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The French Appetite for Appeasement

June 4, 2016

The French Appetite for Appeasement, Gatestone Institute, George Igler,  June 4, 2016

♦ France’s Socialist Party government has unveiled a new legislative program designed to decrease the likelihood of further Islamic atrocities, largely it seems that would have ensured the success of the jihadist attacks committed so far.

♦ n the measures revealed, proactively combatting criminals appears to have taken a back seat to placating the communities from which they are drawn.

♦ Whereas protests by French people against Islamization or government policy, have been rigorously curtailed by the authorities, migrant gangs have still felt able to terrorize French towns, stampede French motorways, or conduct mass armed brawls in Paris, with little fear of intervention from either security services or the law.

♦ In 2014, an ICM poll discovered that 27% of French citizens aged 18-24 supported ISIS.

Last year Muslim jihadists murdered more people in France, than were killed by terrorism in the country during the entire 20th century.

In response, the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, has announced a range of innovative legal measures, introduced in response to the terrorist outrages which struck France in 2015.

On January 7, of that year, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi stormed the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, massacring twelve and injuring eleven others.

In the days that followed, a comrade of the earlier jihadists committed a string of murders, which culminated in a siege at the kosher supermarket. Amedy Coulibaly killed five and injured eleven more.

On February 3, 2015, three military personnel guarding a Jewish community center in Nice were stabbed, by Moussa Coulibaly.

On June 26, the severed head of Hervé Cornara was placed on display, at the gas factory near Lyon where he worked, alongside twin ISIS flags, by Yassine Salhi.

On August 21, an attempted mass shooting on the Thalys high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris, by Moroccan-born Ayoub El Khazzani, was foiled by American tourists, leading to the wounding of four.

In two days, starting on November 13, multiple jihadist attacks once again struck the French capital. 130 were killed and 352 injured, by perpetrators operating in three teams of three, which included suicide bombers.

1432 (1)Last January, Amedy Coulibaly (left) murdered a policewoman and four Jews in Paris, before being shot dead by police. Right: Medics carry a victim wounded in an attack by Islamist terrorists, who shot hundreds of concert-goers, killing 90, at the Bataclan theater in Paris on November 13, 2015.

France’s Socialist Party government has unveiled a new legislative program designed to decrease the likelihood of further Islamic atrocities, largely it seems that would have ensured the success of the jihadist attacks committed so far.

“A range of measures” are set to be introduced to combat the alleged “Social, Ethnic and Territorial Apartheid” currently blighting France.

Not only were the jihadist proclivities of most of last year’s perpetrators fully known to the authorities in France, some had been released from prison early following crimes of violence involving automatic weapons.

In the measures revealed by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, however, proactively combatting criminals appears to have taken a backseat to placating the communities from which they are drawn.

The first aim of the new laws contained within the Equality and Citizenship bill, reports Le Monde, is to centralize the provision of social housing in France. Until now the growth of Islamized areas has largely been limited to suburbs around major urban centers.

Much as in Germany, where Muslim migrants to Europe are being sent directly into rural areas, the prime minister is proposing a new nationwide system designed, “to make a better distribution of the public housing supply” in France. This nationwide transformation of housing policy is aimed at curtailing “concentrations of poverty,” within problematic Islamic enclaves infamous as no-go zones.

“Recalcitrant” locally-elected mayors who oppose the construction of new housing projects in their areas will be overruled by the state in the interests of “social diversity.”

Second, in the guise of improving literacy in French amongst those of immigrant descent, a new fast-track employment scheme has also been drawn up.

The scheme “will allow youths with few or no qualifications” to enter France’s “citizens’ reserve,” a government initiative established last year which links the nation’s education system with its civil service, allowing an accelerated path into state employment.

The euphemism “youths” is used in the French media to describe the country’s increasingly problematic young Muslim population. In 2014, an ICM poll discovered that 27% of French citizens aged 18-24 supported ISIS.

The glowing account given to the proposals being forwarded by Prime Minister Valls, in his country’s leading left-wing daily, fails to mention how the newly foreseen “third path” job scheme will address the greater key issues.

Unease is growing at the level of Islamist sympathies already held by state employees in France, such as members of the military and police.

Third, as nationwide protests continue to mount over migrant chaos in French towns, spread across the coast of the English Channel, even greater criminal penalties against free speech are also set to be introduced by the new bill.

Verbal communication has, apparently, been largely exempted from legal free speech curtailment in France, unless recorded and posted online. Such cases then fall under the same strict law that governs the printed word, originally passed in 1881.

This law is why Charlie Hebdo is famous for distributing its most challenging content in the form of cartoons, thereby seeking to exempt itself from strict sanctions against “defamation” in print. Fictional novels published this year about France’s Islamic future have sought to do the same.

Under the legislation currently being proposed by Valls, this existing status quo is set for a radical shake-up. The new restrictions planned for France are more in line with the Europe-wide harmonization of hate speech offences, mandated by the European Union.

The augmented provisions against incitement to hatred, previously limited to the 1881 press law, are set to be expanded throughout the French criminal justice system, under the new bill.

Much as in the UK, the new creation of aggravated offences will also ensure that any existing crime can be claimed, by its victim, also to contain a “hate speech” component, incurring far stiffer penalties against the alleged perpetrator.

The application of existing French laws, however, after the last major atrocity in Paris, on November 13, point to the likely reasons for the new proposals being put forward by France’s government.

Since the massacre at the Bataclan nightclub and suicide bombings that struck the French capital, the Republic of France has been in a state of emergency. This gives the country’s President, François Hollande, “extraordinary powers” under Article 16 of the French Constitution.

In February, the duration of these powers, which enable warrantless searches whilst limiting freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, were extended until May 26 by the lower house of the French legislature, the Assemblée Nationale.

In the intervening period, soldiers have become such a common sight in the French capital, that they often give Paris the impression of being under martial law. Half of the country’s army is now deployed on the streets of France.

Yet, whereas protests by French people against Islamization or government policy have been rigorously curtailed by the authorities, migrant gangs have still felt able to terrorize French towns,stampede French motorways, or conduct mass armed brawls in Paris, with little fear of intervention from either security services or the law.

Although the law being introduced by Mr. Valls is chiefly claimed to be about “youth engagement,” the new bill seems more the result of a realization that one group in France — its natives — can generally be relied upon to obey the law, while apparently another cannot.

There is a certain group of young people, however, with whom Manuel Valls clearly does not wish to engage. He recently excoriated members of the controversial Europe-wide Identitarian Movement, a nationalist youth group notorious for engaging in acts of civil disobedience in response to the changing culture and demography of France and Europe.

