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Trump’s Christmas Present For Iraqi Christians

December 25, 2017

Trump’s Christmas Present For Iraqi Christians, FrontPage Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, December 25, 2017

 

Even if Iraq’s Christians never feel secure enough to return to Mosul in their previous numbers, they know that they can find sanctuary in the United States. Under Obama, Muslim migrants outnumbered Christian refugees for the first time. While Christians remained trapped in the Middle East, the terrorists of tomorrow swarmed through our airports to be resettled next door to their victims.

While American firepower smashed their Islamic persecutors, the gates of our nation opened once again to the tormented Christians of the Middle East instead of to their Islamic tormenters. Once again a great nation came into its own by sheltering the weak and destroying evil.

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Since Obama’s Arab Spring, over a million Christians have fled Iraq and Syria. The number of Iraqi Christians fell by two thirds. Obama wouldn’t call it genocide. He wouldn’t hammer ISIS.

And so the people of this country elected a president who would do the job that Obama wouldn’t do.

After ISIS took Fallujah, Obama infamously dismissed the Islamic State as a “jayvee” team that wasn’t worth paying attention to. A few months later, the ISIS jayvee team took Mosul and made it a key stronghold. Beyond being the third largest city in Iraq, Mosul and the Nineveh plains were an ancient center of Christian life. But the Islamic State had a simple message for Mosul’s Christians.

“After this date, there is nothing between us and them but the sword.”

When President Trump came into office, he made it clear that there would be nothing between America and ISIS except the bomb. He vowed to “demolish and destroy ISIS”. And he kept his word. He unleashed the full firepower of our military and

Now that the American bomb has broken the sword of Islam, Iraqi Christians are celebrating their first Christmas since the ISIS capture of Mosul.

“We offer them three choices,” ISIS had declared. The Christians could become ‘dhimmis’. That would mean accepting an inferior status in the Islamic State and paying jizya protection money to Muslims. And if they didn’t want to pay, the Christians could always convert to Islam. But, the Islamic group warned, “If they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword.”

ISIS was bringing back all the old and ugly traditions of Islam: Jizya and the dhimmi codes, sex slavery and child rape. And the Christians of Iraq were among the first to experience the consequences of Islam. Their houses were branded with the Arabic “N” for Nassarah and they fled for their lives.

“For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians,” Patriarch Louis Sako announced.

On another hot summer, three months later, ISIS was driven out of Mosul in a battle that could never have been fought and won under the last occupant of the White House. The furious airstrikes that smashed the Islamic State’s hold on the city, neighborhood by neighborhood, driving ISIS fighters from their temporary bases in buildings every time the forces on the ground needed help, made victory possible in some of the toughest urban battles since Stalingrad. The unleashed United States Air Force battered the beheaders and child rapists of ISIS in a way that Obama would never have allowed.

Over a year after the fall of Mosul, our forces still had their hands tied tightly behind their backs. Even when it came to taking out the tanker trucks that carried the financial lifeblood of the Islamic State, our pilots were not allowed to just bomb them. Instead they had to make low passes while dropping leaflets that warned the drivers of the ISIS trucks in Arabic and English that airstrikes would happen 45 minutes later.

The goal was to “to kind of shoo people away without harming them.” But trying to “shoo” away the jayvee team without harming them didn’t bring down ISIS or free the oppressed Christians of Iraq.

75% of bombing runs against ISIS didn’t even drop leaflets, let alone bombs.

All of that changed when President Trump unleashed the full firepower and might of our military. The media and its leftist allies moaned that Mosul had been devastated by the punishing raids. But buildings can be rebuilt. Those who were murdered by ISIS, which had escalated its torture and butchery as it sensed its inevitable defeat, could not be put back together again. If it had been up to Obama, Mosul would still belong to ISIS. Drone strikes would not have been reclaimed the city. It took real airstrikes.

After Mosul fell, the Iraqi government asked Obama to carry out airstrikes against ISIS. And he refused. Before the fall of Mosul, “Iraqi officials at the highest level said they had requested manned and unmanned U.S. airstrikes this year against ISIS camps.” And they got nothing. ISIS was able to overrun Iraq because it took years to get Obama to agree to do anything. Including dropping leaflets.

During that time, the Christian population of Iraq fled or huddled in beleaguered territories, fearing that if the Kurdish firewall fell, there might be nowhere for them to run. President Trump was not afraid to bomb ISIS. He was not afraid to let our military do everything they needed to do to win. Instead of lawyers in suits deciding whether we could bomb ISIS, men in military uniforms began making those decisions. And that is why ISIS is on the run.

The Islamic State was not afraid of Obama’s lawyers. It’s running from Trump’s bombs. And as the Islamic terrorists who once swore to rule the world try to sneak back into Europe and Russia, Christian families who fled their reign of supremacist terror are slowly returning to Mosul. And these returning Christians are able to celebrate their first Christmas since the horrifying years of the Arab Spring.

The number of Christians in Mosul remains small. And ISIS has destroyed many of the old churches where the Christians of the city once worshiped. But the presence of Christians in Mosul is a Christmas gift from President Donald J. Trump to a persecuted population written off by his predecessor.

Even if Iraq’s Christians never feel secure enough to return to Mosul in their previous numbers, they know that they can find sanctuary in the United States. Under Obama, Muslim migrants outnumbered Christian refugees for the first time. While Christians remained trapped in the Middle East, the terrorists of tomorrow swarmed through our airports to be resettled next door to their victims.

