Archive for the ‘Europe’ category

Op-Ed: Europe reacts to its impotence by taking it out on the Jews

November 5, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Full Flowering of Western Decadence

November 5, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Germany: “20 Million Muslims by 2020”

November 1, 2015

Germany: “20 Million Muslims by 2020” The Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, November 1, 2015

  • “We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law.” — From a leaked German intelligence document.
  • “We need to be clear that there must be limits and quotas for immigration — we cannot save the whole world.” — Markus Söder, Finance Minister of Bavaria.
  • “The migration crisis has the potential to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent. … What we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
  • “Meanwhile, refugees are still heading into Germany — at a rate of around 10,000 a day. … The decade after Ms. Merkel first came to power in 2005 now looks like a blessed period for Germany, in which the country was able to enjoy peace, prosperity and international respect, while keeping the troubles of the world at a safe distance. That golden era is now over.” — Gideon RachmanFinancial Times.

Germany’s Muslim population is set to nearly quadruple to an astonishing 20 million within the next five years, according to a demographic forecast by Bavarian lawmakers.

The German government expects to receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, and possibly even more in 2016. After factoring in family reunifications — based on the assumption that individuals whose asylum applications are approved will subsequently bring an average of four additional family members to Germany — that number will swell exponentially. This is in addition to the 5.8 million Muslims already living in Germany.

According to the president of the Bavarian Association of Municipalities (Bayerische Gemeindetag), Uwe Brandl, Germany is now on track to have “20 million Muslims by 2020.” The surge in Germany’s Muslim population represents a demographic shift of epic proportions, one that will change the face of Germany forever, “but we are just standing by, watching it happen.”

Addressing an expo in Nuremburg on October 14, Brandl warned that untrammeled migration will entail heavy costs for German taxpayers and may also lead to social unrest. He said:

“A four-member refugee family receives up to 1,200 euros per month in transfer payments. Plus accommodation and meals. Now go to an unemployed German family man who has worked maybe 30 years, and now with his family receives only marginally more. These people are asking us whether we politicians really see this as fair and just.”

Brandl said this also applies to the electronic health card, which provides asylum seekers with the same benefits as Germans who have paid into the health insurance system for many years. To criticize this as unfair has “nothing to do with racism or right-wing extremism.”

Brandl’s concerns are echoed in a leaked intelligence document, which warns that the influx of more than one million migrants from the Muslim world this year will lead to increasing political instability in Germany.

The document — portions of which were published by Die Welt on October 25 — reveals growing alarm within the highest echelons of Germany’s intelligence and security apparatus about the consequences of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door immigration policy.

The so-called non-paper (the author of the document remains anonymous) warns that the “integration of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants will be impossible given the large numbers involved and the already-existing Muslim parallel societies in Germany.” The document adds:

“We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population.”

An unidentified high-ranking security official told Die Welt:

“The high influx of people from other parts of the world will lead to the instability of our country. By allowing this mass migration, we are producing extremists. Mainstream society is radicalizing because the majority does not want migration, which is being forced by the political elites. In the future, many Germans will turn away from the constitutional state.”

The warnings come amid mounting criticism of Merkel, whose September 4 decision to open the door to migrants in Hungary exacerbated the crisis.

The Minister-President of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, who also heads the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has emerged as one of Merkel’s most vocal critics. “I am convinced that the chancellor has chosen another vision for Germany,” he said. “This has been a mistake that will occupy us for a long time. I see no way of putting the genie back into the bottle,” he added.

In an interview with Bild, Seehofer said:

“We explicitly believe that immigration must be controlled and limited if Germany wants to cope with it. The seriousness of the situation is becoming clearer every day. The population does not want clever sayings or inconclusive site visits. It wants action!”

After months of attacking critics of Merkel’s immigration policies as right-wing xenophobes, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier conceded that the migration crisis risks tearing German society apart. In a joint essay published by Der Spiegel, the two wrote: “We cannot indefinitely absorb and integrate more than one million refugees each year.”

Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder said: “We need to be clear that there must be limits and quotas for immigration — we cannot save the whole world. The refugee influx will not be stopped unless we secure our borders and send a clear signal that not everyone can come to Germany.”

Former Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) described Merkel’s immigration policy as an “unprecedented political blunder” that will have “devastating long-term consequences.” He said the job of politics is to think beyond the present and make decisions for the future. In view of the massive flows of migrants into Germany without any police checks, Friedrich concluded: “We have lost control.” He added:

“It is totally irresponsible that tens of thousands of people are flowing into the country uncontrolled and unregistered, and we can only unreliably estimate exactly how many of them are Islamic State fighters or Islamist sleepers. I am convinced that no other country in the world would be so naive and starry-eyed to expose itself to such a risk.”

CDU lawmaker Michael Stübgen said: “The disagreement [with Merkel] is fundamental. Our capacities are exhausted and there is concern that the system will implode if we do not regain control of our borders. But the chancellor disagrees and so the conflict is unsolved.”

On October 21, more than 200 mayors in North-Rhine Westphalia signed an open letter to Merkel, in which they warned they were no longer capable of taking in any more migrants. The letter states:

“We are seriously concerned for our country and the cities and towns we represent. The reason: the massive and mostly uncontrolled flow of migrants to Germany and our cities and towns.

“All available housing possibilities are exhausted, including tents and shipping containers. Managing the migrant shelters is so time intensive that our personnel can no longer attend to other municipal responsibilities.”

 

1229 (1)According to a report by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, the Berlin refugee center pictured here received up to 2000 applications for asylum per day in August — before the migrant flow increased substantially. (Image source: Deutsche Welle video screenshot)

Speaking at an October 22 gathering of the European People’s Party in Madrid, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned of the consequences of Merkel’s immigration policies. He said:

“We are in deep trouble. The migration crisis has the potential to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent….

“What we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters. This is an uncontrolled and unregulated process…. I also want to underline that there is an unlimited source of supply of people, after Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa is now also on the move. The dimension and the volume of the danger is well above our expectations….

“Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. It is only a right of those ones who have contributed to it. Europe is not able to accept everyone who wants a better life. We have to help them to get back their own lives with dignity and we have to send them back to their own countries….

“We cannot avoid speaking about the quality of our democracies. Is it freedom of information and speech when the media usually show women and children while 70% of the migrants are young men and they look like an army? How could it happen that our people feel that their opinion is not being taken into consideration? And we have to address the question of whether our people want what has been happening. Did we get authorization from them to allow millions of migrants to enter our continent? … No, distinguished delegates, we did not.

“We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive of migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders as bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility.”