Described as the “hipster right” by some outlets, Mr. Valls decried supporters of the movement — which began in his country — as “those who want the country closed while dreaming of going back to a France that never existed.”

“I believe in my country, in its message and its universal values,” Valls added. In the interview published by Libération, on April 12, he continued:

I would like us to be capable of demonstrating that Islam, a great world religion and the second religion of France, is fundamentally compatible with the Republic, democracy, our values, and equality between men and women.

Manuel Valls was later forced to admit, in the interview, that this “compatibility” is something doubted by “a majority of our fellow citizens.”

Some 3.3 million people have dual citizenship in France, most of them Muslim. After President Hollande had announced that his country was “at war,” in the immediate aftermath of November’s attacks, the French Prime Minister unveiled plans to amend France’s constitution.

The proposed amendment was intended to strip French citizenship from dual-nationals convicted of terrorism offences. At the time Manuel Valls was described, in the left-wing media, as a “strongman” who had taken a “hard line against terror.”

On March 30, however, after a split within the Socialist Party over the issue, the Prime Minister’s plans were dropped.

The new, more comprehensive, legislative proposals are set to go before the Assemblée nationale this month.

Categories: France, Hate speech, Hollande, Islam - submission, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamism, Islamophobia
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Islamic Extremism in France Part IV: Crime and Immigration

May 25, 2016

Islamic Extremism in France Part IV: Crime and Immigration, Clarion Project, Leslie Shaw, May 25, 2016

Hyper-Cacher-Policemen-France-IP_0French policemen in front of the Hyper Cacher supermarket, the site of an Islamist attack by Amedy Coulibaly, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. Coulibaly, the son of African immigrants from Mali, was a close friend of Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi (whom he had met in jail in 2005), the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack. The Kouachi brothers were sons of Algerian immigrants.

French civil servants are forbidden by law from voicing opinions that are not in line with government policy and can only express their views anonymously. In October 2015, a group of senior civil servants known as Plessis published an op-ed in the Figaro newspaper attacking the impotence of government policy and pernicious media propaganda on the issue of illegal migrants.

“This impotence, coupled with a moralizing media discourse, is increasingly disconnected from the will of the French people, who have been subject for several decades to the disorder caused by uncontrolled immigration, are worried about the threat of terrorism and demand protection and security. It is striking to observe that the current non-stop media blitz, verging on moral bullying, has failed to convince the French people.”

The disorder referred to is an omnipresent reality in France, most notably in the legal system.

In March 2015, the Administrative Court building in Toulouse was ransacked by Islamic extremists who scrawled “The Prophet Will Judge You” on the walls. One third of the 6,000 cases currently being judged by the Toulouse Administrative Court relate to illegal aliens and 30% of those are challenges to deportation orders. The attack was not covered in the national media and local reports underplayed the fact that it was perpetrated by Islamists.

French Administrative Courts rule on litigation between French citizens and the state in areas such as taxation, social housing, building permits and civil service employment, but in recent years there has been an explosion in cases brought before the court by illegal aliens supported by NGOs and these now account for over one third of cases nationwide.

In 2011 there were 53,482 such cases, and the figure is no doubt much higher today. This means that a French taxpayer or civil servant in litigation with the state or an entrepreneur trying to get an invoice paid may have to wait three or four years for a judgement. Challenges to French law brought by illegal aliens have thus thrown the legal system into chaos and are costing the French taxpayer billions of euros.

Other areas of the French judicial system have been thrown out of joint as a result of immigration as well. One example is the Tribunal Pour Enfants, or juvenile court, which handles cases involving minors.

Although it is illegal in France to compile statistics based on ethnic origins, it is sufficient to take a stroll through the corridors of the juvenile section of courthouses around France to realize that the vast majority of cases involve minors of North African or African origin.

Sociologists will put this fact down to poverty and lack of opportunity, but the reasons go deeper and are linked to the differing codes of socialization in the countries of origin of the parents and the host country.

These children underperform at school because the parents are incapable of or unwilling to push them to study. Poor results and truancy are common, and many leave high school with no qualification. Those who obtain a diploma are automatically accepted into university but lack the drive and ability to succeed.

Putting this down to deprivation is an invalid argument because the children of over 120,000 boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who arrived in France in 1979 have succeeded in assimilating into French society and are renowned for their respectful attitude and hard work in the classroom.

Juvenile delinquency is not a problem in these communities and the reasons for this are cultural, not economic.

Another field where children of North African and African origin outnumber other ethnic groups is the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance, or child protection system. This public service deals with both juvenile delinquents and children who for various reasons have been removed from their parents.

Again, statistics are not available but one only has to go to the waiting rooms of the offices of the ASE in French cities or visit the hundreds of child care residences to realize that the vast majority of children there are from Muslim families.

I am personally familiar with the case of an 11-year old French girl who was temporarily placed in a home after being rescued from an abducting parent. Of the 35 child residents, 34 were from North African or African families. When the French child’s father sent her a miniature nativity set to decorate her room at Christmas, she was forbidden from setting it up so as not to offend the Muslim children.

The most striking disproportion is in the area of criminal justice and is reflected in the prison population, where Muslims, who represent 10% of the population, account for between 50% and 65% of inmates.

These are ballpark figures as the compilation of statistics is illegal, but again a visit to courtrooms and penitentiaries is sufficient to show the estimates are not far off the mark. Indirect methods used to calculate the number of Muslim prisoners are observation of Ramadan, first names, testimonials of imams, presence at Friday prayer and demands for halal food.

Sociologist and author Farhad Khosrokhavar puts the figure at between 50% and 80%. In his 2013 study Radicalization in Prison: The French Case, he reported that non-Muslim inmates complained they felt like they were living in a Muslim country due to the regular calls for prayer and the fact that over half the prisoners in the exercise yard were Muslim.

Whatever the real figures, the connection between juvenile delinquency, violent crime and jihadism is beyond any doubt. Most of the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism over the past 10 years had a criminal record and many were multiple offenders of a legal system that allowed them to roam freely throughout Europe.

Categories: France, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamisation, Islamophobia
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French Political Gymnastics and How to Help the Palestinians

May 23, 2016

French Political Gymnastics and How to Help the Palestinians, Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, May 23, 2016

“I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreements with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.” — President George W. Bush, 2002.

The Palestinians do not have “a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,” but erasing Israel evidently remains their goal.

Rather than offering the Palestinians no-cost recognition, the French should demand a few changes first.

