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The Pope and the Palestinians

May 20, 2015

The Pope and the Palestinians, Front Page Magazine, William Kilpatrick, May 20, 2015

(The article also deal with Islam in general, as to which the Pope’s fantasies reflect those of the Obama Administration and others. — DM)

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Perhaps the ultimate expression of this faith in Islam was Pope Francis’ assertion in Evangelii Gaudium that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

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Contrary to reports in the mainstream press, Pope Francis did not call Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas “an angel of peace.” The correct translation of the pope’s words is “I have thought of you: that you could be an angel of peace.”

Why, then, was it so easy to believe the initial reports? Perhaps because the initial reports seemed to align with previous papal overtures to Palestinian leaders. Pope Francis had previously called Abbas a “man of peace,” he has shown sympathy for Palestinian grievances, and other popes have given the appearance of lending legitimacy to the Palestinian cause. For example, Pope John Paul II is reported to have received PLO leader Yasser Arafat on twelve different occasions.

Arafat was a terrorist. One would think that the Vatican would have wanted to limit its contacts with him. The same goes for Abbas. He has repeatedly honored and praised Palestinian “martyrs” who have slaughtered innocent Jews. There is evidence that he helped fund the 1972 operation that killed eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Why is he accorded such a cordial reception at the Vatican?

Although the Church has often declared its spiritual bond with Jews, it has had a less harmonious relationship with the nation where approximately half the world’s Jews now reside. The Vatican was the last Western government to accord diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel (in 1993). In addition, on several occasions, prominent prelates have likened Israel to King Herod, the murderer of innocents; and others have accused Israel of being an apartheid state. Meanwhile, Catholic NGOs such as Pax Christi and Trocaire have been major players in the boycott, divest, and sanctions campaign against Israel.

Of course, the BDS campaign directly impinges on Israeli security. So do the calls by numerous Christian leaders to tear down the security barrier that divides Israel from the West Bank. On his trip to the Holy Land a year ago, Pope Francis allowed himself to be photographed in prayer at a section of the wall where a large graffiti message compared Bethlehem to the Warsaw Ghetto. In a naïve gesture of solidarity with Palestinians, the pope was unwittingly lending credence to the idea that the Israelis could be compared to the Nazi occupiers of Poland.

The wall was constructed to prevent suicide attacks against Israeli citizens. It’s estimated that its construction has saved thousands of lives. To suggest that the wall is offensive, as many Christians have done, is to suggest that Jewish lives don’t matter. Moreover, such judgments betray an entirely lopsided view of the situation. Take the Gaza conflict. The Catholic hierarchy typically had little to say about the daily rocket barrages launched against Israeli citizens from Gaza, but it was quick to condemn Israel on those occasions when it finally retaliated. In a similar vein, Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, blamed last year’s Gaza war on the Israeli embargo which, he said, had turned Gaza into “a factory of desperate people, designed to easily turn into extremists.”

In short, many Catholic leaders have shown a tendency to blame Israel for defending itself. The implication, of course, is that there would be no need for defense if Israel would only go to the peace table and make the concessions demanded of it by the Palestinians. The Vatican’s recent recognition of the “State of Palestine” reflects this naïve view of the situation. The supposition is that the Palestinians only want to be left in peace, whereas there is abundant evidence that the deepest desire of Palestinian leaders is for the extermination of Israel. Have Vatican officials never seen the photos of Abbas holding up a map of Palestine that encompasses all of the territory currently known as Israel? Are they unaware that he has personally called for a Palestine that is Judenrein? Didn’t they notice that when Israel gambled on disengaging from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Gaza soon turned into a terrorist state governed by an obsession to destroy Israel?

From the Israeli point of view, the call to cooperate with the Palestinian “peace” agenda is a call to cooperate in its own demise. Whenever I hear a UN representative or a Vatican spokesman call for peace talks between Israel and Palestine, I think of that scene from Goldfinger in which James Bond is about to be sliced in two by a laser beam. “Do you expect me to talk?” he asks. “No, Mr. Bond,” replies Goldfinger, “I expect you to die.” The Vatican hasn’t yet grasped the point that the Palestinian leadership doesn’t want the Israelis to talk, it wants them to die.

By words and by actions, the Vatican continues to suggest that there is a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This policy not only does a disservice to Jews, it also does a disservice to Catholics and other Christians. The main effect of the moral equivalence stance is to sow confusion among Catholics at a time when they need to be clear and unconfused—clear about Islam, that is. The Vatican policy toward Palestine reflects it overall stance toward the Islamic world. In other words, let’s overlook the dark side—the terrorism, the anti-Semitism, the oppression of Christians and other minorities—and let’s put the best face on the Mohammedan faith. For the sake of peace. And also for the sake of maintaining the threadbare narrative that Islam is a close cousin of Catholicism and, therefore, a religion of peace. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this faith in Islam was Pope Francis’ assertion in Evangelii Gaudium that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

How well has this policy worked? Not very. Catholics and other Christians who lived in Muslim lands and who took seriously the Catholic version of “this has nothing to do with Islam” soon found that the tiny minority of misunderstanders were legion and had murder on their minds. Many found out too late. Years of indoctrination in the myth of Islam’s pacific nature had left them unprepared for the violence. Not that the Church was the only culprit. The secular opinion-makers had been preaching the same gospel. The irony is that the Church wants Israel to adopt the same policy of make-believe about Islam that has contributed to the death and displacement of millions of Christians.

The policy requires an almost total denial of facts. In the case of the Arab-Israeli crisis it means ignoring the terrorist ties of the Palestinian government, its unity coalition with Hamas, the massive state-sponsored indoctrination of Palestinian children, and the oft-stated goal of eliminating Israel. Ironically, it also necessitates that one ignore the ongoing persecution of Christians in the Palestinian territories.

The Palestinian leaders do a good job of hijacking Christian themes and imagery in order to gull Christians into thinking that they are, indeed, brothers in Christ. Thus, Palestinians have milked the massacre-of-the-innocents meme for all its worth. They also like to claim that Jesus was the first Palestinian. Another favorite theme is that the Palestinian people are the “new Jesus” who is being crucified by the Israelis.

Many in the Catholic hierarchy seem to fall for the ruse, but the steady exodus of Christians from the Palestinian territories tells a different story. The overall population of Christians in the Palestinian areas has declined from 15 percent in 1950 to 2 percent today. After the Palestinian Authority took control over Bethlehem in 1995, the Christian population there declined by half. In the Gaza Strip, only a few hundred Christians remain. That’s because Christians in Palestine, like Christians in most Muslim-majority societies, are treated as second-class citizens—subject to rape, intimidation, and legalized theft.

Meanwhile, the Christian population of Israel continues to grow. Palestinian Christians want to live there and so do persecuted Christians in other parts of the Middle East. Despite years of propaganda to the contrary, they have come to realize that Israel is a safe haven in a world of Islamic chaos.