In an October 26 column for the Financial Times, titled “The End of the Merkel Era is Within Sight,” Gideon Rachman wrote:

“The refugee crisis that has broken over Germany is likely to spell the end of the Merkel era. With the country in line to receive more than a million asylum-seekers this year alone, public anxiety is mounting — and so is criticism of Ms. Merkel, from within her own party. Some of her close political allies acknowledge that it is now distinctly possible that the chancellor will have to leave office, before the next general election in 2017. Even if she sees out a full term, the notion of a fourth Merkel administration, widely discussed a few months ago, now seems improbable…

“The trouble is that Ms. Merkel’s government has clearly lost control of the situation. German officials publicly endorse the chancellor’s declaration that ‘We can do this’. But there is panic just beneath the surface: costs are mounting, social services are creaking, Ms. Merkel’s poll ratings are falling and far-right violence is on the rise.

“As the placid surface of German society is disturbed, so arguments about the positive economic and demographic impact of immigration are losing their impact. Instead, fears about the long-term social and political effect of taking in so many newcomers — particularly from the imploding Middle East — are gaining ground. Meanwhile, refugees are still heading into Germany — at a rate of around 10,000 a day. (By contrast, Britain is volunteering to accept 20,000 Syrian refugees over four years.)…

“Some voters seem to have concluded that Mutti [a German familiar form of ‘mother’] has gone mad — flinging open Germany’s borders to the wretched of the earth…

“The refugee crisis marks a turning point. The decade after Ms. Merkel first came to power in 2005 now looks like a blessed period for Germany, in which the country was able to enjoy peace, prosperity and international respect, while keeping the troubles of the world at a safe distance. That golden era is now over.”

UK rapist escapes deportation by posing as Syrian refugee

October 26, 2015

UK rapist escapes deportation by posing as Syrian refugee, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 26, 2015

syrian_refugees_7

Europe has a real Syrian Refugee problem. These days any criminal or migrant can just say the magic words, “Syrian Refugee” and that’s that. Because Syrian refugees are magic. They’re our moral superiors because they tore their country apart killing each other over whether Sunni or Shiite Islam is right. So now they, and anyone claiming to be one of them, is empowered to do anything to Europeans.

An illegal immigrant who attacked and sexually molested a woman within days of smuggling himself into Britain looks set to avoid deportation by claiming he is a Syrian refugee.

A court heard how Abdulrahman Abunasir continues to claim he is a Syrian refugee, despite the fact he allegedly told French authorities who detained him previously that he was Palestinian.

Abunasir submitted his claim for asylum whilst serving an 18-month prison sentence for a horrific random sex attack. The immigrant attacked and molested a woman outside a cafe in London in 2013 as she walked to her boyfriend’s home.

Experts who put the sex attacker through a language analysis test concluded there was a “very high degree of certainty that he was from Egypt” and confirmed he could not answer even the most basic questions about his supposed homeland.

So he might be Egyptian. He might be from Israel. He’s probably not from Syria… but why not send him there anyway? Preferably while wearing a giant cross around his neck. Or maybe an I Love Israel t-shirt.

It might serve as an object lesson to future fake Syrian refugees.

But shockingly he cannot be deported because there is no way of determining with 100% certainty that he does not come from Syria, which is being torn apart by a brutal civil war.

So we’re now at the absolute standard of proof for deportations? Is there a 100% certain way to determine where anyone comes from originally? Why not go with the fossil record?

Judges and probation officers say the pervert is too dangerous to be released in case he attacks other women. Instead he is being held at an immigration detention centre at a cost of more than £40,000 a year to the taxpayer.

We can’t keep him locked up indefinitely. And we can’t deport him. Which means the UK got a little more enriched.

Greasing the wheels of hate

October 25, 2015

Greasing the wheels of hate, Israel Hayom, Gerald M. Steinberg, October 25, 2015

In order to maintain a prolonged terror campaign, it is imperative to cultivate a deep-seated hatred. This hatred reverberates with university graduate students, law students, phone company employees with a steady and decent paycheck, and even the minds of 13-year-old children. More than anything, however, such a campaign requires funding. Indeed, along with the Palestinian Authority, this terror industry is propelled by European elements, including those with affiliations to European Union governments. Despite their declared ambition of promoting peace and understanding, they are essentially providing this terror campaign with all the fuel it needs — incitement, justification and glorification.

Incitement

Imams in mosques and the leaders of Fatah and Hamas use the old libel of “Al-Aqsa is in danger” to incite the Palestinian masses. Other organizations, however, also contribute to this narrative, which has proved its effectiveness. For example, the Alternative Information Center, which is registered in Israel and is directly funded, among other sources, by the EU, published a call for “solidarity with the popular Palestinian resistance,” while warning that “fanatical groups of settlers supported by the government … are desecrating the [Temple Mount] compound … and are calling to destroy the mosque.” In addition to accusing Israel of colonialist policies of ethnic cleansing, it is also claimed that Israel and “Zionist militias” are responsible for the destruction of hundreds of churches and mosques since 1948.

Justification

In an emergency report published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization funded by European governments (including some from the EU), Israeli victims are uniformly described as “settlers,” which is supposed provide political “justification” for the violence. Moreover, the report turns the attacker into the victim and blames the Israeli security forces for committing crimes. The photograph of 13-year-old terrorist Ahmad Saleh Manasra, showing him wounded and bleeding after being neutralized, became the poster child of Palestinian propaganda; similar to Muhammad al-Dura during the Second Intifada — used to portray Israel as a child killer. While completely ignoring video footage documenting his terrorist attack and eyewitness testimonies, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights writes in its report that Ahmad was on his way to buy a dove when he was attacked. And if that claim is not enough to render the organization’s professionalism and objectives a complete and utter joke — there are no dove stores in Pisgat Ze’ev either.

Glorification

The Palestinian Bar Association granted the terrorist Muhannad Halabi an honorary degree. At the onset of the current wave of terror, Halabi, a law student, murdered two civilians in Jerusalem and wounded a mother and her toddler son. Even a statutory body such as this uses propaganda to glorify murderers, but receives funding from the EU. The amounts are hard to believe: The PBA received part of a 21 million euro grant delivered in August 2013, after reportedly receiving a similar grant worth 35 million euros over the three previous years. Between 2011 and 2013, the EU gave some 1.5 million euros directly to the PBA to “enhance the professionalism of Palestinian lawyers.”

European symbols and images of European representatives in Jerusalem adorn every page of the PBA’s website. The PBA has actively encouraged terrorism for quite some time already, and has organized violent protests against Israeli security forces, hunger strikes in solidarity with security detainees, and activities aimed at “liberating Palestinian prisoners.” Meanwhile, its “strategic plan” for the years 2015-2017, which was built “with the grant director for the EU,” includes submitting international law suits against Israel as one of its objectives.

Complaints should be directed at Europe, which intentionally or not is nourishing Palestinian incitement. Without these funds the Palestinians would be more limited regarding their propaganda of delegitimization and hatred, less blood would be spilled, and the atmosphere would be calmer. Despite many meetings and discussions with European representatives, the question still remains — how can our European friends transfer so much money to those who spill Jewish blood and prepare the ground for the next murder?

