Archive for the ‘Europe’ category

Sex Crimes Across Germany: The Coverup Unravels

January 9, 2016

Sex Crimes Across Germany: The Coverup Unravels, Power LineJohn Hinderaker, January 9, 2016

Michelle03Michelle, one of the young women who were sexually assaulted, has courageously gone public with her story.

Britain’s Daily Mail must be one of the world’s oddest news sources, but occasionally it does some good original reporting. That is the case with respect to its coverage of the epidemic of sexual assault that has erupted across Germany:

[Michelle] is just one of 120 women who were abused that horrific night in the [cathedral] square, which is dotted with bars, nightclubs and coffee shops, and is where Cologne locals have seen in the New Year for centuries.The men, speaking Arabic and seemingly either drunk or high on drugs, moved around in large groups among a gathering of around 1,000 male migrants and deliberately targeted women. The men easily outnumbered the 190 police officers on duty, who were quickly overwhelmed.

It wasn’t just Cologne:

In other cities across Germany, including Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, where a tourist was sexually assaulted by five men right in front of the famous Brandenburg Gate, it was the same disturbing story.

Nearly 50 women in Hamburg complained to police about sexual harassment by ‘North African’ men, who called them ‘bitches’, shouted ‘Fikki, fikki’ to indicate they wanted to rape them, and ‘chased’ them ‘like cattle’ around the streets. …

In Stuttgart, women complained of sexual attacks by ‘trouble-makers with an immigrant background’ and 15 other ‘Mediterranean men of Arabic appearance’.

When one group of young girls refused these men’s advances, their boyfriends were beaten up. One girl who fought off an attacker ended up in hospital with a broken nose and deep cuts to her face.

The common denominator, of course, is that the attackers were recent Islamic immigrants, most of them apparently “refugees.”

The attacks have sounded the alarm bell in Germany over the consequences of mass migration.

One would hope so! But it’s a little late, and DM notes that around 3,200 Islamic migrants are still entering Germany every day.

What is most remarkable about this story is the coverup, which is now being freely acknowledged:

Many Germans, including some of the victims themselves, have accused authorities of a conspiracy of silence over the assaults to stop criticism of the mass immigration policy pursued by Mrs Merkel and her politically-correct supporters. The mainstream media in Germany has, until recently, toed the Government line; a top public broadcaster, ZDF, recently refused to run a segment about a rape case on its prime-time ‘crime-watch’ show because the ‘dark-skinned’ suspect was a migrant.

The programme’s editor defended her decision, saying: ‘We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread a bad mood. The migrants don’t deserve it.’

American news outlets also censor the news to advance a political agenda, but they are not quite so brazen about it.

Cracks only began to show just before New Year. Bild, Germany’s largest daily newspaper, broke ranks…

Contemplate that for a moment: “broke ranks.”

…by accusing officials of conducting a campaign of deception on a ‘massive scale’ by burying bad news on migration. It reported that drug gangs involved in organised crime were actively recruiting newly-arrived migrants from the vast temporary camps where they live.

The Cologne police force has also been accused of deliberately hushing up the New Year scandal. It issued an official press release the following day describing the celebrations as ‘exuberant, but mostly peaceful’. The release has since been retracted, and last night it emerged that police chief Wolfgang Albers is to resign.

“Mostly peaceful”: interestingly, the same locution that is conventionally used to describe violent Black Lives Matter protests in the American press.

Broadcaster ZDF had to apologise for a ‘cover up’ after it failed to report the Cologne story for three days, even though it knew about it.

And until Thursday, a week after the attacks, there had been silence from Mrs Merkel’s ministers about the backgrounds of the perpetrators. Initially, they insisted there was no evidence that new migrants were involved in the violence.

In fact, contemporaneous police reports indicated that all or virtually all of the attackers were recently-arrived Muslims.

Europe’s leftists are clinging bitterly to their illusions, in some instances actually trying to excuse the sex criminals. Some city officials have issued recommendations for how young women should act to avoid “provoking” rapists from “other cultures.” Will non-elite Europeans put up with such nonsense? I doubt it. In Europe, even more than in the U.S., fundamental transformation through mass immigration is a policy that the elites just can’t sell.

Protests Underway – 100 Women Assaulted, Robbed In Germany On NYE

January 9, 2016

Protests Underway – 100 Women Assaulted, Robbed In Germany On NYE, Fox News, January 9, 2016

 

Is Europe Giving Up?

January 8, 2016

Is Europe Giving Up? Gatestone InstituteJudith Bergman, January 8, 2016

♦ As a response to a gang of a thousand migrant men sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, the mayor suggested a “code of conduct” for German girls and women, as a measure to “prevent such things from ever happening again.”

♦ The idea of a “code of conduct” for girls and women to accommodate male predators not only places the blame on the victim but is an inversion of responsibility unseen in Western jurisprudence. The politically correct urge to accommodate the culture of immigrants means that justice is no longer blind.

♦ Each asylum seeker, upon entering Europe, needs to be informed, in the clearest possible manner, that all women, even infidels, must be treated with respect.

♦ “I feel betrayed by Britain. I came here to get away from this and the situation is worse here than in the country I escaped from.” — A Muslim woman, quoted by Baroness Caroline Cox.

The cathedral opposite the main train station used to be the traditional gathering spot for New Year’s Eve revelers in the German city of Cologne.

This year, Germans who poured out from the train station to celebrate the New Year they were met by a crowd of some 1000 young men. The men, according to German police, seemed to be of Arab or North African origin. They had taken over the entire public square in front of the station, and divided themselves into smaller gangs to surround women who were passing by. They then sexually assaulted them, and stole their wallets, purses and phones.

Police have so far received over 100 criminal complaints; three-quarters of them for sexual assault, and one for rape.

According to the British Telegraph, “Women were robbed, groped, and had their underwear torn from their bodies, while couples had fireworks thrown at them.”

“Shortly after midnight, the first women came to us… Crying and in shock they described how they had been severely sexually harrassed. We went to look for women in the crowd. I picked one up from the ground. She was screaming and crying. Her underwear had been torn from her body,” an unnamed policeman said.

In Hamburg, according to the police, a series of similar incidents took place in the city’s Reeperbahn red-light district. Witnesses described groups of five to fifteen men of who “hunted” women in the streets.”

The Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, suggested in response, a “code of conduct” for German girls and women, as a measure to “prevent such things from ever happening again.” Her proposed code of conduct entails staying at an arm’s length from strangers, remaining within one’s group, and asking bystanders to intervene or help as a witness.

The “code of conduct” Mayor Reker recommended sparked a storm of criticism against her. She later said that not only German women but visitors from “other cultures” should also be educated on acceptable conduct as well. “We need to prevent confusion about what constitutes happy behaviour and what is utterly separate from openness, especially in sexual behaviour,” she said.

So Cologne is facing mass sexual assaults, robbery and violence from what appear to be huge organized gangs of young migrant men, and the mayor is talking of teaching “happy behavior”?!

Yet, this is the approach that is often taken in other countries of Europe. As Andrew Higgins wrote in the New York Times last month, in Norway, Muslim immigrants are taught how to relate to women:

“Fearful of stigmatizing migrants as potential rapists and playing into the hands of anti-immigrant politicians, most European countries have avoided addressing the question of whether men arriving from more conservative societies might get the wrong idea once they move to places where it can seem as if anything goes. But, with more than a million asylum seekers arriving in Europe this year, an increasing number of politicians and also some migrant activists now favor offering coaching in European sexual norms and social codes.”

“The biggest danger for everyone is silence,” said a clinical psychologist in Norway, Per Isdal, who has been working with the immigrants. Many refugees come from cultures that are not gender equal and where women are the property of men. We have to help them adapt to their new culture,” Mr. Isdal said.

A course manual in Norway sets out a simple rule that all asylum seekers need to learn and follow: “To force someone into sex is not permitted in Norway, even when you are married to that person.”

Other than the “code of conduct” for German women to help keep criminal immigrant sexual predators away, Cologne’s Mayor Reker was most cautious in her statements. She avoided criticizing in any way Germany’s immigration policies, which led last year to one million migrants entering Germany. “It’s completely improper… to link a group that appeared to come from North Africa with the refugees,” said Reker.

