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Europe: Making Itself into the New Afghanistan?

April 21, 2017

Europe: Making Itself into the New Afghanistan? Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, April 21, 2017

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan,” said Algerian writer Kamel Daoud. Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan.

The West used to be proud of being the land of the free. European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom” at the Mall Gallery in London censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley.

“The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of President Hollande’s culture ministry. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Maastricht, in the Netherlands, is the picturesque city that gave its name to the famous treaty signed in 1992 by the twelve nations of the European Community at the time, and which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.

Maastricht, however, is also the home of “Tefaf”, the most important art and antiques fair in the world. The art work “Persepolis” by the Italian artist Luca Pignatelli was already scheduled when the commission ordered it removed. The work, built in 2016, combined a Persian Islamic rug and a female head. “We are all humbled and speechless”, Pignatelli declared, pointing out that his work had initially aroused the enthusiasm of the commission. The fair’s explanation was that Pignatelli’s work was “provocative“.

The officials of fair presumably did not want to offend Islam and possible Muslim buyers with Pignatelli’s combination of the mat (used by Muslims for prayer) with the woman’s face. “We are shocked, this is the first time this has happened and I think it is legitimate to talk about it”, Pignatelli said. “If in Rome it can happen that you decide to veil art works to avoid offending foreign visitors, well, I do not agree”. The reference is at the Italian government decision to veil the antique Roman statues to avoid offending Iran’s visiting President Hassan Rouhani.

If Europe wants a future, it should be less ideological about Maastricht’s treaty and more against Maastricht’s capitulation to fear. The brave Algerian writer Kamel Daoud said:

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan”.

Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan. The Taliban have killed artists and destroyed art works. The West used to be proud of being the land of the free.

European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom,” at the Mall Gallery in London, censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley. Entitled, “ISIS Threaten Sylvania“, it was eliminated after the British police referred to its “inflammatory” content. Previously, the Tate Gallery in London banned a work by John Latham that displayed a Koran embedded in glass.

The brave work of the artist Mimsy, “ISIS Threaten Sylvania”, which satirized the brutality of ISIS, was removed from London’s Mall Galleries after the British police defined it “inflammatory.” (Image source: Mimsy)

Another British artist, Grayson Perry, admitted that he censored himself out of fear that he might end up like Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker slain by an extremist Muslim, Mohammed Bouyeri, for having made a film about women under Islam. “I have censored myself,” Perry said. “The reason I have not gone all out in attacking Islamism in my art is because I have real fear that someone will slit my throat”.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London first showed, then withdrew, a portrait of the Prophet of Islam, a work of devotional art image of Muhammad. The photographer Syra Miah, a British native whose family came from Bangladesh, saw her work withdrawn from an Art Gallery in Birmingham after protests by a group of Muslims. The photo portrayed a half-naked woman, mentally ill, who lives under a bus stop in Bangladesh.

The Museum of Cultures of the World in Gothenburg, Sweden, opened with an exhibition entitled “AIDS in the Era of Globalization”. In it, the artist Louzla Darabi exhibited a work, “Scène d’amour”, that depicts a woman having sex with a man whose face cannot be seen. A verse from the Koran is written on it in Arabic. Less than three weeks after the inauguration of the exhibition, the museum removed the painting. The Hergé Museum in Louvain, Belgium, was planning an exhibition to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo‘s cartoonists; that event, too, was cancelled.

French President François Hollande eliminated a section of the Louvre Museum dedicated to the Eastern Christians, who in the last two years have been decimated by the Islamic State. “The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of Hollande’s culture ministry.

Marie-Hélène Rutschowscaya — former head of the Louvre’s Coptic section and one of the world’s leading scholars on Eastern Christianity — denounced the move. “The dramatic events we are currently seeing in the Middle East and Eastern Europe should instead spur us to do more to promote lasting cultural ties,” Rutschowscaya wrote in her letter to Hollande. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Perhaps the Iranian ayatollahs were right in asking the Capitoline Museums in Rome to veil the nude statues during President Rouhani’s visit. Perhaps the Islamic fundamentalists are wrong, the West is not as free as it claims. Perhaps we should apologize to the Taliban for criticizing their destruction of the great Buddhas of Afghanistan. According to the West’s new cultural sanctimony, today these statues might be considered “blasphemous” too.

Categories: Britain and Islamists, Censorship, Europe and Islamists, Islamisation of Britain, Islamisation of Europe
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A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: March 2017

April 16, 2017

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: March 2017, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, April 16, 2017

“Have you seen some of those ISIS propaganda videos, they are cut like action movies. Where is the counter narrative?” — Riz Ahmed, actor.

Britain’s foreign aid budget is reportedly funding at least two dozen Palestinian schools, some of which are named after terrorists and murderers and which openly promote terrorism and encourage pupils to see child killers as role models.

An estimated 400 home-grown jihadis have returned to the United Kingdom after fighting in Syria, but only 54 of those have been prosecuted, according to a Mail on Sunday investigation, which also discovered that some returned jihadis are roaming free on the streets of Britain.

March 1. A new Channel 4 documentary series called “Extremely British Muslims” showed the inner workings of a sharia court inside Birmingham’s Central Mosque. In the first episode, viewers witnessed the case of mother-of-four Fatima, 33, as she sought permission to divorce her drug dealer husband she says has abused her throughout their 14-year marriage. According to sharia law, Muslim women must plead their divorce cases in court, while Muslim men need only to say the words “I divorce you” three times to obtain a divorce. Birmingham Central Mosque said it allowed the sharia proceedings to be filmed in an effort to “break down misconceptions about Islam.” Some 100 sharia courts in Britain are now dispensing Islamic justice outside the remit of the British legal system.

March 2. English actor Riz Ahmed warned that the lack of Muslim faces on British television was alienating young people, driving them towards extremism and into the arms of the Islamic State. Delivering Channel 4’s annual diversity lecture in Parliament, Ahmed said that television had a pivotal role to play in ensuring that Muslims felt heard, and valued, in British society:

“If we fail to represent, we are in danger of losing people to extremism. In the mind of the ISIS recruit, he’s the next James Bond right? Have you seen some of those ISIS propaganda videos, they are cut like action movies. Where is the counter narrative? Where are we telling these kids they can be heroes in our stories — that they are valued? If we don’t step up and tell a representative story we are going to start losing British teenagers to the story that the next chapter in their lives is written with ISIS in Syria.”

March 3. The Amateur Swimming Association changed its swimsuit regulations to allow Muslim women to wear full body outfits, after a request from the Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation. The rule was changed to encourage more Muslim women to take part in the sport. Rimla Akhtar, from the Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation, said:

“Participation in sport amongst Muslim women is increasing at a rapid pace. It is imperative that governing bodies adapt and tailor their offerings to suit the changing landscape of sport, including those who access their sport.”

March 4. Ryan Counsell, 28, a jihadist from Nottingham who left his wife and two small children to fight with the Abu Sayyaf Islamist group in the Philippines, blamed his behavior on the Brexit vote. He told the Woolwich Crown Court that increased tension within the local Muslim community after Brexit sparked his decision to leave. He said that he wanted to escape Britain’s political climate and seek an “idyllic life” under sharia law. He was arrested at Stansted airport in July 2016 and was later sentenced to eight years in prison.

March 5. Homegrown terrorism inspired by the Islamic State poses the dominant threat to the national security of the United Kingdom, according to a comprehensive new report on violent Islamism in Britain. The 1,000-page report — “Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offenses and Attacks in the UK (1998–2015)” — was published by the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank based in London.

