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Good News from Israel

December 10, 2017

(This post is part of my Good News Friday posts that I publish every Friday, bringing good news from Israel to counteract all the gloom and doom that dominates the news cycle nowadays, and to shine a positive light on the Middle East’s only democracy. — anneinpt.)

Good News Friday | Anne’s Opinions, 8th December 2017

It’s been a very exciting week this week, and it’s a great feeling to close the week with another Good News Friday installment.

Besides the actual news of Trump’s speech recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the timing should be noted too. The speech took place just a day after the 69th anniversary of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion’s announcement of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – 5th December 1949.

Chabadniks (Lubavitcher Hassidim) will assure us that the timing was perfect for another reason. The speech took place on 19th Kislev, the date that the original Lubavitcher Rebbe was released from the Tsar’s prison, and from that year on, the date is a great festival for Chabad.

But it’s not only Donald Trump who vocally supports Israel. Listen to this amazing speech by Vice President Mike Pence at the 70th anniversary of Resolution 181:

Brian of London describes Pence’s speech and quotes the highlights:

You can watch the whole speech above, but here are the most important passages:

We gather today on the eve of a historic anniversary to celebrate what happened here, in this very hall, 70 years ago when the United Nations declared to the modern world an ancient truth, that the Jewish people have a natural, irrevocable right to an independent state in their ancestral and eternal homeland. (Applause.)

So in May 1947, less than two years after its inception, the United Nations formed the Special Commission on Palestine to propose paths forward for that region.

And on November 29, 1947 — 70 years ago tomorrow — the General Assembly gathered in this great hall and passed Resolution 181, calling for creation of the Jewish State of Israel. (Applause.)

Now to be clear: Israel needed no resolution to exist, for Israel’s right to exist is self-evident and timeless.

Nor did that resolution create the State of Israel. For Israel was born of the sweat and the sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who risked everything to reclaim their beloved lands, with — in those well remembered words — “with a plow in one hand and a rifle in another.”

They turned the desert into a garden, scarcity into plenty, and an age-old dream into a reality. And their striving and their sacrifice laid the foundation for what took place in this hall 70 years ago.

And only six months later, the Jewish State of Israel was born — answering the ancient question first asked by the prophet Isaiah: “Can a country be born in one day, can a nation be born in a moment?”

It happened when on May 14, 1948, Israel declared “the natural right of Jewish people to be the masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state.” (Applause.)

While Israel was built by human hands, it’s impossible not to see the hand of heaven leading its people, writing their history in the restoration of this ancient people to their land of their birth.

In fact, the God of Abraham told His people, “Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there I will gather you and bring you back to the land which your fathers possessed.”

The quoting of prophet Isaiah is fantastic. If you want to understand how important that passage of Isaiah is relating to the rebuilding of Israel, Rabbi Lord Sacks wrote an extensive commentary. We’d expect nothing less from such a deeply religious mensch as Mike Pence, so it stands out dramatically as different from pretty much everything we’ve seen for almost a decade coming out of the USA.

Read the rest of the article – it’s excellent.

Turning now to a completely different subject, the following story demonstrates Israel’s care and concern for its neighbours in the entire region, even for its enemies, which Trump and Pence described so well (and which the antisemites deny or twist the facts about).

The IDF has expanded its medical facilities for Syrian civilians caught up in the civil war and has now equipped a maternity hospital over the Syrian border:

The Israel Defense Forces has equipped a new maternity clinic over the border in Syria, as part of its Operation Good Neighbor instituted a year and a half ago to provide medical, infrastructural and civilian aid to Syrian victims of the ongoing civil war.

An Israeli soldier cradling a child at the Israeli field hospital near the Syrian border. Photo courtesy of IDF Spokesman’s Office

The hospital reportedly was opened in November in response to an urgent request from Syrian doctors who saw that many women could not get to the existing maternity hospital due to the difficult conditions.

The clinic is staffed entirely by Syrian healthcare workers using equipment donated by the Israelis. More than 200 pregnant women so far have sought medical care at the new clinic, and 30 women have given birth there.

“We took a decision not just to sit on the fence and see people slaughtered and suffering every day – we decided to help them. And we understand that it might change their feeling about Israel a little bit – that we are not Satan,” the IDF commander of Operation Good Neighbor told The Jerusalem Post.

The IDF’s Mazor Ladach field hospital for Syrians includes a playroom and provides hot meals, hygiene products and medicine to take home. Photo courtesy of IDF Spokesman’s Office

Last September, the IDF set up a secure field hospital, Mazor Ladach (literally, Bandaging Those in Need) on an unused Israeli military post in the southern Golan Heights. The Israeli staff has cared for hundreds of Syrians already, according to the Operation Good Neighbor commander.

Mazor Ladach includes a playroom and also provides hot meals. “A Syrian mother who comes with her children leaves the clinic with healthier children and an aid kit from the State of Israel that includes food, basic hygiene products, and medicine,” wrote the commander on the IDF’s official blog.

…

In addition, over the past five years an estimated 4,000 wounded Syrians have been transported to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

I am so proud of our crazy little country! Kol hakavod is to mild a term to salute the IDF and its medical teams as well as the government authorities who worked towards providing this urgent medical care for the civilians of our enemies. Hopefully these actions will change attitudes (they are already) and make new friends out of our potential enemies.