While American firepower smashed their Islamic persecutors, the gates of our nation opened once again to the tormented Christians of the Middle East instead of to their Islamic tormenters. Once again a great nation came into its own by sheltering the weak and destroying evil.

After the liberation of Mosul, President Trump declared that, “The victory in Mosul, a city where ISIS once proclaimed its so-called “caliphate,” signals that its days in Iraq and Syria are numbered. “ And since then the Islamic rulers who once threatened to put Trump and the Christians of Iraq to the sword have instead become refugees. And in Mosul and across Iraq, the Christian refugees are coming home.

Categories: Obama and Christians, Obama and Iraq war, Trump and Christians, Trump and Iraq war
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France’s Macron Submits to the Arab World

December 25, 2017

France’s Macron Submits to the Arab World, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, December 25, 2017

The tragic dead end of French fake “secularism” is that it allows public expressions of the Islamic religion in France, but prohibits the Christian ones.

Far from defending the Judeo-Christian values on which France, the West and Europe itself was founded — such as individual liberties, freedom of expression, separation of the church from the state and the judiciary, and equal justice under the law — President Macron recently launched an apology for Islam before Arab-Muslim dignitaries.

The balance of Macron’s recent frenetic trips to the Arab world: lavish contracts, apologetic words to Islamists, repentance of the French colonial past and silence on anti-Semitism and radical Islam. Meanwhile, in France, authorities were busy dismantling its Judeo-Christian heritage.

Macron’s special envoy for heritage, Stéphane Bern, proposed charging a fee to enter French cathedrals and churches — as if they were museums.

In Abu Dhabi, members of the victorious Israeli judo team were recently made to mount the winners’ podium without their own anthem and flag. A few days later, French President Emmanuel Macron landed in Abu Dhabi, where he denounced as liars those who say that “that Islam is built by destroying the other monotheisms”.Macron did not raise an eyebrow about the anti-Semitism and racism displayed by the Emirati authorities. Macron merely praised Islam in a country that punishes with death those Muslims who convert to Christianity or profess atheism.

At the French naval base in Abu Dhabi on November 8-9, addressing some businessmen, Macron insisted on the importance of the alliance with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an “essential partner with whom we share the same vision of the region and obvious common interests”. Such effusion seems more than the usual language of diplomacy. Macron is now showing a strategic empathy and commitment to the Arab-Islamic world. Is this statement a prelude to submission?

Far from defending the Judeo-Christian values on which France, the West and Europe itself was founded — such as individual liberties, freedom of expression, separation of the church from the state and the judiciary, and equal justice under the law — Macron in the last few weeks launched an apology for Islam before Arab-Muslim dignitaries.

On December 7, Macron went to Qatar; next year, he will visit Iran on a trip that will make him the first French president to visit the Islamic Republic since 1971. In Doha, Macron and Qatar signed contracts worth about 12 billion euros ($14 billion). And there, in a country which openly promoted anti-Semitism in its book fair, Macron repeated that he disapproved of US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

A few days later, at the United Nations, Macron’s ambassador voted with the Arab and Islamic regimes; it was a crude betrayal of Europe’s only democratic ally in the Middle East: Israel. In a single week, France voted twice to support Arab-sponsored resolutions against the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, first at the UN Security Council then at its General Assembly. As Israel’s Deputy Minister for Diplomacy Michael Oren said: “The UN denies Israel’s bonds with Jerusalem”. Macron’s bonds with the Arab Islamic world, however, seem extremely strong.

This month alone, France voted twice in the United Nations to support Arab-sponsored resolutions against the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Pictured: French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at the UN General Assembly in New York, on September 19, 2017. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Back in Paris, Macron welcomed Jordan’s King Abdullah II to the presidential palace and praised Amman’s role as the “guardian” of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Abdullah’s goal, however, is something else. As he openly says, he wants to prevent the “Judaization of Jerusalem” — which means fighting Israeli sovereignty over the holy city.

During his recent trip to Algeria, Macron, France’s first head of state born after the Algerian War, called France’s 132-year rule of Algeria “a crime against humanity”. The French president had no words of pride for anything the French had done or left behind in Algeria. In an apparent gesture of reconciliation, Macron said that he was “ready” to return to Algeria the skulls of Algerian fighters killed in the 1850s by the French army, which are currently displayed at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.

This, then, was the balance of Macron’s recent frenetic trips to the Arab world: lavish contracts, apologetic words to Islamists, repentance of the French colonial past and silence on anti-Semitism and radical Islam.

Meanwhile, in France, authorities were busy dismantling its Judeo-Christian heritage. A superior court recently ordered the removal of a cross from a statue of the Pope John Paul II in a town in Brittany, because the cross supposedly breached rules on secularism. The Conseil d’État, France’s top administrative court, evidently decided that the cross violated a 1905 law imposing the separation of church and state. After that, the same Conseil d’État ordered a Nativity scene in the municipal hall of the town of Béziers to be torn down. Then, Macron’s special envoy for heritage, Stéphane Bern, proposed charging a fee to enter French cathedrals and churches — as if they were museums.

A few days later, however, France’s Macron displayed all the double-standards and empty rhetoric of this “secularism”. The French authorities allowed Muslims in the Paris suburb of Clichy La Garenne to a hold a mass prayer on the street. That is why 100 French politicians and administrators took to the streets of Paris to protest against these prayers. “Public space cannot be taken over in this way”, said Valérie Pécresse, president of the Paris regional council.

That is exactly the tragic dead end of French fake “secularism”: it allows public expressions of the Islamic religion in France, but prohibits the Christian ones.