Do Christians who migrate to Israel know something that the Vatican doesn’t know? The facts are there for everyone to see, but not everyone sees them. Why do Catholic leaders persist in assigning moral equivalence when there is no moral equivalence? Normally, a belief in moral equivalence grows out of a relativistic outlook. But presumably we can rule that out in the case of Catholic prelates. A more likely cause of their moral neutrality is a misapplication of the principle of “judge not.” Christians today are highly conscious of the sins of Western civilization and are therefore reluctant to judge those who lie outside it—in this case, Muslims. However, the principle is meant to apply to judgments about the state of an individual’s soul, not his behavior. And it was never meant to apply to withholding judgments about ideologies and belief systems.

The reluctance to see the mote in the other’s eye can eventually slide over into willful blindness. There are numerous warnings in the New Testament about spiritual blindness and they apply to those within the Church as well as to those without. The big danger for Church leaders is not that they will be seen as judgmental in the eyes of the world, but that they will be seen as foolishly naïve in the eyes of history.

“First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday” is a well-known slogan in the Middle East. It means that after the Islamists finish with the Jews, they will come after the Christians. The fate of the Saturday people and the Sunday people is intertwined. And the fate of both is put in jeopardy when Christian leaders insist on holding on to a fantasy-based picture of Islam.

Categories: Abbas, Antisemitism, Appeasement, Christianity, Christians, Diversity, Fatah, Foreign policy, Freedom, Gaza, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Pope, Terrorism, Two state solution, West Bank
Tags: Abbas, Antisemitism, Appeasement, Christianity, Christians, DIversity, Fatah, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Gaza, human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Pope, Terrorism, Two state solution, West Bank

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How the Islamic Republic Is Manipulating the U.S.

May 19, 2015

How the Islamic Republic Is Manipulating the U.S., Front Page Magazine, Majid Rafizadeh, May 19, 2015

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Rouhani and the moderate camp have persuaded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that superficial diplomatic ties with the Obama administration will, in fact, empower the Islamic Republic, further its hegemonic ambitions, and raise Tehran’s economic status without the need for the Iranian leaders to give up on their revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

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There is a crucial Machiavellian (but not a strategic) tactical shift in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and its pursuit of regional preeminence.

First of all, Iranian leaders have realized that by superficially showing the Obama administration that the Islamic Republic is willing to restore diplomatic ties with his administration, they can in fact further advance their ideological and national interests.

Second, knowing that President Obama is desperate for a “historic” nuclear deal and the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, Iranian leaders have played the role very well by attempting to satisfy President Obama’s empty goals.

Third, the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic became cognizant of the fact that dealing with the Obama administration does not necessarily mean that they have to give up anything with respect to its domestic suppression, revolutionary Islamist principles, human rights abuses, regional hegemonic ambitions, anti-Americanism, hatred towards Israel, and foreign policy objectives.

The tactical shift, currently, is to satisfy President Obama’s personal and shallow objectives by allowing him to project that he is making historic moves (such speaking on the phone with the Iranian leaders), while simultaneously pursuing their own ideological objectives.

For example, most recently, Rouhani and the Obama administration agreed on opening new diplomatic offices in Tehran and Washington. For President Obama, opening diplomatic offices can be viewed as another “historic move” cited in his records or on his Wikipedia page. From the perspective of Iranian leaders, it is a crucial pillar for the advancement of Iran’s foreign policy and ideological objectives in the region without pressure from the US.

To pursue their objectives more efficiently, Iranian leaders have agreed to meet frequently with the diplomats at the highest level of the Obama administration, “negotiating,” and having some of their interactions publicly televised on American and Western media. In addition, the American and the Iranian flags are repeatedly shown next to each other in the high level meetings.

These moves, in fact, give legitimacy to the theocratic regime to further its ambitions.

The president was also delighted to make another “historic move” by speaking on the phone with his Iranian counterpart, President Hassan Rouhani. (One would wonder what a great accomplishment it is to pick up a phone and call another president.)

Washington and Tehran broke diplomatic ties in 1979. After the hostage crisis, high American officials and diplomats have not set foot on the Iranian soil due to Iran’s continuous violation of international norms and anti-Americanism.

Nevertheless, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have decided to turn a blind eye on Iran’s egregious human rights abuses, aggressiveness and violations of international laws.

In another shallow move, Kerry claimed to be proud to set foot on Iranian “territory.” He met with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, Gholamali Khoshroo, in New York.

Instead of attempting to change the behavior of the Ayatollahs and their revolutionary principles, President Obama and Kerry are satisfied with these superficial “historic moves.”

Since Iran’s political establishments and policies are driven, not solely by national and geopolitical interests, but also by ideological Islamist (Shiite) principles, hardliners and the office of the Supreme Leader will always view a real rapprochement with the US as taboo.

Restoring full diplomatic ties can also be analyzed as betraying the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic, which were based on anti-Americanism, as well as their opposition to Western models of socio-political and socio-economic landscapes.

From the perspective of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who has the final say in foreign policy decisions — genuine diplomatic ties with the US will lead to the empowerment of Iranian civil society and secular factions. From the prism of the senior cadre of the IRGC, relationships with the American government might lead to the opening of the Iranian market, endangering the economic monopoly of IRGC institutions.

On the other hand, Rouhani and his technocrat team, who share the same objectives with the hardliners and want to preserve the interests of the Islamic Republic, came to the realizations that satisfying President Obama’s superficial and shallow objectives of “historic moves,” can indeed assist them in advancing their ambitions.

In conclusion, similar to the ongoing nuclear negotiations, Rouhani and the moderate camp have persuaded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that superficial diplomatic ties with the Obama administration will, in fact, empower the Islamic Republic, further its hegemonic ambitions, and raise Tehran’s economic status without the need for the Iranian leaders to give up on their revolutionary principles, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.

Categories: Antisemitism, Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Human rights, Ideology, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Obama, P5+1, Rouhani, Supreme Leader, Theocracy
Tags: Antisemitism, Foreign Policy, Funding terrorism, human rights, Ideology, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Obama, Rouhani, Supreme leader, Theocracy

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Liberating Our Jerusalem

May 18, 2015

Liberating Our Jerusalem, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 17, 2015

[T]here are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

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When Jordan’s Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city– the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

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Since then, the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is, however, standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as “settlers” living in “settlements,” and describe them as an “obstruction to peace.” Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as “settlements” is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to tip his hat to. How does one have “settlements” in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that, you would have to ask London and Washington D.C., where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough, this religion’s name isn’t even Islam– it’s diplomacy.

Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that, when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while, when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.

Vice President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, “It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice President who didn’t deserve that.” David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an “affront” and an “insult.” Two for the price of one.

Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration.”Israel’s Provocation”, the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a “diplomatic bomb” that went off in Biden’s face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.

Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It’s in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It’s insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.

That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it’s completely and undeniably true.

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When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn’t come crying that he’s been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were, then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It’s only the Jews who are the problem.

The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it’s as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.

But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.

There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that’s just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.

