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Pegida: The New German Revolution

January 15, 2015

Pegida: The New German Revolution, The Gatestone Institute, Peter Martino, January 15, 2015

Pegida’s worries about the Islamization of Germany concern the seeming intolerance and religious fanaticism that have grown hand in hand with the arrival of Muslim populations unwilling to adapt to Western values.

But by decrying Pegida’s views as “xenophobic,” “narrow minded” and even “inhuman,” Germany’s ruling establishment shows how deeply out of touch it is with the worries of a large segment of the population.

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

Pegida’s worries about the Islamization of Germany concern the seeming intolerance and religious fanaticism that have grown hand-in-hand with the arrival of the Muslim populations unwilling to adapt to Western values.

The terror attacks in France Had “nothing to do with Islam.” — German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière.

By decrying Pegida’s views as “xenophobic,” narrow minded” and even “inhuman,” Germany’s ruling establishment shows how deeply out of touch it is with the worries of a large segment of the population.

Perhaps the people in the East just want to avoid the situation that the Western part of the country is in. Having gone through decades of Communist dictatorship, perhaps they are less inclined to trust that their political leaders have the people’s best interests in mind with their policies.

Every Monday evening since last October, thousands of citizens have marched through the city of Dresden as well as other German cities to protest the Islamization of their country. They belong to an organization, established only three months ago, called Pegida, the German abbreviation for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.”

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PEGIDA on a Monday “evening walk” in Dresden, November 10, 2014. (Image source: Filmproduktionen video screenshot)

Pegida is a democratic grassroots organization, without origins in the far-left, far-right or links to any political parties, domestic or foreign. The French Front National [FN] of Marine Le Pen even made it clear that it wants nothing to do with “spontaneous initiatives” such as Pegida. According to the FN, “something like Pegida cannot be a substitute for a party.”

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders of the Freedom Party [PVV] is more positive. He sees Pegida as a sign of the growing discontent of ordinary people with the political elite now governing them. “A revolution is on its way,” he says. Ironically, Wilders’s PVV, currently by far the largest party in the Dutch polls, is itself more of a spontaneous movement, driven by the energy and charisma of one single man with a mission to liberate his country from Islamic extremism, rather than an established and structured political party.

That Pegida is a spontaneous and diffuse organization of citizens expressing their discontent, seems to be worrying the German political establishment. German Chancellor Angela Merkel knows how powerful these movements can become. In 1989, when thousands of people shouting, “Wir sind das Volk” [“We are the people”] took to the streets in cities such as Dresden, the Communist regime in East Germany was toppled.

Apart from slogans such as: “Against Religious Fanaticism,” and: “For the Future of our Children,” the anti-Islamization protesters of Pegida are using exactly the same slogan — “Wir sind das Volk” — of the anti-Communist demonstrators a quarter of a century ago, as they march against the open-door policies of the German government.

The use of the 1989 liberation slogan has infuriated Merkel, who reproaches Pegida for using it. In her New Year’s speech, Merkel attacked the Pegida demonstrators. “Their hearts are cold, full of prejudice and hatred,” she said, while defending her government’s policies of welcoming asylum seekers and immigrants. She pointed out that Germany had taken in more than 200,000 asylum seekers in 2014, making it the country that is accepting the largest number of refugees in the world.

Merkel has been backed by church leaders, who are slamming Pegida and calling for solidarity with migrants. The Confederation of German Employers has been blaming Pegida for damaging Germany’s international reputation. Meanwhile, so-called anti-fascist demonstrators, shouting “Wir sind die Mauer. Das Volk muss weg!” [“We are the Wall. Down with the people!”], last week blocked a Pegida march in Berlin.

On January 10, fearing that the recent Islamic terror attacks in France might lead to even more public support for Pegida, Dresden Mayor Helma Orosz, a member of Chancellor Merkel’s Christian-Democratic CDU Party, co-sponsored in her town a so-called “Lovestorm” event. The aim was to conquer the “xenophobia” of Pegida through “open mindedness and humanity.” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, another leading CDU politician, claimed that the terror attacks in France had “nothing to do with Islam” and warned against “political pyromaniacs” such as Pegida who suggest otherwise.

Pegida’s worries about the Islamization of Germany concern the seeming intolerance and religious fanaticism that have grown hand in hand with the arrival of Muslim populations unwilling to adapt to Western values.

But by decrying Pegida’s views as “xenophobic,” “narrow minded” and even “inhuman,” Germany’s ruling establishment shows how deeply out of touch it is with the worries of a large segment of the population.

A recent poll, dating from before the terror attacks in France, found that one in three Germans support the Pegida anti-Islamization marches. Further, a new study by the Bertelsmann Foundation found that German attitudes toward Islam are hardening, with 61% saying in 2014 that Islam is “not suited to the Western world” — up from 52% in 2012. Also, up to 57% of the Germans see Islam as a threat, 40% feel that they are becoming foreigners in their own country because of the Muslim presence, and 24% want to ban Muslim immigration.

Looking at the numbers of demonstrators that join the Pegida demonstrations every Monday in various German cities, Pegida is clearly an overwhelmingly East German phenomenon. Indeed, in the provinces formerly belonging to the Communist German Democratic Republic [GDR], many thousands of people are drawn to the demonstrations, while in the West the numbers are far lower. Political analysts admit to being puzzled by this, given that the number of immigrants, including Muslims, is far lower in the East than in the West. Some blame the higher unemployment figures in the East; the “backwardness,” the lack of “civil society,” the lack of “liberal open mindedness,” and that “people in the East feel that they are losers.”