In Paris, Saudi Arabia, a major focus of Macron’s foreign policy, is busy these days sponsoring “cultural initiatives”. Saudi Arabia has been involved in the renovation of the Institute of the Arab World, located in Paris. Jack Lang, the institute’s director, unveiled a plaque of gratitude to Saudi Arabia for the gift of five million euros that the kingdom made to the institute.

Then an unusual event took place in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the most important site to French Catholics. Beneath its immense vaults, a small group of men in traditional Saudi clothes viewed the sculptures there. The delegation was led by Mohammed al-Issa, Secretary General of the World Islamic League, appointed about a year ago as the head of this organization, based in Mecca and devoted to the promotion of Islam throughout the world. As the newspaper La Croix noted:

“Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative Muslim countries in the world. No religion other than Islam is recognized there. Clergy other than Muslims do not have the right to practice there and the construction of places of worship other than mosques is prohibited”.

So, Christian French authorities are opening their holiest sites to Islamists — as they do to everyone. These Saudis, however, prohibit others from practicing their faith in Saudi Arabia. This is “French suicide”, as Éric Zemmour warns in his most famous book, Le suicide français.

The Saudi crown prince just bought Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Salvator Mundi,” for a record $450 million at auction last month. Then, the United Arab Emirates tweeted that the painting “is coming to the Louvre Abu Dhabi”, recently opened by Macron. What else of its heritage will Europe now sell?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Categories: France, Islamisation of France, Macron, Macron and Arab states, Macron and Islam
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The night the UNRWA stole Xmas

December 25, 2017

The night the UNRWA stole Xmas, Israel National News, David Bedein, December 24, 2017

(Merry Mohammed Day to all! — DM)

According to UNWRA, “The original story of Christmas began over 2,000 years ago with a family from Palestine seeking refuge.”

Believe it or not, their e-mails to supporters with these alternative facts were sent this month in order to promote their pro-Palestinian Arab political agenda and to raise funds for Palestinians. It is a cynical and brazen piece of propaganda using the ultimate Christian story in order to raise money for Palestinian Muslims.

Jesus a Palestinian? I am sure you haven’t heard that one before. He actually was Jewish and if he tried to get into PA controlled Bethlehem today, his chances of survival would be minimal.

Mary and Joseph refugees? I am not sure that seeking a room at an inn is quite the same as fleeing war or famine but UNWRA is re-writing history here so they aren’t too worried about insignificant details – like facts.

From Palestine? Palestine (Syria Palestina) is the name given to Israel by the Romans at least one century after the death of Jesus and over 400 years before the birth of  Islam. Muslims first came to the Land of Israel when their armies left the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E. to try to conquer the world.

UNWRA is using Christianity and a distortion of truth to make a political point and to ask for donations.

Here. Read the e-mail for yourself:

DEAR <<FIRST NAME>>,

THE ORIGINAL STORY OF CHRISTMAS BEGAN OVER 2,000 YEARS AGO WITH A FAMILY FROM PALESTINE SEEKING REFUGE. IN THAT SPIRIT, WE’RE COLLECTING GIFTS THIS MONTH TO HELP REFUGEES NOT ONLY SURVIVE, BUT THRIVE.

IN CASE YOU MISSED LAST NIGHT’S EMAIL, FOR A LIMITED TIME, ALL DONATIONS MADE ONLINE WILL BE DOUBLED UP TO $75,000! CHOOSE YOUR GIFT AND DONATE NOW BEFORE THE MATCH EXPIRES.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION AND FOR THE INVESTMENT YOU WILL MAKE IN THE LIVES OF PALESTINE REFUGEES. WISHING YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES HEALTH, HAPPINESS, PEACE, AND PROSPERITY IN 2018 AND ALWAYS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS,
LAILA MOKHIBER
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

(Note: Christians United for Israel are also up in arms at the PA’s rewriting of Christian history.)

Categories: UNRWA and Christmas
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Venezuela 2017: Socialist Policies Take Humanitarian Toll as Country Enters Dictatorship

December 24, 2017

Venezuela 2017: Socialist Policies Take Humanitarian Toll as Country Enters Dictatorship, Breitbart, Ben Kew, December 24, 2017

(Venezuelans who despise the Marudo regime and have the means to do so have probably left already.  One of the first things Chavez did when thousands of oil workers went on strike was to fire them all and replace them with others who knew nothing about working at an oil refinery. Chavez was bad and Maduro is worse. — DM)

Emigration has also become a major issue, with the outflux of Venezuelan migrants reaching unprecedented levels. Venezuela has surpassed Syria as the number one source of asylum requests into the United States, while the neighboring country of Colombia has begun drawing up plans for refugee camps should the country’s humanitarian crisis continue to worsen.

“2017 was the year when the international community finally accepted that the Venezuelan regime has morphed into a real narco-state with dangerous implications for the region,” former Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.N. Diego Arria told Breitbart News.

“2018 will mark the implosion of the crumbling Venezuela economy, the spread of massive poverty and hunger, becoming the worst humanitarian tragedy of any country in the region,” he continued. “Altogether this should lead to an increasing popular revolt that might convince the military to stop supporting this a bankrupt narco-state, under the increasing pressure of international sanctions.

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Although Venezuela’s problems began with the election of the authoritarian left-wing revolutionary Hugo Chávez in 1998, 2017 was the year that the country’s problems became too catastrophic for even the world’s most ardent socialists to defend.

Politically, the year has been defined by Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government’s increasingly blatant efforts to rule the country decree, while an embattled and disunified opposition continue to fail in their attempts to unify the country to bring down the government.