Muslim “refugees” bring pregnant little girls as “child brides” to Europe

October 23, 2015

Muslim “refugees” bring pregnant little girls as “child brides” to Europe, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 23, 2015

Child bride

This is what “European values” now look like. The millions of Muslim migrants invading Europe under the guise of refugees are making the abuse of children into the new normal. If you want to know where the Muslim sex grooming scandals of the UK in which thousands of young girls were raped come from, it’s down to religion and culture.

And this is what Europe is importing. via Religion of Peace.

Dutch asylum centres are reportedly housing 20 child brides aged between 13 and 15, while three a week on average are arriving to the country.

The brides were granted legal permission to join their older partners after the country recognised marriages involving young teenagers if they are officially registered in their home country.

Yes, you read that correctly. If this is true, then the Netherlands have apparently recognized child rape as a legal marriage if it’s legal under Muslim law.

Outraged Dutch Labour MP Attje Kuiken said: “A 12-year-old girl with a 40-year-old man – that is not a marriage, that is abuse. “We’re talking about really young children, girls 12, 13 years old. I want to protect these children.”

CHILD brides as young as 12 have been ordered to stay with the men they were forced to marry after European officials agreed to recognise the partnerships.

It comes amid fears of a paedophilia epidemic inside European refugee camps after a pregnant 14-year-old girl went missing from a Dutch centre.

Fatema Alkasem disappeared along with her 24-year-old husband in August and police are concerned the Syrian girl needs medical care.

This is not going over well among the native population.

More than 36,000 people entered the Netherlands this year. Former prisons, empty government offices and sports halls are being hastily modified to accommodate the surge in numbers. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem announced that the treasury’s original projection of $340 million to cover the cost of the new arrivals in 2015 was wildly understated.

They are now looking at a bill of approximately $1.13 billion.

The anti-immigration Freedom Party is enjoying its highest ever poll rating. The Freedom Party’s popularity is being partly attributed to Dutch concern about the continent’s inability to manage the flow of new arrivals.

I wonder why.

Diplomacy: Looking for ways to douse the spark

October 23, 2015

Diplomacy: Looking for ways to douse the spark, Jerusalem PostHerb Keinon, October 23, 2015

(They “dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows,” with apologies to Robert Frost. — DM)

ShowImage (15)Netanyahu and Kerry meeting in Berlin. (photo credit:AMOS BEN-GERSHOM/GPO)

And now the diplomatic dance begins, again.

After three weeks of runaway terrorism on the streets, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived for a quick visit midweek; US Secretary of State John Kerry – after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday in Berlin – is expected to meet on Saturday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, along with Jordan’s King Hussein; EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is doing the same; and the French are floating various proposals to take to the UN Security Council.

All predictable, all the traditional steps taken in a time of Mideast crisis.

Ban did what Ban does in these situations – he comes, meets with both sides, issues platitudes about the need for both sides to show restraint, and declares how important it is to keep that light of hope burning.

The UN secretary-general dutifully fulfilled his role in the script. Netanyahu obliged by meeting politely with Ban, who then went on to meet politely with Abbas, to what appears to be absolutely no effect. It’s a dance whose steps – and way of ending – are known far in advance.

Jerusalem does not take Ban’s efforts overseriously, as the organization that he heads is seen as a big part of the problem rather than the solution.

Witness Wednesday’s one-sided resolution adopted by UNESCO, the UN’s cultural heritage agency, condemning “Israeli aggression” on the Temple Mount and declaring that the Jewish holy sites of Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs are an “integral part of Palestine.”

Similar disdain, to a certain extent, characterizes Israel’s view of the EU’s efforts. Netanyahu will listen to Mogherini, and lament both Abbas’s incitement and the EU’s acceptance of it, but will place little stock in the EU’s ability to play a constructive role in calming down the situation.

Brussels is not seen in Jerusalem as a particularly honest broker on all things Palestinian but, rather, as the institution that nurtures – perhaps more than any other – the hope among the Palestinians that if they press long enough and hard enough, the international community will deliver to them what they publicly say they want: a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital, and some kind of “fair and just” accommodation for the refugees.

The very skeptical Israeli view of the EU in any diplomatic process is reinforced by steps taken by France, which this week considered bringing a resolution to the UN Security Council to place international observers on the Temple Mount.

This idea, which Israel would never accept, and which even Jordan and the Palestinians have apparently rejected, is born of a burning French diplomatic desire to always do something, anything, in the Mideast – especially when there seems to be a stalemate or vacuum.

It is also the product of sour relations currently prevailing between Paris and Jerusalem, as well as a lingering French hope for the internationalization of Jerusalem – for the establishment of a corpus separatum in Jerusalem under a special international regime – which France hopes to be a part of.

So with the UN out, the EU out, and France out, that leaves the US.

But it is not as if Jerusalem is harboring any hopes that Kerry will be able to ride in and save the day.

From Jerusalem’s perspective the US track record in the region is not sterling, and though it appreciates Washington’s desire to help, there is little illusion that high-profile, high-level meetings will have any immediate effect on the ground.

And while Jerusalem is not waiting for Kerry with baited breath, it was clear from the beginning that he would get involved. An uptick in terrorism and violence leads to a well-worn pattern in Washington: condemnations of the terrorism, then statements that anger Israel about proportionality or settlements, followed by calls for restraint on both sides, and then meetings with the leaders.

But this current spurt of terrorism and violence is different from previous rounds, in that there is no identifiable organization – such as Hamas and Fatah’s Tanzim militia – to hold directly responsible for the bloodshed. This time it is more amorphous, individual terrorists incited by calls for Jewish blood on Facebook and from various leaders, going out to kill Jews.

The lack of a clear organizational structure behind the terrorism makes it more difficult for the security services to stop, because it is much more difficult to gather intelligence on an individual who grabs a knife and goes out to kill than on attacks directed by an organization.

Also, there is not one person seemingly in control who may be pressured to cease the violence.

It is not as if Kerry can talk to Abbas and convince him to issue a call to his people to “hold your horses,” and the horses will obediently be held. Abbas does not have anything near that type of control – many of the horses simply do not heed him.

This time around, thankfully, neither the State Department nor Kerry are inflating expectations; they are not talking about Kerry’s separate meeting with the leaders as a potential breakthrough for restarting the diplomatic talks and bringing a peace deal in a number of months.

Washington, it should be remembered, is still engaged in its own Mideast policy reassessment, a policy reassessment brought about after the breakdown of the Kerry-led peace talks in April 2014, and re-announced after Netanyahu’s preelection statement – which he later retracted – of less than full fealty to the notion of a two-state solution.