The report found that number of Islamism-related offenses (IROs) in Britain doubled between 2011 and 2015 from 12 to 23 a year. More than half (52%) of IROs were committed by individuals of South Asian ancestry: British-Pakistanis (25%) and British-Bangladeshis (8%). Other offenders had family ties to countries in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean. Forty-seven percent of IROs were committed by individuals born in the UK.

The also report showed a clear link between terrorism and growing up in Muslim-dominated neighborhoods. London was the place of residence of 43% of IROs, followed by West Midlands, with 18%. Of the latter, 80% of IROs were in Birmingham. The third most common region was North West England, with 10% of IROs. Together, these three regions contained the residences in almost three-quarters (72%) of cases. East London was home to half (50%) the London-based offenders, while the three most common boroughs — Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest — contained the residence of offenders’ in 38% of all London IROs (and 16% overall).

March 6. British security services have prevented 13 potential terror attacks since June 2013, according to Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the UK’s most senior counter-terrorism police officer. He also said that there were 500 live counter-terror investigations at any given time, and that investigators have been arresting terror suspects at a rate of close to one a day since 2014. The official threat level for international terrorism in the UK has stood at severe — meaning an attack is “highly likely” — for more than two years.

March 7. The National Health Service (NHS) revealed that there were 2,332 new cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Britain between October and December 2016. That brought the total of new cases in 2016 to nearly 5,500.

March 7. The managers of the cash-strapped Sandwell General Hospital near Birmingham are considering the construction of a special kitchen for preparing halal meals for Muslim patients and staff. The move follows complaints about the quality of halal meals that the hospital has outsourced to local vendors. A spokesman said: “We are still reviewing options around creating a separate halal kitchen and the best ways to provide a range of healthy halal options to patients and staff who want them.”

March 10. The BBC announced that it would begin outsourcing production of Songs of Praise, a Sunday worship program that has been produced in-house for 55 years. Critics of the move said they feared that Songs of Praise will lose its Christian focus in favor of Islam. Anglican priest Lynda Rose said a recent Songs of Praise episode featuring a segment about the Muslim faith, including Church of England children visiting a mosque, exemplified the “Islamization of the BBC.” More than 6,000 people have signed an online petition calling for MPs to investigate the BBC after it appointed Fatima Salaria as the BBC’s head of religious programming — the second Muslim in a row to hold the post.

March 11. Britain’s foreign aid budget is reportedly funding at least two dozen Palestinian schools, some of which are named after terrorists and murderers and which openly promote terrorism and encourage pupils to see child killers as role models. A Mail on Sunday investigation found pictures of “martyrs” posted on school walls, revolutionary slogans and symbols painted on premises used by youngsters, sports events named after teenage terrorists and children encouraged to act out shooting Israeli soldiers in plays.

Head teachers openly admitted to flouting attempts by British and European donors to control the curriculum at schools. They reportedly print overtly political study aids for pupils, some even denying the existence of Israel, while teachers boast of encouraging pupils to emulate teenage “martyrs” killed in terrorist attacks in the region.

One senior teacher from a prominent West Bank school, when asked what he would say to a pupil threatening to attack Israelis, said: “I would tell them go in the name of Allah.”

March 11. Islamic preachers may be asked to begin delivering their sermons in English under measures being prepared to rid Britain of hate preaching. The Telegraph reported that the government’s counter-extremism taskforce is working on the plans amid concern that preaching in foreign languages enforces divisions between Islam and mainstream British society and can foster radicalization.

March 12. An Islamic bookstore in Alum Rock, a predominately Muslim suburb of Birmingham that has produced 10% of all of Britain’s convicted terrorists, was found to be openly selling books promoting jihad. The Sunday Express visited the Madina Book Centre and bought a copy of the 440-page “Bringing up Children in Islam” for £5 ($6). The book encourages parents to “keep alive in the children the spirit of jihad.” It says:

“They [your children] may be inspired to strive for the restoration of the glory of Islam and Muslims. Jihad of warfare is where all humans spend their energies to stop a tyrant from being oppressive, for example when a tyrant makes it difficult for people to fulfill the commands of Allah to propagate Islam.

“Tyrants must be subdued whether they rule in an Islamic or non-Islamic land, or whether they are on a battlefield.

“It is the duty of Muslims to divert people from worshipping created things to the worship of the Almighty Allah alone.”

The book also rails against cinema and theater, arguing they are the work of “evil-minded” Jews, and warns of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The book supports adulterers being stoned to death and Muslim schoolchildren being kept separate from others: “Education under unbelieving and atheist teachers results in them going astray. Dangerous, communistic and materialistic ideas grow in their minds.”

March 14. A father who describes himself as “Anglo-Saxon” lost a legal battle to prevent his Muslim ex-wife from sending their 10-year-old son to an Islamic secondary school. The man, who was not named for legal reasons, said he wanted to prevent his son from attending a “school inside a mosque” on the grounds that he would be “marginalized” by his son if he enrolled at the London-based school. The man’s lawyer said that the mother and father had “different world views” and that it was client’s wish that his son be educated in a “neutral” environment. The man and his ex-wife, both in their 40s, had divorced more than three years ago following a nine-year marriage. The man had converted to Islam but renounced his faith following the separation. The lawyer argued that the boy’s Muslim faith could be adequately catered for at a secular school. A High Court judge dismissed the man’s appeal on the grounds that an earlier ruling made by a judge at a family court — that the man would not be marginalized by his son — was correct.

March 15. Lawyers warned that a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which allows employers to ban staff from wearing Islamic headscarves at work under certain conditions, will not automatically apply in Britain. The ECJ ruled that prohibiting the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination. The judgment was delivered in cases brought by two employees, one in Belgium and one in France, who were dismissed for refusing to remove headscarves. Lawyers said that British companies adopting the ban could easily be sued for discrimination. The Muslim Council of Britain, the country’s largest Islamic organization, condemned the ruling:

“At a time when populism and bigotry are at an all-time high, we fear that this ruling will serve as a green light to those wishing to normalize discrimination against faith communities. Many will be worried that this action will prevent Muslim women who choose to wear the scarf from securing jobs. And it sends a message that we cannot accept a plural society that recognizes and celebrates religious differences.”

Prime Minister Theresa May said that the government should not tell women what to wear:

“We have a strong tradition in this country of freedom of expression, and it is the right of all women to choose how they dress and we don’t intend to legislate on this issue. There will be times when it is right for a veil to be asked to be removed, such as border security or perhaps in courts, and individual institutions can make their own policies, but it is not for government to tell women what they can and can’t wear.”

March 17. The former owners of a bookstore in Bradford apologized after copies of the Koran and other Islamic literature were found in a garbage dumpster outside the store. Police were called to the store after a group of Muslim males began shouting at and abusing staff. The imbroglio began after the bookstore’s 80-year-old owner decided to close down his business, and the new owners gave him a month to move out the stock, which included a number of Korans and other Islamic books. A spokesman for the bookstore said:

“It has come to our attention that some Islamic materials were found in a skip [garbage dumpster] next to Book Centre. While the Book Centre site is being cleared, no Islamic material of any sort was purposefully disposed of. A small workforce was instructed to clear two storerooms from which some material made its way into the skip. This is wrong, unacceptable and a genuine mistake. The skip will be looked at as a matter of urgency and any materials removed.”