In January, Maduro appointed Aragua state governor Tareck El Aissami as the nation’s new vice president, a figure with strong links to major drugs trafficking outlet across Latin America and the jihadi terror organization Hezbollah. Together, the pair has schemed to turn the country into a one-party state.

The country’s crisis came to a head in April after opposition leaders called for daily protests that would rock the nation to its core. Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets every day to fight for their freedom and were met with shocking levels of brutality by security forces, which included the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons, that led to the deaths of 125.

The protests were primarily a response to increasing political persecution by the Maduro regime, as well as plans to rewrite the country’s constitution by creating an illegal lawmaking body known as the “national constituent assembly” that usurped the power of elected lawmakers and replaced them with government-approved cronies.

The Maduro regime eventually prevailed in their attempts to install the lawmaking body, which they legitimized through an election marred by violence which was later found to have been fraudulent. The body has since moved to pass laws to increase the regime’s authority, which include a law “against hatred and fascism” and bringing charges against political opponents.

Despite widespread unpopularity, Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has also had considerable electoral success in both mayoral and regional elections, boycotted by many opposition parties. The State Department later confirmed that both elections were plagued by a number of irregularities, including the banning of international observers, voter intimidation, and the closing of polling stations in opposition-controlled areas.

Maduro has also ruled that main opposition parties can no longer stand in next year’s presidential election, declaring that they will “disappear from the political map.”

The government has also ratcheted up political persecution. Thousands of political dissidents remain in prison, including opposition leader Leopoldo López. Meanwhile, figures such as Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma and Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, a former government loyalist, have also fled the country.

Economic turmoil has also plagued the regime, amid skyrocketing rates of inflation that have rendered the Bolivar currency practically worthless as well as a failure to meet a number of debt payments amounting to around $200 billion.

Two of the regime’s main creditors are China and Russia. Despite managing to agree on a debt restructuring package with Russia, China appears to have lost patience, and last month filed a lawsuit filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-run oil firm Petroleum of Venezuela (PDSVA) over a series of missed payments.

Yet amid all the political and economic turmoil, Venezuela is also facing the worst humanitarian crisisin its history. With a monthly minimum wage of around $1.50, millions of families can no longer afford enough food to eat, basic medical necessities, or power in their homes.

Shocking cases include teenage girls turning to prostitution, the butchering of zoo animals for food, and even cases of cannibalism as people struggle to feed themselves.

2017 has also seen the value of the Venezuelan bolivar collapse to levels comparable to Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic, with one American dollar now worth 112,000 bolivares, as Maduro continues to hike the country’s minimum wage to fight against what he claims is an “economic war” led by the United States.

The crisis has attracted worldwide attention, particularly in the United States. The White House imposed multiple economic sanctions against the regime, as well as personal sanctions against Maduro and other government officials.

President Donald Trump has also become a prominent voice on the crisis, claiming that America “will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles,” and has even mulled the possibility of military action as a solution.

Maduro has since urged his country’s military to prepare for war with the U.S, urging them to have “rifles, missiles, and well-oiled tanks at the ready … to defend every inch of the territory if need be.” He has also ordered civilians to join in “civic-military exercises” at government-run boot camps to prepare for a potential invasion.

LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Image

Emigration has also become a major issue, with the outflux of Venezuelan migrants reaching unprecedented levels. Venezuela has surpassed Syria as the number one source of asylum requests into the United States, while the neighboring country of Colombia has begun drawing up plans for refugee camps should the country’s humanitarian crisis continue to worsen.

“2017 was the year when the international community finally accepted that the Venezuelan regime has morphed into a real narco-state with dangerous implications for the region,” former Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.N. Diego Arria told Breitbart News.

“2018 will mark the implosion of the crumbling Venezuela economy, the spread of massive poverty and hunger, becoming the worst humanitarian tragedy of any country in the region,” he continued. “Altogether this should lead to an increasing popular revolt that might convince the military to stop supporting this a bankrupt narco-state, under the increasing pressure of international sanctions.”

Categories: Venezelan National Constituent Assembly, Venezuelan dictatorship, Venezuelan economy, Venezuelan health care, Venezuelan inflation, Venezuelan opposition, Venezuelan revolution
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Part and Parcel: France Deploys 100,000 Soldiers and Police Officers for the Holidays

December 24, 2017

Part and Parcel: France Deploys 100,000 Soldiers and Police Officers for the Holidays, Breitbart, December 24, 2017

(Please see also, Egypt secures Christians sites with 230,000 security personnel. — DM)

ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images

PARIS (AP) — France’s government is deploying nearly 100,000 police and soldiers for the holiday season as fears of extremist attacks remain high.

The additional security will focus on Christmas markets, shopping centres, religious buildings, public transport and tourist sites.

Citing “the context of a still-elevated terrorist threat,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement that 97,000 security force personnel are mobilized for protection Sunday and Monday.

In addition to the Christmas security, the ministry said extra policing was ordered around religious sites during Hanukkah earlier this month, and for Orthodox Christmas in January, “to allow the celebration of these festivities in good conditions.”

A new anti-terrorism law championed by President Emmanuel Macron’s government enshrines extra police powers as a result of multiple Islamic extremist attacks that killed more than 200 people in 2015-2016.