Rather, this time the bar has been set low, with the goals very limited.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that the meetings would deal with “practical ways in which political breathing space can be had to help end the violence.”

No overreaching there, just looking for breathing space. The breathing space that Kirby mentioned but did not elaborate upon is likely to be an attempt – in discussions with Netanyahu, Abbas and especially Jordan’s King Abdullah – to come up with a clear set of procedures for governing the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount has – like so many times over the last century – been the spark to violence against Jews. To douse the fire, there will be some need to deal with the spark, but this has to be done in a way where both Israel and the Palestinians can say that they have not given in.

In recent days Kerry has spoken about the need for clarity. Everyone talks about the status quo on the Temple Mount, but there is little understanding of what that entails.

“Israel understands the importance of the status quo and… our objective is to make sure that everyone understands what that means,” Kerry said at press conference on Monday in Madrid, adding that “we are not seeking a new change or outsiders to come in; I don’t think Israel or Jordan wants that, and we’re not proposing it. What we need is clarity.”

The new “clarity” is expected to involve enhanced coordination and cooperation with Jordan, possibly even more Jordanian representatives on the site, in such a way as to undercut the spurious charge that Israel is somehow threatening al-Aksa Mosque.

Former National Security Council head Yaakov Amidror said in an Israel Radio interview this week that he had little expectation regarding Kerry’s meeting with Netanyahu or Abbas, because the US has little impact on the Palestinians – which is true.

But the US does have leverage on Jordan, and this leverage may now be needed to get Abdullah to take a greater role in day-to- day administration and involvement at the site – if only as a way to suck the oxygen out of the lie propelling the current round of terrorism: that Israel is endangering al-Aksa.

Muslim Invasion of Europe

October 22, 2015

Muslim Invasion of Europe, Gatestone InstituteGuy Millière, October 22, 2015

(Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography, Infidel, relates her childhood in Somalia, Kenya and Saudi Arabia and explains why she eventually left Islam after experiencing European freedoms. Her experiences with Muslims and the government in Holand show, in microcosm, the difficulties now facing Europe. The failure to promote integration into European society — including major components such as women’s rights and freedom of speech — is a substantial part of the problem. Those who argued for integration, then as now, were dubbed “racist” and worse. — DM)

  • The Syrian government sells passports and birth certificates at affordable prices. Many migrants have no passport, no ID, and refuse to give fingerprints.
  • Because Islam is the heart of the culture of people formerly colonized, Europeans rejected criticism of Islam, saying it would blend smoothly into a multicultural Europe. They did not demand the assimilation of the Muslims who came to live in Europe. Much of the time, Muslims are not assimilated — and often show signs of not wanting to assimilate.
  • Any criticism of Islam in Europe is treated as a form of racism, and “Islamophobia” is considered a crime or a sign of mental illness.
  • European people still have the right to vote, but are deprived of most of their power: all important political decisions in Europe are made behind closed doors by technocrats and professional politicians in Brussels or Strasbourg.
  • Europe has renounced force, so to many, it appears weak, vulnerable and easily able to be overpowered.
  • The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands more Muslims most likely prompts Europeans to think that the nightmare will get worse; they see, powerlessly, that their leaders speak and act as if they have no awareness of what is happening.
  • Central European leaders and people, who have already lived under authoritarian rule, seem to be thinking that entering the European Union was a huge mistake. They came to what was then called the “free world.” They do not seem willing to be subjected again to coercive decisions made by outsiders.
  • Illegal Muslim migrants will live on social benefits until the bankruptcy of welfare states.
  • In all 28 countries of the European Union, birth rates are low and the population is aging. People under thirty account for only 16% of the population, or 80 million people. In the 22 Arab countries, plus Turkey and Iran, people under thirty account for 70% of the population, or 350 million people.

The flow of illegal migrants does not stop. They land on the Greek islands along the Turkish coast. They still try to get into Hungary, despite a razor wire fence and mobilized army. Their destination is Germany or Scandinavia, sometimes France or the UK. Some of them still arrive from Libya. Since the beginning of January, more than 620,000 have arrived by sea alone. There will undoubtedly be many more: a leaked secret document estimates that by the end of December, there might be 1.5 million.

Journalists in Western Europe continue to depict them as “refugees” fleeing war in Syria. The description is false. According to statistics released by the European Union, only twenty-five percent of them come from Syria; the true number is probably lower. The Syrian government sells passports and birth certificates at affordable prices. The vast majority of migrants come from other countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Nigeria.

Many do not seem to have left in a hurry. Many bring new high-end smartphones and large sums of cash, ten or twenty thousand euros, sometimes more. Many have no passports, no ID, and refuse to give fingerprints.

Whenever people flee to survive, the men come with whole families: women, children, elders. Here, instead, more than 75% of those who arrive are men under 50; few are women, children or elders.

As Christians are now the main targets of Islamists (the Jews fled or were forced out decades ago), the people escaping the war in Syria should be largely composed of Christians. But Christians are a small minority among those who arrive, and they often hide that they are Christians.

Those who enter Europe are almost all Muslims, and behave as some Muslims often do in the Muslim world: they harass Christians and attack women. In reception centers, harassing Christians and attacking women are workaday incidents. European women and girls who live near reception centers are advised to take care and cover up. Rapes, assaults, stabbings and other crimes are on the rise.

Western European political leaders could tell the truth and act accordingly. They do not. They talk of “solidarity,” “humanitarian duty,” “compassion.” From the beginning, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that illegal migrants were welcome: she seemed to change her mind for a moment, but quickly slid back. In France, President François Hollande says the same things as Angela Merkel.

After the heartbreaking image of a dead child being carried on a Turkish beach was published, thousands of Germans and French initially spoke the same way as their leaders. Their enthusiasm seems to have faded fast.

The people of Central Europe were not enthusiastic from the beginning. Their leaders seem to share the feelings of their populations. None spoke as explicitly as Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary. He said out loud what many of his countrymen seemed to think. He spoke of “invasion” and asked if there were another word to describe the massive and often brutal entry into a country of people who have not been invited to do so. He added that a country has the right to decide who is allowed to enter its territory and to guard its borders. He stressed that those who enter Europe are from a “different culture,” and suggested that Islam might not be compatible with European Judeo-Christian values.

Western European political leaders harshly condemned his remarks and the attitude of Central Europe in general. They decided to take a hard line approach, including: forcing recalcitrant countries to welcome immigrants, setting up mandatory quotas that define how many immigrants each EU country must receive, and threatening those countries that declined to obey. Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, said that Europe was built in a spirit of “burden sharing,” and that EU breakup was a risk that could not be excluded.

An acute division, in fact, is emerging between the leaders of Western Europe and the leaders of Central Europe. Another division is growing between the populations of Western Europe and their leaders.