But facts are facts. Of the more than one million migrants arriving in Germany in 2015, most were from Muslim countries, mainly from the Middle East or North Africa.

“We will not tolerate such cowardly and abhorrent attacks,” said German Justice Minister Heiko Maas. “This is apparently an entirely new dimension of organized crime.” All of those involved, Maas demanded, must be “identified and made accountable.”

That is not going to be easy, German officials made clear: “Footage from surveillance cameras mounted at the entrance to the Cologne station will certainly help, but the number of people on the square combined with darkness and the not entirely reliable memories of many of those partying at the site will make the process dramatically more difficult.”

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, despite the problems being caused by the wave of migrants, has refused to set a limit on how many migrants Germany should admit.

Despite German officialdom’s assurances that it will seek justice for the victims of the sexual assaults and violence on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and elsewhere, Mayor Reker’s “code of conduct” for women and girls in the face of sexual assaults represents a new low in the way that Europe approaches crime — which is becoming increasingly rampant.

What will be next? Will there be further “codes of conduct” requesting girls and women only to walk outside accompanied by a male escort? As unimaginable as this sounds, that is the kind of measure the “code of conduct” will invite.

The flaw in the “code of conduct” is that it makes girls and women responsible for the criminal conduct of male predators.

What will be the defendant’s argument in a future case: “Well, your honor, she did not keep me at arm’s length, so of course I assumed she was game”?

The idea that there should be any “code of conduct” for girls and women to accommodate male predators not only places the blame on the victim; it is an inversion of responsibility. This has no precedence in the West, either in culture or in jurisprudence. Blaming female victims only emboldens male sexual predators.

The migrants know what laws are — there are plenty of them under Islamic sharia law. In the West, there is another type of law in their new host countries, which have welcomed them as guests. In the Middle East, “host countries” with “guests” is also a familiar concept. Virtually all the monarchies and emirates hold the view that the state is their “house” and newcomers their guests; so if a guest cannot behave the way the host expects, he is escorted out. No one would expect a host to put up with a guest who trashed his house.

In the same way, each asylum seeker, upon entering Europe, needs to be informed immediately, in the clearest possible manner, that all women, even infidels, must be treated with respect.

The politically correct urge to accommodate the culture of immigrants only means that justice is no longer blind. It means regressing to unequal justice before the law. It means that because of even a well-intentioned courtesy, half the citizens — women — remain mistreated, disregarded, and with scant, if any, rights.

Unacceptable behavior is not exclusive to Germany. It is a troubling trend that has spread in recent years over large parts of Britain and the European continent.

In March 2014, the British Law Society adopted controversial guidelines for solicitors on how to compile “Sharia compliant” wills. The guidelines allowed British solicitors to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude “unbelievers” altogether. Children born out of wedlock — and even those who had been adopted — could not be counted as legitimate heirs. The idea, apparently, was that these guidelines, favoring inequality, should be recognized by British courts. At the time, Nicholas Fluck, then president of the Law Society, said the guidance would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.

Facing a barrage of protests, the Law Society, just eight months later, had to apologize and withdraw the controversial recommendations. Andrew Caplen, then the new president of the society, apologized and said that the criticism had been taken on board.

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, who had campaigned for the guidelines to be withdrawn, said:

“This is an important reverse for what had seemed to be the relentless march of sharia to becoming de facto British law. Until now, politicians and the legal establishment either encouraged this process or spinelessly recoiled from acknowledging what was happening. I congratulate the Law Society for heeding the objections we and others made. This is particularly good news for women who fare so badly under sharia law, which is a non-democratically determined, non-human rights compliant and discriminatory code”.

Another example of accommodation in Britain came in December 2015. A two-year commission, the Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life, chaired by former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss, concluded in its report ,”Living with Difference: community, diversity and the common good,” that Britain is no longer a Christian country, and should stop acting as if it were one. The Commission’s report stated that the decline of churchgoing and the rise of Islam and other faiths means that a “new settlement” is needed for religion in the UK.

Perhaps most controversially, the report called for a new approach to anti-terror policy (page 37):

“In universities two of the biggest problems put to us in our consultation were to do with a tendency to view issues of religion and belief through a lens of security and counter-terrorism… there is currently concern about the requirements of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 in relation to universities. ‘Enabling free debate within the law,’ wrote the Russell Group of universities, ‘is a key function which universities perform in our democratic society. Imposing restrictions on non-violent extremism or radical views would risk limiting freedom of speech on campus and may potentially drive those with radical views off campus and underground, where … [they] cannot be challenged in an open environment. Closing down challenge and debate could foster extremism and dissent … “

Simply put, the report advocates, in the name of free speech and “living with difference,” that students should be allowed to voice extremist and radical views on campus without fear of being reported to the security services.

The report was condemned by Cabinet ministers as “seriously misguided,” and the Church of England said it was “a waste.” Among those who fathered the report and provided input to it were the former and present Archbishops of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and Justin Welby; Home Secretary Theresa May, and senior executives at the BBC and Channel 4.

In the United Kingdom, Baroness Caroline Cox, a member of the House of Lords and a nurse by training, is attempting to reverse this trend. This October, she introduced a bill in the House of Lords to make it illegal for any arbitration tribunal to “do anything that constitutes discrimination, harassment or victimisation on grounds of sex.” She quoted one Muslim woman who had told her, “I feel betrayed by Britain. I came here to get away from this and the situation is worse here than in the country I escaped from.” When a colleague claimed the Bill was trying to “demonise Muslims,” another colleague, Lord Carlile, said it was really just trying to “demonise discrimination.”

1415Left: A scene from New Year’s Eve in front of Cologne’s central railway station. Right: Britain’s Baroness Caroline Cox, who is leading a fight to protect women’s rights from the encroachment of Islamic Sharia law on the British legal system.

Europe seems to have learned nothing from the past decades. Its problems with immigrant Muslim populations continue to deteriorate. Accommodation has not solved these problems; more accommodation will undoubtedly not solve them either. More accommodation will make them, if anything, worse.

Geert Wilders on New Year’s Eve Sexual Assaults in Cologne Germany by Arab and North African men

January 6, 2016

Geert Wilders on New Year’s Eve Sexual Assaults in Cologne Germany by Arab and North African men, New English Review, January 6, 2016

Protest Sign in Cologne Germany APProtest Signs in Cologne Germany on New Year’s Eve Sexual Assaults Source: AP

Reports of sexual assaults and robberies of women gathered for celebrations in Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve have created a firestorm of concern in Germany, but also in neighboring Holland.  Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) raised questions in the Hague Parliament of the ruling coalition cabinet members on January 5th.  Today, Wilders sent a letter to Prime Minister Rutte leader of the VVD party ruling coalition requesting preventive actions to foil such possible attacks by migrants and refugees in Dutch reception centers and communities.

Reports of 90 incidents by women victims in Cologne of such sexual attacks and robberies indicated that the perpetrators were “Arabic or North Africa looking” males.  It heightened concerns in this most culturally and ethnically diverse German city and among opposition political leaders who have questioned the wisdom of allowing in more than 1 million predominately Muslim  migrants and refugees from  the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. That prompted  Chancellor Merkel ,who has welcomed the mass immigration wave of Muslims, as a means of dealing with Germany’s acute labor shortage to have the ruling CD government Justice Minister  investigate these  charges and determine if any arrests can be made by local law enforcement. However, reports of riots at reception centers by migrants and refugees have aroused protests in a number of German communities.

CNN updated these developments  arising from the Cologne New Year’s  Eve sexual attacks , “Reports of New Year’s Eve sex assaults in Cologne fuel German migrant debate:”

A spate of alleged sexual assaults and robberies at New Year’s Eve festivities in the German city of Cologne has fueled a political firestorm over immigration in Germany.

Ninety criminal incidents, a quarter of which were sexual assaults, were reported following New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city, Cologne police told CNN.

