 7, 2016 and 1389 Blog, February 26, 2016. I had missed it. According to Puma by Design, “Donald Trump began reciting the lyrics to a song entitled “The Snake” at his rallies, a few weeks back, as not reported by the mainstream media.’  The video is apparently “going viral” in Europe.- DM)

 

 

Off Topic:  Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected – WSJ

February 26, 2016

Source: Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected – WSJ

( CHRIS CHRISTIE JUST ENDORSED TRUMP !!!  “Donald is a man who keeps his word…” – JW )

Why political professionals are struggling to make sense of the world they created.

Donald Trump supporters at a Nevada caucus Feb. 23. Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

We’re in a funny moment. Those who do politics for a living, some of them quite brilliant, are struggling to comprehend the central fact of the Republican primary race, while regular people have already absorbed what has happened and is happening. Journalists and politicos have been sharing schemes for how Marco parlays a victory out of winning nowhere, or Ted roars back, or Kasich has to finish second in Ohio. But in my experience any nonpolitical person on the street, when asked who will win, not only knows but gets a look as if you’re teasing him. Trump, they say.

I had such a conversation again Tuesday with a friend who repairs shoes in a shop on Lexington Avenue. Jimmy asked me, conversationally, what was going to happen. I deflected and asked who he thinks is going to win. “Troomp!” He’s a very nice man, an elderly, old-school Italian-American, but I saw impatience flick across his face: Aren’t you supposed to know these things?

In America now only normal people are capable of seeing the obvious.

But actually that’s been true for a while, and is how we got in the position we’re in.

Last October I wrote of the five stages of Trump, based on the Kübler-Ross stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Most of the professionals I know are stuck somewhere between four and five.

But I keep thinking of how Donald Trump got to be the very likely Republican nominee. There are many answers and reasons, but my thoughts keep revolving around the idea of protection. It is a theme that has been something of a preoccupation in this space over the years, but I think I am seeing it now grow into an overall political dynamic throughout the West.

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.

The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. Again, they make public policy and have for some time.

I want to call them the elite to load the rhetorical dice, but let’s stick with the protected.

They are figures in government, politics and media. They live in nice neighborhoods, safe ones. Their families function, their kids go to good schools, they’ve got some money. All of these things tend to isolate them, or provide buffers. Some of them—in Washington it is important officials in the executive branch or on the Hill; in Brussels, significant figures in the European Union—literally have their own security details.

Because they are protected they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They’re insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions.

One issue obviously roiling the U.S. and western Europe is immigration. It is THE issue of the moment, a real and concrete one but also a symbolic one: It stands for all the distance between governments and their citizens.

It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump.

Britain will probably leave the European Union over it. In truth immigration is one front in that battle, but it is the most salient because of the European refugee crisis and the failure of the protected class to address it realistically and in a way that offers safety to the unprotected.

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that.

Similarly in Europe, citizens on the ground in member nations came to see the EU apparatus as a racket—an elite that operated in splendid isolation, looking after its own while looking down on the people.

In Germany the incident that tipped public opinion against the Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy happened on New Year’s Eve in the public square of Cologne. Packs of men said to be recent migrants groped and molested groups of young women. It was called a clash of cultures, and it was that, but it was also wholly predictable if any policy maker had cared to think about it. And it was not the protected who were the victims—not a daughter of EU officials or members of the Bundestag. It was middle- and working-class girls—the unprotected, who didn’t even immediately protest what had happened to them. They must have understood that in the general scheme of things they’re nobodies.

What marks this political moment, in Europe and the U.S., is the rise of the unprotected. It is the rise of people who don’t have all that much against those who’ve been given many blessings and seem to believe they have them not because they’re fortunate but because they’re better.

You see the dynamic in many spheres. In Hollywood, as we still call it, where they make our rough culture, they are careful to protect their own children from its ill effects. In places with failing schools, they choose not to help them through the school liberation movement—charter schools, choice, etc.—because they fear to go up against the most reactionary professional group in America, the teachers unions. They let the public schools flounder. But their children go to the best private schools.

This is a terrible feature of our age—that we are governed by protected people who don’t seem to care that much about their unprotected fellow citizens.

And a country really can’t continue this way.

In wise governments the top is attentive to the realities of the lives of normal people, and careful about their anxieties. That’s more or less how America used to be. There didn’t seem to be so much distance between the top and the bottom.