And one more item from Israel’s medical sector. An extraordinary story of Mark Lewis, a British Jew who was suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS) and underwent successful stem cell treatment in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem has been made into a UK Channel 4 TV documentary.

A prominent Jewish lawyer has taken part in a ground-breaking clinical trial at Israel’s Hadassah hospital that offers treatment which could finally offer a “miraculous” cure for the 2.5 million sufferers of multiple-sclerosis.

Mark Lewis — best known as the media lawyer who took on Rupert Murdoch over the newspaper phone-hacking scandal — is one of 48 patients to have participated in the revolutionary year-long trial at the internationally renowned hospital in Jerusalem.

At the Israeli hospital, Mr Lewis was injected with stem cells derived from his own bone marrow, directly into the spinal fluid.

Speaking to the JC before a Channel 4 documentary this week about his treatment, he said he had benefited immediately afterwards from “a miraculous 60 per cent improvement in my condition”.

He added: “Within minutes I had feeling and movement back that I had not had for years.”

“The Herzl quote they speak about a lot in Israel sums it up,” he said. “ ‘If you will it, it is no dream’.”

Watch this fantastic clip about Mark Lewis’ treatment and results:

Mr. Lewis’ observations about Israeli society are heart-warming, and it is great that they will receive a wide audience:

Mr Lewis praised the pioneering Israeli technology used by the multi-faith medical team at the university hospital at Ein Kerem. “The trial is the complete antithesis to BDS,” he said. “It is Israeli technology treating everybody with a team that has no concept of religion, nationality or whatever.

“It is purely about helping people, whoever and whatever they are — no matter what god they do or do not believe in.”

Mr Lewis said the sense of unity among the medical team was striking. “The leading professor was born in Greece and is Christian but is now an Israeli citizen. There was a Muslim doctor, there was someone from the former Soviet Union and there was a specialist who is the sister of someone known to be an Israeli ‘settler’.

“But all I noticed was this real sense of everybody pulling together to try and crack this thing.”

…

Research into the treatment’s efficacy for MS patients began at the Hadassah in 2007. It was one of the first experiments in which advances in stem cell treatments were applied to neurological diseases.

By a stroke of luck, Mr Lewis was holidaying in Israel nine years later when he heard from a friend that the hospital was seeking patients for the full-time trial.

Since being diagnosed with MS, Mr Lewis’s symptoms have grown progressively worse and he feared he would have to give up work within a few years. His life expectancy was put at just 65 years.

Mr Lewis said the first thing he did on flying out to Israel to begin the trial was to visit the Kotel to say prayers.

As to the treatment itself:

The treatment is extremely painful for the patient. In order to be injected directly into the spinal fluid doctors insert the needle, which is four inches long, between the patient’s vertebrae.

“I cannot describe to you the pain,” Mr Lewis said. “That injection took about one hour and 20 minutes — I thought I was going to faint.”

The patient’s own bone-marrow stem cells are first extracted, then enhanced and then injected into the spinal cord.

Each patient then undergoes monthly neurological evaluations including MRI scans and techniques to detect neuro-regeneration.

In addition, electrophysiological and visual tests are performed of patients’ brains with up to five complete neuro-cognitive evaluations performed for each patient.

…

Professor Karussis Dimitrios, Hadassah’s internationally renowned neuroimmunologist, will then write a report on the results allowing other medical facilities around the world to use the findings.

Mr Lewis says that some of the initial positive responses to the treatment have now began to fade and he believes another shot of injections would bring similar benefits.

“Think of it in the same way as if you were suffering from diabetes. You wouldn’t just be given one insulin shot and then told you were finished being treated.

“The treatment was over a year ago now – and I am ready for another shot. But that may never happen of course. It depends on the final results of the trial and the goodwill of the hospital.”

Kol hakavod to Professor Karussis Dimitrios and the entire research team at Hadassah Hospital for discovering and implementing this treatment. May Mark Lewis have a full and speedy recovery, refuah shlema, and may all the other countless sufferers of MS benefit from this treatment too.

On this optimistic note, I wish you all Shabbat Shalom. This week we celebrate the first days of Chanukah, so I wish you all Happy Chanukah, חג אורים שמח as well!

Categories: Health care, Israeli successes, Israeli technology, Syria war, Syrian refugees
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Trump cuts Obama’s refugee target in half, takes more Christians than Muslims

September 27, 2017

Trump cuts Obama’s refugee target in half, takes more Christians than Muslims, Washington Times, Stephen Dinan,  September 26, 2017

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 10, 2016. (Associated Press)

President Trump, in just eight months in office, has succeeded in upending U.S. refugee policy, cutting by more than half the 110,000-refugee target that the Obama administration had bequeathed him and dramatically shifting the demographics of who is accepted.

Gone is President Obama’s overwhelming focus on Muslims, and particularly on Syrians fleeing a civil war that his administration facilitated. Under Mr. Trump, the rate of Syrian refugees has been cut by more than 80 percent, and Christians have overtaken Muslims in total refugees resettled.