How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting; real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset Vice Presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stop or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.

That’s the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you’re a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It’s the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It’s the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that’s worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.

In 1966, Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.

When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine Providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.

As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six-Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War fought with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.

Jerusalem-Scopus

Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.

As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that they are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.

Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.

Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.

Categories: Antisemitism, Appeasement, Biden, Britain, Diversity, Foreign policy, Human rights, International Community, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Kerry, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Settlements, Terrorists, Two state solution, West Bank
Tags: Antisemitism, Appeasement, Biden, Britain, DIversity, Ethnic cleansing, Foreign Policy, human rights, International Community, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Israel, Jerusalem, Jews, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Settlements, Terrorists, Two state solution, West Bank

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Kerry – North Korea can have a great nuke deal like Iran if it becomes as moderate

May 17, 2015

Kerry – North Korea can have a great nuke deal like Iran if it becomes as moderate, Dan Miller’s Blog, May 17, 2015

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

North Korea played those negotiating its denuclearization for fools, much as Iran has been doing more recently with Obama. It must not have been difficult to do. To continue the process with Iran, and to repeat it with North Korea, makes no sense.

Speaking in the People’s Republic of China on May 16th, Secretary Kerry offered North Korea a nuke deal —

Kerry explained that an Iran deal could help in showing North Korea how “your economy can do better, your country can do better, and you can enter into good standing with the rest of the global community by recognizing — ~~just like Iran~~ — that there is a verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization for weaponization, even as you can have a peaceful nuclear power program.”

Iran has not agreed to “a verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization for weaponization” and likely never will. On April 15th, Iran disputed the accuracy of the Obama Administration’s April 2nd “fact sheet,” which had made such claims about the deal. In the highly unlikely event that Iran were it to claim to do accept such terms, it would “cheat” as it has done in the past. In this video, John Bolton speaks about the “deal” with Iran as well as the North Korean connection.

Nevertheless, Iran has already received many of the rewards of essentially irreversible sanctions relief, including augmented power, both military and financial, in the Middle East.

A deal like the one Iran is about to get by virtue of the Iran scam should be welcomed by North Korea. The countries have long cooperated on nukes and missile development, a matter apparently ignored during Obama’s P5+1 “negotiations” with Iran.

Kerry also said,

the United States will continue to work with its partners “to make it absolutely clear to the DPRK that their actions, their destabilizing behavior — ~~unlike Iran’s~~ — is unacceptable against any international standard.” [Emphasis added.]

Iran’s destabilization efforts and successes are, in Kerry’s view, apparently not “against any international standard.” Yet Iran does far more regional destabilizing than does North Korea — North Korea mainly relies upon bellicose bluster (with infrequent military actions against South Korea). Iran — a major if not the most active sponsor of terrorism — sends its proxies throughout the Middle East while accusing America and others of destabilization. A likely “signing bonus” of up to fifty billion dollars for Iran if and when the “deal” is finalized will substantially further Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and power as well as its missile and nuclear weapons development.

Here’s a video of Iran having some fun:

According to Hossein Salami, Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Iran welcomes war with the United States:

This North Korean propaganda video purports to displays North Korean military prowess:

Conclusions

The rogue nations of Iran and North Korea are both intent upon maximizing their nuclear weapon capabilities. Both are totalitarian and have obscene human rights records. To trust either would be a gross mistake; yet that appears to be what Obama intends to do.

The only thing notably missing from Kerry’s offer is a requirement that North Korea abandon the Religion of Kim and adopt the glorious “Religion of Peace” instead. That would help North Korea to fit even better than at present into Obama’s policy of supporting America’s enemies and rejecting her friends. If Kim Jong-un would merely recognize Allah as the superior power, perhaps he could become the first Korean Ayatollah. Obama would probably be thrilled were North Korea to become the Democratic Islamic Republic of Korea (DIRK).

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, John Bolton, Kerry, Middle East, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama, P5+1, Religion, Terrorists, Theocracy
Tags: Foreign Policy, human rights, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, John Bolton, Middle East, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama, Religion, Sanctions, Terrorists, Theocracy

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Saudi Rapist in Colorado Says Sex Offender Program is Against His Religion

May 17, 2015

Saudi Rapist in Colorado Says Sex Offender Program is Against His Religion, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, May 17, 2015

Homaidan-al-Turki

Rape however isn’t against his religion.

Homaidan al-Turki’s entire defense strategy from the beginning was Islam. The member of a prominent Saudi family claimed that the prosecution was Islamophobic.

“We are Muslim. We are different. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors is a focal point of the prosecution.”

He had a point, because the behavior he was charged with was commonplace back in Saudi Arabia.

The victim slept on a mattress on the basement floor, was paid less than $2 a day, and Al-Turki eventually intimidated her into sex acts that culminated in her rape in late 2004, according to prosecutors.

Once in prison, the Saudis tried to get him transferred/released back home, but public outrage stopped that at least temporarily.

Now we’re apparently back to Al-Turki’s insistence that he shouldn’t have to undergo sex offender treatment.

Al-Turki told prison officials in 2013 that the sex offender treatment programme “conflicts with [his] Islamic faith”, according to a letter by the then executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements.

His lawyers told the court in the same year that the program: “would require [him] to look at photos that included women in bathing suits or undergarments as part of the evaluation process”, AP reported.

That would be the Abel Screening which is supposed to test for assorted deviancies. Undergoing it would be an important prerequisite to parole or transferring Al-Turki to a Saudi prison/resort.

Al-Turki’s people have rejected it because it would mean admitting that he did something wrong, also the group would be run by a woman and there are the photos of men, women and children in swimsuits.

Obviously Saudi mores and Islamic law say that Homaidan Al-Turki did nothing wrong. ISIS’ rapes and sex slaves show us how that works, but Saudi Arabia runs a low key version of the same thing.

The entire premise of the program is incompatible with Islam. It’s Islamophobic since it rejects the Islamic idea that Muslim men can rape non-Muslim women within the context of a hostile environment, especially in a non-Muslim country.

So we just have to decide between Saudi ISIS law and American law. It’s that simple.

Categories: Freedom, Human rights, Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Sharia law
Tags: Freedom, human rights, Islam, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Sharia law

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Cartoon of the day

May 17, 2015

Source: Jerusalem Post

Angel-of-Peace

Categories: Abbas, Human rights, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Pope
Tags: Abbas, human rights, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Pope

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Muslim Rape Gangs, Terrorists as ‘Pop-Idols,’ and the Trafficking of Children

May 17, 2015

Muslim Rape Gangs, Terrorists as ‘Pop-Idols,’ and the Trafficking of Children, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 17, 2015

(What is an “extremist?” — DM)

“The boys want to be like them [jihadists] and the girls want to be with them. That’s what they used to say about the Beatles… [Muslim teenagers] see their own lives as poor by comparison, and don’t realize they are being used.” — Nazir Afzal, Britain’s leading Muslim prosecutor.
“The extreme views of a ‘racist, homophobe and anti-Semite’ who supports killing non-Muslims and ‘stoning adulterers’ are being made available to prison imams and prisoners…with the blessing of [prison] authorities.” — Newsweekmagazine.
“Mohammed was selling me for £250 to paedophiles from all over the country. They came in, sat down and started touching me… Sometimes, I would be passed from one pervert to another… Mohammed’s defense was laughable… His barrister, a woman, implied I was a racist because all the defendants were Muslim.” — Excerpts from Girl for Sale, by Lara McDonnell.
“Democracy… violates the rights of Allah. Islam is the only real, working solution for the UK.” — Election posters in Cardiff, Wales.