A spokesman for Baker Reign Solicitors, which represents the new owners, said:

“Should our client have been aware that the previous owner would have sought to dispose of the Holy Koran and other books in this manner, they would have assisted in distributing the books to various mosques throughout the city.

“Our client now hopes that the previous owner takes a more responsible course of action by distributing the books to those less fortunate and in need of Islamic guidance.”

March 17. Zameer Ghumra, a 37-year-old Leicester pharmacist accused of showing a beheading video to two young children, was released on bail until his trial begins at Nottingham Crown Court on September 25. He has been charged with distributing terrorist publications under section two of the Terrorism Act 2006.

March 18. The BBC apologized after a tweet from the BBC Asian Network account asked, “What is the right punishment for blasphemy?” The tweet provoked criticism that the BBC appeared to be endorsing harsh restrictions on speech. In an apology posted on Twitter, the network said it had intended to debate concerns about blasphemy on social media in Pakistan. “We never intended to imply that blasphemy should be punished,” it said.

On March 18, the British taxpayer-funded BBC Asian Network account asked, “What is the right punishment for blasphemy?”

March 19. A British jihadist reportedly used social welfare payments to move his family to Syria to join the Islamic State. Shahan Choudhury, 30, who was radicalized at Belmarsh Prison while serving an 18-month sentence for allegedly stabbing to death a 17-year-old hospital worker over an alleged £15 ($18) drug debt, vanished from his apartment in London and has since used social media to urge other British Muslims to carry out terror attacks in the UK.

March 20. Mohammed Karamat, 45, an imam at a mosque in Coventry who assaulted four children as young as nine, was spared jail time. Magistrates watched footage of Karamat twisting a child’s arm, slapping a child, and using a pen to stab a child and pricking a child’s hand with the lid of a pen. He was filmed attacking the children during a six-day period. Karamat, who admitted to four counts of assault by beating, was ordered to do 100 hours unpaid work.

March 21. Minister for Higher Education, Jo Johnson, ordered British universities to include a clear commitment to freedom of speech in their governance documents to counter the culture of censorship and so-called safe spaces. In a letter, Johnson wrote that it was the “legal duty” of universities to ensure as far as practicable that freedom of speech is secured for “members, students, employees and visiting speakers.” This meant that all university premises should not be “denied to any individual or body on any grounds connected with their beliefs or views, policy or objective.”

March 22. Khalid Masood, 52, drove a car at pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge and, armed with two knives, stormed the parliamentary estate. He killed five people and injured more than 50 before he was shot dead by police. Masood, a convert to Islam, was born in Kent as Adrian Elms. During his school years, he used his stepfather’s surname, Adrian Russell Ajao. A former English tutor, he was unemployed at the time of the attack and had been living on social welfare benefits. Masood, who had a history of criminality — he had previous convictions for assaults, including grievous bodily harm, possession of offensive weapons and public order offences — was reportedly radicalized in prison.

March 23. A total of 29 people were charged after girls as young as 11 were raped and sexually abused in Huddersfield. West Yorkshire Police said the 27 men and two women men face numerous offences including rape, trafficking with intent to engage in sexual exploitation, sexual activity with a child, child neglect, child abduction, supply of Class A drugs and the possession and making of indecent images of children. They are accused of committing the crimes against 18 girls in Huddersfield when they were aged between 11 and 17, between 2004 and 2011.

March 23. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Westminster attack. “The perpetrator of the attacks yesterday in front of the British parliament in London is an Islamic State soldier and he carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition,” the group’s Amaq news agency said in a statement.

March 23. Prime Minister Theresa May said that it would be “wrong” to describe the jihadist attack on Westminster Bridge and Parliament as “Islamic terrorism.” Instead, she said, it should be referred to as “Islamist terrorism” and “a perversion of a great faith.”

March 25. Mark Ashdown, a childhood friend of Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood, described how Masood had completely changed after prison, where he converted to Islam. Ashdown said:

“When he first came out he told me he’d become a Muslim in prison and I thought he was joking. Then I saw he was quieter and much more serious. I gave him some cash-in-hand work for a few months as a laborer. He said he needed time to pray and read the Koran — something about finding inner peace. I heard he’d split from his partner and got even more deeply into religion.”

March 25. Police investigating the Westminster attack concluded that Khalid Masood acted entirely alone for reasons that may never be known. “We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this,” deputy assistant Metropolitan police commissioner Neil Basu said. “That understanding may have died with him.” Meanwhile, British security services reportedly do not like the term “lone wolf” because they feel it glamorizes an attacker. They prefer using “lone actor” instead.

March 25. An estimated 400 home-grown jihadis have returned to the United Kingdom after fighting in Syria, but only 54 of those have been prosecuted, according to a Mail on Sunday investigation, which also discovered that some returned jihadis are roaming free on the streets of Britain.

March 28. Kevin Lane, a convicted murderer who spent 20 years in British prisons, including HMP Woodhill and HMP Frankland, told the BBC that he saw many inmates pressured to convert to Islam and carry out attacks on other prisoners. “I have seen many attacks within the prison system,” he said. “One man boiled fat and poured it over someone’s head because of an insult to Islam.” A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: “The allegations put forward by the former prisoner are historic.”

March 29. The BBC tried to downplay Westminster attacker Khalid Masood’s ties to radical Islam by airing an interview with a former employer of Massood. The man, identified only as Farasat, was a manager at an English language school where Massood worked between 2010 and 2012: The interview follows:

Q: Who was the man that you knew?

A: As a teacher, a very professional man. He was an excellent teacher. He got on well with his non-Muslim colleagues. A very friendly, stable kind of guy, really. He was not interested in the politicized version of Islam. He had no contact with any of the extremist groups. He was more a practicing Muslim who was committed to his faith, committed to his family and was focused on his career. I don’t think he was influenced by extremist groups at all…. In fact, I’d go as far to say that he was the antithesis of a violent radical.

Masood was, in fact, known to police and security services and had once been investigated by MI5 over concerns about violent extremism.

March 30. Acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Craig Mackey said there was a slight increase in “Islamophobic incidents” following the Westminster terror attack. Breitbart London reported: “The statement which New Scotland Yard sent along with its figures suggests the rise may not be due to a genuine increase in Islamophobia, but could instead be due to a ‘community engagement plan’ which sees the authorities actively encourage Muslims to come forward with allegations following what they describe as ‘trigger events.'” The Met, the police service for the Greater London area, now employs 900 specialists focused on monitoring so-called Islamophobia.

March 31. A new biography of Prince Charles revealed that the heir to the British throne tried to halt the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to “honor” Ramadan. He made the plea in an “urgent call” to William Farish, the American ambassador to London, four weeks into the huge military operation launched after the 9/11 terror attacks. Farish recalled: “Prince Charles asked me if it would be possible to stop the invasion to honor Ramadan, and if I could convey that request to President Bush.” The ambassador replied that it would be difficult to halt a military invasion already in full swing, but the prince allegedly protested: “But Americans can do anything!” Farish asked: “Sir, are you really serious?” Prince Charles replied: “Yes I am.”

Categories: Britain and Islamists, Britain and Sharia law, Islamisation, Multiculturalism
Tags: Britain and Islamists, Britain and Sharia law, Islamisation, Multiculturalism

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Sharia Councils and Sexual Abuse in Britain

April 14, 2017

Sharia Councils and Sexual Abuse in Britain, Gatestone Institute, Khadija Khan, April 14, 2017

As bad as this is, there is an even darker side to the story: Under sharia law, the second husband is under no obligation to give his wife a quick divorce – allowing him to keep her as his virtual sex slave for as long as he wishes.