“It’s impossible to escape the clear message that there’s a new sheriff in town,” said Matthew O’Brien, research director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for stricter refugee controls.

 The Trump changes have reverberated around the globe, with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees drastically cutting the number of refugee candidates it submits to the U.S.

After recommending nearly 35,000 refugee candidates last year, the UNHCR submitted just 3,591 applications from January to July.

Refugee advocates say the U.S. is relinquishing its global leadership and moral standing and have challenged parts of the administration’s policy in the courts, pushing the country to move back toward the goals set by Mr. Obama.

The previous president called for up to 110,000 refugees to be admitted to the U.S. in 2017 and indicated that he wanted Syrians to be a large part of that, with the country on pace for more than 15,000 resettlements this year.

But Mr. Trump, as part of his first “extreme vetting” travel ban executive order, changed all that. He called for cutting the refugee cap from 110,000 to 50,000 and placed a four-month pause on the refugee program and a more lasting ban on Syrians.

Resistance by the courts, immigrant rights activists and Democrats on Capitol Hill dented those plans, but at the end of the fiscal year, it’s clear that the president mostly got his way.

As of Tuesday afternoon, with four days left in the fiscal year, the government had admitted slightly more than 53,000 refugees — less than half of Mr. Obama’s goal but slightly more than Mr. Trump wanted.

Perhaps the bigger impact was within the demographic breakdown, where Muslims dropped from nearly half of refugees under Mr. Obama to slightly more than a third. Christians, meanwhile, went from 43 percent to 53 percent under Mr. Trump.

Syrians, who represented a stunning 15 percent of all refugees under Mr. Obama, dropped to just 8 percent under Mr. Trump.

The State Department didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Times for this article.

Officials at the department are rushing to put together a recommendation for a refugee cap for fiscal year 2018, which begins Sunday.

Under the law, the administration is able to set an overall cap each year. It was set at 80,000 for the end of the Bush administration and beginning of the Obama administration, dropped to 70,000 in 2013, rose to 85,000 in 2016 and then to 110,000 this year.

Mr. Trump proposed cutting this year’s number to 50,000 and came close to fulfilling that, likely ending up just a few thousand over.

Courts had intervened, saying Mr. Trump couldn’t stop the arrival of refugees who had “close” ties to American entities, exempting them from his 50,000 cap.

The president is expected to suggest an even smaller refugee cap for 2018, analysts said. Several reports Tuesday put the figure at 45,000. The administration must conduct official consultations with Congress this week before finalizing the number.

Rep. Randy Hultgren, Illinois Republican and co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said he was disappointed by the low figure.

“I believe we can balance both compassion and security and remain the world’s shining city on a hill,” he said in a statement, adding that he believed the U.S. should “trust our long-standing and rigorous vetting system” to weed out dangers while allowing the pipeline of refugees to flow.

Top Democrats, meanwhile, prodded the White House Wednesday over reports that it nixed a study that would have shown refugees were a net plus for the U.S. economy.

“It appears that the Trump Administration may have rejected these facts in order to present a biased, incomplete, and ultimately false political narrative,” the Democrats wrote in a letter demanding documents.

Advocates say the U.S. puts refugees through stricter screening than any other category of visitor or immigrant to the U.S. and that fears of terrorists using the program to exploit weaknesses are overblown.

But security analysts say countries such as Syria are so broken that the U.S. doesn’t have access to databases or on-the-ground information to vet the stories of would-be refugees.

Mr. O’Brien said his group doesn’t oppose refugees, which he said are part of America’s moral obligation. But he said the government simply can’t vet all cases.

“In those situations in the past, the default position has been to look to the interests of the refugee. I think after Sept. 11 that is an impossible circumstance,” he said. “There are some people where it’s just not going to be possible.”

Mr. O’Brien said Mr. Trump is flexing the powers that the law grants the president, learning that he doesn’t have to work through Congress to make major changes.

Even as some in the U.S. protest Mr. Trump’s changes, the rest of the world is adjusting.

The UNHCR — which screens and recommends to the U.S. potential refugees from some of the world’s hot spots — has drastically slowed the pipeline.

The number of Syrians submitted to the U.S. for resettlement screening is down more than 80 percent so far this year. Similar drops were recorded for Somalia, Iran and Afghanistan. Iraq had an even bigger drop in submission rate by the UNHCR.

Categories: Christian refugees, Muslim refugees, Obama and Christian refugees, Obama and Islamic refugees, Obama and refugees, Syrian refugees, Trump and Christian refugees, Trump and Islamic refugees, Trump and refugees
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Trump says Syrian Christian refugees will be given priority

January 27, 2017

Trump says Syrian Christian refugees will be given priority, Jihad Watch, , January 27, 2017

(Please see also, Immigration Priorities: Translators, and Victims of Genocide. — DM)

“Pew Research Center said last October 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the United States in fiscal year 2016 from all countries – almost the same number of Christian refugees, 37,521.”

Reuters is being deliberately misleading. From Syria in 2016, the Obama administration admitted 12,587 refugees: 12,486 Muslims, 68 Christians, and 24 Yazidis. Trump is ending this obvious social engineering and saying that Syrian Christians, who have borne the brunt of persecution from jihad groups there, will be given priority.