The French government seems to be falling over itself to undo its craven vote in favor of a UNESCO resolution accusing Israel — referred to as the “Occupying Power” in Jerusalem — of destroying historic structures on the Temple Mount:

  • Prime Minister Manuel Valls apologized. “This UNESCO resolution contains unfortunate, clumsy wording that offends and unquestionably should have been avoided, as should the vote.”
  • Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve apologized. [I do] “not take a supportive view of the text.” The resolution “should not have been adopted” and “was not written as it should have been.”
  • President François Hollande apologized. [The vote was] “unfortunate,” and, “I would like to guarantee that the French position on the question of Jerusalem has not changed… I also wish to reiterate France’s commitment to the status quo in the holy places in Jerusalem… As per my request, the foreign minister will personally and closely follow the details of the next decision on this subject. France will not sign a text that will distance her from the same principles I mentioned.”
  • Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault did not quite apologize: “France has no vested interest but is deeply convinced that if we do not want to let the ideas of the Islamic State group prosper in this region, we must do something.”

It sounds as if they thought they had made a mistake. But the vote was not a mistake. Underestimating the depth of Israel’s anger about it might have been a mistake, but not the vote. The French — who, according to their foreign minister, have “no vested interest” but need to “do something” about Islamic State — could not have thought that a UNESCO resolution that offended Israel would do anything to slow ISIS “in the region” or in Europe. There is no way it could; the two are not connected.

The French however, apparently thought a vote accusing Israel of something, anything, would keep the Palestinian Authority from presenting a resolution on Palestinian independence to the UN Security Council; Ayrault implied in Israel that the UNESCO vote was a quid pro quo. Why? The French have a veto they could exercise in the UN Security Council. But the Palestinians might then object to France replacing the U.S. as the “Great Power” in the “peace process.” They already have experience with a veto-wielding interlocutor — the U.S. — and they do not want another. The price of an elevated status for the French appears to entail not vetoing Palestinian resolutions, voting for them in UNESCO, and sacrificing Israel in a process that will end in French recognition of a Palestinian State, whether Israel agrees to be bound to the altar or not.

1614French President François Hollande welcomes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris, July 8, 2012. (Image source: Office of the President of France)

It should be noted that the Russians immediately put out a statement that the UN-sponsored Middle East Quartet is the “only mechanism” for resolving the Palestinian issue. It is not clear whether Putin was supporting American or Israeli interests. Iran and ISIS are similarly disinclined to see the French ascend on this issue.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, are thrilled to have an international conference where others will make demands of Israel as the Palestinian experiment in self-government degenerates into poverty and chaos by its own economic, political and social choices, looking more like Venezuela every day.

For Palestinians in the street, killing Jews in the “knife intifada” did not take the edge off the popular anger and frustration with their own leadership.

Under the circumstances, the French, and France’s enabler, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, might usefully consider the approach taken in fact by President George W. Bush, which required changes in Palestinian behavior as a prerequisite for support for statehood. Honored mainly in the breach, Bush’s 2002 speech nevertheless remains the best statement of American, and Western, interest in moving the Palestinians toward a functioning state:

It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself…

Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreements with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.

And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.

I wrote at the time that,

“Mr. Bush made one huge leap of faith in the speech when he said, ‘I’ve got confidence in the Palestinians. When they fully understand what we’re saying, that they’ll make the right decisions when we get down the road for peace.’ What, in fact, will the U.S. do if the Palestinian people weigh a new constitution and free political parties and STILL decide that blowing up Jews is better? What if they have transparent government, economic advancement and an independent judiciary, and STILL decide Jewish sovereignty must be eradicated with the blood of their children?”

The Palestinians have answered half the question. They do not have a “practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty,” but erasing Israel evidently remains their goal. Rather than offering no-cost recognition, the French should demand a few changes first.

Categories: Abbas, France, Hollande, Israel, Israel and France, Kerry, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews
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Islamic Extremism in France Part III: Stemming the Tide

May 23, 2016

Islamic Extremism in France Part III: Stemming the Tide, Clarion Project, Leslie Shaw, May 23, 2016

(Too little, too late. — DM

FranceMuslimPrayerStreetIP_2Illegal prayer on the street in France (Photo: © Reuters)

Radical threats require radical solutions involving measures that hurt, such as the police operations enabled by the current state of emergency. The French government’s soft, long-term strategy indicates ideological weakness and the absence of a will to fight the enemy. The enemy is global political Islam and not just a few thousand deviants that need to be neutralized or rehabilitated.

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

In April 2015, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that a Salafist minority was “winning the ideological and cultural war” for control of Islam in France.

“Salafists account for 1% of Muslims in the country, but all you hear about is their message, the messages on social media,” Valls declared in a closing address in Paris to a conference on the populist exploitation of Islamism in Europe.

“There is an activist minority of Salafist groups that is winning the ideological and cultural war,” he added, endorsing the claim of his Urban Affairs Minister Patrick Kanner that “around a hundred” French neighborhoods presented “similarities” to the Molenbeek district of Brussels, reputed to be a jihadist enclave, although deeming that “comparisons are not easy to make.”

The Prime Minister had earlier stirred controversy by speaking of “geographical, social and ethnic apartheid” after the January 2015 attacks in Paris. He reckoned that in some districts in France “an essential job of reconquest of the secular republic” was needed.

The latest figures on operations enabled by the state of emergency show that these words are finally being translated into action: 3,549 police raids, 407 people placed under house arrest, 743 arms caches seized, 395 arrests and 344 people placed in detention.

One of the mosques closed was described by Interior Minister Bernard Cazenuve as “a hotbed of radical ideology.” The closure of the Lagny-sur-Marne mosque by administrative decree in December 2015 was confirmed by the Council of State, France’s highest court, in February 2016.

The mosque, 20 miles east of Paris, had been frequented by around 200 people. During the raid, police discovered a handgun, documents on jihad and a clandestine Koranic nursery school. Nine members of the congregation were placed under house arrest and 22 more were barred from leaving France.

The mosque was run by the local Muslim Association, which managed to overturn the Council of State ruling on a technicality. The government responded by initiating proceedings to dissolve the Muslim Association, claiming it was promoting radical Islamic ideology and organizing travel for jihadists to Iraq and Syria. Mohamed Hammoumi, the 34 year-old Salafist Imam who ran the mosque until his departure for Egypt in 2014, continued to direct operations from there and acted as a go-between for the jihadists travelling from France to the combat zones.

French law enables the government to dissolve by decree, i.e. with no legal proceedings, associations whose activities are considered as amounting to a combat unit, a militia or a group agitating against the French Republic. The decision rests with the Council of State.