Those who rebuilt Europe after World War II thought that an enlightened elite (themselves) could make a clean sweep of the past and build a dream society where peace and perpetual harmony would reign.

Because they thought democracy had brought Hitler to power, they decided to restrict democracy.[1] Because they thought nationalism was the cause of the war, they decreed that nationalism was harmful and that the cultural identities in Europe had to disappear and be replaced by a new “European identity” that they would shape.[2]

Because Europe had a colonialist past and Europeans had believed in the superiority of their cultures, they claimed that Europe should redeem its guilt and affirm that all cultures were equal. And because Islam was at the heart of the culture of people formerly colonized, the Europeans rejected all criticism of Islam, and said that it would blend smoothly into a multicultural Europe. They did not demand the assimilation of Muslims who came to live in Europe in increasing number.

Because the Europeans thought poverty had led to the rise of Nazism, they built welfare states that were supposed to eliminate poverty forever.

Because two world wars had started in Europe, the Europeans decreed that from now on, Europe would renounce the use of force, and solve all conflicts through diplomacy and appeasement.[3]

We now see the results.

European people still have the right to vote, but are deprived of most of their power: all important political decisions in Europe are made behind closed doors, by technocrats and professional politicians, in Brussels or Strasbourg.

Cultural identities in Europe have been eroded to such a point that saying that Europe is based on Judeo-Christian values has become controversial.

Any criticism of Islam in Europe is treated as a form of racism, and “Islamophobia” is considered a crime or a sign of mental illness.

Islam has not melted into a smooth multiculturalism; it is creating increasingly distressing problems that are almost never brought to light.

Muslim criminality across Europe is high. Consequently, the percentage of Muslims in prisons in Europe is high. In France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, the prison population is 70% Muslim. Many European prisons have become recruitment centers for future jihadis.

Muslim riots may occur for any reason: police upholding the law, a Soccer League celebration or in support of a cause.

Welfare states have created a government-dependent class in Europe of many people who live permanently on social benefits. These people are often Muslim. Much of the time, they are not assimilated – and often show signs of not wanting to assimilate. Many reside in virtually autonomous, so-called no-go zones (e.g. France, the UK, and Germany).

Europe has renounced force; to many, it therefore appears weak, vulnerable and easily able to be overpowered.

Populations of Western Europe increasingly think that the dream society that had been promised has turned into a nightmare. The sudden and often brutal arrival of hundreds of thousands more Muslims most likely prompts Europeans to think the nightmare will get worse. They see, powerlessly, that their leaders speak and act as if they have no awareness of what is happening.

Central European leaders and their people, who have directly experienced authoritarian rule, seem to be thinking that entering the European Union was a huge mistake. When the Soviet Union collapsed, they became members of the EU to join what was called then the “free world.” They do not seem willing to be subjected again to coercive decisions made by outsiders.

After living under the Soviet yoke, they preserved their desire for freedom and self-government, and evidently will not now agree to give them up. They know what submission to Islam could mean. Bulgaria and Romania were occupied by the Ottoman Empire until 1878. Hungary was under the boot of Ottoman rule for more than a hundred and fifty years (1541-1699).

Polls show that a majority of Muslims living in Europe want the application of sharia law and clearly reject any idea of assimilation.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in Europe have joined fundamentalist Islamic organizations. Thousands have joined jihadist movements and are now fighting in Syria or Yemen. Many have returned and are ready to act against Europe.

Illegal Muslim migrants are likely to join the Muslims already living in Europe; and they will remain Muslim. They will live on social benefits until the bankruptcy of welfare states. They will reside in the “no-go zones,” and the “no-go zones” will continue to grow. Their occupants come from countries where Christians and women are mistreated; in Europe, they are already mistreating Christians and women.

They come from countries where Western civilization is despised and where hatred of Jews is inescapable — and this remains so among Muslims already living in Europe. For more than two decades, almost all assaults against Jews in Europe were committed by Muslims.

Many of those who arrive, according to European intelligence sources, are already radicalized.

A project to overwhelm Europe by a huge wave of migration was already described by the Islamic State in documents discovered this February. It is hard to rule out that the Islamic State plays a role in what is happening. Turkish authorities are ignoring the massive departures taking place from their coast. If they really wanted the current process to stop, they could stop it. That is clearly not what they do. The Islamic State could not survive without Turkish help. Daily flights on Turkish Airlines bring illegal migrants to Istanbul; they continue unhindered to Europe. The Russians, in their military intervention in Syria, similarly does not seem interested in stopping what is occurring.

Angela Merkel said in Strasbourg, on October 7, that migrants entering Europe today are attracted to Europe, for the reasons Europeans migrants who arrived in America a century ago were attracted to America: to “realize a dream,” presumably of opportunity.

In all 28 countries of the European Union, birth rates are low and the population is aging. People under thirty account for only 16% of the population, or 80 million people. In the 22 Arab countries, plus Turkey and Iran, people under thirty account for 70% of the population, or 350 million people.

Jews are fleeing Europe in increasing numbers. “Native” Europeans are starting to flee as well.

In 1972, in his book “The Camp of the Saints,” French writer Jean Raspail described flooding Europe with Muslim migrants crossing the Mediterranean. At the time, the book was a work of fiction. Today, it is reality.

1263 (1)Out with the old, in with the new… European officials estimate that 1.5 million migrants, mostly Muslims, will arrive in the European Union this year. Jews are fleeing Europe in increasing numbers. “Native” Europeans are starting to flee as well.

__________________

[1] Christopher Booker, Richard North, The Great Deception, The Secret History of the European Union, Bloomsbury Academic, 2005.

[2] Neil Fligstein, Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of Europe, Oxford University Press, 2009.

[3] Wolfram Kaiser, Christian Democracy and the Origins of European Union, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Christians Persecuted by Muslims Even in the West

October 20, 2015

Christians Persecuted by Muslims Even in the West, Gatestone InstituteRaymond Ibrahim, October 19, 2015

(Still, many European Christians seem to have few problems with Islamic murder of Jews in Israel. — DM)

  • “Convert or Die” — Graffiti on a restaurant, Gothenburg, Sweden.
  • “Very religious Muslims are spreading the following idea throughout the refugee centers: Sharia law rules wherever we are.” – Gottfried Martens, pastor of a south Berlin church.
  • “You have a cross on — then you are also a Christian f***ing whore. Do you know what we do to people like you? … You get stoned [to death].” — Muslim threats against Christians in Denmark, documented by TV2.
  • A British Christian family that was attacked says both police and the Anglican Church have failed to provide any meaningful support and are “reluctant to treat the problem as a religious hate crime.”
  • Christian residents of Europe continue to be persecuted, often by Muslims allowed into Europe on the grounds that they are being “persecuted.”
  • As Muslims grow in numbers, so do their demands — assimilation in Europe is falling by the wayside.
  • “Before we put on a show of unity with Muslims, let’s have them begin by respecting our civilization and our culture.” — Giuseppe Berlin, Municipal Councillor of Cinisello Balsamo, Italy.