Categories: Christmas in France
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Egypt secures Christians sites with 230,000 security personnel

December 24, 2017

Egypt secures Christians sites with 230,000 security personnel, DEBKAfile, December 24, 2017

Nearly a quarter of a million security officers will secure some 2,626 churches in Egypt over the Christmas weekend, as well as public parks, state institutions and tourist sites, The measures will include CCTV, metal detector systems at the gates of churches and police vehicles parked outside. Exactly a year ago, 29 Christians were killed and 47 were injured when a suicide bomber attacked St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church in Cairo, with several more attacks against Christians since then. Although Coptic Christians in Egypt celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, a minority of non-Orthodox church believers will mark the day on Dec. 25, like much of the Western world.

Categories: Christmas security in Egypt
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Denmark announces funding cut to anti-Israel Palestinian NGOs

December 24, 2017

Denmark announces funding cut to anti-Israel Palestinian NGOs, Israel Hayom, Yair Altman, December 24, 2017

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan | Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon

Erdan called the statement from the Danish Foreign Ministry “a significant achievement” for Israel.

“It cannot be that European countries continue to fund Palestinian organizations that act to promote a boycott and present a distorted picture of Israel, and even worse, have ties with terrorist elements,” he said.

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The Danish Foreign Ministry on Friday announced it would cut funding to a number of Palestinian nongovernmental organizations and implement stricter conditions for them to receive Danish aid in the future.

Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen had been set to announce an additional $8.3 million in Danish funding for the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, an organization that funds a string of anti-Israel groups. But the country launched a review of its funding criteria in May, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Samuelsen to halt his country’s funding of radical Palestinian organizations.

Following a comprehensive examination of the issue in recent months, the Danish Foreign Ministry announced it would toughen conditions for Palestinian NGOs to receive Danish assistance.

In a letter to the Danish Foreign Ministry, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan had also warned that according to the information available to his ministry, a hefty portion of funds allocated to the Ramallah-based secretariat were allocated to organizations with ties to terrorist organizations and organizations that promote a boycott of Israel.

In an official statement noting that a majority of Danish financial aid had been withheld, Samuelsen said he attaches great importance to Danish aid reaching its intended destination. He said a number of NGOs that currently receive Danish aid will not continue to do so in the future.

In recent years, the secretariat, a joint funding mechanism for Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, has donated money to organizations with ties to the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, such as Al-Haq and Addameer. Shawan Jabarin, the director of Al-Haq, has served time in an Israeli prison.

Erdan called the statement from the Danish Foreign Ministry “a significant achievement” for Israel.

“It cannot be that European countries continue to fund Palestinian organizations that act to promote a boycott and present a distorted picture of Israel, and even worse, have ties with terrorist elements,” he said.

Categories: Denmark, Palestinian funding
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Europe: The Islamization of Christmas

December 24, 2017

Europe: The Islamization of Christmas, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, December 24, 2017

The re-theologizing of Christmas is based on the false premise that the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus (Isa) of the Koran. This religious fusion, sometimes referred to as “Chrislam,” is gaining ground in a West that has become biblically illiterate.

A school in Lüneburg postponed a Christmas party after a Muslim student complained that the singing of Christmas carols during school was incompatible with Islam. Alexander Gauland, the leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the school’s action was “an unbearable, involuntary submission to Islam” and amounted to a “cowardly injustice” toward non-Muslim children.

“The word ‘Christmas,’ a symbol of our faith and our culture, does not discriminate against anyone. Striking the emblems of Christmas does not guarantee anyone’s respect, does not produce a welcoming and inclusive school and society, but fosters intolerance towards our culture, our customs, our laws and our traditions. We firmly believe that our traditions must be respected.” — Milan politician Samuele Piscina.

This year’s Christmas season has been marked by Islam-related controversies in nearly every European country. Most of the conflicts have been generated by Europe’s multicultural political and religious elites, who are bending over backwards to secularize Christmas, ostensibly to ensure that Muslims will not be offended by the Christian festival.

Many traditional Christmas markets have been renamed — Amsterdam Winter Parade, Brussels Winter Pleasures, Kreuzberger Wintermarkt, London Winterville, Munich Winter Festival — to project a multicultural veneer of secular tolerance.

More troubling are the growing efforts to Islamize Christmas. The re-theologizing of Christmas is based on the false premise that the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus (Isa) of the Koran. This religious fusion, sometimes referred to as “Chrislam,” is gaining ground in a West that has become biblically illiterate.

In Britain, for instance, the All Saints Church in Kingston upon Thames recently held a joint birthday celebration for Jesus and Mohammed. The “Milad, Advent and Christmas Celebration” on December 3 was aimed at “marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed and looking forward to the birthday of Jesus.” The hour-long service included time for Islamic prayer and was followed by the cutting of a birthday cake.

The prominent Christian blog “Archbishop Cranmer” rebuked the church for its lack of discernment:

“Note how this event is ‘Marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed,’ but not looking forward to the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mohammed gets his prophethood, while Jesus gets neither his prophethood nor his priesthood; neither his kingship nor his messiahship. It’s the exalted Prophet Mohammed along with plain old Jesus, because to have added any of his claims to divinity would, of course, have alienated many Muslims (if they hadn’t already been alienated by the haram [forbidden by Islam] celebration), which wouldn’t have been very interfaith or sensitively missional, would it?”

The blog added that exalting Mohammed in churches effectively proclaims that Mohammed is greater than Jesus:

“Every time a church accords Mohammed the epithet ‘Prophet,’ they are rejecting the crucifixion, denying the resurrection of Christ, and refuting that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, for Mohammed denied all of these foundational tenets of the Christian faith.”

Previously, a passage from the Koran denying that Jesus is the Son of God was read during a service at a Scottish Episcopal Church in Glasgow on Epiphany, a festival commemorating the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the Queen’s chaplains, Gavin Ashenden, referred to the Koran reading as “blasphemy.” He added that “there are other and considerably better ways to build ‘bridges of understanding'” with Muslims.