The role played by Muslim associations and mosques in the nationwide ecosystem of radical Islam is not just a recent discovery. The problem is that up until the 2015 attacks, nothing was done to stamp out these vectors of terror, and the few public figures who spoke out about the danger were branded as fascists, racists and Islamophobes.

At the same time, the criminals who transitioned from crime to jihad benefited from the lenience of French courts.

Ismaël Omar Mostefai, one of the Bataclan jihadists, had eight criminal convictions between 2004 and 2008 but never did any time in prison. In 2010 he was registered on the French anti-terrorism database for radicalization. He was a regular attendee at the Lucé mosque next to the historic town of Chartres. In 2004 the construction of this mosque led to demonstrations by local residents. A comment made at the time by Philippe Loiseau, a municipal politician, has turned out to be prophetic:

“I fear that this mosque will be a hotbed of radicalization that will pose a dangerous risk for the population.”

Twelve years and hundreds of deaths and injuries later, the French government has rolled out its strategy to tackle the existential threat that radical Islam poses to the country. Prime Minister Valls unveiled a new plan at a cabinet meeting on May 9. It consists of 30 existing and 50 new measures focused on six areas:

1.      Prevention and detection of youth radicalization

2.      Creation of deradicalization centres

3.      Enhanced surveillance in prisons

4.      Life sentences for perpetrators of terrorist attacks

5.      A central administrative command to co-ordinate local actions against jihadism

6.      Suspension of welfare payments for jihadists who travel to combat zones

The 30 existing measures incorporated in this new plan were rolled out at a cabinet meeting in April 2014 by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. The stated objectives were to prevent French citizens from leaving to wage jihad abroad and combat the radicalization of French Muslim youth. Two years later, these measures have proven to be ineffective. Time will tell if the 50 new measures will eradicate the threat, but it may be a case of locking the stable door after the horses have bolted.

The notion that “deradicalization,” whether in the form of prevention or rehabilitation, will stem the tide of radical Islam sweeping through France seems rather naïve. It is like telling young people not to use drugs or putting a junkie through rehab in the hope that he will never shoot up again. Half a century of measures to fight drug addiction have not solved that problem and these measures designed to combat radical Islam are likely to be as ineffective, what they really need is to check www.taylorrecovery.com to find a solution.

Radical threats require radical solutions involving measures that hurt, such as the police operations enabled by the current state of emergency. The French government’s soft, long-term strategy indicates ideological weakness and the absence of a will to fight the enemy. The enemy is global political Islam and not just a few thousand deviants that need to be neutralized or rehabilitated.a

Categories: France, Islam and terrorism, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamic radicalization, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamism, Salafists
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Sisi and Mideast Peace

May 21, 2016

Sisi and Mideast Peace, American Thinker, C. Hart, May 21, 2016

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s speech on Tuesday, May 18, set ripples through Israel’s political establishment. Speaking in the southern city of Assiut, Sisi signaled to the Arab world, the Palestinians, and Israel that it is time for an historic breakthrough in peace negotiations.

Responding immediately to Sisi’s comments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he is open to working with Egypt and Arab states towards advancing the peace process, not only with the Palestinians but with the peoples of the Middle East region.

Netanyahu’s comments come on the heels of a visit to Israel by French Foreign Minister Jean-Mark Ayrault. The two men met but disagreed on how to advance peace.

France insists on hosting an international parley to force Israel and the Palestinians to come to the peace table. Israel is against the French initiative.

Netanyahu would like to go beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and work directly with moderate Arab states on a comprehensive peace deal. Sisi could be instrumental in building an Arab coalition for peace which would dismiss or weaken the divisive French initiative, releasing Israel from conceding to European demands.

Former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, is currently working as a Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). He is a Middle East expert who has represented Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as former Ambassador to Sweden and Romania, as well. This writer asked Mazel if Sisi’s comments were spontaneous or were released at this time for political reasons because he wants to strengthen Egypt’s position in the region by helping Israel.

“I don’t think there is a big design… I think that Sisi understands what is going on in the Middle East and he is identifying according to his view — a kind of possibility of advancing the peace process.”

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, and Israel have common enemies: Iran and Islamic State. Already there have been discreet diplomatic and business ties between Israel and these nations

According to Mazel, Sisi is also emerging as a strong respected leader among Egyptians despite the Western media’s portrayal of him as a dictator similar to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“Sisi sees himself as a president quite stable among his people. I know that this is not the way they think in the Western media — New York Times and company. They see him as a kind of military dictator; absolutely not! He’s a good man. He’s not Mubarak. He’s Sisi.”

Mazel explains that Egypt is on the way to economic sustainable development. This is what Sisi has been focused on over the past two years and he is seeing success. Unemployment has gone down, despite the fact that almost 90 million people live in Egypt and the country is poor.

“He has started something quite positive, and Sisi thinks that the time has come for Egypt to be in the international arena.”

What that means, according to Mazel, is that Egypt’s current role is still minor. Sisi is asking Israelis and Palestinians to go forward, yet he, himself, does not have a plan. But, in the future, Egypt could emerge as a larger player in the region.

Mazel is pragmatic about the short-term. “It’s a positive step for Egypt, but it is not going to change the world.”

Current peace advances that are being prepared for release are not a positive development for Israel: (a) the French Initiative; (b) a document showing the obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts soon to be reported by the Quartet; (c) the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that, despite being outdated, is still considered a serious option by the Arab world.

In the coming days, the Arab League plans to meet and discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mazel thinks that Sisi’s statement was good timing for that meeting, but otherwise, was not connected to a bigger scheme.

However, on Wednesday, May 18, American Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Egypt one day after Sisi gave his emotional speech. Some analysts believe that the U.S. is behind Sisi’s bold words, in an effort to circumvent the French from becoming a new power broker in the Middle East.

The question is whether Sisi’s encouragement will lead to Israel courting the Arab nations and the Arab nations courting Israel, while by-passing the Palestinians. Mazel thinks that kind of change is slow in coming, because the Arabs continue to entrench themselves in old positions that favor Palestinian demands.

Refusing to sit down and negotiate with Israel, the Palestinians have insisted on preconditions which the Arab League has accepted. They demand that Israel agree on the right of return for so-called Palestinian “refugees” to Israeli land; that Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders; and, that Israel stop building in West Bank settlements (Judea and Samaria). Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also expects Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, who have blood on their hands, serving time in Israeli jails because of terrorist attacks against the Israeli population.

So far, these unresolved issues have kept Abbas away from face-to-face negotiations with Netanyahu. However, his real diplomatic scheme is to get the international community to affirm the Palestinian position and force Israel to concede to Palestinian demands. Right now, Abbas sees the best venue to accomplish his goal as a French-sponsored future peace conference, followed by a stinging UN anti-Israel resolution.