Police said victims described the perpetrators as gangs of Arab or North African men. Many of the assaults were likely intended to distract, allowing attackers to steal mobile phones and other devices, police said.

Authorities said the crimes, including a rape, occurred around the train station, next to the western German city’s landmark cathedral.

Video footage of the celebrations in the area show riotous scenes, with revelers shooting fireworks into crowds.

In a phone call with Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage over the attacks, labeling them “disgusting” and calling for the culprits to be identified and punished as soon as possible, CNN affiliate ARD reported.

Cologne police Chief Wolfgang Albers said at a press conference Monday that the incidents were “intolerable,” describing them as “crimes of a totally new dimension.”

The episode raised questions about the viability of Cologne’s famous Carnival next month when hundreds of thousands are expected to join celebrations on city streets, he said.

A smaller number of similar assaults also were reported in the German city of Hamburg on New Year’s Eve, Hamburg police told CNN.

The women involved in the Cologne sexual attacks gave evidence of what occurred:

One of the Cologne victims said she was too scared to go out alone following the ordeal.

“The men surrounded us and started to grab our behinds and touch our crotches,” she said.

“They touched us everywhere. I wanted to take my friend and leave. I turned around and in that moment someone grabbed my bag.”

She said she feared she could be killed or raped by the attackers.

“Nobody noticed and nobody helped us. I just wanted to get out.”

Another victim said she had unsuccessfully tried to fight off her assailant.

“But there were so many people around me that there was no control. There was no way out. There was no way to protect yourself,” she said.

“We ran to the police. But we saw the police were so understaffed. They couldn’t take care of us and we as women suffered the price.”

Watch this UK Telegraph video of protests in Cologne against these sexual attacks and robberies of young women allegedly by Arab/North African young men:

(Video at the link — DM)

download (1)

 

Geert Wilders in Hague Parliament

In view of these attacks by  Arab attackers in several German cities lead by Cologne,  Geert Wilders and fellow PVV MP Sietse Fritsma,  presented the  Dutch Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Security and Justice in the Hague parliament on January 5, 2016 the following questions:

1.) Are you aware of reports that on New Year’s Eve groups of mostly Arab men assaulted, robbed and raped dozens of young women in several German cities?

2.) Are you also aware also of the statements by female victims who said “They surrounded us and began to grope us? Their hands were everywhere. I had fingers in every bodily orifice”?

3.) Do you agree with Wolfgang Albers, the Cologne Police Chief that we are dealing here with “a whole new dimension of violence”? If not, why not?

4.)Do you agree with us that this new dimension of violence is the result of the import of migrants with a violent, Islamic culture that often regards women and young girls as inferior? If not, why not?

5.)Are you still of the opinion that the word testosterone bomb is a terrible word, as you told the first signatory of these questions during the parliamentary debate on September 17th last year, or do you now finally realize that allowing tens of thousands of Arab men in Netherlands jeopardizes the safety of our citizens?

6.)Do you remember the parliamentary debate on asylum seekers of October 14th, 2015, during which the first signatory of these questions read several reports of women who had been harassed by asylum seekers in the Netherlands? If so, why do you continue to endanger Dutch women by allowing the massive admission of asylum seekers?

7.) Do you realize that, if you continue to leave our borders wide open, it is only a matter of time before mass robberies and assaults such as those in Germany, will also happen on the same large scale in the Netherlands? Do you want to have this on your conscience or are you finally ready to close the Dutch borders to Islamic testosterone bombs?

In a Dutch newspaper, The Post, on-line article by Wilders, “Cologne Assaults May Soon Happen on Large Scale in Netherlands Too,” he wrote:

If we continue to allow asylum-seekers and immigrants from Islamic countries to settle in our country en masse, then what has happened on New Year’s Eve in Germany will soon happen on the same large scale in the Netherlands, too. The first signs are already there.

During the parliamentary debate on October 14, 2015, I quoted from emails of ordinary Dutch citizens suffering from the behavior of asylum seekers and immigrants. These mails referred to young girls being “immorally touched”, daughters being “harassed,” women who are told “I want to f___k you.”

The events in Cologne are the signs of a future which lies before us if the government and the majority of the parliamentarians refuse to face the truth.

Cologne is nearby. Our wives and daughters must be protected. The government needs to wake up. Mark Rutte must do his duty. Our borders must be closed. We must de-Islamize the Netherlands.

Today, Wilders issued a follow up letter to Dutch PM Rutte saying:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Yesterday and today, I received hundreds of emails. Hundreds of emails full of fear and indignation. About the horrific events on New Year’s Eve in Cologne.

I have not heard you about those events. I find that very strange. After Paris last November, we now have Cologne. After the Islamic terror, the sexual jihad. But we do not hear you. Hello, Mr. Prime Minister? Are you still there?

What happened in Cologne is repulsive. Fear reigns in Germany, but also in the Netherlands. Don’t you notice it? Thousands of Dutch women worry about their safety. Thousands of Dutch men fear for the safety of their wives. And thousands of Dutch parents are afraid of what might happen to their daughters.

All these people realize that it will not be long before large group attacks on women will also take place in the Netherlands. Testosterone bombs I have called them, but it is far worse. This is sexual terrorism, this is sexual jihad.

On a smaller scale, it is already happening in the Netherlands today. Ever more women are being harassed. Yesterday, the media reported about a girl in the province of Zeeland which had been assaulted by an Arab man. For years already, there is a plague of assault rapes by non-Western men in Sweden and Norway. It is coming our way.

You do not like to hear this, Mr. Rutte. And that is undoubtedly the reason why you are so quiet now. But you are responsible for this situation. Because, despite all the warnings, you have opened our country’s borders to tens of thousands of people – mostly young men – from an Islamic culture.

I hope that your eyes will finally open and that you will close our borders at once and start to de-Islamize the Netherlands. So that our country may once again be the safe country the Dutch people are entitled to.

Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders MP is leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands

The plague of sexual assaults, robberies  and rapes  of young women by  Muslim migrant young men in Sweden has made it what some allege has become  the rape capital of Europe. Then we have the sexual grooming practices of young British girls by South Asia Muslim émigrés in the UK. With a million Muslim refugees and migrants who broke the borderless Schengen system, they are seeking more than sanctuary and possible economic employment, opportunities.  Rather it may result in establishing virtual no go areas emboldened by sexual terrorism ruled under Sharia Islamic law condoned by EU countries under the guise of myopic politically correct multi-culturalism policies. What they do not comprehend to their undoing is that the great wave of Muslim immigration is a furtherance of the Dar al Hijrah immigration strategy to spread Islamization to Europe and the West.  That is what concerns Wilders and others in the broken borders of the EU with thousands of refugees arriving daily from conflicts in the Muslim Ummah exemplified by the Jihad of the self-declared Caliphate, the Islamic State.

 

Palestinians: Save Us from the Good-Hearted Westerners!

January 1, 2016

Palestinians: Save Us from the Good-Hearted Westerners! Gatestone InstituteBassam Tawil, January 1, 2016

(How many other “Palestinians” agree with Tawil? — DM)

♦ Every Palestinian knows in his heart that we do not want a state of our own alongside Israel, but rather instead of Israel. This includes all the land of Palestine and Israel. It means that Jews have no right to exist on even one speck of it.

♦ Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claims he wants to reach a peace agreement with Israel. But at the same time he and his henchmen incite the Palestinians to stab, run over and shoot Israelis to death, while he idealizes, glorifies and finances — with the funds he receives from the West — the terrorists and their families.

♦ The Palestinian people are already almost totally radicalized, even in the West Bank. They do not seem concerned about living under an Islamist regime run by Hamas or Islamic State.

♦ Abbas’s goal is now, with the help of the international community, to impose a solution on Israel. The solution he seeks – a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines – would pose an existential threat to Israel. It would also just be a matter of time before the Palestinian state will be run by Hamas or Islamic State.

What can be done with these Americans and Europeans? They always seem pining for a dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would end in a peace agreement, yet oddly all of them seem aware that the Palestinians have not, in all honestly, met Israel’s most minimal demands: the cessation of incitement (agreed to even under the Oslo accords — and requiring no funding!) and the recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. Many throughout the world still view Israel as potentially the next — and 22nd — Arab state.