What follows is a summary of some of Islam and Islam-related issues in Britain during April 2015, categorized into four broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism; 2) British multiculturalism; 3) Muslim integration; and 4) Muslims and the British general elections.

1. Islamic Extremism and Syria-Related Threats

British police believe that about 600 Britons have travelled to Syria and Iraq since the conflict began in early 2011. About half of those are believed to have returned to the UK.

On April 1, police in Turkey detained nine British nationals from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, who were allegedly seeking to join the Islamic State in Syria. The nine — five adults and four children, including a one-year-old baby — were arrested in the Turkish city of Hatay.

One of those arrested was Waheed Ahmed, a student of politics at Manchester University. His father Shakil, a Labour Party councilor in Rochdale, said he thought his son was doing an internship in Birmingham. He said:

“It’s a total mystery to me why he’s there, as I was under the impression he was on a work placement in Birmingham. My son is a good Muslim and his loyalties belong to Britain, so I don’t understand what he’s doing there. If I thought for a second that he was in danger of being radicalized I would have reported him to the authorities.”

Also on April 1, Erol Incedal, 27, a British national of Turkish origin, was jailed for 42 months for possessing a bomb-making manual. His friend, Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, 26, a British national of Algerian origin, who admitted to having the same manual, was given three years. Both men had been to the Syrian-Turkish border and mixed with jihadists, who taught them about weaponry and explosives.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the father of one of the three teenagers from Brent, northwest London, who were arrested in Turkey in March on suspicion of trying to join the Islamic State in Syria, works for the British Ministry of Defense. The father, who may have had access to the names and addresses of British military personnel at home and overseas, was placed on “compassionate leave.”

On April 2, Yahya Rashid, of Willesden, also in northwest London, was charged with “engaging in conduct in preparation for committing an act of terrorism, and engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting others to commit acts of terrorism, between November 2014 and March 2015.” Rashid, 19, was arrested at Luton Airport after arriving on a flight from Istanbul. The Middlesex University electronics student was allegedly returning from Syria after travelling there via Morocco and Turkey.

On April 3, six Muslims were arrested at the Port of Dover in Kent on suspicion of attempting to leave England to join the Islamic State. The Crown Prosecution Service said that three of the individuals were found in the back of a truck in an apparent attempt to smuggle themselves out of Britain. They were charged with “preparing acts of terrorism.”

On April 5, Abase Hussen, the father of runaway British jihadi schoolgirl Amira Hussen, conceded that his daughter may have become radicalized after he took her to an extremist rally organized by the banned Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun, run by Anjem Choudary, the British-born Muslim hate preacher.

Amira, 15, was one of three girls from Bethnal Green Academy in East London who flew to Turkey in February to become “jihadi brides” in Syria. During a hearing at the Home Affairs Select Committee in March, Abase blamed British authorities for failing to stop his daughter from running off to Syria. Asked by Chairman Keith Vaz if Amira had been exposed to any extremism, Hussen replied: “Not at all. Nothing.” The police eventually issued an apology.

Abase, however, changed his story after a video emerged which unmasked him as an Islamic radical who had marched at an Islamist hate rally alongside Choudary and Michael Adebolajo, the killer of Lee Rigby. Abase, originally from Ethiopia, said he had come to Britain in 1999 “for democracy, for the freedom, for a better life for children, so they could learn English.”

On April 8, Alaa Abdullah Esayed of South London admitted to posting 45,600 tweets in support of the Islamic State in just one year. The tweets included pictures of dead bodies and encouraged children to arm themselves with weapons. Esayed’s tweets also included a poem, “Mother of the Martyr,” which advises parents on how to teach children about jihad. Esayed, 22, faces up to 14 years in prison for encouraging terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications.

On April 9, the families of two teenage boys from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, who are believed to have traveled to join the Islamic State, said that they were “in a state of profound shock” and deeply worried about the safety of their “ordinary Yorkshire lads.” The 17-year-old boys, Hassan Munshi and Talha Asmal, are believed to have gone to Syria after heading to Turkey on March 31. The boys reportedly told their relatives that they were going on a school trip, but instead used the Easter holidays as a “window of opportunity” to flee Britain.

On April 20, a 14-year-old schoolboy from Blackburn, Lancashire, became Britain’s youngest terror suspect. He was arrested in connection with an Islamic State-inspired terror plot in Melbourne, Australia. Police said messages found on his computer and mobile phone indicated a plan to attack the centenary celebrations of the Anzac landings at Gallipoli during the First World War. (Anzac Day — April 25 — marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.)

Also on April 20, police in Turkey arrested a British couple and their four young children on suspicion of seeking to travel to a part of Syria controlled by the Islamic State. Asif Malik, his wife Sara, and the four children — aged between 11 months and 7 years — were detained at a hotel in Ankara. Turkish officials said the family had crossed into Turkey from Greece on April 16 and that they had been detained after a tip-off from the British police.

On April 24, Hassan Munir of Bradford was jailed for 18 months for posting links to Dabiq, an Islamic State propaganda magazine, on his Facebook page. The court heard that Munir, 27, had ignored repeated warnings by Facebook and by police after he posted jihadist material, including items about beheadings. The judge said magazine posed a serious danger because it incited people to take up arms for the Islamic State.

On April 27, Mohammed Kahar of Sunderland was arrested after being caught disseminating extremist material, including documents such as “The Explosive Course,” “44 Ways To Serve And Participate In Jihad,” “The Book Of Jihad,” and “This Is The Province Of Allah.” Kahar, 37, was also accused of plotting Syria-related terrorism acts, supporting a proscribed organization and financing terrorism — in all, 10 offenses stretching back 18 months.

On April 28, an 18-year-old jihadist, Kazi Jawad Islam, was convicted of “terror grooming” for trying to “brainwash” his friend, Harry Thomas, “a vulnerable young man with learning difficulties,” into attacking British soldiers with a meat cleaver.

The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales (aka Old Bailey) was told that Kazi Islam — allegedly inspired by the beheading of serviceman Lee Rigby in 2013 — befriended the then-19-year-old Thomas in October 2013 after meeting him at college. The court heard how Islam also “ruthlessly exploited” his autistic friend into preparing to make a bomb.