In London, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, a parliamentary group composed of members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, issued a report, “A Very Merry Muslim Christmas,” aimed at drawing attention to the “humanity” of Muslims during Christmas. The report states:

“Too often, Muslim charities come to our attention because of negative media coverage… What we hear even less about is the ‘Muslim Merry Christmas.’ The soup kitchens, the food banks, the Christmas dinners, the New Year clean-up — work Muslim charities will be busy doing during the Christmas period.”

In Scotland, the regional government was accused of “undermining” Britain’s Christian heritage by promoting “winter festivals” for ethnic minorities while ignoring Christmas. Scotland’s International Development Minister, Alasdair Allan, pledged nearly £400,000 ($535,000) to fund 23 events during the winter months. He described them as “key dates in our national calendar” and said the “exciting and diverse” program would help Scots “celebrate everything great about our wonderful country during the winter months.” None of the events, however, has any connection to Christmas. A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said:

“It is deeply disappointing that the Scottish Government has chosen not to recognize the religious reality of Christmas in its Winter Festival events. Over half of the population stated their religion as Christian in the last census. Catholics, and other Christians, may quite rightly wonder why this publicly-funded Festival does not include any events designed to help Scots celebrate the birth of Christ which is undoubtedly the most significant celebration in the winter months.”

Gordon Macdonald, of Christian charity CARE, added:

“It is part of the general secularization that has been taking place within the Scottish Government for a number of years where our Christian heritage and value system has been undermined as a direct result of government policy.”

In Denmark, a primary school in Graested cancelled a traditional church service marking the beginning of Christmas in order not to offend Muslim pupils. Some parents accused the school of having double-standards: it recently held an event called “Syria Week” in which children immersed themselves in Middle Eastern culture. Ignoring parents, the school board sided with the school:

“The board backs the school’s decision to create new traditions[emphasis added] that involve children and young people.”

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who attended the school as a child, said the decision should be reversed. Health Minister Ellen Trane Norby added:

“Danish primary schools have a duty to spread education — and teaching the cultural values and knowledge connected to Christmas is an essential part of that.”

In France, the annual Christmas market in the Croix-Rousse district of Lyon was cancelled because of exorbitant security costs associated with protecting the event from Islamic terror. The city’s annual festival of lights did go ahead this year. The military governor of Lyon, General Pierre Chavancy, said that, because of the “sensitivity” of the event, 1,500 soldiers and police, backed up by dogs, river brigades and mine-clearers, would be deployed to provide security.

In neighboring Belgium, the head of the Red Cross in Liège, André Rouffart, ordered all 28 offices in the city to remove crucifixes to affirm the organization’s secular identity. Critics said the decision was part of a broader effort to “modify certain terminologies” and to “break with our traditions and our roots” in order to appease Muslims. “We once said Christmas holidays, now we say winter holidays,” said a local Red Cross volunteer. “The Christmas market in Brussels has been renamed ‘Winter Pleasures.’ Let things remain as they are.”

In Germany, a school in Lüneburg postponed a Christmas party after a Muslim student complained that the singing of Christmas carols during school was incompatible with Islam. The school’s decision to reschedule the event as a non-compulsory after-school activity generated “a flood of hate mail and even threats against school management and school board,” according to Focus. In an effort to appease angry parents, Headmaster Friedrich Suhr said that “non-Christian” Christmas songs such as “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” would not be banned. Alexander Gauland, the leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the school’s action was “an unbearable, involuntary submission to Islam” and amounted to a “cowardly injustice” toward non-Muslim children.

In Munich, ads for a multicultural “winter market” depicted a snowman covered in a burqa. The chairman of the AfD in Bavaria, Petr Bystron, noted the irony: “A burqa snowman as a tolerance symbol?” In Halle, the Christmas market was renamed “Wintermarket.”

In Berlin, the traditional Christmas market was protected by walls of concrete barriers to prevent a repeat of last year’s jihadist attack in which 12 people were killed and more than 50 injured. In Stuttgart, a 53-year-old man was arrested at the Christmas market after he claimed to carrying a bomb in his backpack. In Potsdam, the Christmas market was closed after a nearby pharmacy received a letter bomb. In Bonn, the Christmas market was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

In Italy, a school in Milan removed references to Christmas at a party and renamed the holiday as “The Great Festival of Happy Holidays.” Writing on Facebook, local politician Samuele Piscina accused the school of implementing “a politically correct leftist policy” that deprives Italian children the joy of Christmas:

“After the nativity scenes and the crucifixes, now even Christmas parties are hindered in schools. The word ‘Christmas,’ a symbol of our faith and our culture, does not discriminate against anyone. Striking the emblems of Christmas does not guarantee anyone’s respect, does not produce a welcoming and inclusive school and society, but fosters intolerance towards our culture, our customs, our laws and our traditions. We firmly believe that our traditions must be respected.”

In Bolzano, a cardboard Christmas tree was ordered to be removed from the town hall because “it could have offended the sensibilities” of Muslims. A local politician, Alessandro Urzì, expressed outrage at the decision: “The bureaucratic rigor with which the tree was removed to avoid the risk of annoying someone reflects the barbarization of the cultural climate.”