If one asks how all of this jibes with British law, the answer is that it does not.

The UK-based NGO, Muslim Women’s Network, penned an open letter — with 100 signatories — to the British government and Home Affairs Select Committee demanding that the Sharia Council be investigated to determine whether its practices adhere to British law. In response, the Sharia Council declared the letter to be “Islamophobic” and accused the Muslim Women’s Network of being an anti-Muslim organization.

It is British law, not sharia, law that protects Muslim individuals and couples, as it does any other citizen. Contrary to what apologists for this travesty say, the plight of Muslim women should be treated as an issue of human rights.

The most recent scandal surrounding the sexual exploitation of Muslim women by Islamic religious leaders in the UK is yet further proof of the way in which Britain is turning a blind eye to horrific practices going on right under its nose.

A BBC investigation into “halala” — a ritual enabling a divorced Muslim woman to remarry her husband by first wedding someone else, consummating the union, and then being divorced by him — revealed that imams in Britain are not only encouraging this, but profiting financially from it. This depravity has led to many such women being held hostage, literally and figuratively, to men paid to become their second husbands.

This ritual, which is considered a misinterpretation of Islamic sharia law even by extremist Shi’ites and Saudi-style Salafists, is practiced by certain Islamic sects, such as Hanafis, Barelvis and Deobandis. When a husband repeats the Arabic word for divorce — talaq — three times to his wife, these sects consider a Muslim marriage null and void. For such a woman to be allowed to return to the husband who banished her, she must first marry someone else — and have sex with him — before the second husband divorces her.

These divorce rites, despite the laws of the land, are common in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other Asian countries, where a majority of the people belong to the Hanafi, Barelvi or Deobandi sects. Nevertheless, local seminaries, mosques and online services openly advertise and promote halala with impunity; it is accepted by society and rarely monitored by state authorities.

In Britain, halala has emerged as a booming business, with websites and social media sites offering to provide women with second husbands for exorbitant sums of money. As bad as this is, there is an even darker side to the story: Under sharia law, the second husband is under no obligation to give his wife a quick divorce — allowing him to keep her as his virtual sex slave for as long as he wishes.

One Muslim woman, who changed her mind about going through with halala after looking into the process, told the BBC that she knew others who did undergo the process, and ended up being sexually abused for months by the second husbands paid to marry them. According to a report in The Guardian, the Sharia Council of Britain says it deals with hundreds of divorce cases annually.

This infamous council is indirectly responsible for what essentially has become a rape pandemic, since it does nothing to stop or refute halala. In fact, it declares that the practice is completely legal under sharia law. The only caveat, the council states, is that the imams presiding over it are not following the proper guidelines, according to which the second marriage and divorce should not be premeditated, but rather happen naturally.

If one asks how all of this jibes with British law, the answer is that it does not. But young Muslims in the UK are discouraged by their communities from marrying through the British system, and are told to have imams perform their weddings and sharia councils register their marriages. Couples who comply end up being at the mercy of Islamic authorities in family matters, including divorce.

Due to its often unethical practices conducted in the name of religious law, the Sharia Council has come under scrutiny a number of times. Last November, for instance, the UK-based NGO, Muslim Women’s Network, penned an open letter — with 100 signatories — to the British government and Home Affairs Select Committee demanding that the Sharia Council be investigated to determine whether its practices adhere to British law.

In response, the Sharia Council declared the letter to be “Islamophobic” and accused the Muslim Women’s Network of being an anti-Muslim organization. In addition, Labour MP Naz Shah jumped to the defense of the Sharia Council, rejecting the idea of an inquiry, on the grounds that shutting down such councils could mean that more women would be stuck in abusive marriages.

While acknowledging that these councils could be used as a tool to deny women their rights, Shah said that they also serve as valuable arbitrators in marital disputes.

Her claims are totally baseless. It is British law, not sharia, law that protects Muslim individuals and couples, as it does any other citizen.

Haitham al-Haddad is a British shari’a council judge, and sits on the board of advisors for the Islamic Sharia Council. Regarding the handling of domestic violence cases, he stated in an interview, “A man should not be questioned why he hit his wife, because this is something between them. Leave them alone. They can sort their matters among themselves.” (Image source: Channel 4 News video screenshot)

Had the British government addressed Sharia Council malpractice when it was first revealed, we would not be facing this pandemic today. Contrary to what apologists for this travesty say, the plight of Muslim women should be treated as an issue of human rights.

It is time for the British government to wake up and take a tough stand on such unethical, and probably illegal, system. And the sooner the better, lest the whole sharia council system go “underground” and out of reach to protect thousands of women from abuse.

Categories: Britain and Islamists, Britain and Sharia law, British law, Sharia courts, Sharia law and females
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Londonistan: 423 New Mosques; 500 Closed Churches

April 2, 2017

Londonistan: 423 New Mosques; 500 Closed Churches, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, March 2, 2017

(BREXIT seems to have come a few years too late. — DM)

British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place.

British personalities keep opening the door to introducing Islamic sharia law. One of the leading British judges, Sir James Munby, said that Christianity no longer influences the courts and these must be multicultural, which means more Islamic. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Justice Lord Phillips, also suggested that the English law should “incorporate” elements of sharia law.

British universities are also advancing Islamic law. The academic guidelines, “External speakers in higher education institutions”, provide that “orthodox religious groups” may separate men and women during events. At the Queen Mary University of London, women have had to use a separate entrance and were forced to sit in a room without being able to ask questions or raise their hands, just as in Riyadh or Tehran.

“London is more Islamic than many Muslim countries put together”, according to Maulana Syed Raza Rizvi, one of the Islamic preachers who now lead “Londonistan“, as the journalist Melanie Phillips has called the English capital. No, Rizvi is not a right-wing extremist. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate for Literature, was less generous; he called the UK “a cesspit for Islamists”.

“Terrorists can not stand London multiculturalism”, London’s mayor Sadiq Khan said after the recent deadly terror attack at Westminster. The opposite is true: British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Above all, Londonistan, with its new 423 mosques, is built on the sad ruins of English Christianity.

The Hyatt United Church was bought by the Egyptian community to be converted to a mosque. St Peter’s Church has been converted into the Madina Mosque. The Brick Lane Mosque was built on a former Methodist church. Not only buildings are converted, but also people. The number of converts to Islam has doubled; often they embrace radical Islam, as with Khalid Masood, the terrorist who struck Westminster.

The Daily Mail published photographs of a church and a mosque a few meters from each other in the heart of London. At the Church of San Giorgio, designed to accommodate 1,230 worshipers, only 12 people gathered to celebrate Mass. At the Church of Santa Maria, there were 20.

The nearby Brune Street Estate mosque has a different problem: overcrowding. Its small room and can contain only 100. On Friday, the faithful must pour into the street to pray. Given the current trends, Christianity in England is becoming a relic, while Islam will be the religion of the future.

In Birmingham, the second-largest British city, where many jihadists live and orchestrate their attacks, an Islamic minaret dominates the sky. There are petitions to allow British mosques to call the Islamic faithful to prayer on loudspeakers three times a day.

By 2020, estimates are that the number of Muslims attending prayers will reach at least 683,000, while the number of Christians attending weekly Mass will drop to 679,000. “The new cultural landscape of English cities has arrived; the homogenised, Christian landscape of state religion is in retreat”, said Ceri Peach of Oxford University. While nearly half of British Muslims are under the age of 25, a quarter of Christians are over 65. “In another 20 years there are going to be more active Muslims than there are churchgoers,” said Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society.