As hard as it is to say it, the Jews have a point. There is a legitimate concern that without such a stipulation, there will be two Palestinian States: the West Bank and Israel – actually three if you count Gaza.

The Americans and Europeans seem not to realize that, for the Jewish people, the request for a state has to be a precondition for any discussion of Jerusalem, as well, based on its history. Before 1967, when half of Jerusalem was in the hands of Jordan — what the international community says it wants Israel to go back to — around 38,000 ancient Jewish headstones were taken from the Mount of Olives cemetery by Arab residents and used to pave latrines.[1]

These good-hearted Americans and other Westerners nevertheless pressure Israel to act as the “responsible adult” and make unilateral gestures of goodwill. They ask the Israelis to withdraw from the occupied territories and to take Jewish residents of the West Bank settlements with them. They seem already to have forgotten what happened just over ten years ago, in the Gaza Strip, when the Israelis did offer a unilateral gesture of good will. The Israelis unilaterally evacuated every meter of Gaza in 2005, so the Palestinians could build a Singapore — no conditions attached! In return, they were met by Hamas and a nine-year war of rockets. If anyone thinks the Israelis are about to try that again, they have a surprise coming.

As a Palestinian, I welcome the humanistic approach that calls on the strong to cede to the weak; but an honest examination of the issues makes me wonder if Westerners even understand the Middle East. In trying to find a just solution, they keep making every possible mistake. First, they keep demanding from the Israelis concessions that would undermine the country’s security — and they do not demand from the Palestinians so much as a statement, such as “Israel has the right to exist.”

Westerners, it seems, want to frighten Israel into making concessions. What seems to have been forgotten is that under UN Security Council Resolution 242, the territories would be occupied until the dispute is settled. Now, that makes a nice game of rope-a-dope: You never end the dispute, so the territory stays occupied, then you blame the other side for occupying you! Even we can see that.

The Westerners’ latest good-hearted demand — so devastating to the employment situation for Palestinians — is to label goods from the occupied territories. This requirement is asked of no other occupying nation: not Russia in Crimea and Ukraine, Turkey in Cyrus, Pakistan in Kashmir, nor China in Tibet. It is basically a form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), presumably intended to crush Israel economically.

What these good-hearted Westerners fail to see is that their threats only strengthen Israel’s perception of danger, and end up creating a result that is the opposite of what the Europeans intended. Instead of bringing the Israelis and the Palestinians to the negotiating table, such a move understandably strengthens Israel’s resolve to protect itself. But exerting pressure on Israelis will not induce them to commit collective suicide. Rather, it will make both the Israelis and Palestinians more intransigent than ever.

The American threat of Israel turning into a binational state is meant to frighten Israel into waiving its vital interests while getting nothing from the Palestinians in return. In reality, the threat just stiffens the Palestinians’ resolve and keeps our leaders from granting even the least of Israel’s demands. The American threat is an obstacle to peace.

Most of all, what, staggeringly, Westerners do not seem to understand, is that the aim of the current incitement and attacks by the Palestinian Authority (PA) comes from a desire to replaceIsrael with a Palestinian state.

Look for a minute at the Palestinian Authority. In the Middle East, sooner or later, anything that can collapse, collapses — regardless of efforts to shore it up. The Israelis, all too experienced in such matters, are understandably not about to cast their lot with the PA’s current leader, Mahmoud Abbas. The death rattle of his regime gets louder every week, as even Westerners can surely see. So if the PA can expire at any time, how can anyone even think of asking the Israelis to place their future in Abbas’s trembling hands? Do Westerners seriously mean for the Israelis to give up their security in return for the empty promises of a regime a few faltering steps from implosion?

Unfortunately, the Israelis already know — again from history — that so far, at least, Palestinian promises are not worth an old shoe. Again, just as one example, in the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians signed an agreement no longer to use terrorism to advance political aims.

Mahmoud Abbas may serve as the President of Palestine, but whom does he represent? He certainly does not represent the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and anyplace else there are Palestinians. He does not even represent the Palestinians in his own West Bank. Broad swaths of Palestinians in the West Bank no longer consider Abbas their lawful representative. His term of office ended years ago; he is now in the eleventh year of his four-year term. I can promise to sell you that that olive tree over there, but what do I do if it is not my olive tree to sell? He cannot truthfully promise anything to anyone.

The Palestinians in Gaza also reject the legality of Abbas’s reign. They support Hamas. Not only that, but in the West Bank, supporters of Hamas make up roughly half of the population. Their goal is to destroy the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas along with it.

Israelis therefore regard the Palestinian president as terminally ill, on life support — also known as the Israeli security forces, Israeli economic support and Western handouts.

Despite relying totally on this charity, Abbas’s position is so weak that to remain in power, he needs to pander to his opponents, to the “resistance front” and the Islamist terrorist organizations in the Palestinian camp. He therefore claims he wants to reach a peace agreement with Israel and that “Palestinian hands are extended in peace;” but at the same time he relentlessly attacks Israel on the international front, in UN agencies and in the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, he and his henchmen incite the Palestinians to stab, run over and shoot Israelis to death, while he idealizes, glorifies and finances — with the funds he receives from the West — the terrorist “shaheeds” [martyrs] and their families.

Hamas and ISIS at least tell the truth. They openly and repeatedly declare their intentions to destroy “infidel” places such as Israel and Rome — the same way Islam conquered the former seat of Christianity, Constantinople. Mahmoud Abbas, by contrast, is a merely a cowardly hypocrite who successfully dupes the world by talking peace while inciting terror.

If an Islamist terrorist organization does take control of the Palestinian Authority, it will actually make life far easier for Israel. Israel will be able to explain its security position to the world and fight terrorism in the occupied territories — without having to negotiate, make concessions or beg the Palestinians for recognition.

There are some Israelis who worry about the possible fall of Mahmoud Abbas and a radical Islamist takeover of the West Bank. But no Western country will support the establishment of an Islamic emirate in the West Bank. The Islamists will kill the Palestinian Authority’s leaders, the same way Hamas did in 2006-2007 in Gaza. And as usual, only the Palestinians will suffer.

The only people rightly frightened by the thought of a Hamas or ISIS takeover of the West Bank are Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah loyalists. The Palestinian leadership will be summarily executed and their ill-gotten gains confiscated.

The Palestinian people, on the other hand, already almost totally radicalized, and do not seem even slightly concerned about living under an Islamist regime run by Hamas or Islamic State. They are Muslims: many feel it will make them more pure.

The Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is not only a matter of semantics that could change over time. It is a deep-seated ideology that will never change; it is part and parcel of the militant Palestinian-Islamist perception that the Jews are a religious sect — not a nation — and therefore not deserving of sovereignty, a homeland or nationhood.

The Palestinians, like other Muslims all over the world, believe that any land once conquered by Islam becomes part of the waqf, Islam’s religious endowment, owned by Islam in perpetuity. This includes the land of Palestine and Israel, and means that the Jews have no right to exist on even one speck of it.

Our leaders know that recognition of the Jewish state would mean relinquishing the “right of return” of the Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel, and instead settling them only in the future Palestinian state. They simply cannot agree to that.

Every Palestinian knows in his heart that we do not want a state of our own alongside Israel, but rather instead of Israel. Palestinians have not relinquished, and will not relinquish, the right of return; deep down, they hope it will lead to Israel’s demographic extinction and, on its ruins, the establishment of a State of Palestine.

The Jews living in the Middle East understand Middle Eastern dynamics and the challenge of maintaining an independent, democratic state in a region beset by chaos and internecine conflict. They know that anyone who blinks is perceived as weak, and that any blink is perceived by an adversary as an open door.

Despite the threats from the West, the Israelis do not seem particularly shaken. Israel has opened vast new markets in the Far East and appear to be doing brilliantly. Demographically, the number of Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is rising.

What our past-the-expiry-date leaders have failed to grasp is that the Israelis have set a trap for us: they are building their plans on the foundation of our intransigence. Our leaders are only encouraged by the false hopes and unreasonable expectations given them by the good-hearted Westerners.