Last April, police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants hurled as many as 53 Christians overboard during a recent boat crossing from Libya. The motive was that the victims “professed the Christian faith while the aggressors were Muslim.” Another report cited a boy seen praying to the Judeo-Christian God. Muslims commanded him to stop, saying “Here, we pray only to Allah.” Eventually the Muslims “went mad,” in the words of a witness, started screaming “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is Greater!”] and began hurling Christians into the sea.

Even when Christian refugees make it to the West, they often continue to be persecuted by Muslims, their fellow “refugees.”

According to a September 30 report, in Germany “Many Christian refugees from Syria, Iraq or Kurdistan are being intimidated and attacked by Muslim refugees. In several refugee centers set up by the local authorities, Sharia law is being imposed, and Christians — which are a minority — are the victims of bullying.”

Gottfried Martens, pastor of a south Berlin church, said that “very religious Muslims are spreading the following idea throughout the refugee centers: Sharia law rules wherever we are.” Martens expressed especial concern for Muslims who convert to Christianity — apostates who, according to Islamic law, can be killed: “There is a 100% chance that these people will be attacked.”

Earlier, in July 2014, the weekly Die Zeit explained how “an atmosphere of intimidation and hostility towards Christians” reigns in the refugee centers. Christians, referred to as “pigs,” have limited access to communal kitchens. Local authorities said, “The police have reached their absolute breaking point. Our officials are increasingly being called to confrontations in refugee homes.”

The situation is the same in other European nations. Last Tuesday in Gothenburg, Sweden, Markus Samuelsson, of Assyrian descent, found the walls of his restaurant covered with jihadi graffiti. These included the messages: “Convert or Die” and “The Caliphate is Here.” The Arabic letter ن (“N” for “Nasara,” or “Christian”) was painted on the walls of the pizzeria next door and the local bakery as well, though non-Assyrian businesses were left untouched. (The Islamic State is known to mark out Christian homes and businesses with this letter before attacks.)

A July report told of how two small families of Christian asylum seekers were harassed and abused by approximately 80 Muslim asylum seekers from Syria. The Muslims — described by one Swedish newspaper as “fundamentalist Islamists” — and the Christians resided in the same asylum house. As in Germany, the Muslims ordered the Christians not to use communal areas and not to wear crosses around their necks.

After extensive harassment and threats, the Christian refugees, who thought they had escaped ISIS, left the Swedish asylum house “fearing for their own safety.” A spokesman for the government migration agency responsible for their center said:

They dared not stay. The atmosphere became too intimidating. And they got no help… They chose themselves to organize new address and moved away without our participation because they felt a discomfort.

1224 (1)Asylum seekers in the Swedish city of Kalmar, where Christian refugees were forced to move out of public housing after being harassed and threatened by Muslims.

In Denmark, according to the conclusion of a study conducted last year, “Christian asylum seekers are repeatedly exposed to everything from harassment to threats and physical abuse by other [Muslim] refugees in the asylum centers, simply because they have converted from Islam to Christianity.” An eight-year-old Christian boy was repeatedly bullied and beaten by larger Muslim boys on his way to school, to the point that he dropped out. In another incident, someone tampered with a Christian asylum seeker’s bicycle so that he crashed and broke both hands.

According to Niels Eriksen Nyman, who led the study:

There are certainly many more cases around the country than the ones we hear about in the church. I hate to say it, but I’m afraid that on some of the asylum centers there are some very unhealthy control mechanisms when the staff turns their back… I refuse to support Islamophobia, but we have a serious problem here.”

It certainly seems so. After all, such persecution is not limited to refugees. Christians of Middle Eastern or Asian backgrounds who have been living in the West for years are also being targeted.

In Muslim-majority areas of Denmark — voted 2013’s “happiest country in the world” — Christians of Middle Eastern backgrounds experienced “harassment, verbal attacks and in some cases direct violence from Muslims,” according to TV2. One Christian, “Jojo,” born in Denmark to Lebanese parents, said that Muslims sometimes surround and bully her about her Western attire. When one of them noticed she was wearing a cross, he said “Well, you have a cross on — then you are also a Christian f***ing whore. Do you know what we do to people like you? Do you know what we do to people like you? You get stoned [to death].”

Another Christian woman of Iranian background in Denmark recounted how she and her son are harassed on the Muslim-majority block where they live — and where she stands out for not wearing a hijab, the Islamic veil: “My son is being called everything. I get called all sorts of things. Infidel. Filthy Christians. They tell me I ought to be stoned to death. My son was beaten at the bus stop. He was called pig, dirty potato (Muslim slang for Danes), and that ‘you and your mother should die.'”

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, a Pakistani man, his wife, and their six children are suffering “an appalling ordeal at the hands of neighbours who regard them as blasphemers.” Their “crime” is converting to Christianity — over 20 years ago. Despite being “prisoners in their own home after being attacked in the street, having their car windscreens repeatedly smashed and eggs thrown at their windows” the Christian family says both police and the Anglican Church have failed to provide any meaningful support and are “reluctant to treat the problem as a religious hate crime.”

The family plans to relocate from their home city of Bradford to a “white English” area to escape the hate campaign. Nissar Hussain, the father, said: “Our lives have been sabotaged and this shouldn’t happen in the United Kingdom. We live in a free democratic society and what they are doing to us is abhorrent.”

Other refugees who convert to Christianity are snatched back to Islam. Last year, in New Zealand, friends of a Muslim convert to Christianity known as Daniel said they “fear the refugee has been abducted from his Christchurch flat and taken back to Saudi Arabia — home to the Islamic holy city of Mecca — where it is against the law for Muslims to abandon their faith.”

Daniel arrived about five years ago on a Saudi government scholarship to study English, eventually converted to Christianity and applied for asylum. He was granted refugee status on the grounds that he would be persecuted in Saudi Arabia, and told friends he was terrified he would be kidnapped and forced to return. According to the Sunday Star-Times, “his friends … say he was last seen in the company of two strange Arab men and believe he was taken out of the country under duress, possibly by agents of the state or family members. … There have been numerous documented cases of Saudi nationals being uplifted from foreign countries.” In one case, a man who converted to Christianity and was brought back to Saudi Arabia was told “more than once if he did not renounce his Christianity that he could expect to be beheaded.”

Even Europe’s indigenous Christians and their churches under attack by the “refugees” as well:

Italy

Last May, a Muslim schoolboy of African origin beat a 12-year-old girl during school because she was wearing a crucifix around her neck. The boy, who had only started to attend the school a few weeks earlier, began to bully the Christian girl — “insulting her and picking on her in other ways all because she was wearing the crucifix” — before he finally assaulted her. Italian police did not charge the boy with any offense, citing that he was a minor.