In Norway, a primary school in Skien announced that its Christmas festivities this year would include not only the usual reading by pupils of verses from the Bible but also two verses from the Koran which refer to Jesus. The inimitable Bruce Bawer explained the implications:

“Stigeråsen School’s Christmas plans provide yet another example of dhimmitude: craven European submission to Islam. This year, there might be a couple of Koran verses in a Christmas show; next year, a yuletide event at which both religions are celebrated on an even footing; and not too many years after that, perhaps, a children’s celebration at which there is no cross and no Christmas tree, only prayer rugs, benedictions in Arabic, and hijabs for the girls.”

In Spain, the Madrid City Council replaced Christmas festivities in the capital with a neo-Pagan “International Fair of the Cultures.” According to Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena, a former member of Spain’s Communist Party, the express purpose of the month-long event is to de-Christianize Christmas to make it more inclusive:

“We all know that Christmas is a festival of religious origin, but it is also a celebration of humanity, solidarity. Therefore, the Madrid City Council wants to do everything possible so that everyone who is in this city, from wherever they may be, can enjoy Christmas.”

Breaking with tradition, the Madrid city hall also refused to place a nativity scene at the Puerta de Alcalá, one of the city’s most iconic monuments. Local politician José Luis Martínez-Almeida accused Carmena of “enthusiastically collaborating in the celebration of Ramadan” but “trying to hide all the Christian symbols of Christmas.” He added: “We want to reclaim our cultural and religious roots.”

(Image source: pexels.com)

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.

Categories: Christmas in Eurabia
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Trump administration to snap ties with Palestinians, no peace plan, no more monetary aid

December 23, 2017

Trump administration to snap ties with Palestinians, no peace plan, no more monetary aid, DEBKAfile, December 23, 2017

According DEBKAfile’s sources, Palestinian officials in Ramallah were devastated by news of the sudden cutoff of the main sources of the PA’s revenue. Even the Qatar ruler, whom Abbas visited last week as a last resort to save the PA from economic meltdown, refused to release any more funding.

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The White House has decided to quietly withdraw from all its ties with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas.

DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report that the Trump administration has resolved to scrap all ties with the Palestinian leadership in retaliation for its campaign against US President Donald Trump and his Jerusalem policy. Several warnings to Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of what was in store if he did not desist from castigating the US president fell on death ears.

Last week, two Arab crown princes, Saudi Muhammed bin Salman and UAE Sheikh Muhammed bin Zayed, summoned Abbas to their capitals and urged him strongly to back away from his attacks on President Trump. He got the same advice from the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Al Thani, who conferred with Washington on the subject – all to no avail. The Trump administration has therefore set out an eight-point program of sanctions, which is first revealed here:

  • The Israeli-Palestinian peace plan under preparation in Washington will not be submitted to Ramallah – only to Israel and the relevant Arab governments.
  • US-Palestinian interaction is to be suspended – not just at the senior levels but in day-to-day interchanges. The administration has notified Palestinian and other Arab parties to stop addressing queries on political and economic matters to the US consulate in Jerusalem, because they will not receive answers.
  • The status of the PLO office in Washington will be reevaluated with a view to shutting it down.
  • Palestinian officials will no longer be invited to Washington by the US government, including the State Department and Department of Treasury.
  • Above all, they will not be welcome at the White House or the National Security Council where US Middle East policy is designed. Senior US officials congratulated the senior Palestinian negotiator Saab Erekat, who also holds the PA’s American portfolio, on his recovery from illness, at the same time warning him that he would no longer be received at the White House.
  • The Trump administration will not make any public announcement of the cutoff of financial aid to the Palestinians. Since the funds are mostly earmarked for specific economic projects, each allocation will simply be held back on the pretext of the need for a “reappraisal.”
  • The US will halt its contributions to the UN Work and Relief Organization, an estimated one billion dollars per annum.
  • The US administration moreover intervened with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar with a request that they freeze or slow their economic aid to the Palestinian Authority.

According DEBKAfile’s sources, Palestinian officials in Ramallah were devastated by news of the sudden cutoff of the main sources of the PA’s revenue. Even the Qatar ruler, whom Abbas visited last week as a last resort to save the PA from economic meltdown, refused to release any more funding.

Categories: Abbas, Palestinian funding, Peace process, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and "Palestinians", Trump and Palestinians, UAE, UNRWA
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Modesto Tow-Truck Driver Planned Christmas Attack on S.F.’s Pier 39, Says FBI

December 23, 2017

Modesto Tow-Truck Driver Planned Christmas Attack on S.F.’s Pier 39, Says FBI, PJ Media, Bridget Johnson, December 22, 2017

Tourists and visitors walk through the alleyways of Pier 39 at the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on Sept. 14, 2017. (Alexandra Schuler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

“It’s not true. I don’t know what the FBI are trying to pin on him. I don’t know why,” Gordon Jameson said. “He’s never once talked about bombing anything. He’d never hurt a single person. He’s more of a sweet type of person, a gentle kind of person. He’s a peaceful Muslim person.”

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A tow truck driver with Marine Corps training from California’s San Joaquin Valley is accused of plotting to execute a Christmas attack at Pier 39, a popular tourist spot in San Francisco.

Everitt Aaron Jameson, 26, of Modesto, Calif., was arrested today and brought before a magistrate in Fresno on charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The FBI says he was inspired by the Halloween attack on a Manhattan bike path, and soon after offered his jihadi services.

According to the criminal complaint, Jameson “espoused radical jihadi beliefs, including authoring social media posts that are supportive of terrorism, communicating with people he believes share his jihadi views and offering to provide services to such people, including in the form of his presumably employer-provided tow truck in service of the ’cause.'”

The complaint says Jameson communicated with an undercover FBI employee about “his interest in planning and undertaking a violent attack in San Francisco in support of ISIS” and also talked about providing financial support to jihad.