Since 2001, 500 London churches of all denominations have been turned into private homes. During the same period, British mosques have been proliferating. Between 2012 and 2014, the proportion of Britons who identify themselves as Anglicans fell from 21% to 17%, a decrease of 1.7 million people, while, according to a survey conducted by the respected NatCen Social Research Institute, the number of Muslims has grown by almost a million. Churchgoers are declining at a rate that within a generation, their number will be three times lower than that of Muslims who go regularly to mosque on Friday.

Demographically, Britain has been acquiring an increasingly an Islamic face, in places such as Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets. In 2015, an analysis of the most common name in England showed it was Mohammed, including spelling variations such as Muhammad and Mohammad.

Most important cities have huge Muslim populations: Manchester (15.8%), Birmingham (21.8%) and Bradford (24.7%). In Birmingham, the police just dismantled a terrorist cell; there is also a greater probability that a child will be born into a Muslim family than into a Christian one. In Bradford and Leicester, half the children are Muslim. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place. “Londonistan” is not a Muslim majority nightmare; it is a cultural, demographic and religious hybrid in which Christianity declines and Islam advances.

Thousands of Muslims participate in a public outdoor prayer service in Birmingham, England, on July 6, 2016. (Image source: Ruptly video screenshot)

According to Innes Bowen, writing in The Spectator, only two of the 1,700 mosques in Britain today follow the modernist interpretation of Islam, compared with 56% in the United States. The Wahhabis control six percent of mosques in the UK, while the fundamentalist Deobandi control up to 45%. According to a survey from the Knowledge Center, a third of UK Muslims do not feel “part of British culture.”

London is also full of sharia courts. There are officially 100. The advent of this parallel judicial system has been made possible thanks to the British Arbitration Act and the system of Alternative Dispute Resolution. These new courts are based on the rejection of the inviolability of human rights: the values of freedom and equality that are the basis of English Common Law.

British personalities keep opening the door to introduce sharia. One of Britain’s leading judges, Sir James Munby, said that Christianity no longer influences the courts and these must be multicultural — which means more Islamic. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Justice Lord Phillips also suggested that British law should “incorporate” elements of sharia law. The British cultural establishment is rapidly capitulating to Islamic fundamentalists in accepting their demands.

British universities are also advancing Islamic law. The official guidelines of the university, “External speakers in higher education institutions“, published by Universities UK, provide that “orthodox religious groups” may separate men and women during events. At Queen Mary University of London, women had to use a separate entrance and were forced to sit in a room without being able to ask questions or raise their hands — as in Riyadh or Tehran. The Islamic Society at the London School of Economics held a gala, in which women and men were separated by a seven-meter panel.

After the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, recommended self-censorship and “some restraint” in discussing Islam. The British ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Simon Collis, converted to Islam and completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. He now calls himself Haji Collis.

What will be next?

Categories: Academia and Islamists, Britain and Christians, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Sharia law, Diversity, Islam and conquest, Islam and females, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, London, Multiculturalism
Tags: Academia and Islamists, Britain and Christians, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Sharia law, DIversity, Islam and conquest, Islam and females, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, London, Multiculturalism

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No Truth Please, We’re British

March 27, 2017

No Truth Please, We’re British, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Bawer, March 27, 2017

Hundal called on Londoners to learn from the spirit of the Battle of Britain: “Keep Calm and Carry on.” But there’s a big difference between now and then. During World War II, Brits named their enemy. Everyone openly recognized Nazism as a monstrous ideology. And the media didn’t respond to German bombings in the East End by slandering Churchill as a “Naziphobe.”

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After last Wednesday’s deadly attack outside London’s Houses of Parliament, the left-wing British media expressed outrage – not at the appalling way in which Islam and Islamic terrorism have transformed life and sown death throughout the Western world, but at the purported moral depravity of those who dare to connect the dots.

In the Guardian, Jon Henley and Amber Jamiesen sneered at Marine Le Pen for “linking the London attack to migrant policy, despite the attacker being British.” (My emphasis.) They smeared as “xenophobic” Nigel Farage’s argument “that the London attacks proved Donald Trump’s hardline immigration and anti-Muslim policies were correct.” The Independent‘s Maya Oppenheimer censured Farage’s comments, too, countering his critique of multiculturalism by saying he’d “failed to mention the fact many of the victims of the attack were in fact foreigners themselves.” (My emphasis again.) Needless to say, the issue wasn’t Britishness vs. foreignness; it was Islam. But to say so was verboten. As Theresa May said (in what already seems destined to become an immortal statement), “Islamist terror” has nothing do with Islam.

Islam is a religion of hate. But when that hate manifests itself in jihadist terror, the proper leftist move is to turn away from the reality of that hate – which last Wednesday sent several innocent people to a hospital or a morgue – to the purported “hate” of decent, law-abiding individuals who have had quite enough of murderous jihadist hate. Instead of acknowledging that a large minority (if not an outright majority) of British Muslims support sharia law in the U.K. (and that more than a few privately applaud terrorism), you’re supposed to invoke the fantasy of a Britain in which all citizens, infidel and Muslim, share the same values and live together in harmony – except, of course, for the horrid Islamophobes, who, simply by mentioning the Islamic roots of Islamic terror, are exploiting terrorism, dishonoring its victims, and subverting social harmony.

And so we had the Guardian editorial on the terrorist attack, which cast the reality-deniers as good guys who believe in “standing together” and the truth-tellers as voices of “cynicism.” While praising MPs for their readiness “to emphasise the need for solidarity,” the editorial deplored Farage and UKIP leader Paul Nuttall, who “renewed their baseless and disgraceful campaign to drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain.” The paper’s Nesrine Malik agreed. When she first heard of the attack, she wrote, a “familiar knot” appeared in her stomach. Why? Because of the horror of mass slaughter? Because, yet again, innocent people had lost their lives to jihad? No. Because she realized that she’d once again have to brace herself “for a predictable battle to separate fact from hysteria, plead for a sense of proportionality and entreat the hurt and the angry not to generalise.” For Malik, as for her paper’s editors, the real bad guys aren’t the terrorists: they’re people like Tommy Robinson (who “was at the scene stirring hate while the shock was fresh”) and Nigel Farage (who was “spewing predictable bile”).

The “right wing,” charged Malik, had plainly been “waiting in the wings, almost grateful that the imaginary fears it had been trying to provoke had become real ones.” (My emphasis yet again.) Now try to make sense of that: Robinson and Farage are selling “imaginary fears,” but on Wednesday those “imaginary fears” became “real ones.” Never mind that the “fears,” far from being products of anyone’s imagination, are based on a very real experience of terrorist acts in which thousands of very real people have died. “There was no respect for the dead, dying and grieving, there was just an opportunity,” wrote Malik. On the contrary: it’s Malik and her ilk who show less for the dead victims of Islamic terrorism than for the reputation of Islam. For Malik, Robinson and Farage are part of a “hate industry” that, she maintained, has grown with each of “the three Islamic terror attacks in London since 2005.” You’d think the fact that London had been subject to three Islamic terror attacks since 2005 would make it clear what the real “hate industry” is.