In an interview with the Guardian, Nazir Afzal, Britain’s leading Muslim prosecutor, warned that more British children are at risk of “jihadimania” than previously thought because they see Islamic terrorists as “pop idols.” He said:

“The boys want to be like them and the girls want to be with them. That’s what they used to say about the Beatles and more recently One Direction and Justin Bieber. The propaganda the terrorists put out is akin to marketing, and too many of our teenagers are falling for the image.

“They see their own lives as poor by comparison, and don’t realize they are being used. The extremists treat them in a similar way to sexual groomers — they manipulate them, distance them from their friends and families, and then take them.

“Each one of them, if they go to Syria, is going to be more radicalised when they come back. And if they don’t go, they become a problem — a ticking time bomb — waiting to happen.”

2. British Multiculturalism

In April, officials at the Lostwithiel School in Cornwall publicly humiliated nearly a dozen pupils between the ages of eight and 11 whose parents had refused to allow them to participate in a school trip to a mosque in Exeter. Some parents said they were concerned about the safety of their children, while others said they were opposed to the teaching of Islam in school. But school officials forced the non-compliant pupils individually to give an explanation in the student assembly.

On April 5, Victoria Wasteney, 38, a Christian healthcare worker, launched an appeal against an employment tribunal that found she had “bullied” a Muslim colleague by praying for her and inviting her to church. Wasteney was suspended from her job as a senior occupational therapist at the John Howard Centre, a mental health facility in east London, after her colleague, Enya Nawaz, 25, accused her of trying to convert her to Christianity. Wasteney’s lawyers say that the tribunal broke the law by restricting her freedom of conscience and religion, which is enshrined in Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

On April 8, the Guardian reported that there has been a 60% increase in child sexual abuse reported to the police over the past four years, according to official figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request that make public for the first time the scale of the problem in England and Wales.

The number of offenses of child sexual abuse reported to the police soared from 5,557 cases in 2011 to 8,892 in 2014. At the same time, the number of arrests for child sexual abuse offenses in England and Wales fell from 3,511 in 2011 to 3,208 — a drop of 9%.

The biggest increase in reported cases in a single police force over the past four years took place in South Yorkshire. The force saw an increase of 577% in cases from 74 in 2011 to 501 in 2014, apparently reflecting the exposure of the Muslim sexual abuse scandal in Rotherham.

On April 14, the president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lord Neuberger, said in a speech that Muslim women should be allowed to wear veils in court. He added that in order to show fairness to those involved in trials, judges must have “an understanding of different cultural and social habits.” He said:

“Well known examples include how some religions consider it inappropriate to take the oath, how some people consider it rude to look other people in the eye, how some women find it inappropriate to appear in public with their face uncovered, and how some people deem it inappropriate to confront others or to be confronted — for instance with an outright denial.”

Neuberger’s comments came after a judge upheld a ruling allowing Rebekah Dawson, a 22-year-old convert to Islam, to stand trial wearing a niqab, a veil that only leaves the eyes visible.

On April 15, Newsweek magazine reported that the “extreme views of a ‘racist, homophobe and anti-Semite’ who supports killing non-Muslims and ‘stoning adulterers’ are being made available to prison imams and prisoners throughout England and Wales, with the blessing of [prison] authorities.”

The magazine interviewed Haras Rafiq, managing director of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank, who warned that British prisons have become “incubators for Islamic extremism” because inmates are being allowed to read the works of controversial South Asian cleric Abul Ala Maududi. Rafiq described Maududi, who died in 1979, as the “grandfather of Islamism.”

Newsweek discovered that hundreds of copies of Maududi’s analyses of the Koran were distributed in March at a training event for prison imams and chaplains held at the prison service college in Rugby. The books came from the Markfield Institute for Higher Education, part of the Islamic Foundation, a UK-based organization that is “inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

On April 22, the Daily Mail published excerpts of a new book, Girl for Sale, which describes the shocking ordeal of Lara McDonnell, who became the victim of a Muslim paedophile gang when she was only 13 years old. She wrote:

“Mohammed was selling me for £250 to paedophiles from all over the country. They came in, sat down and started touching me. If I recoiled, Mohammed would feed me more crack so I could close my eyes and drift away. I was a husk, dead on the inside.

“Sometimes, I would be passed from one pervert to another. In Oxford, many of my abusers were of Asian origin; [in London] these men were Mediterranean, black or Arab.

“Then, at the start of 2012 [some five years after the abuse began], Thames Valley Police asked to see me. They had been conducting a long-overdue investigation into sexual exploitation of young girls and wanted a chat. I told them everything, and by the end of March, Mohammed and his gang were in custody. Unbeknown to me, five other girls were telling police the same story.

“Mohammed’s defense was laughable: he claimed I’d forced him to take drugs and have sex with me. His barrister, a woman, implied I was a racist because all the defendants were Muslim.

“Because the defendants were Muslim, the case had opened sensitive issues about race and religion. My view is clear: they behaved that way because of differences in how they viewed women.”

On April 25, the Telegraph reported that British taxpayers are paying the monthly rent for Hani al-Sibai, the Islamist preacher who “mentored” Mohammed Emwazi (aka Jihadi John, the Islamic State executioner). Al-Sibai, 54, a father of five, lives in a £1 million home in Hammersmith, a district in West London. According to the Telegraph:

“The public purse has also paid for a number of legal actions brought by al-Sibai against the British government in his battle to prevent his deportation to Egypt and also attempts to have his name removed from terror sanctions lists.

“From his home, al-Sibai, also known as Hani Youssef, runs an effective al-Qaeda propaganda machine that includes the al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies. In recent months he has used various Internet sites to praise bin Laden and glorify al-Qaeda for waging war against ‘the Crusader-Zionists.'”

Also in April, the Reverend David Robertson, who will soon take over as Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, wrote a hard-hitting essay on the Christian Today website in which he argued that “fear of Islamophobia is blinding many of our politicians to the threat we face from Islam.” Robertson wrote:

“Christianity is the bedrock and foundation of our secular society. Islam is different. Islam has no doctrine of separation of the spiritual from the political. Islam is, and has always been, a political movement. There can be no such thing as secular Islam. In the Islamic view the world is divided into two houses, Darus Salma, the house of Islam, and Darul Har, the house of war. The former is the actual area controlled by Islam, full political and religious control; the latter is those areas of the world still unsubdued by Islam. Islam means ‘submission,’ not peace.”

Robertson added:

“I recently attended a Monday night meeting at a mosque in my city. … I was impressed by what I observed. There were 150 mostly young men on a Monday night at a prayer meeting. This was not Friday prayers. This was only one of five mosques in the city. And there was a community, social and political aspect which was very impressive. But I was also depressed. Because I knew that there was no church in the city that would have 150 men coming to pray. Because I knew that there was no political or social organization in the city that could come remotely near matching what I observed. And this in a city where only 2 per cent of the population are Muslim. Imagine what power they can hold in a town or city where 25 per cent are Muslim?