This also shows the falsity of establishment propaganda media claims that Trump’s immigration ban would keep out non-Muslim victims of persecution by jihadis.

trumpwithpen

“Trump says Syrian Christian refugees will be given priority,” Reuters, January 27, 2017:

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that Syrian Christians will be given priority when it comes to applying for refugee status in the United States.

“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Pew Research Center said last October 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the United States in fiscal year 2016 from all countries – almost the same number of Christian refugees, 37,521….

Categories: Christian refugees, Syrian refugees, Trump and refugees
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EXCLUSIVE: Syrian Refugee School Sex Assault

January 18, 2017

EXCLUSIVE: Syrian Refugee School Sex Assault, The Rebel Media, Faith Goldy, January 17, 2017

A fourteen-year-old Canadian girl has been sexually assaulted by a Syrian migrant.

It was supposed to be a night of innocent fun and giddy excitement — her first high school dance — but for one girl at New Brunswick’s Fredericton High School, the night would go on to haunt her well after the last song was played.

The young girl’s mother (who asked that she and her daughter have their identities protected) reached out to TheRebel.Media.

She told us that her daughter was approached by two Syrian migrants who are enrolled at the Canadian high school. Both attempted to grind with the fourteen-year-old girl before one of the migrant students came up behind her, and aggressively touched her — her body and her breasts — before forcing his hand down her pants, touching her vagina from inside her underwear.

Through emails and a recorded phone interview, the Fredricton mother told me that, at first, Fredricton High School belittled reports of the sex assault against her daughter, and was told to consider things from the Syrian migrant’s perspective — to consider how western girls’ clothing has the potential to create cultural tension.

The girl’s mother informed me that the the police were aware of the sex assault and that she had hoped to press charges; however, following a questionable interaction between the young girl and one detective, there is now no sign that charges will be pressed.

According to the girl’s mother, the Syrian migrant student was suspended for just one week and is now back at school — with her daughter. Meantime, the 14-year-old girl has missed several weeks worth of school and is now seeing a mental health professional to help her cope with the trauma.

And it would seem this young girl isn’t alone. Her mother told me that there have been complaints from other girls, too. More reports of “Syrian boys groping and touching girls’ breasts and trying to touch girls’ vaginas at previous school dances.”

She also told me that the much older Syrian students at FHS are permitted to attend school dances, which she describes as “unfair to the younger students.” But, for reasons unclear to her, the issues — despite being well known — are not being reported.

Now, Rebel Media sought to verify the sex assault allegations before presenting this young girl’s story to you. And so, we followed up with the school. We filed an access to information request. We informed Fredricton High School of our tip and asked that they provide any information regarding the alleged sexual assault in question.

We received shy of one dozen pages of email transactions between teachers and school administrators, all of which authenticated our source’s story.

Over the course of the past eight months, I have presented a dozen reports, based on over three thousand pages of documents, covering five different Canadian provinces on the topic of Syrian students abusing their peers.

In our ongoing investigation into allegations of abuse and sexual harassment perpetrated by Syrian migrant students on Canadian children, these stories out of FHS were some of the most disturbing. Some two-thousand and seven hundred pages of email transactions between teachers, administrators, and school board members painted a picture of ongoing physical abuse and sexual harassment within their walls:

Syrian men in their twenties enrolled in the high school, successfully hitting on the much younger girls; requests for gender segregation and prayer spaces; expressions of excitement over the Brussels bombings and hobbies that included rocket propelled grenades.

It’s happening. There’s evidence, evidence that we here at TheRebel.Media have made publicly available. Every page of every Access to Information request we’ve filed is posted in full on our website.

And yet, there is a country-wide cone of silence on the subject.

If you believe in our journalism and want to see the full list of my reports on the subject of Syrian migrant students bullying, harassing, and abusing their Canadian peers, VISIT SchoolyardScandal.com.

And, if you or someone you know has a story of their own, send us a note at tips@therebel.media. We’ll look into your claim and, if it’s true, we’ll tell your story.

Because, unlike the mainstream media, we here at The Rebel won’t ignore the young girls and boys who are ultimately being affected by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s sloppy Syrian refugee policy.

 

Categories: Canada, Canada - public schools, Cover-up, Islam and girls, Media and Islam, Syrian refugees
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After one year, only half of Syrian adult refugees [in Canada] are working

December 12, 2016

After one year, only half of Syrian adult refugees are working, CIJ News, Ilana Shneider, December 12, 2016

syrian-refugees-arriving-in-toronto-1-photo-screenshot-youtube-citizenship-and-immigration-canada-620x330Syrian refugees arriving in Toronto. Photo: screenshot YouTube Citizenship and Immigration Canada

During a debate on Global News between Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration Arif Virani and Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel, Virani admitted that only 9,000 people, or about half of the adult Syrian refugees who were resettled in Canada in 2015, entered the Canadian labour force.

The numbers contradict Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum’s assertion that the immigration policy of the federal government which welcomes more refugees “will help diversify the Canadian economy and create sustainable growth.” At a press conference on March 8, 2016, McCallum said: “As we continue to show our global leadership, Canada will reunite families, offer a place of refuge to those fleeing persecution, and support Canada’s long-term economic prosperity”.