The same kind of thinking was on display at the Independent, where an outraged Holly Baxter denounced Robinson for saying that Muslims “are waging war on us,” that they’ve been doing so “for 1,400 years,” and that “Muslims make up only 4 per cent of the UK population, look at the continued chaos and destruction they cause, what do you think it will be like with 20 per cent?” For Baxter, Robinson’s statement was a disgusting display of hate, and proved that “London needs a Muslim mayor now more than ever” – for at a time when ISIS is pushing the idea of a war between Islam and the West, “[t]he existence of a Muslim mayor of London symbolically destroys that narrative from the outset.” No, the existence of a Muslim mayor of London – one who has defended terrorists, shared platforms with radical imams, blamed terrorism on the West, and sought to punish anti-Islam speech – shows just how successful Islam has been in that war.

Critics of Islam, complained Baxter, are “racists” who should “at least have the common decency to admit it’s all a far-right careerist exercise rather than anything to do with ‘protecting the innocent.’” Sunny Hundal made the same argument in another piece for the Independent: “No wonder the far-right was so quick to capitalise on the Westminster terror attack – it relies on atrocities for support.” That “far-right,” he seethed, was like a pack of “jackals circling their prey.” Get that? In this picture, the jackal isn’t the terrorist – it’s the critics of his guiding ideology. Maintaining that Islam’s critics “hate the very idea of cosmopolitan communities” (no, they hate barbarism), Hundal called on Londoners to learn from the spirit of the Battle of Britain: “Keep Calm and Carry on.” But there’s a big difference between now and then. During World War II, Brits named their enemy. Everyone openly recognized Nazism as a monstrous ideology. And the media didn’t respond to German bombings in the East End by slandering Churchill as a “Naziphobe.”

Categories: Attack at British Parliament, Britain and Islamists, British media, Islamic invasion, Islamist objectives, Islamist terror - justifications, Islamist victimhood, Islamophobia, Leftist media, Leftists and Islam
Tags: Attack at British Parliament, Britain and Islamists, British media, Islamic invasion, Islamist objectives, Islamist terrori - justifications, Islamist victimhood, Islamophobia, Leftist media, Leftists and Islam

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Lessons From the Parliament Attack

March 26, 2017

Lessons From the Parliament Attack, Power Line, John Hinderaker, March 25, 2017

There is diversity in Islam, including millions of Muslims who adhere only to its spiritual elements or see themselves as more culturally than doctrinally Islamic. But when we speak of Islam, as opposed to Muslims, we are not speaking about a mere religious belief system. We are talking about a competing civilization — that is very much how Islam self-identifies. It has its own history, principles, values, mores, and legal system. Islam, thus understood, is not non-Western. It is anti-Western.

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England has been shaken by the terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge and Parliament that was carried out last Wednesday by Khalid Masood, whose real name was Adrian Elms or Adrian Ajao. As more information has come out about the terrorist, a number of observations can be made.

1) Masood/Elms/Ajao was an unusual terrorist in some ways, and typical in others. Like nearly all Islamic terrorists, he had a middle-class upbringing and at one point lived in a million dollar house in East Sussex. Drugs apparently precipitated his descent, and he had a criminal history that landed him in prison. Masood was not religious until his incarceration–his parents are Christians–but, like many others, he converted to Islam while in prison. After his release, he persuaded one of his daughters to adopt Islam, change her name and wear a hijab. At 52, he was quite a bit older than most terrorists.

2) Masood used the current weapons of choice, an automobile and two knives. Westminster Bridge is generally crowded with pedestrians, and he simply drove his car into a crowd of them, killing five and injuring as many as 50, some critically. This type of attack is very hard to stop–for practical purposes, impossible.

Following the attack, giant yellow bollards were placed in the area around Buckingham Palace to prevent attackers from driving vehicles into the crowds that always congregate there:

I don’t blame the Brits for doing this; the area around the White House is blocked off in a similar way, if I am not mistaken. But obviously, protecting a few high-profile areas does nothing to stop an Islamic terrorist (or anyone else) from driving a vehicle into a crowd anywhere, in any city.

When mass murders occur, liberals tend to focus on the weapons used by the murderer. Terrorist attacks carried out with cars and knives illustrate the futility of this approach. The only solution–if there is one–is to identify and stop the terrorist before he acts. Also, to take any feasible steps that will reduce the number of potential terrorists in the population.

3) Like many other terrorists, Masood was known to the British authorities. But they didn’t consider him a serious threat:

At some point he was investigated by MI5 over links to violent extremism but was considered too minor to monitor, and did not feature on a 3,000-strong list of suspects feared to be capable of mounting an attack.

Not surprisingly, it is very difficult to predict which radical Muslims will actually launch attacks.

4) Masood reportedly spent several years in Saudi Arabia, where he was immersed in Wahabbism. That is a pretty good predictor of radical belief and behavior.

5) One of those murdered by Masood was a policeman named Keith Palmer, whom Masood stabbed to death after crashing through a gate to the Parliament building. Palmer likely would have been even more of a hero if he hadn’t been unarmed. Disarming one’s own police force is insane.

6) Here in the U.S., there has been much talk of “vetting.” While checking out visitors and, especially, immigrants to the U.S. is certainly appropriate, to the limited extent it is possible, vetting is wholly inadequate as a security measure. Many terrorists are second generation immigrants, and others, like Masood, are Islamic converts.

7) The problem is Islam. Not all or even most Muslims, of course, but rather Islam as a political ideology. Andy McCarthy makes the point well at National Review. You should read the whole thing, which is a good primer on the subject. Here are some excerpts:

There is diversity in Islam, including millions of Muslims who adhere only to its spiritual elements or see themselves as more culturally than doctrinally Islamic. But when we speak of Islam, as opposed to Muslims, we are not speaking about a mere religious belief system. We are talking about a competing civilization — that is very much how Islam self-identifies. It has its own history, principles, values, mores, and legal system. Islam, thus understood, is not non-Western. It is anti-Western.

Like the conversion of Masood, the conversion of Birmingham has been a function of this defining Islamic attribute. Individual Muslims may assimilate, but Islam doesn’t do assimilation. Islam does not melt into your melting pot. Islam, as Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna proclaimed, is content with nothing less than political, cultural, and civilizational dominance.

As Soeren Kern relates in a comprehensive Gatestone Institute report on Islam in Britain, the metamorphosis of Birmingham, along with several other U.K. population centers, signifies this resistance. When the Islamic presence in a Western community reaches a critical mass, Islam’s hostility to Western mores and demands for sharia governance result in non-Muslim flight. Marriages between Muslims resident in the Western community and Muslims overseas tend to result in childbirth rates and household growth that dwarfs that of the indigenous population. Arranged, intra-familial, and polygamous marriages, endorsed by Islamic mores, drastically alter the fabric of communities in short order. Birmingham, in particular, has been ground zero of “Operation Trojan Horse,” a sharia-supremacist scheme to Islamize the public schools.
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[T]he remorseless fact is that before ISIS and al-Qaeda and the Khomeini revolution and Hezbollah and the Blind Sheikh and the Brotherhood and Khalid Masood, there was the single thing that unites them all. There was Islam.

Western political and opinion elites remain willfully blind to this. They cannot help but project onto Islamic beliefs and practices their own progressive pieties — which take seriously neither religion nor the notion that there is any civilization but their own.

America is committed to the assumption that Islam, in all of its varieties and manifestations, is merely a religion. This entitles Islam not only to the full protection of the First Amendment, but also to the presumption that it is a benign if obsolete force, like other religions. Which explains why journalists puzzle over what could possibly have motivated the terrorist who shouts “Allahu akbar” to kill infidels.