Now is seems the attitude of the top half is: You’re on your own. Get with the program, little racist.

Social philosophers are always saying the underclass must re-moralize. Maybe it is the overclass that must re-moralize.

I don’t know if the protected see how serious this moment is, or their role in it.

Lecha Dodi – Greet the Sabbath bride

February 26, 2016

 

 

How American Soldiers Used Pig’s Blood and Corpses to Fight Muslim Terrorism

February 26, 2016

How American Soldiers Used Pig’s Blood and Corpses to Fight Muslim Terrorism, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, February 26, 2016

(Wouldn’t that suggest that terrorists are Muslims? Unthinkable! — DM)

mn

 

A century before American soldiers fought Muslim terrorism in the Middle East, they fought it in the Philippines. Their attackers were Moro Muslims whose savage fanaticism appeared inexplicable. A formerly friendly Muslim might suddenly attack American soldiers, local Muslim rulers promised friendship while secretly aiding the terrorists and the yellow left-wing press at home seized on every report of an atrocity to denounce American soldiers as murderers whose honor was forever soiled.

Much of what went on in that conflict, including the sacrifices of our soldiers, has been forgotten. The erasure has been so thorough that the media casually claims that the American forces did not use pig corpses and pig’s blood to deter Muslim terrorists. Media fact checks have deemed it a “legend”.

It’s not a legend. It’s history.

The practice began in the Spanish period. A source as mainstream as the New Cambridge History of Islam informs us that, “To discourage Juramentados, the Spaniards buried their corpses with dead pigs.”

Juramentados was the Spanish term for the Muslim Jihadists who carried out suicide attacks against Christians while shouting about Allah. American forces, who had little experience with Muslim terrorists, adopted the term and the Spanish tactics of burying Muslim terrorists alongside dead pigs.

It was a less sensitive age and even the New York Times blithely observed that, “The Moros, though they still admire these frenzied exits from the world, have practically ceased to utilize them, since when a pig and a man occupy a single grave the future of the one and the other are in their opinions about equal.”

The New York Times conceded that the story “shocked a large number of sensitive people,” but concluded that, “while regretting the necessity of adopting a plan so repugnant to humane ideas, we also note that the Moros can stop its application as soon as they choose, and therefore we feel no impulse either to condemn its invention or to advise its abandonment. The scheme involves the waste of a certain amount of pork, but pork in hot climates is an unwholesome diet, anyhow, and the less of it our soldiers and other ‘infidels’ in the Philippines have to eat the better for them.”

Colonel Willis A. Wallace of the 15th Cavalry claimed credit for innovating the practice in March 1903 to dissuade the Muslim terrorist who believed that “every Christian he kills places him so much closer in contact with the Mohammedan heaven.”

“Conviction and punishment of these men seemed to have no effect,” Colonel Wallace related. After a “more than usually atrocious slaughter” in the marketplace, he had the bodies of the killers placed on display and encouraged “all the Moros in the vicinity who cared to do so to come and see the remains”.

“A great crowd gathered where the internment was to take place and it was there that a dead hog, in plain view of the multitude, was lifted and placed in the grave in the midst of the three bodies, the Moro grave-diggers themselves being required to do this much to their horror. News of the form of punishment adopted soon spread.”

“There is every indication that the method had a wholesome effect,” Colonel Wallace concluded.

Colonel Wallace was certainly not the only officer to bury pigs with Muslim terrorists in the Philippines, though he was apparently the only one to discuss it in such great detail.

Medal of Honor winner Colonel Frank West buried three pigs with three Muslim terrorists after the murder of an American officer. He appears to have done so with the approval of General Perishing. Some stories mention Colonel Alexander Rodgers of the 6th Cavalry becoming so celebrated for it that he was known to Moro Muslims as “The Pig”. One contemporary account does describe him burying a pig with the corpse of a Muslim terrorist who had murdered an American soldier.

Rear Admiral Daniel P Mannix III had contended that, “What finally stopped the Juramentados was the custom of wrapping the dead man in a pig’s skin and stuffing his mouth with pork”.

Media fact checks have claimed that General John “Black Jack” Perishing would not have offended Muslims by authorizing such a course of action and that any claims of his involvement are also a legend.

General Perishing however wrote in his autobiography that, “These Juramentado attacks were materially reduced in number by a practice that the Mohamedans held in abhorrence. The bodies were publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig. It was not pleasant to have to take such measures, but the prospect of going to hell instead of heaven sometimes deterred the would-be assassins.”