Their intentions may even be good, but they persistently refuse to see that our leaders simply do not have the will, the courage or the ability to deliver so much as a dish full of mud. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership prefer to leave things as they are rather than be denounced as traitors by their people for sitting with Israelis at a negotiating table.

1410Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is regularly fêted by good-hearted Westerners such as France’s President François Hollande (left) and top European Union officials like Federica Mogherini and Jean-Claude Juncker (right).

Abbas knows — as many of the leaders in Europe apparently do not — that without Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Hamas and Islamic State would execute him, along with his aides, in a public square tomorrow.

Abbas does not want to return to negotiations with the Israelis because he knows has absolutely nothing to offer. His main goal is now, with the help of the international community, to impose a solution on Israel. The solution he seeks — a full withdrawal to the 1967 lines — would pose an existential threat to Israel. It would also just be a matter of time before the Palestinian state will be run by Hamas or Islamic State.

We thank these good-hearted Westerners for all their good intentions. But they are causing suffering to everyone and accomplishing nothing. Our wish for the New Year is, please, for these good-hearted Westerners good-heartedly to stop.

____________________

[1] On the Mount of Olives, the Jordanian Arabs removed 38,000 tombstones from the ancient cemetery and used them as paving stones for roads and as construction material in Jordanian Army camps, including use in latrines. When the area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, graves were found open with the bones scattered. Parts of the cemetery were converted into parking lots and a gas station, and an asphalt road was built through it.

After Paris, a Global Wave of Terror Arrests

December 31, 2015

After Paris, a Global Wave of Terror Arrests, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, December 30, 2015

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On Nov. 27, exactly two weeks after the terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, FBI agents swarmed into a private home in Harrisburg, Pa. Their target: 19-year-old Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, an American citizen and Muslim whom they’d been watching for several months, largely through his postings on Twitter. Using as many as 57 separate accounts, Aziz had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, called for the killing of non-Muslims, aided others to make hijrah to Syria to join the jihad there, and expressed his own wishes to do the same.

And if that weren’t enough, he promised further to continue the attacks against America, posting, for instance, “Know, O Obama, that we are coming to America, and know that we will sever your head in the White House.”

But as the FBI soon discovered, Aziz’s jihadist lust did not end with just words. At the home he shared with his parents in the Pennsylvania capital, according to the affidavit filed in the case, they found a “go-bag,” or knapsack, containing “five M-4 style high capacity magazines loaded with 5.56 ammunition, a modified kitchen knife with the handle removed and wrapped in cloth and string, a thumb drive, a tin filled with various over-the-counter medications, and a head wrap commonly referred to as a balaclava.”

This was only the beginning. Ten days later, the FBI arrested 20-year-old Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, a Somali-American in Eagan, Minn., on charges of “providing and conspiring to provide material support, specifically personnel, to a designated foreign terrorist organization.”

In fact, since the Paris attacks of Nov. 13 and the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, law enforcement agents worldwide have apprehended dozens of suspects on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks or helping to support the Islamic State. Activity has been especially strong in Europe, where one German jihadist, who escaped ISIS in Syria and is now doing time in a German prison, warned that he and other European fighters were asked to commit jihad “in their homeland,” theIndependent reported. He claimed he was part of a propaganda video encouraging other Muslims: “All you need is to take a big knife, and go down to the streets and slaughter every infidel you encounter.”

With terrorist arrests in the U.S. reaching record numbers this year (60), and 315 in the UK, it seems that many Muslim followers around the world are happy to oblige.

And so you can’t help but wonder: as we head into the 15th anniversary year of the 9/11 attacks, is this what our “new normal” will become?

Below, a summary of Islamic terrorism-related arrests since Nov. 13 worldwide:

France

Under the supervision of six counterterrorism judges, in the wake of the Nov. 13 killings, police perform 2,700 raids and arrest more than 370 suspected jihadists. In mid-December, a plan to attack civil servants is foiled by police in Orléans. Two men are arrested in connection with that plot; both had been in touch with a possible “ringleader” in Syria, according to France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Germany

A Nov. 17 soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands in Hannover is cancelled amid threats of explosives, and the stadium evacuated. No bombs are found, but the intelligence, coming from France, was considered reliable.

After warnings that the country will be attacked, two men ages 28 and 46 are arrested during Nov. 26 anti-terror raids in Berlin and charged with plotting a terrorist attack in the northwest city of Dortmund.

Weapons handler Sascha W is arrested Nov. 27 near Stuttgart, accused of supplying some of the weapons used in the Paris terrorist massacres.

35-year-old Muslim convert Sven Lau is arrested Dec. 15 on four counts of supporting terrorism through his connections with ISIS and another organization, JAMWA. “Mr. Lau caused an uproar last year when he arranged for a group of young men to dress in orange security vests emblazoned with ‘Shariah Police’ and sent them into the streets of an ethnically diverse neighborhood in the western German city of Wupperthal, in an effort to encourage people to lead what Mr. Lau said was a more devout life,” the New York Times reported.

Leeth Abdalhmeed, a Syrian in a Dortmund refugee camp, is arrested Dec. 17 on suspicion of links to ISIS and of smuggling medications and handling financial matters for the group. Syrian opposition members tell the Wall Street Journal that Abdalhmeed was “among the first Syrians who pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.”

Austria

Two men are arrested Dec. 13 at a Salzburg refugee center on suspicion of connections to the Paris attacks and of entering the country on fake Syrian passports with plans to carry out attacks there. Investigators also examine whether the two are French citizens.

Two other refugees also were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of having terrorist connections, according to the Press Chronicle.

Great Britain

Britain’s Home Office announced this month that a record 315 terrorists have been arrested in 2015. Of these, 16 percent were female – double the number in the previous year – and 79 percent were British nationals (compared to 56 percent in 2001). Among those arrests are four Luton men apprehended on Dec. 2, suspected of support for ISIS, and another arrested Dec. 22 “on suspicion of being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

Spain

Spain has been a quiet hotbed of jihadism in the past few years, according to recent reports – so much so that an anti-jihadist hotline generated tips for 29 credible suspects within its first 24 hours. Ninety suspected jihadists have been arrested in 2015, though the numbers since 2013 paint an even grimmer picture. An inventory by editors of the Local showed 133 total arrests, of which:

40 percent were Spanish-born

45 percent were Spanish citizens

10 percent were “lone wolves”

60 percent were married

13 percent were converts

the average age was 20-34

16 percent were women

That so many women have been involved is likely no accident: Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected of leading the Paris massacres, has specifically targeted Spanish women via social media, said Spanish interior minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz. Notes the Local, “Spanish people have arrested several women this year on suspicion of recruiting women and teenage girls for Islamic State jihadists.”

Two prisoners already serving time for “common crimes” are arrested Dec. 5 on suspicion of distributing Islamic State propaganda and declaring their support for ISIS’s atrocities.

Two Moroccan nationals – a 32-year-old man and 19-year-old woman – both legal Spanish residents, are arrested on charges of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, promoting jihad on social media, and helping to recruit others.

Finland

Finnish police arrest 23-year-old twin brothers from Iraq Dec. 23, charging them with shooting 11 people during ISIS’s 2014 massacre of 1,700 Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit. The twins were among 300 refugees being housed in the small town of Forssa.

Sweden

Sweden’s Security Service raises the terror alert level to its highest point ever Nov. 18, signaling an imminent threat. Even so, the country’s police force warns that it is inadequately armed to protect the public in the event of a terrorist attack.

On Dec. 14: Swedish courts convict 32-year-old Hassan Mostafa al-Mandlawi and Sultan al-Ami, 30, of participation in terrorist activities in Syria and sentence them to life in prison. “Chief Prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnstrom said the pair, who were arrested in July in Sweden, had both ‘expressed joy over the deeds,'” the New York Times reported.