Categories: Attack at British Parliament, Britain, Britain and Islamists, British media, Islamist terror attacks, Islamists in Britain, Known-wolf terrorists
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Westminster carnage, Turkish delight

March 24, 2017

Westminster carnage, Turkish delight, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, March 24, 2017

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t know he was going to get so lucky on Wednesday when a threat he issued instantly materialized.

Indeed, the Islamist leader of the formerly modernizing democracy was probably happily amazed at the news of the terrorist attack in London, as it came on the heels of a speech he delivered in Ankara, in which he warned that in “no part of the world, no European, no Westerner, will be able to take steps on the street safely and peacefully.” This fate would befall them, he said, if they “continue to behave like this.”

Of course, Erdogan was not personally responsible for the rampage of U.K.-born Khalid Masood, who managed to murder four people before being killed by police. Nor had he specified what he meant by claiming the West would not be safe.

He did, however, caution that Turkey is “not a country to push, to prod, to play with its honor, to shove its ministers out of the door, drag its citizens on the floor.”

He had a point: Only Erdogan and his goons are at liberty to drag Turkish citizens on the floor.

This was not the point he was trying to make, however. Erdogan denies that he imprisons anyone he considers critical of his regime. But he has to do that when he spends so much time accusing Europe of human-rights abuses.

Meanwhile, the only “human rights” Erdogan really cares about are his own. More precisely, what he most hungers for is power, which he has been ruthless at procuring and making sure not to lose, by any authoritarian means. The failed attempt to oust him last July made this all the more clear, when he took the opportunity of the thwarted coup to crack down on every sector of society, locking up journalists, judges, police and members of the military on bogus grounds.

This is also why he is so intent on winning the April 16 constitutional referendum, which if passed will see Turkey shift from a parliamentary to a presidential political system. Erdogan and others who support the move claim it will make governance more efficient. But the wannabe dictator’s real reason is singular: to enhance and secure his growing reign of terror.

With polls indicating that the Turkish public is split down the middle on this issue, Erdogan took his campaign to the EU, where Germany and the Netherlands in particular are home to many expatriate Turks. Facing reservations from both — though Germany said it would give permission if he made the process more transparent and put a stop to his aggressive and inappropriate rhetoric — Erdogan doubled down, calling them Nazis and fascists.

“They have nothing to do with the civilized world,” he said in a televised address earlier this month. “The EU is fast going toward drowning in its own fears.”

If this assertion has any merit, it is precisely because of rulers and proxies with Erdogan’s ideology. Though he touts his role in the war against Islamic State to show his enlightenment, he is attempting to bring his country into the same dark ages that the Sunni murderers occupy. In other words, Erdogan, who has close ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, has shown time and again that it is only certain terrorists he wants eradicated; the others, his allies, spill the blood of infidels.

Wednesday’s attack at Westminster — whose perpetrator Islamic State claimed as a “soldier” in its call to ill Britons — may not have been inspired by Erdogan’s friends. But Masood’s knife-wielding, car-ramming actions expressed the same antipathy towards Judeo-Christian societal values that all Islamists harbor.

Erdogan ought to know, which is precisely why Europe must take his admonitions seriously and pray he loses next month’s referendum.

Categories: Attack at British Parliament, Britain and Islamists, Erdogan and Islamic jihad, Erdogan and Islamism, Europe, Europe and Islamic terror, Europe and Turks, Turkey - constitutional referendum, Turkey and human rights, Turkish democracy
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London terror – a lesson from Israel

March 23, 2017

London terror – a lesson from Israel, Israel National News, Jack Engelhard, March 23, 2017

So yesterday violent Islam won again, this time in London, from where the UK’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, only a few weeks ago, warned Israel that it must absolutely abide by a two-state solution – must split itself in half to make happy Hamas, Abbas, the PA, the PLO and the rest of them that seek Israel’s destruction – along with the rest of Western civilization.

Does nothing get learned?

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A terrorist rams his car into a crowd. Then he steps out and starts knifing civilians.

That was Wednesday in London, but in Israel it can be any day of the week.

So the terrorist attack at Westminster outside Parliament, which killed four, would surprise no Israeli, particularly as to this pattern of terrorism. In Israel it’s been going on for years…deadly car rammings and indiscriminate knifings as a method to strike fear into the heart of an entire population.

Now the entire world knows how it feels, but it all begins in Israel, where Islamic terrorists try out new tactics to see how the rest of the world will respond. I call it spring training for Radical Islam. If the response is full support for Israel, we win, they lose.

But if the world says the terrorists had an excuse…if the world says Israel must give up more land to pacify Muslim extremists…we lose, they win.

So yesterday violent Islam won again, this time in London, from where the UK’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, only a few weeks ago, warned Israel that it must absolutely abide by a two-state solution – must split itself in half to make happy Hamas, Abbas, the PA, the PLO and the rest of them that seek Israel’s destruction – along with the rest of Western civilization.

Does nothing get learned?

The brave talk fools nobody, not the Islamic hot heads first of all. “We remain defiant,” said one Member of Parliament over at the BBC.

Defiant, how? You keep bringing more of them in.

Basic math says the more terrorists you bring in, the more you are bound to suffer the consequences.

Granted, they are not all terrorists, but so inclined from specific countries. Our President, Donald Trump, keeps trying to keep them out.

So far he has not been entirely successful because of certain judges who tolerate anything, including rape, in the name of Tolerance.

In the name of Inclusiveness they give in to terror, and so, an hour after the attack, another Member of Parliament told the BBC:

“We will never give in to terror.”

Have you tried getting on a plane lately – without being near strip-searched? Every big city has quadrupled its police force and its intelligence gathering operations. Walls have gone up all over Europe – and we are building a wall. Check points everywhere. Constant alerts – if you see something, say something.

What is that? That is giving in to terror, and it’s happening all over, and electing a Muslim as London’s mayor stopped nothing.

Over the months, Mayor Sadiq Khan has called Trump’s proposed travel pause offensive and “ridiculous.”

Now what’s he say?

Kahn also said that every big city around the world ought to be ready and to expect terror attacks.

No, Sir, we never expected any such business until we shut our eyes and flung our doors and borders wide open.

Categories: Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Islamist attack on British Parliament, Islamists and Israel, Israeli security, Palestinian terrorists
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Hamas Using Surreptitious European Platforms for Funding, Legitimacy

March 19, 2017

Hamas Using Surreptitious European Platforms for Funding, Legitimacy, Clarion Project, MEIRA SVIRSKY, March 19, 2017

A pro-Muslim Brotherhood stand at a conference organized by the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (Photo: JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP/Getty Images)

Their goal is to promote Hamas as the legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. At the same time, they are creating a global infrastructure for Hamas, as well as a convenient line of funding for the terror organization.

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Hamas is using surreptitious European platforms and organizations to raise funds and promote its legitimacy, according to an expose published by the Times of Israel.

“One almost quintessential example of such activity under innocent-seeming cover is the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign,” writes Avi Issacharoff in the Times. Naturally, the group does not openly identify with Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas’ parent organization).

Issacharoff quotes expert Dr. Ehud Rosen who describes another group that provides cover and financing to Hamas, the Federation of Islamic Organization in Europe (FIOE).

“Thirty-seven different groups in different countries on the continent operate under that organization, and over the years have created an image for themselves as ‘the legitimate representatives’ — the Islamic mainstream. The group is known as IGD in Germany and UOIF in France. The same thing is going on in Scandinavia and almost everywhere.”