“It’s not so much the numbers — government is not done by opinion poll. It’s the organization, social cohesion, wealth and internal discipline that brings the political power; if you want it. And Islam does. A survey was released this week which shows that in the UK as a whole Islam will be 11 per cent of the population within a couple of decades.”

3. Muslim Integration

On April 8, the Leicester Crown Court jailed Jafar Adeli, an Afghan asylum seeker, for 27 months after he admitted to attempting to meet “Amy,” an underage girl, after grooming her online. Adeli, 32, who is married, arranged to meet the girl after engaging in sexual conversations online and sending an indecent image of himself. But he was duped by a paedophile vigilante group called Letzgo Hunting. “Amy” was in fact a vigilante named John who was pretending to be a young girl.

Adeli, who has filed an appeal to remain in Britain, was placed on a ten-year sexual offenses prevention order. Judge Philip Head said: “It was your intention to have full sexual activity with someone you believed to be 14 and something you know to be a crime in this country. You were grooming this person for sexual activity.”

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Jafar Adeli (left), a 32-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, was jailed in April for 27 months, convicted of arranging to meet an underage girl for sexual relations. Pakistani-born Mohammed Khubaib (right), 43 was convicted in April of sexually grooming girls as young as 12 with food, cash, cigarettes and alcohol.

On April 10, Abukar Jimale, a 46-year-old father of four who sought asylum in the UK after fleeing war-torn Somalia, walked free after sexually assaulting a female passenger as he drove her across Bristol in his taxi. Although Jimale was found guilty of sexual assault and causing a person to engage in sexual activity without her consent, he had his two-year sentence suspended. The defending counsel said that Jimale, who left Somalia in 2001 because he was being persecuted, was a hard-working father who had lost his job and good name as a result of the offenses.

On April 13, Mohammed Khubaib, a Pakistani-born father of five, was convicted of grooming girls as young as 12 with food, cash, cigarettes and alcohol. The 43-year-old married businessman, who lived in Peterborough with his wife and children, befriended girls in his restaurant and then “hooked” them with alcohol — normally vodka — in an attempt to make them “compliant” to sexual advances.

After a trial at the Old Bailey, Khubaib was found guilty of forcing a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him and nine counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation involving girls aged from 12 to 15 between November 2010 and January 2013.

On April 14, Mohammed Ali Sultan, 28, of Wellington, Telford, was sentenced to five years in prison after having been found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of attempted rape. The sentence is in addition to a seven-year sentence after he pled guilty to two counts of sexual activity with a child and one count of controlling child prostitution in 2012.

On April 22, four Muslim men were charged with sex crimes against children in Rochdale. Hadi Jamel, 33, of Rochdale, Abid Khan, 38, of Liverpool, Mohammed Zahid, 54, of Rochdale, and Raja Abid Khan, 38, of Rochdale, were each been charged with one count of sexual activity with a child. The charges relate to alleged offenses against one girl who was under 16 at the time.

The charges are the latest to be brought following Operation Doublet, a probe by the Major Incident Team of the Greater Manchester Police into allegations of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale. In March 2015, ten men were charged with sex offenses alleged to have been committed against the girl and six others.

On April 23, Britain’s Electoral Court found Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, guilty of election fraud and ordered him to vacate his post immediately. The Bangladesh-born Rahman and his supporters were found to have used religious intimidation through local imams, vote-rigging and wrongly branding his Labour rival as a racist to secure his re-election for a second term on May 24, 2014.

Rahman, who has been banned from seeking office again, was also found to have allocated local grants to buy votes. He was ordered to pay immediate costs of £250,000 ($390,000) from a bill expected to reach £1 million.

On April 23, the Birmingham Crown Court sentenced Imran Uddin, 25, a student at the University of Birmingham, to four months in jail for hacking into the university computer system to improve his grades. Uddin used keyboard spying devices to steal staff passwords and then increased his grades on five exams. Uddin is believed to be the first ever British student to be jailed for cheating.

On April 23, a jury at Chester Crown Court heard how Masood Mansouri, 33, from Saltney, Flintshire allegedly kidnapped and raped a 20-year-old woman, from Mochdre, near Colwyn Bay, after pretending to be a taxi driver to a woman trying to hail a cab. Five days later, the woman took a fatal overdose, the court heard. Mansouri denied all the charges.

On April 28, Aftab Ahmed, 44, of Winchcombe Place, Heaton, was charged with threatening to behead David Robinson-Young, a candidate for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Newcastle East.

4. Muslims and the British General Elections

On April 4, the Telegraph reported that a front group for Muslim extremists boasted that it would act as “kingmaker” in the May 7 general election, and that it was “negotiating with the Tory and Labour leadership” to secure its demands.

According to the paper, Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) built links with both parties after claiming to promote “democratic engagement” by Muslims. However, it was actually “a façade to win political access and influence for individuals holding extreme, bigoted and anti-democratic views.”

During a MEND event on April 3, a man named Abu Eesa Niamatullah, who has called British people “animals,” demanded that women should not work, attacked democracy and said that “the Creator is the one who should decide what the laws should be.”

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband, the Labour Party’s candidate for prime minister, vowed to ban “Islamophobia” if he emerged victorious in the elections. In an interview with The Muslim News, Miliband said:

“We are going to make it [Islamophobia] an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime.

“We are going to change the law on this so we make it absolutely clear of our abhorrence of hate crime and Islamophobia. It will be the first time that the police will record Islamophobic attacks right across the country.”

The move — which one observer called “utterly frightening” because of its implications for free speech in Britain — was widely viewed as part of an effort by Miliband to pander to Muslim voters.

Previously, Home Secretary Theresa May pledged that if the Conservatives win the elections, every police force in England and Wales would be required to record anti-Muslim hate crimes as a separate category, as is already the case with anti-Semitic crimes.

In Derby, Gulzabeen Afsar, a Muslim candidate for the town council, sparked outrage after she referred to Ed Miliband as “the Jew,” in comments made in Arabic.

Meanwhile, the British-born Islamist Anjem Choudary actively discouraged Muslims from voting. In a stream of Twitter messages using the #StayMuslimDontVote hashtag, Choudary argued that voting is a “sin” against Islam because Allah is “the only legislator.” He has also said that Muslims who vote or run for public office are “apostates.”

Other British Islamists followed Choudary’s lead. Bright yellow posters claiming that democracy “violates the right of Allah” were spotted in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, and Leicester, as part of a grassroots campaign called #DontVote4ManMadeLaw.

One such poster stated:

“Democracy is a system whereby man violates the right of Allah and decides what is permissible or impermissible for mankind, based solely on their whims and desires.

“Islam is the only real, working solution for the UK. It is a comprehensive system of governance where the laws of Allah are implemented and justice is observed.”