Speaking to students at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario on October 21, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reaffirmed his commitment to resettle more refugees in Canada because of the social and economic benefits when he said that “Canada and countries around the world need to do more in welcoming people who are fleeing for their the lives, and that’s why I’m so proud of the fact that Canadians stepped up over the past year and welcomed in Syrian refugees to their communities right across the country, because we know that bringing in people and giving them an opportunity to succeed and build a better life for themselves, it’s good for them but it’s also good for the communities…, it’s good for our economy and it’s good for the world.”

During the Global debate, Rempel said that because the Liberal government was so focused on the numbers, they lacked a plan in terms of looking to the future in order to successfully integrate the refugees. She also told the host that witnessed who appeared in front of Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration complained about a lack of funding for schools and language training.

A report by the Senate Committee on Human Rights released last week found that many refugees are struggling to meet their basic needs because they are not receiving certain benefits in a timely manner, even though the government allocated $900 million towards resettlement of all newcomers, of which $30 million was allocated specifically to Syrian refugees, and which amount was increased by an additional $18 million last month.

When asked whether Virani expected that one year later only half of the Syrian refugees would be working, he said that the number is consistent with other refugee populations, and that it takes a “number of years for refugees to attain the same economic levels as other Canadians who have been here for multiple generations”.

Rempel said she wants the government to put forward a solid plan that’s transparent to the Canadian taxpayers on the true cost of the refugee resettlement programs. “When the government was running on a promise of 25,000 refugees during the campaign, they said in their ‘fully costed campaign document’ that it was only going to cost $250 million. And we now know that it’s going to be well above that”, Rempel told host Tom Clark.

Virani told Clark that Canadians want to see “more refugees, not less”, which echoed a claim made by Minister of Immigration John McCallum, who last September said “I have been hearing a lot of input, and all the hundreds of people I’ve spoken to across the country, most of them, almost all of them, have advocated [for] more immigrants, whether for demographic reasons or for job-shortage reasons”. However, both Virani and McCallum’s assertions are inconsistent with the findings of a recent Globe and Mail/Nanos survey which revealed that only 16% of Canadians think Canada should accept the same or more immigrants, while 39% think Canada should accept fewer and 37% think Canada should accept the same number of immigrants in 2017.

According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, fewer than 50 percent of all Syrian refugees who were resettled in Canada have completed high school, fewer than 10 percent have a university degree and the vast majority don’t speak either official language. The probability of finding employment without education and language skills is very low, which means those who relied on federal assistance for one year will now become the responsibility of the provinces where they reside.

On October 12, 2016, McCallum told reporters that the federal government had no idea that the Syrian refugees have many children, and this is why the provinces are still facing challenges related to finding proper housing and teachers for language training classes.

A recent study released by HungerCount – the only comprehensive annual national report on hunger and food bank use in Canada – found that almost 13% of all people helped by food banks in 2016 were immigrants and refugees.

In 2015-2016, a report released by the federal government revealed that in 2015-2016, the government spent $384.7 million on the Syrian resettlement initiative.

Categories: Canada, Canadian politics, Employment, Employment related skills, Syrian refugees
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Dems Seek Quicker Admission of Syrian Refugees Despite Terrorism Concerns

May 18, 2016

Dems Seek Quicker Admission of Syrian Refugees Despite Terrorism Concerns, Washington Free Beacon, , May 18, 2016

Syrian-refugee-family-in-eastern-Lebanese-town-APSyrian refugee family in eastern Lebanese town / AP

Senate Democrats sent a letter to President Obama Wednesday pressing the administration to accelerate the admission process for Syrian refugees to settle in the United States.

Obama vowed last year that the U.S. would resettle up to 10,000 individuals seeking haven from the Syrian civil before September, but according to Reuters only 1,736 refugees have been admitted.

27 senators, including the No. 2 Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.), signed the letter urging the Obama administration to “devote the necessary resources to expeditiously and safely resettle Refugees from Syria.”

“We are deeply concerned about the slow pace of admissions for Syrian refugees in the first seven months of the fiscal year,” the senators wrote in the letter obtained by Reuters.

The letter arrived three weeks after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that the Islamic State terrorist group has “taken advantage” of the migrant crisis in Europe, advising E.U. nations to maintain awareness.

One of the suicide bombers who conspired in the November Paris attacks that killed 130 people entered Greece using a fake Syrian passport posing as a refugee. He then traveled the same route fleeing migrants use to make his way into Western Europe.

The revelations have ignited criticism from Republicans who contend that the president’s plan would lead to similar attacks in the U.S. without a stringent vetting process in place.

More than 30 governors have called on the U.S. to halt the refugee resettlement program and have tried implementing restrictions to prevent them from entering their states. Only one of those states was home to a Democratic governor.

The Democratic signatories demanded in their letter that the administration provide specific details as to how the nation would carry through on its vow to resettle the remaining 8,264 Syrians during the next five months.

“Other nations, including ours, can and should do much more,” the senators wrote.

The U.S. has so far resettled more than 6,000 refugees from Myanmar and more than 5,000 from Iraq.