Meanwhile, the future pressure on Israel will be to immediately stop settlement construction in order to get the peace process going. Mazel declares, “Absolutely not… we have to go on! Half a million people live there. And, they are the shield of Israel. We continue to build until there is peace.”

Mazel has a real problem with the demands of the Arab League, as well. “The Arab Peace Initiative is more or less the same as the Palestinian attitude. The ‘right of return’ is still there. It should be taken completely out. Most importantly, the Palestinians and the Arabs should recognize a Jewish State in Israel.”

Mazel is also not sure that Netanyahu’s insistence on widening his government, to provide greater stability, is a wise idea. Reportedly, Yisrael Beytenu Chairman Avigdor Liberman will soon become Israel’s new Defense Minister as Netanyahu brings several more ministers into his coalition. Mazel thinks this will not provide a wider diplomatic envelope; nor, will it help change European or Arab attitudes towards Israel; nor will it end the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Then there is U.S. President Barack Obama’s failed Middle East policy, which includes his lackluster support of American allies in the region. Mazel says this policy cannot continue.

“It cannot be like that, because America is the most important power in the world… And, whoever will win the presidency, whether it will be Mrs. Clinton or Trump, both of them are in a certain way connected to the Middle East.”

Mazel believes that with 22 countries and more than 300 million people living in the region, the next U.S. president will be more engaged in leading the nations into greater stability.

In the meantime, currently 80% of the Egyptian people support Egyptian President Sisi. His nation has already made peace with Israel (along with Jordan). Helping Israel to extend an olive branch to other Arab countries will encourage Egypt to take up an important leadership role in a region that continues to be embroiled in major upheaval and violence.

 

Categories: Abbas, Arab nations, Egypt, France, Gulf states, Israel, Israel and Egypt, Israeli security, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Sisi, Two state solution
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EgyptAir flight blown up by ISIS time bomb

May 19, 2016

EgyptAir flight blown up by ISIS time Bomb, DEBKAfile,  May 19, 2016

EgyptAir804_480

EgyptAir flight MS804, which took off at 11:09 p.m. on Thursday May 19 from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, was supposed to land at 3:55 a.m. in Cairo. However, it dropped off the radar screens of Greek and Egyptian flight controllers at 2:45 a.m. and crashed into the Mediterranean about 10 miles inside Egypt’s territorial waters.

The Airbus A320-232 had 66 people aboard including seven crew members, three security guards, 30 Egyptian citizens, 17 French nationals as well as citizens of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other countries. The plane, which was built in 2003, was flown by two pilots who each had thousands of hours of cockpit experience. Reports by Egypt’s airport authority said the cargo did not contain dangerous materials or anything else out of the ordinary.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said terrorism could not be ruled out, emphasizing that there were no distress calls made from the cockpit and that there were no reports showing deviation from the flight path or altitude before the plane disappeared. The spokesman of the Egyptian military, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir, confirmed in a posting on the military’s Facebook page that the pilots did not send out a distress signal.

Following the disappearance, French President Francois Hollande convened an emergency meeting Thursday morning at the Elysee Palace.

Reports on social media said that witnesses in Greece saw a large ball of fire in the sky, which may strengthen the assumption that flight MS804 carried a time bomb that was set to explode when the plane was in Egyptian airspace.

DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources say that if the plane was downed by an act of terror, it would be the latest major blow by ISIS to international civilian aviation, Egyptian tourism, and the security, counterterror and intelligence services of France and Egypt.

  • It is the second time in less than a year that ISIS has succeeded in using a time bomb to down a passenger plane linked to Egypt. The first one was a Russian Airbus A321 that took off from Sharm al-Sheikh and blew up over the Sinai Peninsula on October 31. All 224 passengers and crew were killed.
  • One of the main questions in the investigation of the latest air disaster will be whether the explosive device was planted in Cairo or Paris. If it did happen in Paris, it would raise the question of whether an ISIS cell penetrated the ground crews at Charles de Gaulle airport. If confirmed, it would be a serious escalation by ISIS following the terrorist organization’s November 2015 attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed and hundreds were wounded.
  • A sign of an escalation was that it was the second terrorist attack within three months on a civilian aviation target in a Western European capital, following the bombing of Brussels international airport in March in which 31 people were killed and about 200 were wounded.
  • But if the investigation finds that the bomb was planted on the plane in Cairo before it departed for Paris, it would mark a serious and dangerous escalation of the infiltration and operational abilities of ISIS in the Egyptian capital, and a major threat to the stability of the regime of President Abel Fattah al-Sisi.

Categories: Egypt, Egyptian passenger aircraft down, France, Islamic State, Time bomb
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The French Peace Initiative: From de Gaulle to Haaretz

May 17, 2016

The French Peace Initiative: From de Gaulle to Haaretz, Gatestone Institute, Fred Maroun, May 17, 2016

♦ France’s peace initiative is French President François Hollande’s equivalent of de Gaulle’s betrayal of Israel.

♦ France has already announced that if the peace initiative fails, France will recognize a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rightly concluded that “this ensures that a conference will fail.”

♦ France knows that the peace initiative is pointless, but it is using it for theatrical value to embarrass Israel’s government and curry favor with Arab regimes.

♦ Those who claim to support peace, but who in fact work to undermine it, are partly responsible for the anti-Semitic campaign against Israel. They should be prominently named and exposed for collaborating with bigots, anti-Semites, and terrorists.

When I hear about the current French peace initiative for Israel and the Palestinians, I have to keep pinching myself to make sure that I am not dreaming. After the powerful United States tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to bring peace between these protagonists, what makes the French think that they can do better?

France’s boldness is particularly shocking, since France long ago lost the right to be considered a friend of Israel. In 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on Israel when the Jewish nation was under threat from a coalition of Arab countries. In doing so, de Gaulle threw the Jews under the bus in order to improve France’s relations with the Arab world. Thanks to Israeli ingenuity and resiliency, Israel still defeated the Arab coalition in the Six Day War and impressed the United States, which then replaced France as Israel’s main ally.

France’s peace initiative, which includes an international summit in Paris on May 30 to discuss the “parameters” of a peace deal, is French President François Hollande’s equivalent of de Gaulle’s betrayal of Israel. France has already announced that if the peace initiative fails, France will recognize a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rightly concluded that “this ensures that a conference will fail.”

1602France’s peace initiative, which includes an international summit in Paris on May 30 to discuss the “parameters” of a peace deal, is French President François Hollande’s equivalent of de Gaulle’s betrayal of Israel.