We can be certain then that the practice of burying Muslim terrorists with pigs was indeed real and fairly widespread. Was pig’s blood also used on Muslim terrorists as a deterrent to prevent attacks?

The Scientific American described just such an event. In a hard look at the area, it wrote of a place where, “Polygamy is universally practiced and slavery exists very extensively. Horse stealing is punishable by death, murder by a fine of fifty dollars. The religion is Mohamedan.”

A Muslim terrorist, the magazine wrote, “will suddenly declare himself ‘Juramentado’, that is inspired by Mohammed to be a destroyer of Christians. He forthwith shaves his head and eyebrows and goes forth to fulfill his mission.”

The Scientific American described how a Muslim terrorist who had disemboweled an American soldier was made an example of. “A grave was dug without the walls of the city. Into this the murderer was unceremoniously dropped. A pig was then suspended by his hind legs above the grave and the throat of the animal cut. Soon the body lay immersed in gore… a guard stood sentry over the grave until dusk when the pig was buried side by side with the Juramentado.”

“This so enraged the Moros that they besieged the city. Matters became so grave that General Wood felt called upon to disperse the mob resulting in the death of a number of Moros.”

It is clear from these accounts which encompass General Perishing’s autobiography, the New York Times and the Scientific American that the use of pig corpses and pig’s blood in the Philippines was not a legend, but fact. It was not carried out by a few rogue officers, but had the support of top generals. It was not a single isolated incident, but was a tactic that was made use of on multiple occasions.

American forces in the Philippines faced many of the same problems that our forces do today. But they were often free to find more direct solutions to them. When Muslim rulers claimed that they had no control over the terrorists whom they had sent to kill Americans, our officers responded in kind.

“Shortly after General Bates’ arrival on the island, the Sultan sent word that there were some half dozen Juramentados in Jolo over whom he had no control. General Bates replied, ‘Six hundred of my men have turned Juramentado and I have no control over them.’”

Another version of this story by Rear Admiral Mannix III had Admiral Hemphill dispatching a gunboat to shell the Sultan’s palace and then informing him that the gunboat had “turned Juramentado”. As with pig corpses and blood, such blunt tactics worked. Unfortunately political correctness makes it difficult to utilize them today. And political correctness carries with it a high price in American lives.

It is important that we remember the real history of a less politically correct time when American lives mattered more than upsetting those whom the New York Times deemed “sensitive people” and what another publication dismissed as the “sensitive spirit” of the Muslim terrorist.

But as that publication suggested, “It is not necessary to go into spasms about the insult to the Mahometan conscience. Every Christian that walks the earth is a living insult to that ‘sensitive spirit’”.

“The murderer may feel that he is unduly treated by being defiled with the touch of the swine, but he can avoid it by refraining from becoming a practical Juramentado. Our sympathies, if anywhere, are with the innocent pig slaughtered for such a purpose and buried in such company.”

These days we do not bury pigs with Muslim terrorists. Our political and military leaders shudder at the thought of Muslims accusing us of blasphemy. And so instead we bury thousands of American soldiers.

Story Time: Bill Reads a Hillary Clinton Children’s Book!

February 26, 2016

Story Time: Bill Reads a Hillary Clinton Children’s Book! Bill Whittle via You Tube, February 26, 2016

CAIR vows to Save us from ‘the Trumps, the Cruzs, the Palela Gelleers, the Robert Spencers’

February 26, 2016

CAIR vows to Save us from ‘the Trumps, the Cruzs, the Palela Gelleers, the Robert Spencers’ Front Page MagazineRobert Spencer, February 26, 2016

jacob_bender

Jacob Bender, the non-Muslim Useful Idiot who heads up Hamas-linked CAIR’s Philadelphia chapter, boasted Wednesday on the organization’s website: “What CAIR can do, however, and what it has been doing superbly for 10 years now, is to oppose the anti-Muslim ideology of the Trumps, the Cruzs, the Pamela Gellers, the Robert Spencers…” Notice that he doesn’t say that Hamas-linked CAIR is opposing the ideology of the Syed Rizwan Farooks, the Mohammed Abdulazeezes, the Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs, the Nidal Malik Hasans.