Categories: Democrats, Islamic immigration, Islamic refugees, Islamic terrorism, Obama and Islam, Syria, Syrian refugees, U.S. Congress
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Report: Child-Rape on the Rise Among Syrian Migrants in Greece, Europe

April 27, 2016

Report: Child-Rape on the Rise Among Syrian Migrants in Greece, Europe, Truth Revolt, Tiffany Gabbay, April 27, 2016

greece_refugees_0

Tell us again, Obama, about the new three-month vetting process.

Syrian migrants have been wreaking havoc in migrant camps and their surrounding neighborhoods all across the Eurozone. Reports of riots, looting, burning, assault and battery, molestation and worst of all child-rape, abound.

In fact, the latter scourge is reportedly on the rise in Greek migrant camps, according to Breitbart: 

Greek authorities are investigating after numerous reports of extreme violence and sex assault among the migrants living in the shanty town established among the abandoned former Athens International Airport. […]

The initial arrival of the young men means they have had time to establish themselves in the new camps. A report by The Times quotes an Afghan father of five who said of the new camps: “It’s like the Wild West there… I’m not going back. Neither are my children”.

Relocations started after a 17-year-old Afghan boy was stabbed to death in Athens, where both the victim and attacker were Ellinikon residents, but reports from the inside of the camp suggest a sinister web of child rape where fear rules. […]

In Greece, girls as young as five have been abused by Afghan males, while in countries like Austria, Germany, and Sweden, child rape in swimming pools has become a regular feature in national news.

One Afghan mother told the Times she sleep close to her children after witnessing child-rape at her Greek encampment.

“Weird things happen here after midnight,” she explained. “Many of the young men get drunk. They shout, fight and do ugly things. No one dares to confront them. We’ve seen young girls and boys raped in the bathrooms here.”

One of the primary issues is the types of people housed at the refugee camps — many of whom are able-bodied, Muslim men. Members of the Christian community — the one actually targeted for genocide —  aren’t found at the migrant camps for the very reasons stated above. Christians are targeted across the Middle East and know the refugee camps are as hostile a place for them as the country they’re fleeing.

Without proper vetting, as asylum applicants are processed across the West, the scourge of rape and mayhem will only spread outward. And, in case you missed it, the bill of goods Americans were sold on an 18-24 month vetting process for refugees was, predictably a lie.The actual vetting time has been reduced to three months, if that. What’s more, only a paltry 2.5 percent of our current Syrian refugee population are Christian.

Once again, Western leaders have utterly failed their own citizens, along with the very refugees they claim to be helping.

Categories: Islam and Christianity, Islamic invasion, Islamic perversions, Islamisation, Syrian refugees
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Report: EU Terror Threat Increased as Illegal Border Crossings Hit All-Time High

April 5, 2016

Report: EU Terror Threat Increased as Illegal Border Crossings Hit All-Time High, Washington Free Beacon, 

Refugees from Syria and Iraq disembark on the Greek island of Lesbos after arriving with other 120 people on a wooden boat from the Turkish coast, Monday, Oct. 26, 2015. Greeceís government says it is preparing a rent-assistance program to cope with a growing number of refugees, who face the oncoming winter and mounting resistance in Europe.(AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

Refugees from Syria and Iraq disembark on the Greek island of Lesbos after arriving with other 120 people on a wooden boat from the Turkish coast, Monday, Oct. 26, 2015. Greeceís government says it is preparing a rent-assistance program to cope with a growing number of refugees, who face the oncoming winter and mounting resistance in Europe.(AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

An unprecedented 1.82 million migrants illegally crossed into the EU last year, increasing the security threat across Europe where militants have taken advantage of disjointed border enforcement, border agency Frontex reported Tuesday.

The number of illegal crossings was six times the previous record held in 2014.

Border officials predicted that migrants would continue to flow in masses toward the EU given the proximity of war torn areas and the sustained economic disparity between European states and conflicted nations.

Syrians represented the largest share of arrivals, though the report noted that their exact number is difficult to determine since many other migrants claim to be from Syria in an attempt to speed-up travel.

Afghans marked the second highest proportion while Iraqis made up the third largest nationality crossing into EU member states.

Border officials said there has not been a migration crisis to this degree since World War II.

The trend of irregular migration has also contributed to an increased terrorism threat across Europe, according to the report.

Two of the terrorists in the November Paris attacks used fraudulent Syrian passports to enter the Greek island Leros where authorities registered them under the pretense that they were refugees.

Frontex officials said the attacks “demonstrated that irregular migratory flow could be used by terrorists to enter the EU.”

“With no thorough check or penalties in place for those making such false declarations, there is a risk that some persons representing a security threat to the EU may be taking advantage of this situation,” the report said.

Border officials said EU member states need to increase screening and registration processes while implementing advanced information sharing measures to strengthen border security.