There might, however, be two other explanations that make more sense. Perhaps the people in the East just want to avoid the situation that the Western part of the country is in, as a result of the large Islamic presence. While the West might already be lost as a result of Islamization, the East is still capable of avoiding the West’s fate. Moreover, having gone through decades of Communist dictatorship, perhaps the Easterners are less inclined to trust that their political leaders have the people’s best interests in mind with their policies.

Perhaps they feel that, rather than trust that Frau Merkel knows what is best for the German people — as she welcomes in record numbers these new Islamic immigrants — the German people need to show her clearly that they think she is wrong.

Categories: Britain, Charlie Hedbo, Europe, Geert Wilders, Germany, Human rights, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Multiculturalism, Pediga, Political correctness
Tags: Britain, Charlie Hedbo, Europe, Geert Wilders, Germany, human rights, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Multiculturalism, Pediga, Political correctness

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Oxford University Press Bans Pork Related Material From Books

January 15, 2015

Oxford University Press Bans Pork Related Material From Books, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, January 14, 2015

Oxford University Press (OUP) has banned authors from depicting pork-related products in their children’s books in an apparent attempt to avoid offending Jews and Muslims, the Daily Mail reports.

The new prohibition came up during a conversation about free speech on Radio 4’s Today program and was referred to as “nonsensical political correctness.”

“I’ve got a letter here that was sent out by OUP to an author doing something for young people. Among the things prohibited in the text that was commissioned by OUP was the following: Pigs plus sausages, or anything else which could be perceived as pork,” state Radio 4’s Today presenter Jim Naughtie.

An OUP spokesman justified the new regulations.

“Many of the educational materials we publish in the UK are sold in more than 150 countries, and as such they need to consider a range of cultural differences and sensitivities.”

However, these new measures have received considerable backlash from prominent figures.

Tory Member of Parliament (MP) Philip Davies stated that “no word is offensive. It is in the context in which it is used that is offensive … we have to to get a grip on this nonsensical political correctness.”

“That’s absolute utter nonsense. And when people go too far, that brings the whole discussion into disrepute,” agreed Muslim Labour MP Khalid Mahmood.

These new rules have serious implications for the freedom of speech, particularly in context of the recent deadly terrorist attacks in Paris initially targeting the satirical Charlie Hebdo publication.

“Jewish law prohibits eating pork, not the mention of the word, or the animal from which it derives,” said a spokesman for the Jewish Leadership Council.

This is not the first time that non-Muslims in Britain have attempted to self-censor in an effort to avoid actions they believed would offend Muslims. In 2007, organizers of a performance of a children’s play by Roald Dahl at a school in West Yorkshire originally removed the “Three Little Pigs” from the show, in favor of the “Three Little Puppies.” Councillors reversed that decision.

Likewise, two major banks in England in 2005 banned the use of piggy-banks in advertising or as gifts for children because of a perception that the banks would offend Muslims.

Categories: Diversity, Europe, Islam, Jews, Multiculturalism, Oxford University Press
Tags: children's books, DIversity, Europe, Islam, Jews, Oxford University Press, Political correctness

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Throw Islamists out or give them the “peace” of Islam they seek

January 10, 2015

Throw Islamists out or give them the “peace” of Islam they seek, Dan Miller’s Blog, January 10, 2015

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

They should welcome Islamic peace, including eternal bliss with their beautiful virgins.

Many more await you

Many more of us await you. Hurry up!

The attacks by adherents to the Religion of “Peace” in France were not the first, nor will they be the last, by “extremists” who live for nothing better than to demonstrate Islamic tolerance by slaughtering blasphemers who mock their “holy prophet” or otherwise insult Islam. We are told, ad nauseam, that they and their cohorts — like the Islamic State — are not Islamic: the Fort Hood massacre was mere “workplace violence” that had nothing to do with Islam, the Islamic Republic of Iran can be trusted with nukes and Saudi Arabia is our friend.

No matter that Major Hasan, a Muslim, yelled “Allah Akbar” while he slaughtered thirteen people and injured thirty more, and now wants to be a citizen of the Islamic State. No matter that there were many more Islamic jihad attacks during 2014.

No matter that Iran has long sought (and may already have) nukes and the death of Israel. Is Iran non-Islamic? No matter that our “ally,” Saudi Arabia, just applied to Raif Badaw the first fifty of the one thousand lashes imposed as part of his punishment for blasphemy for calling for religious freedom and thereby insulting Islam. Is Saudi Arabia non-Islamic?

A lengthy article from the Catholic World Report dated January 8, 2015 is titled “What is Islam?” Revisited, by Father James V. Schall, S.J. He

taught political philosophy at Georgetown University for many years until recently retiring. He is the author of numerous books and countless essays on philosophy, theology, education, morality, and other topics. His most recent book is Reasonable Pleasures: The Strange Coherences of Catholicism (Ignatius Press).

After highlighting only a few of many Islamic murders* and persecutions of Christians, Father Schall contends, quite persuasively, that

In the Quran, there is no mention of the Trinity or Incarnation, except explicitly to deny them. It is blasphemy to believe in them, as well as to question anything connected with the Quran. Allah intends the whole world to observe the Sharia, the Muslim legal code, observing its letter. As soon as it can, this law is imposed in every Muslim land or smaller community, even in democratic states. No distinction between Islam and the state exists. Everyone is born a Muslim. If he is not a Muslim, it is because his parents or teachers corrupted him. It is impossible to convert from Islam to another religion, without grave, often lethal, consequences. [Emphasis added.]

It is not against the Quran to use violence to spread or enforce Islamic law. Those Islam conquers, even from its beginnings till now, it either kills, forces conversion, or imposes second class citizenship. The Islamic State, now so much to the forefront, seems to have the correct understanding of what the Quran intends and advocates. The voluntarist presuppositions of Islamic thought allow what is prohibited to become good. Allah is not bound by the distinction of good and evil. Whatever Allah wills, even if it was the opposite yesterday, is good. [Emphasis added.]