It is clear that no solution would be acceptable to Israel unless it protects Israel against continued Arab aggression, and unless it finds a solution to the millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees with which the Arab world insists on flooding Israel.

There is no sign that the Arab world, including the Palestinians, are anywhere close to accepting these conditions. France’s recognition of “Palestine” without any deal would mean that France does not consider those two conditions necessary.

France’s recognition of “Palestine” without any deal would provide no solution for Palestinian refugees. It would provide no solution to Palestinian terrorism. It would not make the concept of a Palestinian state any more real than it is today. It would not provide Israel with secure borders.

France’s unilateral recognition of “Palestine” would simply provide one more moral victory for the corrupt Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and one less reason for him to negotiate peace in good faith or to give his people what they really need: a thriving economy and a functioning civil society.

If France’s initiative had any chance of success at all (which is doubtful considering the U.S. failures under more favorable circumstances, when the Palestinian leadership was keener on negotiations and when Hamas was weaker), France eliminated that chance by announcing that it would recognize “Palestine” regardless of what happens.

Is the French government so naïve that it would play into Abbas’ hands and sabotage its own initiative? Maybe, but the more likely explanation seems to be that France knows that the peace initiative is pointless, but it is using it for theatrical value to embarrass Israel’s government and curry favor with Arab regimes.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which is often more “pro-Palestinian” (read anti-Israel) than the Palestinians, demands that Netanyahu accept the French initiative.

Haaretz takes the position that “there is no reason to reject the French initiative, which, even if it doesn’t resolve the fundamentals of the conflict, will at least put it back on the global agenda.” The theory that the conflict remains unresolved due to it not being on the “global agenda” is mind-boggling, considering the vocal and vicious worldwide anti-Israel movement. The conflict is very much on the “global agenda” — too much so, in fact — compared to other conflicts that are deadlier and get far less attention.

Haaretz claims that the French initiative “may also generate some original ideas and steps toward a solution.” Considering the attention that this conflict receives, the lack of “ideas” is far from being the problem. Pro-Israel and anti-Israel editorialists and bloggers have generated an immense body of “ideas,” most of which are totally impractical, and all of which are unrealistic until the Arab side of the conflict stops promoting hate against Israel and starts negotiating in good faith.

Haaretz‘s pathetic defense of the French initiative is followed by wholesale accusations, which have no substance, against Netanyahu. Haaretz, for instance, tries to convince readers that Netanyahu’s willingness to negotiate without conditions is itself a condition! As Haaretz is into the business of redefining words, why not say that the conflict is not really a conflict and be done with it!

Haaretz concludes by saying that Netanyahu “should give it [the French initiative] substance that will ensure the security and well-being of Israel’s citizens.” If this were possible, that would indeed be commendable, but as France, by promising the Palestinians recognition without negotiation, destroyed what little chance of success the initiative might have had. Asking Netanyahu miraculously to give the initiative “substance” is at best naïve, and at worst treacherous.

It could also be a trap to set Netanyahu up for failure, which, considering Haaretz‘s antipathy towards Israel’s Prime Minister, is likely.

Contrary to Haaretz‘s assertion that “there is no reason to reject the French initiative,” as the initiative is almost certain to fail, its failure will be one more weapon used by anti-Israel activists to demonize Israel, so there is every reason to not lend the initiative a legitimacy it does not deserve.

Israel survived de Gaulle’s betrayal, and it will likely survive Hollande’s betrayal. But one more failed initiative and one more meaningless recognition of “Palestine” will push peace and Palestinian statehood even farther away.

As Alan Dershowitz wrote recently, those who aided the Nazis in killing Jews, even indirectly, hold a part of the responsibility for the Holocaust. Those — in France, at Haaretz, or elsewhere — who claim to support peace but in fact work to undermine it, are partly responsible for the anti-Semitic campaign against Israel. They should be prominently named and exposed for collaborating with bigots, anti-Semites, and terrorists.

Categories: Abbas, France, Haaretz, Hollande, Human rights, Israel, Israel and France, Israel settlements, Israel's elite leftists, Israeli media, Israeli security, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists
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Islamist Extremism in France (Part II)

May 4, 2016

Islamist Extremism in France (Part II), Clarion Project, Leslie Shaw, May 4, 2016

France-Muslims-Protest-Hijab-Ban-IP_0Muslims in France protest against a French law that forbids the wearing of religious symbols (including the hijab) in the primary and secondary schools. (Photo: © Reuters)

France has one of the largest Muslim communities in the West (estimated at 10% of the population), and French corporates have more experience than most in dealing with radical Islam.

City of Paris

In September 2012, in response to the encroachment of radical Islam, the mayor of Paris set up an Observatory on Secularism to ensure the principles of the 1905 separation of Church and State were being respected by the city’s 73,000 employees.

The observatory remained dormant but was reactivated in January 2015 after the Islamic terrorist attacks. Saïd Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo killers, worked in the city sanitation department from 2007 to 2009. He was part of an employment program for young people from the ghettoes surrounding Paris.

A number of these youths were assigned to going door-to-door to inform householders on the benefits of domestic waste segregation. Many created problems for their supervisors due to their increasingly fundamentalist Islamic beliefs: refusing to shake hands with women, bringing prayer mats with them and taking time off to return to their workplaces to pray. Kouachi was moved from district to district as his supervisors, who described him as fundamentalist and unmanageable, became exasperated with his behavior. He was fired in July 2009.

A supervisor later revealed that city authorities had been notified about Kouachi’s radical behavior on several occasions, but that the subject was taboo. A “Charter on Secularism” was posted in the sanitation workshops and a one-day training program held for supervisors in 2013, but no action was taken to deal with the problem.

Since January 2015, the Observatory members meet regularly, have issued a 20-page rulebook to municipal employees and interviewed numerous city managers about the problems of radicalization. Departments most affected are sanitation, parks and gardens, public safety and security, and youth and sport. Common issues are praying in the workplace, refusal to shake hands with, look at or follow instructions from female supervisors, demands for work schedule accommodation on Fridays and during Ramadan, wearing of hijabs and other head-coverings.

RATP Paris Transit Authority

The RATP chapter of the CFDT union claims there is a groundswell of Islamist ideology within the company where Samy Amimour, one of the 2015 Paris suicide bombers, worked as a bus driver. In December 2015, a newspaper reported that several RATP employees were targeted by “Fiche S,” a law enforcement indicator that flags individuals linked to terrorism.

Religion-based workplace incidents are widespread. In 2013, RATP management issued a guidebook to supervisors listing typical infringements of secular principles and outlining rules to enforce. An RATP executive commented, “We pretend the problem has been solved, but the reality is that managers in contact with radicalized individuals in bus depots are left on their own to handle these kinds of things.”