Switzerland

Geneva raises its terror alert level Dec. 10 as the department of security announces they are seeking terrorist suspects. Reporters surmise that the search relates to a Belgian-registered car that may have belonged to a friend of Salah Abdeslam, the suspected leader of the Paris attacks. The US Embassy in Bern also warns Americans to be vigilant and alerts them to the raised threat level in Geneva. A day later, Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga speaks of a “potential IS cell in the Geneva area,” according to Swissinfo, a local news site. That same day, two Syrian men are arrested, also in Geneva, with traces of explosives found in their car.

A Swiss national also is arrested for possessing an “unimaginable arsenal,” according to Geneva police, that included a Kalashnikov, muskets, hatchets, and other weaponry, as well as a Third Reich flag.

Swissinfo further reports that 70 cases of jihadi radicalization are under investigation in the country, with more than 50 citizens confirmed to have traveled to join ISIS.

Netherlands

In the country’s largest terror trial since the slaughter of filmmaker and author Theo van Gogh in 2004, Dutch authorities convict nine jihadist suspects on Dec. 10, six of whom they say form a terrorist organization in their own right, and all of whom are determined to have connections to ISIS. Sentences for the group range from seven days to six years.

Belgium

Only days after the Paris attacks, Belgium raises its terror level to its highest score in Brussels, placing the city in lockdown from Nov. 21-25 as the surviving perpetrator and possible leader of the attacks, Saleh Abdeslam, remains at large. A Belgian native, Abdeslam is thought to be in hiding in the Brussels region of Molenbeek, a largely-Muslim community that has bred a disproportionately high number of Islamic terrorists. Twenty-one raids in the first night of the lockdown lead to 16 arrests; others follow.

Though the government relaxes the alert Nov. 25 and reopens schools and offices, Brussels regional president Rudi Vervoort notes in a statement that the threat continues. “It is not the end,” he says, “just the beginning.”

Time shows that he was probably right: on Tuesday, police arrested two men believed to be planning an attack on New Year’s Eve, probably at the city’s main square, the Grote Markt, where thousands are expected to converge at midnight. Officials raise the terror level again, this time from level two to three – or second-highest.

The threat continues.

Iran Executes Three Iranians Every Day; The West Rewards It.

December 30, 2015

Iran Executes Three Iranians Every Day; The West Rewards It. Gatestone InstituteJudith Bergman, December 30, 2015

♦ “Death sentences in Iran are particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or for acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty. Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation” — From a July 2015 Amnesty International report.

♦ How ironic that Europeans have no problem stuffing themselves with syrupy Iranian dates exported by this regime, knowing full well that there are thousands of prisoners are being tortured in Iran while awaiting their executions.

♦ Amnesty International reports that in the fall of 2015, cartoonist Atena Farghadani was forced to undergo a “virginity and pregnancy test” prior to her trial. The charge? “Illegitimate sexual relations,” for having shaken hands with her lawyer.

♦ Iran nevertheless won a top seat on the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women in April 2014. Not a single UN member, not even the US, objected.

On the UN’s Human Rights Day, observed December 10, an Iranian woman was sentenced to death by stoning in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran is believed to have imposed death by stoning on at least 150 people, according to the International Committees against Execution and Stoning.

“Stoning,” Iranian human rights activist Shabnam Assadollahi said, “is an act of torture. There are 15 countries in which stoning is either practiced and authorized by law or tolerated. One of those 15 countries is Iran. The last known execution by stoning was in 2009. In Iran under the Islamic law, stonings, hangings, and executions are legal torture.

“In Islam under Sharia law, the stoning (Rajm) is commonly used as a form of capital punishment, called Hudud,” Assadollahi explained.

“Under the Islamic Law, it is the ordained penalty in cases of adultery committed by a married man or married woman with others who are not her/his legal partner. Stoning is carried out by a crowd of Muslims who follow the Sharia law by throwing stones (small and large) at a convicted person until she or he is killed. The international community must pressure Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, and other countries where stoning is legally carried or tolerated. Why cannot the public loudly cry out and advocate for women oppressed by those regimes?”

Instead of cries of outrage, the West, in the wake of the nuclear “deal” Iran has not even signed, has been scrambling to ingratiate itself with the Iranian regime. Countries such as France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland have barely been able to contain themselves at the prospect of doing business with them. It has been years since the Europeans could legally engage in trade with the murderous regime of the mullahs, who still cry, “Death to Israel, Death to America” — the “Little Satan” and the “Great Satan’ — and they have not been wasting time.

In fact, the P5+1 negotiators (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) had just finished signing the “deal” with themselves, when Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, hurried himself and a group of representatives from German companies and industry groups onto a plane for a visit to Iran.

The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, who usually knows better, likewise, found it “… completely normal that after this historic deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations.”

1407French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that it is “completely normal that after this historic [nuclear] deal was signed, France and Iran should restart normal relations.” Left, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif hugs Fabius at the close of nuclear talks in Geneva, Nov. 23, 2014. Right: A public execution in Iran.

Before the sanctions took effect in 2011, French companies such as Renault and Peugeot were making billions of euros from their involvement with Iran’s auto industry. Similarly, the French company Total was heavily involved in the oil sector. France was evidently not going to miss a beat in bringing this lucrative trade back to la République.

How ironic that the country of “liberté, egalité and fraternité” finds it “completely normal” to have normal diplomatic and trade relations with a country that treats its own citizens, especially women, worse than the mud under the mullah’s feet; that executes whoever disagrees with the regime, and that hangs homosexuals from cranes. How ironic that Europeans have no problem stuffing themselves with syrupy Iranian dates exported by this smiling regime, knowing full well that there are thousands of Iranian prisoners being tortured in Iranian prisons while awaiting their execution day.

Iranian authorities are believed to have executed 694 people between January 1 and July 15, 2015 — an average of three executions a day. Since the election of the “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani in 2013, the number of executions has markedly gone up. According to a July 2015 Amnesty International report:

“Death sentences in Iran are particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or for acts that should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty. Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation.”

The report goes on to state that the majority of those put to death in 2015 were people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who were convicted on drug charges. “This is in direct breach of international law, which restricts the use of the death penalty to only the ‘most serious crimes’ – those involving intentional killing. Drug-related offences do not meet this threshold.”

Among those executed in Iran this year are members of ethnic and religious minorities convicted of “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth.” These include Kurdish political prisoners and Sunni Muslims. On August 26, 2015, Behrouz Alkhani, a 30-year-old man from Iran’s Kurdish minority, was executed despite awaiting the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal.

Iran is the second most prolific executioner in the world after China, according to Amnesty International’s latest global death penalty report.

Iran also tops the global list statistically for executioners of juvenile offenders, even though it is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit the imposition of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime, without exception. (Of course Iran was also a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it also violated repeatedly.) Iran continues to impose the death penalty against juvenile offenders, frequently deferring the execution until after they pass the age of 18. In 2015, at least four juvenile offenders are believed to have been executed: Javad Saberi, Vazir Amroddin, Samad Zahabi and Fatemeh Salbehi.

Iran is scheduled to be reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child on January 11-12, 2016. The Committee has already expressed deep concerns about the use of death penalty against juvenile offenders and asked Iran to provide information on the progress and outcome of the cases of juvenile offenders undergoing re-trial.

Despite all the atrocities that Iran commits towards its citizens, women hold a special place of denigration and humiliation in Iranian society. Young women are reported brutally arrested by the thousand every week for not wearing a “proper hijab.” A woman in Iran is de facto first her father’s property, then after marriage, her husband’s property. According to the UN Secretary General’s February 2015 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, child marriage is prevalent. The legal age of marriage for girls is 13; some as young as 9 may be married by permission of the court. In 2011, about 48,580 girls between the age of 10 and 14 were married; in 2012, there were at least 1,537 girls under the age of 10 who were reportedly married. Pedophilia is thereby widespread and legal.

Married women may not work, attend sporting events or leave the country without their husband’s permission. When arrested, they suffer unspeakable torture in prison. Rape is commonly used as torture in prison against both women and men.