. . . . To most Muslims, the West is itself morally decadent. Many think that the decline of population in the West and the high birth rate of Muslims almost guarantee eventual control of many European countries by Islam. And no talk exists of “converting” Islam by Christians. With Fatima, Reagan and John Paul II could talk of ending the evil empire of the Soviet Union, but the question, “What is Islam?”, is seldom addressed. There is certainly nothing said about really changing Islam, only containing it. [Emphasis added.]

[I]t is possible that Islam will follow its pattern in the early modern world. Much of its recent success has depended on its good fortune with oil and other resources. But no Islamic state or group has been the origin of any properly modern inventions or developments. There seems to be theological reasons for this, as there is no reason to investigate a world that is based solely on the arbitrary will of Allah. Islam lacks any real notion of a natural law or a basis in reason that would allow it to criticize itself and recognize the extremism of many of its own practices, and especially the killings. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

[N]o real basis for the much-appealed-to “dialogue” with Islam seems to exist. Almost all the initiative for dialogue has come from the Christian side. Islam has no central authority. It has no fixed theology except what is in the Quran and attempts to defend its consistency.

Dialogue is looked upon as a sign of weakness unless it can be used to further Muslim goals. In the case of the killings that Coren lists, if they are looked upon as legitimate means, there is no need either to talk about them or to cease their presumed effectiveness in spreading Islam. One cannot really appeal to the Quran to cease these killings, as there is ample reason within it to justify them as worthy means. Had it not been possible to justify these means in the Quran, the whole history of Islam would be different. Indeed, it probably never would have expanded at all. [Emphasis added.]

Somebody should tell the Pope, who wants more interfaith dialogue.

Speaking at the start of a three-day trip to Turkey, Pope Francis said “terrorist violence” showed no sign of abating in Turkey’s southern neighbours, where Islamist insurgents had declared a caliphate and persecuted Shiite Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam.

“It is licit, while always respecting international law, to stop an unjust aggressor,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said in reference to the Islamic State militants after a meeting with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan.

“What is required is a concerted commitment on the part of all … [to] enable resources to be directed, not to weaponry, but to the other noble battles worthy of man: the fight against hunger and sickness.”[Emphasis added.]

Sure. That should take care of the problem. In an Islamic pig’s eye.

Perhaps Obama and His devotees should read the article, even though it would not likely change their minds even a whit.

Why do many refer to Islamic terrorists as “extremists” or “radicals?” Aren’t they actually Islamists, dedicated to defending their religion against “slander?”

Are Christians and Jews, who actually practice their religions, “extremists” or “radicals?” Aren’t they practicing Christians and Jews? Or are Christians, in the eyes of Obama and His supporters, just bitter little people who cling to their religion or their guns and hate those who are not like them? (That’s a good characterization of Islamists.)

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. [Emphasis added.]

How about the Jews of Israel, who would much rather live in peace with their neighbors than kill or be killed by them? Are they also “bitter clingers?” They cling to life, so they must be, in Obama’s view.

An article at Breitbart titled ‘Don’t denigrate Islam’ says Obama after calling Americans ‘butter clingers’ notes,

President Obama finally remarked upon the attacks on our consulate in Libya — but was silent on the attack on our embassy in Egypt — and stressed the importance of not disrespecting religion in his speech, something he’s newly concerned about:

While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.

It’s interesting that only when Islamists riot is Obama concerned for religious respect. I assume that Islam is excluded from what is called his ‘war on religion’ as he’s never before shown any concern for the denigration of other faiths. He’s demonstrated none of what he asks these past several years. Who could forget his demeaning characterization of middle America as ‘bitter clingers?’ [Emphasis added.”

Remember Obama’s October 3, 2014 Eid greeting to Muslims around the world?

As our Muslim neighbors and friends gather for Eid celebrations, Muslim Americans are among the millions of pilgrims joining one of the world’s largest and most diverse gatherings. Hajj brings together Muslims from around the world – Sunni and Shiite – to share in reverent prayer, side by side. It serves as a reminder that no matter one’s tribe or sect, race or religion, gender or age, we are equals in humanity.

On Eid, Muslims continue the tradition of donating to the poor and joining efforts with other faith communities in providing assistance to those suffering from hunger, sickness, oppression, and conflict. Their service is a powerful example of the shared roots of the world’s Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together in shared peace, with dignity and a sense of justice. [Emphasis added.]

Is there such a thing as “moderate” Islam of the type to which Obama may have referred? After searching high and low and finding none, Daniel Greenfield finally found an example:

There is no moderate Islam in the mosques or in Mecca. You won’t find it in the Koran or the Hadiths. If you want to find moderate Islam, browse the newspaper editorials after a terrorist attack or take a course on Islamic religion taught by a Unitarian Sociologist wearing fake native jewelry.

You can’t find a moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but you can find it in countless network news specials, articles and books about the two homelands of their respective brands of Islam.

You won’t find the fabled land of moderate Muslims in the east. You won’t even find it in the west. Like all myths it exists in the imagination of those who tell the stories. You won’t find a moderate Islam in the Koran, but you will find it in countless Western books about Islam.

Moderate Islam isn’t what most Muslims believe. It’s what most liberals believe that Muslims believe. [Emphasis in original]

The new multicultural theology of the West is moderate Islam. Moderate Islam is the perfect religion for a secular age since it isn’t a religion at all. [Emphasis added.]