Categories: European Union, Islamic invasion, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Syrian refugees
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Russia air strikes seal Jebel Druze against attack and refugees

February 21, 2016

Russia air strikes seal Jebel Druze against attack and refugees, DEBKAfile, February 22, 2016

2717545 10/10/2015 Russian Su-25 attack aircraft take off from the Khmeimim airbase in Syria. Dmitriy Vinogradov/RIA Novosti

2717545 10/10/2015 Russian Su-25 attack aircraft take off from the Khmeimim airbase in Syria. Dmitriy Vinogradov/RIA Novosti

While Syrian war reporting focused over the weekend on the battles around Aleppo and along the Turkish border in the north, Russia since Saturday, Feb. 20 has ramped up its air bombardment of southern cities and towns, especially Daraa and Nawa. Thousands of fleeing rebels with their families and other civilians have meanwhile been turned away from the locked Jordanian border and are heading towards the Golan opposite the Israeli border.

The heaviest Russian air strikes seen hitherto in Syria have two strategic goals.

1. To retake the key southern town of Daraa from rebel hands and restore it to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s full control.

2. To crush rebel resistance in the South and force them to accept surrender, collapse or escape in the direction of the Jordanian or Israeli borders.

The intense Russian sorties are opening the door to Syrian, Iranian and Hizballah forces to move into the South and reach the Israeli borders. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent Dr. Dore Gold to Moscow last week as his special emissary to explain how this affected Israel’s security. But he was unable to persuade the Russians to scale down their attacks in this sensitive border region.

Those attacks have a third goal, which is to encircle the Jebel Druze region with a “shield of fire” as protection for this ethnic minority of 750,000, most which inhabit mountain villages.

This unusual operation, the first of its kind in the Syrian war, has three objectives:

A. To shield the Druzes villages against ISIS attack from the east, namely Deir az-Zour.

B. To shut the door against fleeing rebels seeking sanctuary in the Druze enclave.

C. To show other Syrian minorities, especially the Kurds in the north, the great advantage of allying themselves with Moscow. Word of Russian protection of the Druzes has undoubtedly spread to Syria’s other minorities.

As for the rebels and refugees, Jordanian troops moved into the border crossings evacuated by Syrian rebels and closed the last crossing at Ramtha.

The exodus from southern Syria is now heading towards the Golan on Israel’s doorstep.

Israel has imposed a media blackout on this development. However, DEBKAfile’s sources warn that it will soon be impossible to keep it dark. Within a few days, many thousands of Syrian refugees will be massing at Israel’s Ein Zivan gate opposite Quneitra. Like Turkey and Jordan, Israel will have to supply large numbers of distressed Syrian refugees with tents, food, water and medicines.

Categories: Assad, Golan, Islamic State, Israel, Israel borders, Jordan, Netanyahu, Russia - Israel, Russia - Syrian war, Russian airstrikes, Syrian refugees
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The Canadian Temper: A Warning to America

January 30, 2016

The Canadian Temper: A Warning to America, American Thinker, David Solway, January 30, 2016

(Should America’s domestic policies be more, or less, like those of Canada? Domestic policies tend to be reflected in foreign policies. We are heading, I think, in the wrong direction. — DM)

The U.S. is clearly heading in the same direction with its national debt swelling exponentially and the inpouring of unvetted “Syrian” migrants exacerbating an already problematic Islamic infiltration. In effect, it’s the same set of cultural attributes, a big spending mentality and an open door policy, of which Canada has long been a shining exemplar. This is why the coming election is perhaps the most critical in U.S. history.

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Canadians have long thought of themselves as morally superior to the supposedly vulgar and abrasive Americans. According to the self-justifying Canadian mythos, we embody a more enlightened and humane outlook on the world. In addition to oil, maple syrup, and lumber, our most valuable export — our gift, we imagine, to our southern neighbors — is our vision of a sustainable and irenic future. Let us examine the most current incarnation of that vision.

Canada is essentially a socialist country, closer to the increasingly decrepit European welfare and statist paradigm than to the (now faltering) classic American model of individual self-reliance. Canada instituted social programs like state-funded medicine relying on major tax hikes long before it became an issue in the U.S., and gambled on multiculturalism as a viable national project, in effect, as a kind of political eschatology. There is no question that the Canadian temper has always been more politically Arcadian than the American.

The current refugee question in particular has become a pivotal and collective expression of this temper, with citizens opening their wallets, hearts, and homes to a migratory influx from the Islamic world. Our self-congratulatory generosity is amply demonstrated in the writings of celebrated Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey. Pontificating in the Montreal Gazette, Grey urges the welcoming of thousands of Syrian migrants as we proceed “to create a society which has, on the one hand, citizens of myriad origins and, on the other, no barriers between them.”

The problem that Grey refuses to confront or even identify is that immigrants and refugees from historically backward, theocratic, anti-Semitic, Sharia-dominated, and terror-sponsoring nations are precisely the ones who are creating “barriers,” such as purpose-built ghettos, no-go zones, closed neighborhoods, special privileges and spaces, an atmosphere of threat, and who have no interest in Western-style “individual autonomy and freedom” — Grey’s chosen vocabulary. Grey is the lawyer for the Muslim-friendly socialist New Democratic Party, but there is not much sunlight between the NDP and the governing Muslim-friendly Liberal Party.