ADP Paris Airports Authority

Following the November 2015 attacks in Paris, CDG Airport CEO Augustin de Romanet revealed that 70 airside security badges had been withdrawn from Muslim airport employees and 4,000 staff lockers raided by police as the employees were considered a security risk.

French Automobile Industry

The problems facing French public-sector companies have long been present in the automobile industry, where Muslims account for around 70 percent of the workforce. Militant Islam began to manifest itself in the 1980s, when it emerged that shop stewards frequently had links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Employees began to shave their heads, grow beards and wear Islamic garb as the Salafist ideology gained ground in the suburbs where the auto plants are located. Automakers Renault and Peugeot integrated Muslim practices into their management model, setting up on-site prayer rooms and planning work schedules to fit in with prayer times and Ramadan.

Employee associations were established to cater to the needs of Muslim staff, organizing religious celebrations, pilgrimages to Mecca and arranging for the repatriation to North Africa of deceased workers. This policy of appeasement benefited the industry since it minimized religion-linked workplace conflict and litigation and fostered employee engagement.

Radical Islam and the Emergence of Jihadism

The first generation of Muslim immigrants who came to France in the 1950s kept their faith to themselves. The second generation was more militant and began making demands for accommodation of Islam. Opting for exclusion rather than integration into mainstream society, some turned to crime. Those caught and imprisoned often converted to radical Islam, spreading the ideology throughout the ghettoes upon release.

The third generation came of age with the nationwide 2005 riots, sparked by the electrocution of two juvenile delinquents who climbed over a fence into an electricity substation to escape from the police.

The same year, Abu Musab al-Suri published a 1,600-page Global Islamic Resistance Call urging the masterminds of jihad to exploit the presence of the huge disaffected Muslim populations in Europe by prompting them to set up terror cells targeting Western civilians. The strategy was rolled out on the internet and by Salafist imams operating in mosques financed by the Gulf states.

A growing number of Muslims in France and Europe converted to radical Islam resulting in the emergence of an informal jihadist army on the continent. In February 2016, the number of radical Islamists identified by French law enforcement was 11,700.

Categories: France, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic jihad, Islamic radicalization, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists
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How Many Molenbeeks in France?

May 3, 2016

How Many Molenbeeks in France? Gatestone Institute, Yves Mamou, May 3, 2016

♦ “There are today, we know, a hundred neighborhoods in France that present potential similarities with what’s happened in Molenbeek.” — Patrick Kanner, Minister for Urban Areas.

♦ The Salafists, in fact, do not want to “take the power in these neighborhoods.” In many, they already have it.

♦ “The farther I walked between the buildings, the more I was stunned. A courtyard of Islamist miracles; an enclave that wants to live like during the times of Muhammad. Bakery, hairdresser… It’s a mini Islamic Republic. During the sermons, they denounce, they criminalize. A woman who smokes? A degenerate. A woman who does not veil herself? A tease. A man that does not eat halal? He has an express ticket to hell.” — Paris Match.

♦ Remadna received a death threat over the phone: “We know where your kids go to school,” and “your daughter is very pretty.” The next day, a delegation of completely veiled Salafist “true Muslim mothers” came and told her, “We want mosques, not schools.”

Patrick Kanner, France’s Minister for Urban Areas, was undoubtedly not planning to tell the truth on March 27.

He was on the set of Europe 1 TV to emphasize the left’s credo: Islamist terrorism is rooted in poverty and unemployment. But they asked one question again and again: “How many Molenbeeks are in France?” Finally, he said: “There are today, we know, a hundred neighborhoods in France that present potential similarities with what has happened in Molenbeek.”

Molenbeek, as the entire world knows today, is the neighborhood of Brussels that has become the epicenter of jihad in Europe. It is a neighborhood under Salafist control that sent three of its residents to assassinate hundreds of people in Paris on November 13, 2015. These are the residents of the same neighborhood that bombed the Brussels airport and the Maalbeek Metro station.

1577The Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels has become the epicenter of jihad in Europe. Abdelhamid Abaaoud (right), mastermind of the November 2015 attacks in Paris, lived in Molenbeek. Amedy Coulibaly (left), who in January 2015 murdered a policewoman and four Jews in Paris, spent time in Molenbeek.

The reactions to Kanner’s statement have not been slow. The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, accused Kanner of “dissolving national harmony.” Julien Dray, another leading figure of the Socialist Party, also criticized Kanner, telling him: “I do not like it when we stigmatize [people].”

Nonetheless, Kanner will not let himself be intimidated. In a March 28 interview in Le Parisien, he recalled,

“Amedy Coulibaly [the killer in the Hyper Cacher attack], who was from the Grande-Borne à Grigny, Mehdi Nemmouche [the Brussels Jewish Museum killer], who passed through the Bourgogne neighborhood in Tourcoing. and Mohamed Merah, who was from the Mirail neighborhood in Toulouse.”

Malek Boutih, Socialist Deputy, came to Kanner’s aid. He declared,

“It is the first time that a minister of the suburbs says even a little bit of the truth, namely that the ghettos have transformed, little by little, into zones that we cannot control very well… Neighborhoods that are incubators for terrorists.”

Samia Ghali, a Senator from Bouches du Rhones (Socialist Party), echoed the statements of the Minister for Urban Areas: “There are training camps in the neighborhoods of Marseille where people are learning to shoot.” She adds, “I’ve gotten to the point of asking if we should build walls to protect schoolyards from Kalashnikov bullets or from rifles finding their way into the school yard.”

Gilles Kepel, professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and one of the best experts on Islamism in France, explained in early April that three ingredients are necessary for making a Molenbeek:

“1) A strong system of crime organized around kif [a type of marijuana]; 2) Hideouts for terrorists and sites where they can stock weapons; 3) Local politicians who accept that the Salafists have opened countless uncontrollable mosques.”

These three ingredients would be uniformly present in all 100 French Molenbeeks, added Kepel. But the goal of the Salafists, he adds, is actually to seize neighborhoods in order to wage a “enclave war.”

Patrick Kanner, the Minister for Urban Areas confirmed this view: “The Salafists want to take the power in these neighborhoods.” The gravity of the situation was recently underscored by Prime Minister Manual Valls: a fundamentalist “minority,” he said, is about to win “the ideological and cultural battle” over Islam.

The Salafists, in fact, do not want to “take the power in these neighborhoods.” In many, they already have it.

On January 27, the magazine Paris-Match dedicated several pages to the neighborhood Reine-Jeanne in Avignon, a large city in the south of France, where the Salafists have systematically exploited half a million Muslims.