Take Islam, turn it inside out and you have moderate Islam. Take a Muslim who hasn’t been inside a mosque in a year, who can name the entire starting lineup of the San Diego Chargers, but can’t name Mohammed’s companions and you have a moderate Muslim. Or more accurately, a secular Muslim. [Emphasis added.]

Perhaps such secular Muslims are not “bitter clingers.”

Islam and the multicultural “blessings” of “shared peace, with dignity and a sense of justice” (from Obama’s Eid greeting) it brings are rampant in Europe. They could have been avoided but were not, on the apparent theories (a) that there is no evil in the world, (b) that all religions are equally evil, (c) that all religions are equally good and/or (d) that no other evil is even comparable in its insidiousness to Islamophobia.

Some in Europe are learning, but their principal leaders seem to be too dense, too devoted to their ideologies or both, to absorb the lessons of even recent history. French President Hollande decried “racism and anti-Semitism” and proclaimed that the Islamic attacks in France had “nothing to do with Islam.” Apparently, in his twisted view, “true” Islam rejects racism and “antisemitism.” This Islamic preacher must not be Islamic.

In similar vein, a Palestinian envoy to Iran recently “said that ‘Israel is a cancer’ that ‘will be destroyed.”

Islamists throughout the world are as antisemitic as they are anti-Christian and appear to be proud of it.

Here are five more short videos:

Appeasement (is that another name for multiculturalism?) is not a viable solution; it merely postpones evil until it become stronger and multitudes are slaughtered, unnecessarily. Unfortunately many of us, as well as many of our “leaders,” have yet to learn the lessons of history; hence appeasement continues to be the preferred, but most deadly, response to evil.

Meanwhile, Obama and all too many leading RINOs insist that massive immigration must continue in the United States and that amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the there is good. I have found no credible statistics suggesting the numbers of Islamists or other murderers among actual and potential illegal immigrants, but their numbers cannot rationally be assumed to be insignificant. Nor can it be assumed that the apparent hopes of our “leaders” that all will turn out just fine will be realized; it may all depend on their definitions of “just fine.” It can reasonably be assumed that the Obama Nation is galloping, and will continue to gallop, down a path similar to that trod by Europe and that the consequences will be comparable in lives and freedoms lost, to say nothing of the financial burdens incurred by Federal, State and local governments and, of course, their citizens.

Here are eighteen points adopted by the American Freedom Defense Initiative in April of 2013.

– AFDI denounces the crippling rules of engagement under which our soldiers are forced to labor. They should be given the freedom to defend themselves and protect their comrades.

— AFDI calls for profiling of Muslims at airports and in hiring in professions in which national security and public safety could be compromised.

— AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.

— AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.

— AFDI calls for curriculum and Islam-related materials in textbooks and museums to describe the Islamic doctrine and history accurately, including its violent doctrines and 1,400-year war against unbelievers.

— AFDI calls for a halt of foreign aid to Islamic nations with Sharia-based constitutions and/or governments.

– AFDI denounces the use of Sharia law in any Western court or nation.

– AFDI advocates deportation hearings against non-citizens who promote jihad in our nations.

– AFDI calls for an immediate halt of immigration by Muslims into nations that do not currently have a Muslim majority population.

— AFDI calls for laws providing that anyone seeking citizenship in the United States should be asked if he or she supports Sharia law, and investigated for ties to pro-Sharia groups. If so, citizenship should not be granted.

– AFDI calls for the cancellation of citizenship or permanent residency status for anyone who leaves the country of his residence to travel for the purpose of engaging in jihad activity, and for the refusal of reentry into his country of residence after that jihad activity.

— AFDI calls careful investigation of Muslims resident in non-Muslim country who have obtained naturalized citizenship or permanent residency status, to ensure that that status was not obtained under false pretenses.

— AFDI calls for the designation of the following as grounds for immediate deportation: fomenting, plotting, financing, attempting or carrying out jihad attacks; encouraging or threatening or attempting to carry out the punishments Islamic law mandates for apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, fornication or theft; threatening or attempting or carrying out honor murders, forced marriage, underage marriage, female genital mutilation, or polygamy.

— AFDI calls for the U.S. and other free nations to have jihad, as it is traditionally understood in Islamic jurisprudence to involve warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims, declared a crime against humanity at the U.N., or to withdraw from the U.N. and have its headquarters moved to a Muslim nation.

– AFDI calls for legislating making illegal the foreign funding of Islamic Studies departments and faculty positions in our universities.

– AFDI demands the repeal of U.N. resolution 16/18 and any other resolutions that might limit the freedom of speech.

– AFDI calls for all Muslim chaplains in prisons and the military to be thoroughly vetted, and dismissed if they have ties to any Islamic supremacist group, or if they advocate jihad.

– AFDI calls for the development of energy policies that will free us from dependence upon oil from Muslim countries.

Through SION, AFDI establishes a common American / European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.

AFDI and SION stand for:

— The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of “blasphemy” and “slander,” which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;

— The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;

— The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia’s institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

Here’s a link to an essay by Allen West proposing much the same. It’s well worth reading.

The Obama Nation won’t take any of the suggested steps, of course, and no European nation seems likely to; they are too preoccupied with fighting Islamophobia and pursuing the “blessings” of multiculturalism. However, it’s worth pushing hard for. After all, it’s more humane than giving Islamists the “peace” they claim to want, wholesale, and sending them to their virgins.

In the meantime, let’s load up on neat gifts and get ready for a merry Christmas.

_________________

*An exhaustive list of Christians slaughtered during November of 2014 is available in an article titled Christians Burned Alive, published on January 10, 2015 by the Gatestone Institute.