Categories: Antisemitism, Britain, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Sharia law
Tags: Antisemitism, Britain, child sexual abuse, human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic supremacy, Islamic war on women, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Sharia law

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Pope calls Abbas ‘angel of peace’ during Vatican visit

May 16, 2015

Pope calls Abbas ‘angel of peace’ during Vatican visit, Times of Israel, May 16, 2015

(Update: According to an article at PJ Media, the words weren’t precisely as reported. Instead, the Pope said “May the angel of peace destroy the evil spirit of war. I thought of you: may you be an angel of peace.” For the Pope, in the course of recognizing “Palestine,” even to express a hope that Abbas may be an “angel of peace” seems as odd as expressing a hope that a rattlesnake may be a good and friendly companion for one’s children. — DM)

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

(The Pope seems to have an odd sense of humor. — DM)

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Pope Francis welcomes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a private audience on May 16, 2015 in Vatican (AFP Pphoto pool/Alberto Pizzoli)

Pope Francis praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as an “angel of peace” during a meeting at the Vatican.

Francis made the compliment Saturday during the traditional exchange of gifts at the end of an official audience in the Apostolic Palace. He presented Abbas with a medallion and explained that it represented the angel of peace “destroying the bad spirit of war.”

Francis said he thought the gift was appropriate since “you are an angel of peace.”

Abbas is in town for the canonization Sunday of two new saints from what was then Ottoman-ruled Palestine. It also comes days after the Vatican finalized a bilateral treaty with the “state of Palestine,” making explicit its recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Abbas, for his part, offered Francis relics of the two new saints.

Vatican-Palestinians_Horo-e1431781749661

Pope Francis exchanges gifts with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas during an audience at the Vatican Saturday, May 16, 2015. (Alberto Pizzoli/Pool Photo via AP)

The treaty, which was finalized Wednesday but still has to be signed, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic relations from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.

A bilateral commission is putting the final touches to the agreement, on the Catholic Church’s life and activities in Palestine, which then “will be submitted to the respective authorities for approval ahead of setting a debate in the near future for the signing,” the Vatican said on Wednesday.

Some observers speculated that the agreement could be signed during Abbas’s visit.

The news of the treaty immediately drew ire from Israel.

“Israel heard with disappointment the decision of the Holy See to agree a final formulation of an agreement with the Palestinians including the use of the term ‘Palestinian State’,” said an Israeli foreign ministry official.

“Such a development does not further the peace process and distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct bilateral negotiations. Israel will study the agreement and consider its next step.”

The agreement, 15 years in the making, expresses the Vatican’s “hope for a solution to the Palestinian question and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians according to the two-state solution,” Antoine Camilleri, the Holy See’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview earlier this week.

In an interview with the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano newspaper, Camilleri said he hoped “the accord could, even in an indirect way, help the Palestinians in the establishment and recognition of an independent, sovereign and democratic State of Palestine.”

The Palestinian Authority considers the Vatican one of 136 countries to have recognized Palestine as a state, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

Abbas’s visit came a day before two nuns who lived in Ottoman Palestine during the 19th century will be made saints at a Vatican ceremony.

Marie Alphonsine Ghattas of Jerusalem and Mariam Bawardy of Galilee will become the first Palestinian Arabs to gain sainthood.

Ghattas was born in Jerusalem in 1847, and died there in 1927. She was beatified — the final step before canonization — in 2009.

Bawardy was born in Galilee, now in northern Israel, in 1843. She became a nun in France and died in Bethlehem in 1878.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1983.

Although there are several saints who lived in the region during Christianity’s early days, Bawardy and Ghattas are the first to be canonized from Ottoman-era Palestine.

The canonization of a third Palestinian — a Salesian monk — is still under review by the Church.

Categories: Abbas, Christians, Human rights, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Pope, Two state solution
Tags: Abbas, Christians, human rights, Israel, Palestinians, Pope, Two state solution

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Kerry: Iran Nuclear Deal Could Be Lesson for North Korea

May 16, 2015

Kerry: Iran Nuclear Deal Could Be Lesson for North Korea, ABC News, Matthew Lee, May 16, 2015

(Please say that you will stop destabilizing the region, have a good human rights record and become moderate like The Islamic Republic of Iran and we will grant all concessions you seek. Pretty please? — DM)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday he is hopeful that the successful conclusion of a nuclear deal with Iran will send a positive message to North Korea to restart negotiations on its own atomic program.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, Kerry said he believed an Iran agreement could have “a positive influence” on North Korea, because it would show that giving up nuclear weapons improves domestic economies and ends isolation. He stressed, though, that there was no way to tell if North Korea’s reclusive leadership would be able to “internalize” such a message.

“I am sure Foreign Minister Wang would join me in expressing the hope that if we can get an agreement with Iran, … that agreement would indeed have some impact or have a positive influence” on North Korea, Kerry said.

Although Wang did not appear to respond, Kerry explained that an Iran deal could help in showing North Korea how “your economy can do better, your country can do better, and you can enter into good standing with the rest of the global community by recognizing that there is a verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization for weaponization, even as you can have a peaceful nuclear power program.”

“Hopefully that can be a message, but whether or not DPRK is capable of internalizing that kind of message or not, that’s still to be proved,” he said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

International negotiators are rushing to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of June under which Iran’s program would be curbed to prevent it from developing atomic weapons in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions that have crippled its economy.

Nuclear talks with North Korea, which has already developed atomic weapons despite previous attempts to forestall it, broke down three years ago as it has continued atomic tests and other belligerent behavior, including ballistic missile launches.

North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is now believed to have at least 10 such weapons despite some of the toughest international sanctions in existence. It conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013, and U.S.-based experts forecast that it could increase its nuclear arsenal to between 20 and 100 weapons by 2020.

Kerry travels on Sunday to South Korea, where North Korea will be a major topic of discussion.

He said the United States will continue to work with its partners “to make it absolutely clear to the DPRK that their actions, their destabilizing behavior is unacceptable against any international standard.”

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Kerry, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, P5+1
Tags: Foreign Policy, human rights, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes

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The Failed Tactic of Flattering Islam Won’t Go Away

May 11, 2015

The Failed Tactic of Flattering Islam Won’t Go Away, Front Page Magazine, Bruce Thornton, May 11, 2015

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The recent attack in Texas against a “draw Mohammed” event ended up with two dead jihadis and widespread criticism of event organizer Pamela Geller for “inciting” or “provoking” the assault on our First Amendment right to free speech. The hypocrisies and ignorance behind such criticism have been amply documented, including by some on the left. But there’s another argument against actions and events like Geller’s that needs dismantling. This is the received wisdom that we should avoid criticizing Islamic doctrine or Mohammed because it will alienate moderate Muslims who otherwise would help us against the so-called “extremist” jihadists.

Geraldo Rivera on Fox News invoked this rationale in his hysterical attack on Geller for “spewing her hatred and making us all look like the intolerant jerks they are saying we are in the Middle East and elsewhere.” In other words, most Muslims dislike the jihadis, who have “hijacked” and “distorted” their faith, and want to support our efforts against them. But they are put off by our “insults” of Mohammed and our “intolerance” of the wonderful “religion of peace,” all of which serve to “recruit” new jihadists. Even Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham skirted this notion, advising against making any image of Mohammed, and thus in effect ratifying the legitimacy of the shari’a law against any representation of Mohammed, good or bad.