As for those he does mention, Hamas-linked CAIR is opposing us so superbly that Trump actually has a chance to become President of the United States, and whether he does or not, he has moved the public discourse to a place where the issues of jihad terror and Islamization can be discussed more honestly in the mainstream than has been possible for years. Cruz has outlasted most of the Republican candidates to remain one of Trump’s chief rivals. Pamela Geller is planning an exciting new initiative and I am busier than ever, having just completed a new book and busy traveling to speak all over the country: yes, Hamas-linked CAIR is doing its job of demonization and marginalization of foes of jihad terror superbly.

More importantly, Bender here repeats the common and hysterical claim that “Muslims are the new Jews,” which has been answered many times — as often as it has been asserted. Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong, Leftist “journalist” Jeffrey Goldberg, Iranian front group Board member Reza Aslan, Muslim Brotherhood-linked Congressman Keith Ellison,Nicholas Kristof, and Canadian Muslim leader Syed Sohawardy, among many others, have repeated it. The blazingly brilliant Daniel Greenfield takes it apart in this video.

And in 2014, Bill Maher noted: “Jews weren’t oppressing anybody. There weren’t 5,000 militant Jewish groups. They didn’t do a study of treatment of women around the world and find that Jews were at the bottom of it. There weren’t 10 Jewish countries in the world that were putting gay people to death just for being gay.” Indeed, and no one is calling for or justifying genocide of Muslims now; there is no individual or group remotely comparable to the National Socialists in any genuine sense.

The late Christopher Hitchens also refuted this idea when writing a few years ago about the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero: “‘Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,’ Imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain at Duke University, told the New York Times. Yes, we all recall the Jewish suicide bombers of that period, as we recall the Jewish yells for holy war, the Jewish demands for the veiling of women and the stoning of homosexuals, and the Jewish burning of newspapers that published cartoons they did not like.”

The purpose of this claim is to intimidate people into thinking that criticism of Islamic supremacism leads to the concentration camps, and thus there must be no criticism of Islamic supremacism. The unstated assumption is that if one group was unjustly accused of plotting subversion and violence, and was viciously persecuted and massacred on the basis of those false accusations, then any group accused of plotting subversion and violence must be innocent, and any such accusation must be in service of preparing for their subversion and massacre. It is simply a method to foreclose on any criticism of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism.

Jacob Bender, who is himself Jewish, ought to pause before making such a reckless and baseless comparison – especially in light of the fact that the new Jews are not the Muslims at all, but are none other than the old Jews: anti-Semitic hate crimes remain much more common in the U.S. than “Islamophobic” hate crimes, and Jews all over Europe face an increasingly dangerous and precarious situation because of the anti-Semitism of the rapidly increasing Muslim population. CAIR’s Hamas ties don’t seem to trouble him either. In his complacency and willful ignorance, as well as his active work for CAIR, Bender could be the poster child for our blinkered age.

‘If I win, I will be Israel’s true friend in the White House’

February 26, 2016

‘If I win, I will be Israel’s true friend in the White House’ Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, February 26, 2016

They said that he wouldn’t run for president, and then they said that if he did run, he would crash and burn. But in the meantime, Donald Trump is mainly winning • I like the idea of relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he tells Israel Hayom.

Trump IsraelRepublican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump pauses in the Spin Room after a Republican presidential primary debate at the University of Houston, Thursday | Photo credit: AP

Everything has already been said about the stand-out Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — that the Republican establishment is wary of him, that he intentionally makes provocative declarations, that in the grand scheme of the 2016 election he is nothing more than a passing fad, that he will ultimately fail. So what? In the meantime, the billionaire from New York has won three consecutive primaries and managed to draw support from almost every sector, making him the race’s hottest commodity.

Last December, I met with Trump in Las Vegas just before the Republican debate there. In that interview, he leveled some harsh criticism at incumbent President Barack Obama, made a great deal of promises regarding what he would do if he entered the White House and showed quite a bit of love for Israel. This week, after his big victory in Nevada, I sat him down for another interview.

Q: Mr. Trump, yesterday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tried to question your support for Israel. How is his commitment to Israel stronger than yours?

“My friendship with Israel is stronger than any other candidate’s. I want to make one thing clear: I want to strike a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It is what I aspire to do. Peace is possible, even if it is the most difficult agreement to achieve. As far as I understand, Israel is also interested in a peace deal. I’m not saying I’ll succeed, or even that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is within reach, but I want to try. But in order for an agreement to happen, the Palestinians need to show interest. It’s a little difficult to reach an agreement when the other side doesn’t really want to talk to you.