These groups model themselves after the Brotherhood and Hamas, engaging in dawa, proselytizing about Islam while at the same time providing funds for Hamas.

“These organizations are run by well-known figures who head madrasas, or Muslim schools; mosques; charitable organizations that raise money not only for Muslims in Europe but also for Hamas; and even student associations in every well-known university in Europe.

“Recently, Muslim ‘human rights’ groups have been established that work to strengthen support for the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas,” Rosen said.

The European country that hosts the most pro-Hamas activity is Britain. A number of prominent figures operate there, including Anas Altikriti, the son of a high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood official from Iraq who visited Barack Obama in the White House two years ago.

One of the founders of Hamas’ military wing in the disputed territories of Israel, Muhammad Sawalha, also lives in London, as does a former Hamas operative from Hamas, Zaher Birawi.

And the list goes on.

These operatives organize conferences attended by thousands of Arabs and Palestinians from all over the world. Most of the organizers have been members of the Brotherhood or Brotherhood-affiliated groups in Europe for decades.

Their goal is to promote Hamas as the legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. At the same time, they are creating a global infrastructure for Hamas, as well as a convenient line of funding for the terror organization.

Categories: Britain and Islamists, Europe and Hamas, Europe and Muslim Brotherhood, Funding Hamas, Funding Muslim Brotherhood
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Britain’s Little Lies

December 31, 2016

Britain’s Little Lies, Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray, December 31, 2016

This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism. It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not.

Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of Theresa May’s speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech. At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about “true friendship” in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. The British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UNSC Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.

The British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls “settlements.” They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as “settlements.” Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, “settlements,” but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.

If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as “Islamophobia,” then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.

On December 12, the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, gave a fulsome speech to the annual Conservative Friends of Israel lunch. Before a roomful of 800 pro-Israel Conservative MPs and party supporters, she lavished praise on the Jewish state. She praised Israel’s achievements and castigated its enemies. She said that Britain would be marking the centenary of the Balfour declaration “with pride.” She also stressed that cooperation and friendship between Britain and Israel was not just for the good of those two countries, but “for the good of the world.”

For many of the people listening in the room, there were just two discordant notes. The first was related to the focus on anti-Semitism in May’s speech. As she used the opportunity rightly to lambaste the Labour party for its anti-Semitism problem, she extended the reach of her own claims for herself. While boasting of her success as Home Secretary in keeping out the prominent French anti-Semite Dieudonné and finally deporting the Salafist cleric Abu Qatada al-Filistini back to his native Jordan, she also used the opportunity to congratulate herself for banning Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Pastor Terry Jones from coming to the UK. “Islamophobia comes from the same wellspring of hatred” as anti-Semitism, she explained.

This is a serious category error for a Prime Minister to make. It puts critics of a religion, such as Geller and Spencer, on the same plane as people wanted for terrorism (Qatada). It blurs the line between speech and action, and mixes people who call for violence with those who do not. The comparison also fails to follow the consequences of its logic to its own illogical conclusion. The comparison fails to recognise that anyone who objects to Islamic anti-Semitism is immediately known as an “Islamophobe.” Therefore, someone hoping to come to Britain would have to accept being attacked by Muslim extremists for fear of being banned from entering the UK. These are serious and basic misunderstandings for a Prime Minister to propagate.

There was, however, a clear political sense to them. A Prime Minister in a country such as 21^stCentury Britain might believe that he or she has to be exceptionally careful not to appear to be criticising any one group of people or praising another too highly. So for the time being in Britain, a moral relativism continues to stagnate. If the Jewish community complains of anti-Semitism, then you must criticise anti-Semitism. If the Muslim community complains of “Islamophobia,” then you must criticise “Islamophobia.” To make value judgements might be to commit an act of political folly. Wise leaders in increasingly “diverse” societies must therefore position themselves midway between all communities, neither castigating nor over-praising, in order to keep as many people onside as possible.

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the annual Conservative Friends of Israel lunch, December 12, 2016. (Image source: Conservative Friends of Israel)

The same tactic brought the other discordant moment at the Prime Minister’s lunch — the same tactic brought to the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. For the other discordant note in May’s speech came when she mentioned Israeli settlement building. It was carefully placed in the speech, after a passage in which May congratulated her own Department for International Development (DfID) Minister, Priti Patel. In the days before the lunch, Patel had announced that DfID would carry out an investigation to determine whether British taxpayer money being sent to what May called “the Occupied Palestinian Territories” was being used to fund salaries for Palestinians convicted of terrorism offences against Israelis. Following this May said:

“When talking about global obligations, we must be honest with our friends, like Israel, because that is what true friendship is about. That is why we have been clear about building new, illegal settlements: it is wrong; it is not conducive to peace; and it must stop.”

The comment was received in silence and May moved on.

But this comment fitted in closely with the strategy of her other comment. For having lavished praise on Israel, a castigation apparently seemed necessary. It is wrong, but hardly possible for a British Prime Minister currently to do otherwise. If there are terrorists receiving funds from British taxpayers thanks to the largesse of the UK government, then this may — after many years of campaigning by anti-terrorism organisations — finally be “investigated.” However, throughout any such investigation, the British government, whilst saying that it remains committed to a peace deal that comes as a result of direct negotiations between the two sides, has for years announced its own preconditions for peace: a freeze on the building of what it calls “settlements.” They maintain this line despite the fact that settlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as “settlements.” Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow — in 1948, 1956, and 1967. The core problem is not, and never was, “settlements,” but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.

At the time of May’s speech, these two issues seemed like minor cavils to some and gained little notice. Only now, a fortnight later, has the true duplicity of the speech been exposed. For now the world has learned what diplomacy the British government was engaged in even as May was making her speech.

At the same time as the Prime Minister was talking about “true friendship” in front of friends of Israel, her government was conspiring with the outgoing Obama administration to kick that friend in the back. In the wake of the collapse of the Egyptian-sponsored initiative at the UN, the British government was exposed as being one of the key players intent on pushing through the anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334. British diplomats were revealed to have been behind the wording and rallying of allies for the resolution.

The most obvious interpretation of this fact is simply a reflection that friends do not kick friends in the back. Especially not in the world’s foremost international forum for kicking that particular friend. But some people are putting a kinder interpretation on the facts. The kindest to date is that the May government believes that a sterner line on the issue of Israeli settlements would give the British government more leverage with the Palestinians.

If that is so, then it seems that the May government will have to learn abroad the same lesson that they must learn at home. Both will come about because of the same strategic mistake: a reliance on the short-term convenience of what must seem at first to be only convenient little lies. The problem is that such little lies, when tested on the great seas of domestic and international affairs, have a tendency to come to grief with exceptional rapidity and ease.

Politicians are keen on taking stands. But if you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as “Islamophobia,” then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand for Israel while simultaneously conniving at the UN to undermine Israel, then your duplicity will be exposed and admiration for this and other stands will falter. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding. They have before — at home and abroad — and they will again.

Categories: Antisemitism, Britain, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and UN Security Council resolution against Israel, Islamophobia, Israel, Israeli settlements, Theresa May and Islamists, Theresa May and Israel, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: Antisemitism, Britain, Britain and Islamists, Britain and Israel, Britain and UN Security Council resolution against Israel, Islamophobia, Israel, Israeli settlements, Theresa May and Islamists, Theresa May and Israel, UN and Israel, UN Security Council

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