Categories: Allen West, Antisemitism, Christians, Diversity, Europe, Executions, Foreign policy, Freedom, International Community, Iran, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jerusalem, Jihad, Koran, Multiculturalism, Obama, Palestinians, Peace process, Political correctness, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism
Tags: Allen West, Antisemitism, Christians, DIversity, Europe, Executions, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Iran, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jerusalem, Jihad, Koran, Moderate Islam, Multiculturalism, Palestinians, Peace Process, Political correctness, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

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Emerson on Fox’s Hannity: “No Go Zones and Sharia Courts…Europe is Finished.”

January 8, 2015

Emerson on Fox’s Hannity: “No Go Zones and Sharia Courts…Europe is Finished.” Investigative Project, January 7, 2014

(Which is more deadly? The white flag of surrender flown in the name of multiculturalism throughout Europe and elsewhere, or the (non-Islamic, as we have repeatedly been told) Islamic State flag? The white flag flutters as it celebrates the killing of our souls, while the flag of Islam merely celebrates the killing of our bodies while “enriching” local culture with the “blessings” of multicultural diversity.– DM)

Sean Hannity: Welcome back to “Hannity.” So France is on high alert at this hour following today’s deadly terrorist attack that left 12 people dead. Investigators working around the clock to put the pieces together. So could a similar terrorist attack happen here at home? Joining me now terrorism expert Steve Emerson. Steve, I want to talk about the growth in population of people moving to France from Muslim countries. You have these no-go zones. You have sharia courts that they’ve allowed. I assume the French, they wanted to be accepting and accommodating and have not insisted on assimilation. Has that played a part in this and is that something we’ve got to be on alert for now?

Steve Emerson: Well certainly throughout Europe, Sean, you have “no-go zones.” When I was in Brussels a year ago when I asked the police to take me to the Islamic zone or the Islamic community area they refused. They said we don’t go there. This goes on in Belgium, this goes on in Sweden, in the Netherlands, in France, it goes on in Italy. It goes on throughout Europe. So there are no-go zones.

Sean Hannity: Hang on. “No-go zone” means no non-Muslims, no police, no fire, their own court system. So basically these countries have allowed Muslims to take over parts of their country, entire portions, towns.

Steve Emerson: These are semiautonomous countries within countries in which the federal governments there have basically given up, surrendered their autonomy, surrendered their authority and goes against the entire grain of what social democracy was after World War II, was to integrate everybody into a socialist democracy, which is really a pluralistic experiment which worked. And everybody was supposed to be egalitarian; at least everyone was supposed to be equal in a pluralist society. What has happened however with migration of Muslims – and [although the problem] not all Muslims, the problem is the domination of Muslims [communities] within European countries, particularly in France…by radical Islamic groups. The mosques and Islamic centers… infuse the Islamic population with a militant strain of Islam that teaches them the infidel has to be killed and that the Crusaders like the French, Jews and Americans have to be killed or punished like [we saw] today. And this goes on and on and on. And the reaction unfortunately as we saw this morning from the President or from the President [Hollande]… of France or from [Prime Minister] Cameron of Britain is this has nothing to do with Islam, this is just a simple act of [non-religious] violence and that Islam is a religion of peace. And when they say those things they exonerate the leaders of Islamic communities throughout Europe and the militants themselves are given a free pass.

Sean Hannity: The next logical question then, Steve, is, okay, what about visas for people coming from Muslim countries? What about people that come to America that are Muslim? I’m sure the average American believes in freedom of religion, they don’t want to discriminate, they don’t want to be called Islamophobic, all of these things. How do you balance the two if people are coming from Muslim countries, how do you determine if they hold radical views, if they want sharia implemented in America like this guy Chaudary that I talked about?

Steve Emerson: Well you raise a very good question because that’s the role – you know there are DHS officers planted, placed overseas in US embassies in certain countries that have produced disproportionate numbers of terrorists like in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or elsewhere. Their role is to collect the intelligence on the visa applicants coming to the United States. The problem has been under this administration is that DHS has specifically instructed DHS agents overseas to basically not do their job, to not collect this intelligence. And when the intelligence has been collected, to show that the applicants coming to the United States with the visas in hand have radical backgrounds are either connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, connected to the Taliban, connected even [tangentially] to ISIS, they’ve been told to look away. I can tell you that personally. having had discussions with DHS officials and other agents from DHS who operate in an environment that’s Orwellian. And so you’re right, there’s a real problem here and our national security being violated.

Sean Hannity: Do you think France can get control of their country again and take over these no-go zones, stop sharia courts? I know prayer rugs are in just about every hotel if you go to Paris, according to a friend of mine who travels there quite often. Do they have the ability now to stop this, to say no you either assimilate or you have to go?

Steve Emerson: That’s a great question. I think they’ve reached critical mass, frankly. I’ve said this before, I think Europe is finished.

Sean Hannity: You think it’s finished? Well there’s a poll out there. One in six people in France actually support ISIS. Over 1,000 French have gone to join ISIS. So you’re saying you don’t think they can recover, that’s there’s too many radical Islamists that have taken over this portion of that country and it would be a war to take it back?

Steve Emerson: They [the European governments] wouldn’t take it back. They refuse to take it back. Sweden just engineered this artificial political coalition designed to stop any type of immigration prohibitions until the year 2022. So we’re talking about a situation throughout Europe where there’s a refusal to acknowledge the problem. And two, even if they did acknowledge the problem, what are they going to do if six to seven to eight to nine percent constitute a serious radical threat, not every single person but within that percentage, [there exist] no-go zones with sharia courts? Who are they hurting the most? They’re hurting Muslim women the most. They’re the ones who get subject to beatings, to death, to honor crimes.