The FBI was originally tipped off about Jameson because of his pro-ISIS “like” and “love” activity on Facebook. He loved with a heart, for example, a recent posterfrom ISIS supporters showing Santa overlooking Times Square with a box of dynamite at his side.

Everitt Jameson

The source who tipped off the FBI began private messaging with Jameson on Oct. 24, the FBI says. Three days later, Jameson allegedly messaged the FBI source that he was “here to beg to join the cause against darul kuffar [land of disbelievers]. I’m ready.” Asked two days later if he was a convert to Islam, Jameson replied he was and “that is what will make me more useful.”

“I can blend in. Or shock and awe,” Jameson reportedly added, telling the source that he took his shahada — profession of belief — two years ago at the Merced Islamic Center. “I am a tow truck driver. So I can make these services available as well,” he said.

On the day of the Manhattan attack, in which Sayfullo Saipov killed eight people with a rented pickup truck, the FBI says Jameson posted a GIF of a crowd giving a standing ovation next to the story. “I’m glad to know we Muslims are finally hitting back,” he allegedly told the FBI source. “Allahu Akbar! The Kuffar deserve everything and more for the lives they have taken.”

On Nov. 3, Jameson submitted a franchise tow truck driver application with Modesto Police. A few weeks later, FBI agents began surveillance of Jameson at the tow company where he worked. An undercover FBI employee began communicating with Jameson via social media on Dec. 11. “I was a soldier in the Kuffar army before I reverted. I have been trained in combat and things of war. In Sha Allah anything of that nature, as well as funding,” Jameson allegedly offered.

The complaint says Jameson graduated from basic training in the Marine Corps in 2009, earning a sharpshooter qualification. He was discharged from the Marines for fraudulent enlistment, failing to disclose his history of asthma.

The undercover FBI employee, who told Jameson that his boss was ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, met up with Jameson on Dec. 16. The tow truck driver said he’d ready the Anarchist Cookbook and could provide $400 per month of his salary to ISIS. Jameson “stated that we need something along the lines of New York or San Bernardino,” the complaint states, and suggested using a combination vehicle/gun attack on Pier 39 with explosives to funnel crowds into an ambush scenario. Jameson allegedly told his contact that he could carry out the attack this week, and that Christmas was the “perfect day” to launch the assault. He said he planned to be killed during the attack, thus didn’t have an escape plan.

Jameson was told to wait until approval came from al-Baghdadi, the FBI said. He allegedly said he’d “prefer an assault rifle” and could get timers, remote detonators, PVC pipe, nails and powder; he told his contact that he’d go up to a remote campground in the mountains to build the IEDs.

After the meeting, Jameson reportedly wrote a page-and-a-half-long attack claim statement for ISIS. He then sent along photos of Pier 39.

On Monday, an FBI employee accidentally called Jameson’s cell phone from a Washington, D.C., 202 area code, the complaint notes. Jameson answered in Arabic and the FBI employee hung up. Jameson called the number and got the voice mail identifying the name of the FBI employee but not the agency. Later that day, Jameson told the undercover FBI employee that he had “reconsidered” the attack.

On Wednesday, the FBI executed a search warrant on Jameson’s house and reportedly found the ISIS letter he’d written with his chosen nom de guerre: Abdallah Abu Everitt Ibn Gordon Al-Amriki. The letter faulted the U.S. for being a “nationalistic, godless society” that “allowed Donald J Trump to give away Al Quds to the Jews.” He said that the “Lions of Islam” had “penetrated and infiltrated your disgusting country.”

Handguns and a rifle were found at Jameson’s residence, but there were few bullets. During the search, the complaint states, Jameson “stated his support of ISIS and terrorism and discussed aspects of the plan to carry out an attack, noting that he would be happy if an attack was carried out.”

Jameson faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Modesto Bee reported that Jameson graduated from Enochs High School in 2009, and when he was 16 years old wrote a letter that ran in the newspaper in support of U.S. forces remaining in Iraq. “Say Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction (which he did; they weren’t put together and could’ve been within days). Would you like to have a maniac who waged biological warfare on his own people to walk around with WMD?,” he wrote. “I don’t know what you were taught, but I was raised to finish something you start, and guess what? It’s not finished yet.”

The suspect’s father, Gordon Jameson, told the Merced Sun-Star that he’s a “devout Pentecostal” and discussed religion with his son, who he says grew up Christian and converted to Islam about a year ago.

“We’d talk about Jesus – not argue, just talk – and he’d say ‘yeah, Dad, we all believe in the same God,'” Gordon Jameson said. “He never once spoke about hate or wanting to hurt anything. He never said anything about wanting to blow people up.”

The dad said family members jokingly called Everitt “ISIS” after he converted. He said Everitt Jameson’s two young children had been permanently taken from him by Child Protective Services; the mother is serving prison time in Chowchilla. “He jumped through every hoop they put up for him to get his kids back,” Gordon Jameson said. “They did him pretty well dirty. A dad doesn’t have much rights to try to get his kids back.” The father said he was concerned his son was suicidal over losing custody of his kids.

“It’s not true. I don’t know what the FBI are trying to pin on him. I don’t know why,” Gordon Jameson said. “He’s never once talked about bombing anything. He’d never hurt a single person. He’s more of a sweet type of person, a gentle kind of person. He’s a peaceful Muslim person.”

Categories: FBI, Islamic attacks and Christmas, Islamic converts, Islamic radicalization, Islamic State, Islamic terrorists in America, San Francisco
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