“The farther I walked between the buildings, the more I was stunned. A courtyard of Islamist miracles, a Salafist pocket, an enclave that wants to live like during the times of Muhammad. Bakery, hairdresser, building managers, teenagers. All (or almost) overcome with the Koran. Well, their Koran. It’s a mini Islamic Republic.

“During the sermons, they denounce, they criminalize. A woman who smokes? A degenerate. A woman who does not veil herself? A tease. A man that does not eathalal? He has an express ticket to hell. That female neighbor, the one who is divorced, with three kids, and works with men? She will end up losing her virtue. She should just give up. In order to not pass for an ‘easy woman,’ the unlucky choose the hard life, welfare benefits!”

In Sevran, a suburb of Paris, the Salafist mosque was sealed off several weeks ago because it had been recruiting a dozen young Muslims for the Islamic State. Six may have already been killed in Syria. Nadia Remadna, a Muslim social worker, lives in Sevran. She started the local “Mothers’ Brigade” to help women keep control over their children, against the Islamists. In 2014, she wrote the provocative book, How I Saved My Children, with the sub-title “Before, we feared our children would fall in with delinquents. Now, we fear they will become terrorists.”

On March 14, Remadna received a death threat over the phone: “We know where your kids go to school,” and “your daughter is very pretty.”

The next day, a delegation of completely veiled Salafist “true Muslim mothers” came and told her, “We want mosques, not schools.”

On March 29, the philosopher Yves Michaud spoke to the magazine Paris Match about his students:

“My ex-students who teach today in the suburbs… tell me that among their students they have some who could become terrorists overnight. They take on the weight of Islam, of adolescence, of the ghettoization that makes them question their identity, of cultural disorientation. It is an ideal breeding-ground for the jihadist calling.”

How many Salafists are there in France? 15,000 to 20,000, according to Bernard Godard, former head of the Bureau of Religion for the Ministry of the Interior. According to the politician Antoine Sfeir, there are 20,000 to 30,000 Salafists. According to police sources, out of 2,500 listed Islamic places of worship in metropolitan France, at least 90 are Salafist. The number doubles every three years. They are located in the suburbs of Paris, in the Lyon region and in Marseille.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, 41 Islamic places of worship have been the target of “infiltration,” meaning that “traditional” imams are being forcibly evicted and replaced by Salafist imams.

The real question is: If the state is aware of the situation — and it is — why has it not banned Salafism, and why does it not expel the Salafist imams who are prospering not only in these neighborhoods, but also on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter?

Categories: France, Islam and human rights, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Salafists
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French toast

April 22, 2016

French toast, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, April 22, 2016

It comes as no surprise that the honchos in Ramallah are welcoming the French initiative to hold a summit of world foreign ministers to discuss and plan an international Israeli-Palestinian peace conference.

The Palestinian Authority knows full well that “peace” is a euphemism for complete Israeli capitulation to Palestinian demands, with nothing but bloodshed in return. Indeed, if PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen were actually interested in bringing about an end to conflict with Israel, they could do so in a split second — you know, by putting a stop to their own behavior. This includes, but is not restricted to, glorifying and funding the families of terrorists, particularly those who die for the cause in the process of killing Jews.

Contrary to what those who are either not paying attention or who hate the Jewish state for their own reasons may believe, Abbas’ ultimate goal is neither peace nor its companion misnomer, a “two-state solution.” No, his aim is to retain an international stamp of legitimacy as a world leader, to protect him from assassination on the one hand and oblivion on the other, and to keep the dollars and euros flowing.

Palestinian statehood is therefore not in his interest. But pretending to strive for it while portraying himself and his people as victims of Israeli “occupation” and “brutality” is what he’s really after. Meanwhile, he benefits from the West’s ostrich syndrome — the very phenomenon responsible for the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the greatest state sponsor of global terrorism; the one that keeps Palestinian murder machines like Hezbollah in clover. And armed to the teeth.

This is all very old news, as is the fact that an ever-declining Europe and the United States under President Barack Obama would prefer to abdicate all political, moral and military superiority to Third World Islamist thugs than call the shots. It is this Western trait that is at the root of hostility to Israel, which — in spite of its all-too-Jewish inclination to follow suit — dares to defend and steel itself to the Cheshire Cat smiles of its sworn enemies and wagging fingers of its alleged friends.

The irony is that Abbas, like the ayatollahs in Tehran, would be the first to agree with this assessment. Indeed, it is the one thing on which Israel and the Palestinians agree, though the latter would never admit it in any language other than Arabic. Nor do PA apologists bother to believe the translations of such sentiments into English, French or German. They would rather spend their energy interpreting the forked-tongue dialect of parties with whom they insist on engaging in diplomacy.

Which brings us back to the Paris plan for renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians. To avoid being left with scrambled egg on its face, France has decided that the only foreign ministers who will not be invited to next month’s pre-peace-conference summit are those of — you guessed it — Israel and the PA.

PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki was not too happy about this. But he did receive reassurance from the French that the initiative would not be hindered “in any way” by the Palestinian draft of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as the true obstacle to “peace.”

Never mind little details like Monday’s bus bombing in Jerusalem, perpetrated by a Palestinian terrorist from Bethlehem, who apparently botched the bigger job he had in mind when the explosive device he was carrying went off before he reached his destination. According to American officials, he may not even have been a terrorist in the conventional sense, but rather one of those “lone wolves” — or, as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called them, “misguided cowards.”

Yes, across the ocean, Biden took to the podium at the left-wing J Street conference to chastise the Jewish state, which was still reeling from the 20 wounded victims of the latest act of bloody aggression against innocent people going about their business, in this case, Passover preparations.

“I firmly believe that the actions that Israel’s government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they’re moving us and more importantly they’re moving Israel in the wrong direction,” Biden said, reiterating his administration’s “overwhelming frustration” with Israel and “profound questions” about its ability to remain both Jewish and democratic without further and more massive territorial withdrawals than it has already made. Biden failed to mention that all previous Israeli attempts to appease the Palestinians resulted in terrorism the likes of which European capitals haven’t even begun to experience — though it appears they are starting to get a taste of it.

Still, they tell themselves that Islamic State terrorism is a different kettle of fish from that of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And that Israel is ultimately a provocateur.

It is thus that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to reports of the upcoming “ministerial” summit and precursor to a wider peace conference with disdain.

“Can anyone explain what this initiative is about? Even the French don’t know,” he said.

Categories: Abbas, Biden, Foreign policy, France, Israel, Isreal - Jewish state, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Two state solution
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