“Don’t get confused there in Israel: I am currently your biggest friend. My daughter is married to a Jew who is an enthusiastic Israel supporter, and I have taken part in many Israel Day parades. My friendship with Israel is very strong.”

Q: This week you spoke very negatively about the Iran nuclear deal. You even said that in some cases, violating deals is permissible.

“This deal was the worst deal that Israel could have gotten. Think about it: Beyond the deal itself, Iran also received $150 billion. And to think that they signed that deal without discussing it with Israel! As far as I’m concerned, this deal is the worst thing that ever happened to Israel. There is a clause in it that stipulates protecting Iran’s nuclear facilities should they come under attack. You have to read it to believe it. It may very well be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand what it means, that America will attack Israel if Israel attacks Iran? That’s ridiculous.”

Q: Many presidents have promised to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. What is your position on the issue?

“I can only say that I like the idea.”

Q: I’ve been covering the U.S. elections for many years now. The pundits said that you wouldn’t run, then they said that you would crash and burn, then they said that the voters wouldn’t vote the way they said they would in the polls. In reality, you are crushing everyone. Let’s play the pundit for a moment — explain the Trump phenomenon to me.

“The pundits misread the intense anger that exists in the U.S. today. No one foresaw the anger of the American people — toward the administration, toward the bad deals that the U.S. has signed, like the trade agreements and the Iran nuclear deal. What do you think? That the American people liked the deal? The deal with Iran is also one of the reasons for the great anger that exists in the U.S. today. It was a terrible mistake. And look at the way the administration is handling the military: We are not winning any wars. America is not winning, and America always needs to win. It is important for America, and it is important for the world.

“President Obama isn’t good. For Israel, he has been the worst president in history. Look at how frustrated Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu was every time he visited Washington. All of Netanyahu’s claims are correct; he is 100% right. Is this any way to treat our friends? I will make sure that changes.”

Q: Am I speaking with the next president of the United States?

“There is still a long way to go, but we are on the right track. If I make it to the White House, you will have a true friend there.”

Q: Thank you for the interview, Mr. Trump.

“Shalom.”

Fundamentalists and Revolutionary Guards steal Iran’s elections

February 26, 2016

Fundamentalists and Revolutionary Guards steal Iran’s elections, DEBKAfile, February 26, 2016

Rafsanjani_RouhaniOpposition leaders to Khamenei Hashemi Rafsanjani (l.) and President Hassan Rouhani

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Kerry fondly hoped that the nuclear agreement signed with Iran would bring to the surface a new type of leader – more liberal and less liable to restart the nuclear program – in the twin elections taking place in the Islamic Republic Friday, Feb. 26.

They are in for a disappointment, say DEBKAfile’s Iran analysts.

But one change is almost certain. The Iranian voter will be choosing for the first time on one day a new parliament (Majlis) and the Assembly of Experts, the only body competent to choose the republic’s next supreme leader. The incumbent, 75-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not expected to outlast the four-year term of the next Assembly of Experts. He has been struggling with prostate cancer for more than five years. Treatment and surgery have failed to halt its spread to other parts of his body. And strong medication is necessary to keep him looking alert and vigorous in his public appearances.

Speculation is already rife in Tehran about who the next Assembly of Experts will choose as his successor.

Seen from the perspective of Iran’s Islamic regime, the supreme leader’s overarching duty is to continue the legacy of its revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor, Ali Khamenei.

Rather than meeting the expectations of the US president, his main job is to continue strengthening Iran on its path of religious extremism, ideological subversion, export of the Shiite revolution (by terror) and the continuation of the nuclear program.

The biggest political bombshell of the election campaign was a proposal by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani to establish a national leadership council now, instead of choosing a new leader later. This was intended to replace the single dictatorial rule of the supreme leader by a collective leadership.

Iran’s fundamentalists, especially the powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), were in uproar about a proposal they viewed as so dangerous for the regime that they threatened to confiscate the Rafsanjani clan’s extensive property and put him on trial for corruption and fraud.

His beloved son Mahdi has already been in jail for months on those charges.

But Rafsanjani is not easily cowed. He knew that if he backed down, the extremists would crack down on him still harder.

So this week, he announced that he had pulled the strings which gave Hassan Rouhani victory in the last presidential election. And, in the campaign leading up to the Assembly of Experts vote, he threw his support behind a moderate cleric, Hassan Khomeini, who happens to be the grandson of the Islamic regime’s iconic founder.