Forced “virginity testing” is also commonly used in prison, a serious violation of international law. It violates women’s and girls’ human rights to physical integrity, dignity, privacy and right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment. According to Amnesty International, satirical cartoonist Atena Farghadani, held in prison since January 2015, was sentenced in June 2015 to twelve years and nine months in prison for her peaceful activism, including meeting with families of political prisoners, and for drawing a satirical cartoon depicting legislators as monkeys, cows, and other animals. The cartoon was to protest a bill that sought to criminalize voluntary sterilization and restrict access to contraception and family planning services.

In December 2014, when Farghadani was out on bail, she released a video message on YouTube, detailing how female prison guards at Evin prison had beaten her, verbally abused her and forced her to strip naked for body searches. She was rearrested in January 2015, and in the fall of 2015 she was forced to undergo a “virginity and pregnancy test” prior to her trial. The charge? “Illegitimate sexual relations” for having shaken hands with her lawyer.

Iran nevertheless won a top seat on the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women in April 2014. Not a single UN member, not even the US, objected, to that election.

An exhaustive account of the atrocities that the Iranian regime continues to commit against its own people would require volumes. Nevertheless, the West, seems to remain unfazed in furthering its lucrative relations with the murderous regime.

Those politicians and executives scrambling to do business with the mullahs should realize that Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missiles can tomorrow be aimed at them. Those who comfort themselves with the thought that Iran only wants to annihilate Israel might do well to think again. Iran has tested a two-stage solid-fuel missile, the Sejjil-2, with a range of more than 2,000 km, allowing it to target southeastern Europe. In addition, Iran recently unveiled the Soumar cruise missile, reportedly a reverse-engineered version of the Russia’s Raduga Kh-55 — which was designed as a nuclear delivery system. It has a claimed range of 2,500-3,000 km.

Nevertheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has acceded to Iran’s demands toclose its 12-year investigation into whether Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program. The IAEA produced a report earlier this month that strongly suggested Iran did have a nuclear weapons program for the years up until 2003.

The West clearly not only fails to care about the plight of the Iranians — it does not even care about its own populations being within Iranian missile range.

Jihad: “All the Fault of the West!”

December 26, 2015

Jihad: “All the Fault of the West!” Gatestone InstituteLars Hedegaard. December 26, 2015

♦ As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West.

♦ First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to “infidel” societies. Well before mid-century, the number of Muslims in Denmark will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.

♦ In the United States, a House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, has been sponsored that would censor one of the few countries left with freedom of speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), would criminalize all criticism of Islam, worldwide.

♦ Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion – or more accurately, Islamic ideology, which knows no distinction between religion and politics – is on the ascendant.

It was not supposed to have happened this way. In 1995 a number of EU member states signed the Schengen Agreement, integrated into European Union law in 1999. The signatory powers promised to abandon their internal border protection in exchange for a promise by the EU authorities that they would police Europe’s external borders. Then the EU authorities, while demanding that the Schengen states keep their borders open, spectacularly failed to honor their part of the agreement. There can be little doubt that the EU packed up, walked out and left its populations to their own devices.

Sadly, their policies have achieved the exact opposite of what they claimed to strive for. Instead of tolerance, we have witnessed division and irreconcilable enmity between cultures and ethnicities that often have nothing in common except a desire to squeeze as much out of the public coffers as they can. Instead of “inclusion,” Europeans have seen exclusion, low-intensity warfare, terror, no-go zones, rape epidemics, murder and mayhem.

Governments, parliamentary majorities and the stars of academia, the media and the commanding heights of culture cannot have failed to notice that their grand multicultural, Islamophile game did not produce the results they had promised their unsuspecting publics. Yet to this day, most of them persist in claiming that unfettered immigration from the Muslim world and Africa is an indisputable boon to Europe.

Recently, in the wake of the so-called “refugee crisis,” some of these notables have thrown out the script and are expressing concern that immigration is out of control. European governments are still allowing millions of so-called refugees to cross all borders and settle anyplace. According to the EU agency Frontex, charged with protecting Europe’s external borders, more than a million and a half illegals crossed Europe’s frontiers between January and November 2015.

1340 (1)Thousands of migrants cross illegally into Slovenia on foot, in this screenshot from YouTube video filmed in October 2015.

Right now there is an ever-widening gap between the people and their rulers. In a conference recently organized by the Danish Free Press Society to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the famous Muhammed cartoons, the British political analyst, Douglas Murray, noted that the European populations are reacting to decades of lies and deception by voting for political parties which, just a few years ago, were vilified as “racist” and “fascist.” Marine Le Pen, of the National Front party, has emerged as a strong candidate in France’s 2017 presidential election.

Perhaps the most momentous political earthquake in Europe was the recent 180-degree about-face by the Danish Social Democratic Party. Only a few years ago, it was a staunch proponent of Muslim immigration, and hammered away at anyone daring to deny the “cultural enrichment” brought about by the spread of Islam.

The leader of Denmark’s Social Democratic parliamentary group, Henrik Sass Larsen MP, on December 18 wrote:

“The massive migration and stream of refugees now coming to Europe and Denmark are of a magnitude that challenges the fundamental premises of our society in the near future… According to our analysis, the stark economic consequences of the current number of refugees and immigrants will consume all room for maneuver in public finance within a few years. Non-Western immigrants have historically been difficult to integrate into the labor market; the same applies to the Syrians that are now arriving. The more, the harder, the more expensive… Finally, it is our analysis that given our previous experience with integrating non-Western people into our society, we are facing a social catastrophe when it comes to handling many tens of thousands that are soon to be channeled into society. Every bit of progress in terms of integration will be put back to zero. … Therefore our conclusion is clear: We will do all we can to limit the number of non-Western refugees and immigrants coming to the country. That is why we have gone far — and much farther than we had dreamed of going… We are doing this because we will not sacrifice our welfare society in the name of humanitarianism. For the welfare society … is the political project of the Social Democratic Party. It is a society built on the principles of liberty, equality and solidarity. Mass immigration — as we have seen in, for example, Sweden — will undermine … our welfare society.”

Clearly, the Danish Social Democratic Party — the architect of Denmark as we have known it — has understood that there is political capital to be defended. It seems finally to have realized that it cannot persist in whittling away its accomplishments if it wants to keep its dwindling share of the votes.

One may speculate that if the Social Democratic Party means what it says, it might have an impact among Social Democratic and Socialist parties in other European countries.

However, as Douglas Murray also pointed out, Westerners suffer from the notion that regardless of how many jihadis, murderers and terrorists claim that their actions are motivated by their love of Allah, they cannot possibly mean it. There must be some other underlying “root cause” that the men of violence are not aware of, but which well-meaning Westerners are keen to tell them about: old Western imperialism, centuries of humiliation, racism, Israel, the Crusades, poverty, exclusion, the Muhammad cartoons, etc. And, of course, that it is all the fault of the West!

As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West. The latest sighting of this shift was just this week, in the form of a U.S. House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, to censor one of the few countries left with free speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to implement UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, would criminalize, worldwide, all criticism of Islam. [1]

As long as the authorities are unwilling to protect their own populations from being overrun by foreigners, many of whom seem prepared to do them harm, we are likely to see the natives take protection into their own hands. On December 16, for instance, there was a violent protest in the small Dutch city of Geldermalsen, as the local authorities were trying to set up an asylum center behind the backs of the local population. No doubt the authorities were taken aback by the activism.

Western societies are based on an implied contract between the sovereign and the people: The sovereign — the king, the president, the government — promises to uphold law and order, protect his people from violence and foreign encroachment and apprehend and punish criminals. In exchange, the citizens promise not to take the law into their own hands. It follows that if the state fails to uphold its part of this social bargain, then the right — indeed the obligation — to protect oneself, one’s family, neighbors and the community, returns to the citizens.

There was also the recent spate of asylum-house burnings in Sweden. According to the Danish-Swedish website, Snaphanen, there have been 40 occasions during the past six months in which buildings intended to house asylum seekers have mysteriously burned to the ground — without anyone being hurt or killed. None of the perpetrators has been caught; no one has claimed responsibility. It all appears organized quite well.