On Sunday, May 10, after mass at church, a group of young Muslim immigrants interrupted a Catholic procession in honor of the Virgin Mary. They shouted insults and threats as the group passed in front of the Islamic Cultural Center in Conselice, a small town in lower Romagna. Approximately 100 Catholic Christians, including several small children, were preparing to receive their first Holy Communion.

On New Year’s Day, a 67-year-old Moroccan man, heard mumbling verses from the Koran, used an iron rod to hurl to the ground and severely damage five statues — including of the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child — and destroy the altars and baptistery in the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta in Cles, Trentino.

On January 9, in the chapel of St. Barnabas in Perugia, as a man was kneeling in prayer before a statue of St. Mary, while holding a photograph, presumably of someone he loved, five “foreigners,” described as being of North African descent, attacked him: “The first thing they did was rip the photo from his hands. Next they unleashed their hatred against the image of the Virgin Mary. They broke the statue to pieces and then urinated on it.”

On January 17, a crucifix was destroyed in Cinisello Balsamo, a municipality in the Province of Milan, near a populated mosque. The municipality’s Councillor, Giuseppe Berlin, did not mince words about the identity of the culprit(s): “Before we put on a show of unity with Muslims, let’s have them begin by respecting our civilization and our culture. We shouldn’t minimize the importance of certain signals; we must wake up now or our children will suffer the consequences of this dangerous and uncontrolled Islamic invasion.”

France

On April 15, a man dressed in traditional Muslim attire damaged and desecrated Christian gravestones and crosses in the cemetery of Saint-Roch de Castres (pictures here). The prosecutor said, “The man repeats Muslim prayers over and over, he drools and cannot be communicated with: his condition has been declared incompatible with preliminary detention.” He was hospitalized as “mentally unbalanced.”

Less than two months later, during the early morning of August 5, at Thonon-les-Bains, a man of about 30, described as a “young Muslim,” committed major acts of vandalism in the church of Saint-Hippolyte and in the adjacent basilica of Saint-François-de-Sales. He overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras, and lecterns; he destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, broke some stained-glass windows and smashed in a sacristy door.

Austria

After reportedly listening to Muslim chants, a man, known only as Ibrahim A., went on a church-vandalizing spree and desecrated four churches. He overturned and destroyed statues, crosses, and altars. The Archbishop of Vienna described the attack as “so far the worst act of vandalism in my time as Archbishop…. I am shocked by the devastation in the churches. I hope that the perpetrator or perpetrators did not know what they were doing.” Ibrahim A., 37-years-old, was caught in the act of vandalizing St. Stephan’s but was released at the time because police did not realize it was one of many attacks that had been carried out that day. Police have been unable to find him since then.

Germany

A Turkish man being treated in a hospital attacked his nurse because there were “too many crosses” on the wall. According to Mainpost, a German publication, “A 34-year-old went to St. Joseph Hospital … due to a ‘gastro-intestinal flu.’ Suddenly he refused to be treated, because he thought there were too many Christian crosses on the wall. Because of the crosses, the man started insulting the nurse, calling her a bitch, fascist, and the like. Then the man, according to police report, also started becoming physically aggressive. The hospital called the police. The officers seized the man in front of the hospital and checked him.”

United States

Last year in Columbus, Indiana, three churches were vandalized on the same night. The words most frequently sprayed were “Infidels!” and “Koran 3:151.” The verse from the Koran states, “We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve [or “infidels”] for what they have associated with Allah [reference to Christian Trinity] … And their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of the wrongdoers.”

Australia

Last year, a report said that “Church-goers in Sydney’s west have been left shaken after a stranger shouted death threats from a car bearing the Islamic State flag. The car drove past Our Lady of Lebanon Church at Harris Park on Tuesday and witnesses claim it had a flag similar to those brandished by Islamic State jihadists hanging out the window.” A church official said the people in the car threatened to “kill the Christians” and slaughter their children: “They were strong words and people were scared of what they saw.” Witnesses saw a flag outside the window with the words, “There is only one god and Muhammad is the prophet.”

Islamic hostility for Christians remains the same. Just as they are hounded in Muslim majority nations, Christian refugees from the Middle East and even longtime residents of Europe continue to be persecuted — often by Muslims allowed into Europe on the grounds that they are being “persecuted.”

According to what I call “Islam’s Rule of Numbers” — which holds that as Muslims grow in numbers, so do their demands — assimilation in Europe is falling by the wayside.

As millions more Muslims continue to flood the continent, they will not be limited to expressing their anti-Christian hostility on the unprotected dead in cemeteries, or on inanimate church buildings, statues, and crosses. Rather, as in the Islamic world, native Christians themselves will be hounded even more.

That is exactly how the “Muslim world” — most of which rests on lands that once were Christian, then taken by Muslim jihad — came into being.

European Influx of Militiamen Loyal To Iran Could Pose Problems

October 20, 2015

European Influx of Militiamen Loyal To Iran Could Pose Problems, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, October 19, 2015

1249

Evidence uncovered on social media indicates that members of Iranian-trained Shiite militias may be entering Europe as refugees, a London-based Iraqi émigré group says. The Foreign Relations Bureau – Iraq (FRBI) identified images of 48 men on Facebook and Twitter who it says fought with Iranian-trained Shiite militias in Iraq and now are in Europe.

FRBI came into existence in 2014 and promotes women’s rights, equality, Iraqi independence from foreign control, and a non-sectarian approach to governance.

FRBI’s list shows pictures of militiamen in uniform and carrying weapons. Alongside those images are pictures showing the same people wearing Western street clothes and standing in places such as Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Greece and Finland. This same list also includes 16 people belonging to Iraq’s security services who similarly made their way to Europe and who FBRI accuses of crimes against the Iraqi people.

These militias engaged in serious human-rights abuses in places like Tikrit after they ousted the Islamic State, and Iraqi security forces similarly engaged in unlawful killings, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). FRBI refers to HRW’s research about human-rights abuses in Iraq as a reason why these men should not have been allowed into the E.U.

Images of these fighters began surfacing on social media in August and early September, said FRBI spokesman A. Al-Mahmoud.

“Our lists are compiled with the efforts of some of our affiliate analysts who follow social media of all sorts mainly militia related pages whom suddenly started posting images from within the EU as the refugee situation escalated,” Al-Mahmoud said in an email to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). “A public page was then set up on our website to document what can be from these accounts in hope that media would find it easier to have what they need all in one page.”

Thus far, FRBI has no evidence that the influx of Shiite militiamen into Europe has been organized or orchestrated by Iran or any organized crime syndicate in Europe, but the scale of the militiamen’s migration is unprecedented, Al-Mahmoud said.