The IRGC and radical mullahs thereupon launched an offensive to thwart what they believed to be Rafsanjani’s dangerous plan to establish a triumvirate with Rouhani and Khomeini Junior to head a future government.

Senior radical clerics, such as ayatollahs Ahama Alam-Alhoda, Mohammad Mesbah-Yazdi, Ahmad Jannati, and Mohammad Yazi, slandered him and fought to remove his candidates for the twin slates.

They branded the former president and members of a “reformist” list as British agents, a particularly malicious charge because the UK is still seen in Iran as a symbol of colonialism and meddler in foreign politics.

Ayatollah Khamenei himself harshly denounced “foreign agents” as “addicted to foreign influence,” who should be barred from the Assembly of Experts.

Young Khomenei saw the light and withdrew his candidacy for its membership. But Rafsanjani stood out to the last as a central figure in the two campaigns, even after a majority of the candidates condemned as “moderates and reformists” were barred from the elections.

In the end, the two slates were left with no more than 30 moderate candidates out of a total of 3,000 vying for the 375 seats in the two bodies.

Their defeat as a group was predestined, and the two elections leave Iran more politically and religiously radicalized than before.

A key figure expected to take center stage in the new parliament is Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s mover-and-shaker son. Another is Haddad-Adel, one of Khamenei’s top advisers, who heads a faction of religious fundamentalists and IRGC officers. He is the frontrunner to succeed Ali Larijani as Speaker of the next Majlis.

They are all expected to gang up to prevent President Rouhani from running for a second term when it runs out in two years – contrary to the Obama administration’s hopes. They will also do their best to make him a lame duck and whipping boy for all the country’s economic ills for the remainder of his presidency.

He will find the new parliament less cooperative than the outgoing House under Larijani when he tries to introduce liberal policies.

Unofficial results of the two elections are expected to be released Friday night. The extremists and hardliners have engineered them so that they will win big and set Iran on a course that it is even more radical than before on such key issues as its nuclear weapons program and intervention in Syria and other Middle East conflicts. They will keep the feud with Saudi Arabia alive and pursue every possible means of venting their bottomless hatred of Israel and seeking its destruction.

U.S., Europe Fund Torture by Palestinian Authority

February 26, 2016

U.S., Europe Fund Torture by Palestinian Authority

by Khaled Abu Toameh February 26, 2016 at 5:00 am

Source: U.S., Europe Fund Torture by Palestinian Authority

  • A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented 1,391 cases of Palestinians arbitrarily arrested by the two Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, in 2015.
  • Systematic torture in Palestinian prisons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was documented in the report — at least 179 cases of torture in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons in 2015.
  • The PA security forces are trained and funded by several Western countries, including the US. This establishes a direct line between these Western donors and the arbitrary arrests, torture and human rights violations that have become the norm in PA-controlled prisons and detention centers.
  • The report also revealed that the Palestinian Authority regularly disobeys court orders by refusing to release detainees, showing contempt for its courts and judges.
  • Before our eyes, two police states are being built: one in the West Bank and a second in the Gaza Strip — in the face of talk by international parties of establishing an independent Palestinian state. But the last thing the Palestinians need is another police state.

Palestinians who incite violence against Israel are called Palestinian leaders. Palestinians who beg to differ with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas or one of his friends are called criminals and can expect to be interrogated and/or imprisoned.

The PA leadership has always clamped down on its critics, including journalists, editors, academics, human rights activists and parliament members. In this regard, the PA and its president show a distinct similarity to the other dictators that run the Arab world.

Like the legendary Japanese monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, the international media regularly turns a blind eye to blatant Palestinian Authority abuses. But here’s a newsflash for them: Say you don’t like Abbas and you face arrest or interrogation on charges of “insulting His Excellency.”

Take, for example, the case of Professor Abdul Sattar Qassem, who teaches Political Science at An-Najah University in Nablus.

Qassem, a long-time critic of President Abbas and the Oslo Accords, was arrested earlier this week by Palestinian security forces on charges of “incitement.” Qassem was arrested on the heels of a television interview in which he stated that those who collaborate with Israel should receive the death penalty, according to the PLO’s “Revolutionary Law.” The Palestinian leadership considered this statement “incitement” against President Abbas and Palestinian security personnel.