Consistent with this notion that flattery and respect can change Muslim behavior, many in the foreign policy establishment, including conservatives, have for decades counseled flattering “outreach” to Muslims as a tactic in winning the “hearts and minds” of the supposed large majority of Muslims angry at the jihadists’ “distortions” of their faith. Even before 9/11, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, called Islam “a faith that honors consultation, cherishes peace, and has as one of its fundamental principles the inherent equality of all who embrace it.” Even after 9/11 confirmed Islam’s traditional theologized violence and intolerance, George Bush claimed in his first address after 9/11 that Islam’s “teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.” In 2005, administration officials encouraged this tactic of false flattery as a way “to support the courageous Muslims who are speaking the truth about their proud religion and history, and seizing it back from those who would hijack it for evil ends.”

Of course Obama, who has serially groveled before Muslims and praised Islam, has continued this sorry practice. After his administration blamed the Benghazi murders on an obscure Internet video, he lectured that “the future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.” The 2 gunmen in Garland Texas obviously agreed. His quondam Secretary of State and now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is on record extolling Islam’s “deepest yearning of all––to live in peace.” How is that going in Nigeria, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan? Worse of all, training materials used by our military and security services have excised any mention of jihad, which Western infidels have redefined as “a quest to find one’s faith in an external fight for justice,” as the New York Times put it in 2008. So Obama identifies the 13 slaughtered at Fort Hood to the traditional jihadist cry of “Allahu Akbar” as victims of “workplace violence.” Never mind the Koranic command to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush”––exactly what various jihadi outfits are doing today across the Middle East, and tried to do in Garland Texas.

Two decades of such flattery and admiration have failed to prevent nearly 26,000 violent jihadist attacks since 9/11, for they are based on Western bad ideas rather than on an accurate understanding of Islamic doctrine and the Muslim mentality. Behind our delusions is the peculiarly arrogant assumption that traditionalist Muslims––by which I mean those who take seriously the doctrines and precepts of their faith has practiced for 14 centuries––do not have their own motives and aims, but can only react to our bad behavior. Besotted by our own materialist superstitions and failure to take religion seriously, we reduce jihadist behavior to material and psychological causes: wounded self-esteem, resentment of “colonial” and “imperial” crimes, disrespect of Islam, or the lack of jobs, political freedom, or even sexual access to women.

Thus despite consistent polling data showing widespread Muslim support of illiberal shari’a law and its draconian penalties like death for blasphemy, we won’t accept that millions of Muslims actually believe what the Koran, Hadith, and 14 centuries of jurisprudence teach about the superiority of Islam and their right to use violence in order to bring the whole world under the sway of the superior social, economic, and political order that shari’a represents. In the guise of “respecting” Muslims, then, we patronize them as little more than children who can only “act out” violently in the face of injustice instead of “using their words.” Having reduced our own faith to holidays and comforting slogans, we simply can’t believe that Islam endorses violence and cruelty in the name of Allah, or that otherwise loving and kind people, as bin Laden was said to have been by all who knew him, can at the same time slaughter and brutalize innocents in pursuit of spiritual aims. No, either they are “crazy” or “evil,” or they are traumatized by our bad behavior.

This dubious pop-psychological assumption is usually accompanied by a catalogue of the historical crimes against Muslims perpetrated by the West, from the Crusades to the wars against the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. These depredations, so the story goes, also fuel anger and resentment, and help to incentivize otherwise peaceful Muslims into turning jihadist. But this narrative is belied by the facts of history. For what history tells us is that the record of Muslim conquest, occupation, colonizing, slaving, raiding, and killing of Christians far surpasses the alleged crimes of the West against Islam. We recently marked the centenary of the Ottoman genocide against the Christian Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans, a crime being duplicated today by ISIS in northern Iraq. Recently our historically challenged president whined about the Crusades and the Inquisition, with nary a word about the centuries of Muslim invasion, occupation, colonization, and brutal suppression in Christian Spain, Sicily, the Balkans, and Greece.

Or what about the 1066 pogrom in Granada, the alleged paradise of “pan-confessional humanism,” as an ignorant Wall Street Journal editorial claimed a few years back. Those tolerant, humanist Muslims slaughtered 5000 Jews, equaling the toll of dead during the whole existence of the Inquisition. But can anyone name one Muslim religious leader in the Middle East who has publicly and consistently apologized in Obama fashion for these 14 centuries of slaughter? Who has justified our defensive wars in the region as an understandable reaction to that history? Who has chastised Muslims for destroying and desecrating churches, and blamed them for inviting violent reactions? Muslim Turkey won’t even own up to its copiously documented slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians. If anyone has a historical grievance that justifies payback, it is Christians and Jews.

Finally, if Western insults and crimes against Muslims are really the reason jihadists want to kill us, why do they let Russia off the hook? No Christian power has killed more Muslims or occupied more Muslim lands than has Russia, from the siege of Izmail in 1790, when 40,000 Muslim men, women, and children were slaughtered, to the invasion of Afghanistan, which killed a million, to the brutal wars against Muslim Chechnyans, which killed at least 100,000. Or how about the 10 million Muslim Uighurs oppressed by China and forbidden to fully practice their faith? Is Russia or China the “Great Satan”? Are they the constant targets of jihadist attack and thundering denunciations by the mullahs of Iran? Are “moderate” Muslims “alienated” by their behavior and rushing to join the jihad against them?

The obvious answer is no, for the simple reason that Russia and China are contemptuous of such juvenile psychological blackmail, pursue their national interests without regard for criticism by the “Muslim community,” and respond with brutal force to violent attacks. Meanwhile the U.S. has rescued millions of Muslims in the Balkans, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan from brutal dictators, ethnic cleansing, and psychotic autocrats, yet is deemed “Islamophobic” because we exercise our Constitutional rights in our own country. Worse yet, we grovel and apologize and demonize those like Pamela Geller who practice their right to free expression at a private function, and we vainly believe despite all evidence that if we just act nice to Muslims and join them in demonizing their critics, they’ll ignore their spiritual beliefs, the traditions of their faith, and the model of Mohammed and his credo to “fight all men until they say there is no god but Allah.”

To paraphrase Cicero and Orwell, there are some things so stupid that only rich, arrogant Westerners will believe them. If we let this president continue to predicate his dealings with Iran on this same delusional belief in the power of flattering engagement and “mutual respect,” we will soon find out the high cost of this stupidity.

Categories: Blasphemy, Cartoonophobia, Christians, Diversity, Foreign policy, Heresy, History, Human rights, Ideology, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Obama, Sharia law, Terrorism
Tags: Blashphemy, Cartoonophobia, Christians, DIversity, Foreign Policy, Heresy, History, human rights, Ideology, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Multiculturalism, Muslims, Obama, PAMELA GELLER, Sharia law, Terrorism

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