Sean Hannity: So women who live in France are subject to sharia. They’re not subject to the laws of the country.

Steve Emerson: Not all Muslim women.

Sean Hannity: If they live in the no-go zone.

Steve Emerson: Absolutely. You’re 100% right. That’s the problem.

Sean Hannity: All right. That’s a big problem, and a warning I think.

Categories: Diversity, Europe, Foreign policy, Intelligence, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamophobia, Obama, Political correctness
Tags: DIversity, Europe, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamophobia, Political correctness, Steve Emerson

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How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack

January 8, 2015

How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack, Wall Street Journal, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, January 7, 2015

If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe.

Those responsible for the slaughter in Paris, just like the man who killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, are seeking to impose terror. And every time we give in to their vision of justified religious violence, we are giving them exactly what they want.

We appease the Muslim heads of government who lobby us to censor our press, our universities, our history books, our school curricula. They appeal and we oblige. We appease leaders of Muslim organizations in our societies. They ask us not to link acts of violence to the religion of Islam because they tell us that theirs is a religion of peace, and we oblige.

We have to acknowledge that today’s Islamists are driven by a political ideology, an ideology embedded in the foundational texts of Islam. We can no longer pretend that it is possible to divorce actions from the ideals that inspire them.

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After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.

This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an “un-Islamic” attack by a bunch of thugs—the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked.

The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.

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GETTY IMAGE

If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe.

There are numerous calls to violent jihad in the Quran. But the Quran is hardly alone. In too much of Islam, jihad is a thoroughly modern concept. The 20th-century jihad “bible,” and an animating work for many Islamist groups today, is “The Quranic Concept of War,” a book written in the mid-1970s by Pakistani Gen. S.K. Malik. He argues that because God, Allah, himself authored every word of the Quran, the rules of war contained in the Quran are of a higher caliber than the rules developed by mere mortals.

In Malik’s analysis of Quranic strategy, the human soul—and not any physical battlefield—is the center of conflict. The key to victory, taught by Allah through the military campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad, is to strike at the soul of your enemy. And the best way to strike at your enemy’s soul is through terror. Terror, Malik writes, is “the point where the means and the end meet.” Terror, he adds, “is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision we wish to impose.”

Those responsible for the slaughter in Paris, just like the man who killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, are seeking to impose terror. And every time we give in to their vision of justified religious violence, we are giving them exactly what they want.

In Islam, it is a grave sin to visually depict or in any way slander the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims are free to believe this, but why should such a prohibition be forced on nonbelievers? In the U.S., Mormons didn’t seek to impose the death penalty on those who wrote and produced “The Book of Mormon,” a satirical Broadway sendup of their faith. Islam, with 1,400 years of history and some 1.6 billion adherents, should be able to withstand a few cartoons by a French satirical magazine. But of course deadly responses to cartoons depicting Muhammad are nothing new in the age of jihad.

Moreover, despite what the Quran may teach, not all sins can be considered equal. The West must insist that Muslims, particularly members of the Muslim diaspora, answer this question: What is more offensive to a believer—the murder, torture, enslavement and acts of war and terrorism being committed today in the name of Muhammad, or the production of drawings and films and books designed to mock the extremists and their vision of what Muhammad represents?

To answer the late Gen. Malik, our soul in the West lies in our belief in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression. The freedom to express our concerns, the freedom to worship who we want, or not to worship at all—such freedoms are the soul of our civilization. And that is precisely where the Islamists have attacked us. Again.

How we respond to this attack is of great consequence. If we take the position that we are dealing with a handful of murderous thugs with no connection to what they so vocally claim, then we are not answering them. We have to acknowledge that today’s Islamists are driven by a political ideology, an ideology embedded in the foundational texts of Islam. We can no longer pretend that it is possible to divorce actions from the ideals that inspire them.

This would be a departure for the West, which too often has responded to jihadist violence with appeasement. We appease the Muslim heads of government who lobby us to censor our press, our universities, our history books, our school curricula. They appeal and we oblige. We appease leaders of Muslim organizations in our societies. They ask us not to link acts of violence to the religion of Islam because they tell us that theirs is a religion of peace, and we oblige.

What do we get in return? Kalashnikovs in the heart of Paris. The more we oblige, the more we self-censor, the more we appease, the bolder the enemy gets.

There can only be one answer to this hideous act of jihad against the staff of Charlie Hebdo. It is the obligation of the Western media and Western leaders, religious and lay, to protect the most basic rights of freedom of expression, whether in satire on any other form. The West must not appease, it must not be silenced. We must send a united message to the terrorists: Your violence cannot destroy our soul.

Categories: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Diversity, Europe, Foreign policy, Freedom, International Community, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Terrorism
Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, DIversity, Europe, Foreign Policy, Freedom, International Community, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Paris, Political correctness

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The Islamization of Britain in 2014

December 30, 2014

The Islamization of Britain in 2014, The Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, December 30, 2014

“Britain remains the world’s leading recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.” — Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph.

When she sought help from the police and a lawyer, “the family of the defendants were insulted that she had gone to the law. They wanted her back within the family fold… Therefore, it was decided that she should be forced to comply or be killed.” — Prosecutor of Ahmed A-Khatib, who murdered his wife for becoming “too westernized.”

British school teachers are afraid to teach their students about Christianity out of fear of offending Muslims. — Roger Bolton, BBC Radio 4’s Feedback program.

Rather than taking steps to protect British children, police, social workers, teachers… and the media deliberately played down the severity of the crimes [of Muslim sexual grooming gangs] in order to avoid being accused of “Islamophobia” or racism. — From the report “Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery.”

A group of British lawyers launched a website, Sharia Watch UK. The group called Sharia law “Britain’s Blind Spot.”