Professor Abdul Sattar Qassem (left) stated in a TV interview that those who collaborate with Israel should receive the death penalty. The Palestinian Authority leadership considered this “incitement” against President Mahmoud Abbas (right), and arrested Qassem.

Qassem was released on bail after three days in detention, although a Palestinian court had ordered him remanded in custody for 15 days. It is still unclear whether he will be officially charged and put on trial.

No stranger to Palestinian prison, Qassem has been arrested at least three times in the past few years for publicly criticizing President Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials. His outspokenness has also exposed him to violence: his car was torched while parked in front of his home in Nablus, and he escaped an assassination attempt when unidentified gunmen shot several rounds at him outside this home.

The culprits have never been caught. Palestinian sources say the assailants are unlikely to ever be apprehended. Had the perpetrators posted critical comments about President Abbas on Facebook, however, these sources say that they would have been locked up long ago.

A recent report published by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented 1,391 cases where Palestinians were arbitrarily arrested by the two Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, in 2015.

The report noted that the bulk of the arrests (1,274) had taken place in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Among those arrested were 35 Palestinian journalists and civil rights activists, and 476 students and academics.

Cameras and computers were confiscated from the detained journalists before they were interrogated about their work and activities on social media, the report said.

Now let us go to Gaza. How is Hamas doing on this score? Hamas authorities last year arrested “only” 23 journalists and civil rights workers, 24 university students and five teachers and academics.

Thus, the figures show, we might say, some arresting facts: Hamas has a better record than the Western-funded Palestinian Authority when it comes to assaults on public freedoms and human rights violations. The report also revealed that the Palestinian Authority regularly disobeys court orders by refusing to release detainees. In other words, the Palestinian Authority, which repeatedly boasts that it has managed to build an “independent and credible judiciary system” with the help of Western donors, shows contempt for its courts and judges.

Systematic torture — scores of cases — in Palestinian prisons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was also documented in the report. In 2015, there were at least 179 cases of torture in Palestinian Authority prisons, as opposed to 39 cases in Hamas prisons during the same year.

The Palestinian Authority security forces are trained and funded by several Western countries, including the United States. This establishes a direct line between these Western donors and the arbitrary arrests, torture and human rights violations that have become the norm in Palestinian Authority-controlled prisons and detention centers.

Yet there is silence — until the word “Israel” pops up. Then Western news outlets, including those based in Israel that are tasked with covering Palestinian affairs, go into high gear.

This criminal indifference — one is tempted to say negligence — on the part of the international community permits and even promotes Palestinian Authority and Hamas human rights abuses.

We are witnessing how the two Palestinian parties approach the task of building state institutions. Before our eyes, two police states are being built — one in the West Bank and a second in the Gaza Strip. This is taking place in the face of talk by the same donors and other international parties (at least in relation to the PA) of establishing an independent Palestinian state. But the last thing the Palestinians need is another police state.

President Abbas, who has just entered the 11th year of his four-year term in office, has no cause to be concerned about the human rights violations committed by his security forces. In fact, he has every reason to continue clamping down on his critics. Why should he worry? The international community absolves him of the abuses perpetrated under his rule.

That is why this week Abbas instructed his security forces to launch an investigation into the behavior of a legislator, Dr. Najat Abu Baker. Dr. Abu Baker, it seems, had the temerity to demand an inquiry into the financial practices of a Palestinian cabinet minister.

Soon after she lodged charges of financial wrongdoing, Dr. Abu Baker, an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was summoned by the Palestinian prosecutor general for interrogation on charges of “slander” and “incitement.” This is quite a way to respect Dr. Abu Baker’s parliamentary immunity.

Dr. Abu Baker’s case is yet a further example of the disregard that the Palestinian Authority shows not only for the judicial system, but also for the legislative body that is meant to serve as a watchdog over the executive branch. But even watchdogs know their owners. By summoning Dr. Abu Baker for interrogation and threatening to arrest her, Abbas is sending a message of deterrence to his detractors, namely that even a member of parliament cannot escape the long arm of the Palestinian security forces.

For now, the international community has some choices. It could continue to close its eyes to the police states being erected with its monies. Alternatively, it could choose a new path: to hold the Palestinian Authority accountable for its actions, including the torture that takes place within its very core. But the West had better hurry up. The PA repression is far from lost on the Palestinians, who are being driven by it into the waiting arms of Hamas and other such groups.

Proper state institutions for the Palestinians is a laudatory goal; what the Palestinians have today are two banana republics.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.