Indeed, in the October 2015 Federal election the Liberals, the NDP and the splinter, reactionary-left Greens ran between them a total of 23 Muslim candidates (the leftist/sovereignist Bloc Québécois fielded two Muslim candidates, raising the combined total to 25 Muslim hopefuls), representing approximately 7 per cent of available parliamentary seats, over twice the Islamic percentage of the population. (The ousted Conservatives fielded only four Muslims.) In the end, the combined electoral seats won by the four left-leaning parties, the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens, clocked in at 71 per cent; the center-right Conservatives polled just 29 per cent. This is the face of Canada today.

During the election campaign, Islam became a prominent issue, with Liberal PM Justin Trudeau claiming that there was no place in his Canada for the previous Conservative government’s “divisive” Islamophobia and exaggerated concern for national security. In his victory speech, Trudeau uttered the inevitable pieties à la Obama: “We beat fear with hope, we beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together.” To a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, he promised “a government that believes deeply in the diversity of this country.”

A perverse illustration of this stupefying attitude comes from the Bank of Nova Scotia (commonly known as Scotiabank), which has welcomed the migrant onslaught with its Welcome Syrians program. (The original webpage featuring large print and colorful graphics now seems to have been scrubbed.) Canada’s third largest bank is offering every Syrian a hundred dollar gift deposit, a $2000 limit unsecured credit card, a free safety deposit box for one year and a $50 unsecured overdraft. Customers who bank at the Scotia and pay monthly fees to maintain their accounts have good reason to feel resentful — unless, of course, they happen to be migrant sympathizers and soft on Islam.

These “Syrians,” not all of whom are Syrians and some of whom are almost surely ISIS jihadists, receive housing, benefits, and gifts without having contributed an iota to the nation’s economy; indeed, they will be a limitless drain on our resources.

The $1.2 billion cost of bringing in these refugees is only the beginning of our fiscal woes. Quoted by the CBC, coordinator Carl Nicholson said “many factors have made the task of housing government-assisted refugees more difficult, including the larger-than expected size of some families that have arrived.” The accompanying photo shows a couple with six toddlers. No wonder the Liberals’ shopworn immigration minister John McCallum has solicited the business community for donations in the amount of $50 million. “I would encourage all Canadians, companies, individuals, communities, to continue to support the effort because we are entering a critical phase,” he said. Darn right on the latter score.

My parents and grandparents, fleeing starving, war-torn Ukraine, worked to the bone to earn a living while contributing through taxes to the national welfare. Many Canadians share the same history, yet they are expected to receive and bankroll a large number of migrants who will take advantage of the innumerable perks that our forebears, who fled famine and civil war and who helped build this country, had never enjoyed or even considered their due.

Richard Butrick cogently argues in an important article for American Thinker that immigrants who came to America in the 19th and early 20th centuries “knew they had to work hard to survive,” at the same time contributing to the nation’s commercial, industrial, and scientific advances. “Immigrants today,” he continues, “know the U.S. is a fail-safe environment,” where they are subsidized and coddled. The so-called “re-energizing” immigration narrative has been superseded by, let’s say, a parasitical model based on muddled sentimentality and false calculations, which Canada has bought into without sober forethought. A country built on welfare migrants is not a country built on hardworking immigrants.

There are some signs that the “Syrian Covenant” is becoming more complicated than originally envisaged, as the initial euphoria for the migrants seems to be waning under an unforgiving reality. I have heard that families that have gloatingly affirmed their “Canadian values” and freely taken Syrians into their homes are petitioning their government for financial help. The City of Ottawa, Canada’s capital, has called for a pause to its hospitality for lack of housing, facilities and funds. Toronto, Vancouver, and Halifax have also asked for a hiatus. The bloom is starting to come off the rose — and the hue off the rose-colored glasses — for many of these fallow enthusiasts. But with further government subventions and the media propaganda blitz saturating what remains of the Canadian mind, the early stages of skepticism and reluctance will probably lead to nothing much.

This is how we do things in Canada. We throw out a Conservative government — itself an anomaly in our political landscape — that steered us safely through the devastating market crash of 2007/8, and objected to Islamic face coverings in citizenship swearing-in ceremonies and to the acceptance of “barbaric” practices in the cultural habits of these new citizens — and bring in a Liberal administration dedicated to increasing the national debt and gradually submerging the country in an effluvium of Muslim migrants and refugees.

The U.S. is clearly heading in the same direction with its national debt swelling exponentially and the inpouring of unvetted “Syrian” migrants exacerbating an already problematic Islamic infiltration. In effect, it’s the same set of cultural attributes, a big spending mentality and an open door policy, of which Canada has long been a shining exemplar. This is why the coming election is perhaps the most critical in U.S. history. A Democrat administration under Billary or Bernie would close the gap between our two countries dramatically. And this is why the candidacies of Donald Trump, for all his flaws, and of the Cruzio amalgam despite the media-generated flap over their eligibility, may determine whether America can return to some degree of sanity and a semblance of its former vitality — or, heaven forfend, become Canada South.

 

Categories: Canada, Donald Trump, Europe, Freedom, Freedom of speech, Islam - submission, Islam and human rights, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Islamic tolerance, Islamisation, Islamophobia, Muslim assimilation, Obama's America, Syrian refugees
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