After Adebolajo, who murdered and tried to behead British soldier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver, was given a “whole-life” prison term, his brother said his sibling was the victim of “Islamophobia.”

“The problem of honor-based violence and forced marriages in England is “worse than people think.” — Claire Phillipson, Wearside Women in Need

The Muslim population of Britain reached 3.4 million in 2014 to become around 5.3% of the overall population of 64 million, according to figures extrapolated from a recent study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe. In real terms, Britain has the third-largest Muslim population in the European Union, after France and Germany.

Islam and Islam-related issues were omnipresent in Britain during 2014, and can be categorized into four broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism and the security implications of British jihadists in Syria; 2) the continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in Britain; 3) the sexual exploitation of British children by Muslim gangs; and 4) Muslim integration into British society.

What follows is a chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Britain during 2014.

In January, an analysis of census data showed that nearly 10% of the babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim. The percentage of Muslims among children under five is almost twice as high as in the general population. By way of comparison, fewer than one in 200 people over the age of 85 are Muslim, an indication of the extent to which the birth rate is changing the religious demographic in Britain.

Also in January, Muslim fundamentalists threatened to behead a fellow British Muslim after he posted an innocuous image of Mohammed and Jesus on his Twitter account. The death threats against Maajid Nawaz, a Liberal Democrat Party candidate for British Parliament, added to the growing number of cases in which Islamists are using intimidation tactics to restrict the free speech rights of fellow Muslims in Europe.

On January 16, a Muslim woman was arrested by counter-terrorism police at Heathrow Airport as she was preparing to board a flight to Turkey. Nawal Masaad, 26, is accused of trying to smuggle £16,500 ($27,000; €20,000) in her underwear to jihadists in Syria. She and her alleged co-conspirator, Amal El-Wahabi, 27—a Moroccan who does not work and claims British social welfare benefits for herself and two young sons—were the first British women to be charged with terrorism offenses linked to the conflict in Syria.

On January 23, the head of Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit, Commander Richard Walton,revealed that 14 British minors were arrested on charges linked to the Syrian conflict in January alone, compared to 24 for the whole of 2013. He said it was “almost inevitable” that some fighters would try to mount attacks in Britain upon their return.

On January 16, British Islamist Abu Waleed outlined his vision of an Islamic state in Britain, and called for Christians to be humiliated so that they would convert to Islam. In a video, he said:

“If the Muslim sees a kaffir [non-Muslim] with nice clothes, the kaffir has to take his clothes off and give them to the Muslim. The kaffir, when he walks down the street, he has to wear a red belt around his neck, and he has to have his forehead shaved, and he has to wear two shoes that are different from one another. He [the non-believer] is not allowed to walk on the pavement, he has to walk in the middle of the road, and he has to ride a mule. That is, my dear brothers, the Islamic state.”

In Bristol, the city council approved a controversial plan to convert a former comedy club into a mosque. In Cambridgeshire, a Muslim group submitted plans to convert a warehouse into a new mosque. In Cambridge, locals opposed a plan to build a £17.5 million ($28.5 million; €21 million) mega-mosque, claiming it could be “a front for terrorism.” In Blackburn, home to nearly 100 mosques, city councilors were urged to reject a plan to open a mosque in a residential neighborhood.

In Southend, local residents celebrated after a four-year battle resulted in the closing of an illegal mosque. In Newton Mearns, south of Glasgow, plans were abandoned to build a mosque within the grounds of a school in one of the most affluent suburbs of Scotland, due to local criticism of the move.

In Catherine-de-Barnes, a tiny village in western central England, local residents objected to plans for a large, Muslim-only cemetery, which will include space for 4,000 followers of Islam to be buried, and 75 parking spaces for visitors. The village has a population of just 613, which means the cemetery could eventually hold six-and-a-half times as many people as Catherine-de-Barnes itself.

In February, official statistics showed that net immigration to the United Kingdom surged to 212,000 in the year ending September 2013, a significant increase from 154,000 in the previous year. The new immigration data cast doubt on a pledge by Prime Minister David Cameron to get net migration—the difference between the number of people entering Britain and those leaving—down to the “tens of thousands” before the general election in May 2015.

Separately, data released by the National Crime Agency showed a 155% rise in British children groomed by sex gangs during 2013.

Also in January, a Muslim extremist who hacked a soldier to death on a London street in May 2013, launched a taxpayer-funded appeal against his murder conviction. Michael Adebolajo, 29, who tried to behead the British soldier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver, maintained that he should not have been convicted because he is a “soldier of Allah” and therefore Rigby’s killing was an act of war rather than premeditated murder.

Adebolajo and his co-defendant, Michael Adebowale, 22, were found guilty by a jury in December 2013, and were sentenced on February 26. Adebolajo was given a “whole-life” prison term and Adebowale was given a minimum term of 45 years. Adebolajo’s brother said his sibling was the victim of “Islamophobia.”

On February 16, The Sunday Times reported that about 250 British jihadists who went to train and fight in Syria had returned to the UK and were being monitored by the security services. Senior officials said the high number of “returnees”—five times the figure that had been previously reported—underlined the growing danger posed by “extremist tourists” going to the war-torn region. MI5 and police said they feared that “returnees” could be preparing a Mumbai-style gun attack on civilians, possibly in a crowded public place in London.

On February 14, three Muslim vigilantes who terrorized innocent members of the public as the self-styled “Muslim Patrol” were banned from promoting Sharia Law in Britain for a period of five years.