Will citizen activism save Europe? Probably not. Vast areas are too far gone to be saved. Sweden is a broken country, as pointed out by Ingrid Carlqvist in several articles at Gatestone. By 2020, Germany may have 20 million Muslim residents.

We are probably beyond the point where effective change can be obtained by politics in the old sense, for the simple reason that central authorities are not strong enough to make their writ run throughout their national territories. This will spell the end of Europe as we know it, and people who cannot leave, or who choose to stand and fight, will be left to their own devices — and quite possibly entirely new modes of social organization.

First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to “infidel” societies.

What might post-European Europe look like? Think of Northern Ireland in the time of the Troubles or of ex-Yugoslavia during the civil wars of the 1990s.

When states break down, people’s first concern will be security. Who can and will protect my family and me?

For a long time in Europe there has been talk of “parallel societies” — in which the state ceases to function as a unitary polity — due to the cultural, religious and politico-judicial separation of non-Muslims and Muslims into incompatible and antagonistic enclaves.

There appears to be a growing realization among Danish demographers that third-world immigrants and their descendants, with or without citizenship, will constitute the majority of the Danish population before the end of the century.[2] A sizable segment of this third-world population will be Muslim, and well before the middle of the century, the number of Muslims will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.

Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion — or more accurately, Islamic ideology — which knows no distinction between religion and politics, is on the ascendant as the constitutive principle among Danish Muslims. As Muslim institutions grow stronger, the Islamic court, or “din,” is bound to become even more powerful as the organizing principle of the Muslim parallel societies.

How will the old Danish, and nominally Christian, population react to this metamorphosis? To a large extent, that will depend on what organizing principle will determine the character of the Danish parallel society. Two possibilities stand out: “Danishness” and “Christianity.” “Danishness” would probably entail a society founded on a nationalistic or ethnic myth, whereas “Christianity” might be more ethnically inclusive and stress society’s Judeo-Christian and humanistic roots.

In either event, it is difficult to see how the secular state could survive, because the parallel societies will not be free to define themselves or determine their political systems or modes of governance. They will constantly be forced to maneuver in response to “the other’s” long-term objectives and immediate actions — as has been seen, for example, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and the Basque provinces.

Under these conditions, the modern system of sovereign territorial states is likely to break down. We can only guess at what will replace it.

Lars Hedegaard, a Danish historian, journalist and author, established the Danish Free Speech Society in 2004.

____________________________________

[1] In accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to implement U.N. Resolution 16/18 and criminalize all criticism of Islam worldwide, a group in the U.S. House of Representatives has sponsored H. Res. 569, in condemnation of violence, bigotry and “hateful rhetoric” toward Muslims in the U.S. This bill comes on the heels of Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s post-San Bernardino attack statement to the Muslim American community that she will prosecute anyone guilty of anti-Muslim speech. Passage of this legislation will be the death knell for the First Amendment and the end of any and all discourse and education about the threat posed by the global jihad.

[2] See, for example, the calculations of the Copenhagen University demographer Hans Oluf Hansen, Berlingske Tidende, August 21, 2005.

Get Ready for a “Bigger Powers That Be Attack”!

December 24, 2015

Get Ready for a “Bigger Powers That Be Attack”! Zero Point via You Tube, December 24, 2015

(??????????? — DM)

 

 

According to the blurb following the video,

The so-called Islamic State (ISIS) is armed with biological and chemical weapons but Europeans don’t take the existential threat seriously, according to a European Union parliament document..

Israeli experts last week also said ISIS is armed with weapons forbidden by the Geneva Convention and that it is a state in every sense of the word, with its own currency, a university and even license plates..

The London Express reported that the parliamentary report states that ISIS “may be planning to try to use internationally banned weapons of mass destruction in future attacks.” The document was prepared by the Parliament’s political analyst following the ISIS massacres in Paris last month..

ISIS has been trafficking in chemical weapons and also is able to manufacture them by putting together a team of experts with degrees in chemistry and physics..

The EU report, quoted by the Express, states:

Chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear substances (CBRN) have been carried undetected into the European Union. Interpol’s monthly CBRN intelligence reports show numerous examples of attempts to acquire, smuggle or use CBRN materials..

At present, European citizens are not seriously contemplating the possibility that extremist groups might use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) materials during attacks in Europe. Under these circumstances, the impact of such an attack, should it occur, would be even more destabilizing..

Experts at an Israeli conference said that ISIS is a genuine state even if it not recognized by others, Globes reported..

It controls approximately one-third of Syria’s land, nearly 10 million people and earns approximately $300 million in day from the sale of oil it has confiscated in Iraq and Syria..

Besides its well-publicized black flag and army of barbaric terrorists, ISIS runs courts, schools, welfare agencies and even issues license plates. One of the experts said, “There is no precedent for anything like this in the past 100 years”..

Dr. Ronen Yitzchak, head of the Middle East Dept. at the Western Galilee College, said that the Western coalition has succeeded in seriously damaging the infrastructure of ISIS and in limiting its expansion.

However, he added:

Despite weaknesses in the organization, it will not disappear and will continue to be present for many years. The Islamic State is not a temporary episode. It will continue to present a danger to the West and the entire world..

Terror will worsen in Europe, whether it is because of terrorists who are there now or because of those who be recruited in the future..

ISIS has succeeded in recruiting cells in dozens of countries, “something that has never been seen in terror groups,” Yitzchak said..

ISIS has its own currency, has minted gold and silver coins and soon will introduce bronze coins..

Its radical Islamic school system forbids studies in music, arts and Western subjects such as psychology..

The expert panel also revealed that every family is required to “contribute” one male adult to fight in the ISIS army, which comprises estimated 35,000-50,000 men…

Angela Merkel: Multiculturalism is a sham

December 14, 2015

Angela Merkel: Multiculturalism is a sham, Washington PostRick Noack, December 14, 2015

(According to the article, in 2010 Frau Merkel had said that multiculturalism “has failed, and failed utterly.” Her support for multiculturalism thereafter, and that of her allies, helped to put Germany and much of the rest of the European Union in its current multicultural mess. What might her motivations be now, other than politics, acute Islamophobia and possible schizophrenia? — DM)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy has attracted praise from all over the world. Time Magazine and the Financial Times newspaper recently named her Person of the Year, and delegates applauded her for so long at her party’s convention on Monday that she had to stop them.

The speech that followed, however, might have surprised supporters of her policies: Multiculturalism is a sham, she said, before adding that Germany might be reaching its limits in terms of accepting more refugees. “The challenge is immense,” she said. “We want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably.”

Although those remarks might seem uncharacteristic of Merkel, she would probably insist that she was not contradicting herself. In fact, she was only repeating a sentiment she first voiced several years ago when she said multiculturalism in Germany had “utterly failed.”

“Of course the tendency had been to say, ‘Let’s adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other.’ But this concept has failed, and failed utterly,” she said in 2010.

Repeating those ideas on Monday was meant to calm her supporters who have grown increasingly weary of the influx of refugees. Newcomers, Merkel stressed, should assimilate to German values and culture, and respect the country’s laws.

Merkel’s comments might also reflect a particular understanding of assimilation. Many Germans expect immigrants to quickly learn the German language and to contribute to their communities and work life.

Multiculturalism usually has a positive connotation, but to Merkel it symbolizes the emergence of isolated societies within Germany — and ultimately a failure of assimilating immigrants. That strategy is supposed to avoid the creation of suburbs like the areas around Paris where young immigrants are isolated from the rest of society.

However, her speech comes at a sensitive time. Germany has opened its borders to approximately one million refugees this year, many of whom are still being accommodated in makeshift housing. Fights have broken out in multiple reception centers, raising fears about the country’s ability to deal with the influx.

Local disputes have caused tensions in national politics as well. Lastyear, Germany’s influential Christian Social Union (CSU) party proposed that everyone in Germany should be required to speak German “in public and in private with their families.” The public backlash forced the party to retract the draft resolution.

Compared to 2010, when Merkel first voiced her criticism of multiculturalism, there was little reaction on Monday. The applause following her speech lasted nine minutes and again had to be interrupted by Merkel. “Thanks, but we have work to do,” she said.