They may have varying motivations, he said. Some may fear war crimes prosecutions and are trying to remake themselves into refugees. Others may no longer care about their government’s or clergy’s goals.

The men regularly posted images of themselves on the battlefield, Al-Mahmoud said, then suddenly began posting images showing them in Europe, which led FBRI to believe they had infiltrated the wave of refugees.

No matter the reasons for their move, FRBI fears these men are on a collision course with European values and trapped by a vicious sectarian ideology that makes them a potential threat to their host countries. It alleges that some of these men may have participated in war crimes in Iraq.

“[M]ost of the people who did join the militias do have sectarian leanings and they will export their irrational thought of non co-existence outside Iraq, which will collide with other open and liberal societies, so they will bring their problems with them,” Al-Mahmoud said. “Finally, the background they are from is very low and poor with minimal education; unskilled and foreign, they will quickly find it easy to get into the criminal/theft and drug world adding more problems to the European Union immigrant communities already suffering from stereotyping and media pressure.

“They were paid members of organizations that were trained to kill under religious banners; this is the first time they have come out of Iraq in such large numbers.”

The men belonged to deadly militias such as Al-Hashid al-Shaabi and its subsidiaries such as: Kataib Hizballah (aka Hizballah Iraq), Kataib Imam Ali militia, Saraya al-Salam militia (Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Peace Brigades) – all of which are trained and strongly influenced by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Qods Force under the command of Gen. Qasem Soleimani. He emerged as a controversial figure in the discussions of the Iranian nuclear deal.

Kataib Imam Ali militia formed from splinter elements of al-Sadr’s militia that fought American forces during the Iraq War and remain “extremely anti-American,” said Phillip Smyth, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Kataib Imam Ali militiamen have been implicated in human-rights abuses similar to those carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS), he said. In one case, a video showed a militiaman dismembering the burned corpse of a Islamic State fighter as if he were “shwarma,” which sparked a reprisal video by the Islamic State in which two Shiite fighters were burned to death.

An IPT review of the information provided by FRBI lends credence to its contention that Shiite fighters have entered Europe among groups of refugees.

For example, the Facebook page of Al-Hashid al-Shaabi militia member Ali Spaaki shows a clear progression from being on the battlefield in Iraq in June to making his way across Europe throughout September and on to Helsinki, Finland on Oct. 4. Spaaki’s Facebook page shows him getting off a ferry along with a crowd of people in a picture posted to his timeline on Sept. 20 in front of a Greek-flagged ferry and a large crowd. A related photo, also taken Sept. 20, shows him standing in front of a boat that reads “Bodrum” [Turkey] on its stern as its homeport, suggesting the ferry may have departed from that Turkish town. Bodrum has become a “magnet” for refugees, and large numbers of refugees have left the town hoping to make it to Greece since the summer, according to news reports. Spaaki’s departure date came weeks after the body of Aylan Kurdi, a toddler refugee, washed up onshore near Bodrum.

A similar story can be told by examining the Facebook page belonging to Al-Hashid Al-Shaabi fighter Mustafa Al-Azawi. There, he explicitly discusses his effort to enter Greece on the island of Lesbos on Sept. 17 via Izmir, Turkey, which news reports say is a common point of departure for refugees. Pictures on Al-Azawi’s timeline of himself posing on the shore of the island and of inner tubes and a crowd of likely refugees happened the same day a Getty Images photographer captured an image of migrants arriving on Lesbos. Days earlier, on Sept. 10, Al-Azawi posted Google Maps images of routes to Lesbos on Facebook, suggesting he planned his route to the island. Like Spaaki, Al-Azawi’s Facebook page shows his travel across Europe before making his to his final destination in Oulu, Finland on Oct. 3.

Al-Mahmoud also worries these militiamen could become entangled in organized crime and become involved in Iranian-controlled social organizations across Europe, and they will be used for Iran’s political ends.

“A lot of them believe in … Iran’s guiding ideology, and that political and social matters are presided over by Ayatollah Khamenei … so they follow what he says,” Smyth said. “They (Iraqi Shiite militiamen in Europe) do pose a risk.

“These groups believe that both America and the State of Israel are their existential foes.”

In the past, Hizballah supporters living in Europe, Canada or the United States have engaged in criminal activities. This includes cigarette smuggling in the U.S. and accusations of organized crime in Canada and in the E.U. Hizballah supporters also plotted and carried out terrorist attacks in Argentina and Bulgaria. Although these Iraqi militias are not part of Hizballah, they are branches on the same Iranian Qods Force tree – first cousins in effect.

Shiites who support Hizballah and Iran in places like Sweden already have been recruited as foreign fighters by Iranian proxies to fight in Iraq, said Smyth, who traveled to Scandinavia last year on a related research trip. Having a passport from someplace like Sweden means a foreign fighter can come and go from hot zones like Iraq or Syria without the same hassles someone traveling on a Lebanese, Syrian or Iraqi passport.

While most attention has been given to Sunni foreign fighters traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State and other Sunni jihadist groups, Smyth said, not enough attention has been given to Shiite fighters with ties to Iran.

“You now have a new transnational threat that is loyal to the Iranians, that is anti-American, is anti-Western, is anti-Israel,” Smyth said. “There is a direct threat that’s there.”

It is hard to tell how many people on the FRBI list actually are refugees or if they are in the E.U. vacationing or are there for some other reason. But Smyth sees them as a national-security threat either way.

“Here are examples of these guys when they are out of uniform, when they are possibly still militiamen, and they are traveling to Europe, which says something. How did they get there with a visa? Why, after all of this has been publicized, are they all still going?” Smyth asked in a phone interview with the IPT. “There are already examples of Shia militiamen, Hizballah for instance, who have used Western passports to go different places and to engage in bad deeds.”

This also has U.S. Customs officials concerned. The ease in which these Shia militiamen have entered Europe raises fears that they will be able to travel to the U.S. on E.U. passports, said one Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who spoke under the condition of not being named. Anyone with a passport from places like Germany, Sweden can easily get on a flight to the U.S. without the sorts of hassles they might experience traveling on an Iraqi or a Syrian passport.

A spokeswoman for Europe’s top law enforcement agency, EUROPOL, told the IPT her agency was unaware of any organized effort by terrorist organizations to infiltrate the E.U. However, none of the Shia militia groups whose members have made their way to Europe are listed as terror groups by the E.U.

“There are however concerns about the use of the Mediterranean routes. While the majority of irregular migrants and refugees are in search of safety, other groups such as returning foreign fighters and other individuals linked to IS (Islamic State), might make use of the services provided by the organized crime groups,” EUROPOL spokeswoman Agnieszka Biegaj wrote in an e-mailed statement. “Given the hazardous nature of the illegal migratory routes, from a terrorists’ perspective, it makes more sense to use regular travel methods and other resources such as false or genuine travel documents.”