In March, British authorities launched an investigation into the source of a document that purportedly outlined a plot by Muslim fundamentalists to Islamize public schools in England and Wales. The four-page document described a strategy—dubbed Operation Trojan Horse—to oust non-Muslim head teachers and staff at state schools in Muslim neighborhoods and replace them with individuals who would run the schools according to strict Islamic principles.

Also in March, a report entitled, “Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery,”showed how officials in England and Wales were aware of rampant child grooming—the process by which sexual predators befriend and build trust with children in order to prepare them for abuse—by Muslim gangs since at least 1988. Rather than taking steps to protect British children, however, police, social workers, teachers, neighbors, politicians and the media deliberately downplayed the severity of the crimes perpetrated by the grooming gangs in order to avoid being accused of “Islamophobia” or racism.

Meanwhile, official figures revealed that record levels of Muslims are serving jail sentences and that the numbers are still growing. Across England and Wales the proportion has risen from 8% one decade ago to 14% now. In London, the figure is 27%, which is more than double the 12% of the capital’s population who are Muslim.

On March 27, ITV News reported that the problem of honor-based violence and forced marriages in England is “worse than people think,” but that many people are afraid of speaking out because they do not want to be branded as being “racist.” Claire Phillipson from Wearside Women in Need said:

“I have no doubt that all over the North East [England] first, second, third generation English young women are being forced into marriage.

“Schools and communities are keeping silent about it, because they are concerned that they would be called racist, Islamophobic. They don’t quite know where the line between culture, religion and human rights should be drawn.”

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An image from the video “Right to choose: Spotting the signs of forced marriage – Nayana”, produced by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

On March 13, the Law Society, the main professional association representing and governing the legal profession in England and Wales, issued ground-breaking guidance to help lawyers draft Sharia-compliant wills and estate planning documents. The move effectively enshrined Islamic Sharia law in the British legal system for the first time.

In April, the British government launched a public consultation on whether or not to introduce student loans that are compliant with Islamic Sharia law, which forbids loans that involve the payment of interest.

Critics said that the dispute over interest-bearing student loans follows stepped-up demands for Sharia-compliant banking and insurance as well as credit cards, mortgages and pension funds, which—taken together—are contributing to the establishment of parallel Islamic financial and legal systems in Britain.

Separately, Lloyds Bank was accused of reverse religious discrimination after dropping overdraft fees for Muslims but not for others. The bank said that non-Muslims would have to pay up to £80 (€97, $135) a month for an overdraft, but that for Muslims “there won’t be any charges.”

Meanwhile, the fast food giant Subway removed ham and bacon from almost 200 outlets in Britain and switched to halal (Arabic for “permitted” or “lawful”) meat alternatives, apparently in an attempt to please its Muslim customers.

On April 9, Home Secretary Theresa May published her annual report on the government’s strategy for countering terrorism. The report concluded that battle-hardened British jihadists returning from the war in Syria now pose the most serious threat to British security.

On April 17, the Sheffield Crown Court found Aras Hussein, 21, guilty of beheading his girlfriend, Reema Ramzan, 18, with a kitchen knife in her apartment in Sheffield in June 2013. He was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 20 years in prison.

On April 30, a jury at the Manchester Crown Court heard how Ahmed Al-Khatib, 35, murdered his wife for becoming “too westernized.” The prosecution told the jury that the mother of three had been “in fear of her husband” and “believed he might one day kill her.” She eventually sought help from the police and a lawyer. The prosecutor said:

“The family of the defendants were insulted that she had gone to the law. They wanted her and her children back within the family fold… Therefore, it was decided that she should either be forced to comply or be killed.”

On April 19, the Charity Commission, a government agency that regulates charities in the UK,announced a crackdown on Muslim charities that send money to jihadist groups in Syria.

On April 24, British counter-terrorism officials launched a nationwide campaign aimed at encouraging Muslim women to contact the police if they were concerned that their family members or close friends might be preparing to travel to Syria to fight.

Also on April 24, a group of British lawyers launched a new organization called “Sharia Watch UK” to “highlight and expose those movements in Britain which advocate and support the advancement of Islamic law in British society.” The group called Sharia law “Britain’s Blind Spot.”

In May, a senior adviser to Lutfur Rahman, the extremist-linked mayor of the heavily Islamized London Borough of Tower Hamlets, threatened Muslim riots unless people stop questioning the manner of his re-election. Rahman narrowly won re-election on May 23 as an independent, but the result was cast into doubt amid dozens of reports of voter intimidation and a chaotic count that took more than five days to declare a final result. Rahman was expelled from the Labour Party in 2010 after The Telegraph revealed his close links to an Islamic extremist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe.

On May 19, a jury in New York found Abu Hamza, the former imam of Finsbury Park mosque in north London, guilty on all 11 counts following a four-week trial. The one-eyed, handless Hamza was charged with organizing a terrorist camp in the US, taking hostages in Yemen and sending one of his followers from London to train with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The guilty verdicts followed a lengthy battle over his extradition from the UK, which began in 2004 but was only carried out in 2012. At the same time, Scotland Yard and MI5 were accused of ignoring warnings that Hamza was establishing an international hub of terrorism in London as far back as 1999. Despite Abu Hamza’s conviction, Britain remains the world’s leading recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.

On May 16, the Telegraph reported that Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, a British-born “ringleader” of the Islamist group Boko Haram, responsible for kidnapping hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria, was radicalized while studying at a British university. Ogwuche, the son of a retired Nigerian colonel, was said by fellow students at the University of Glamorgan in Wales to call himself “The Lion of Allah” and threatened to cut off the hands and feet of non-Muslims while living in the UK.

On May 9, the mother of Nicky Reilly—a convert to Islam who tried to blow up a restaurant packed with diners in Exeter in 2008—told the BBC’s Radio 4 that the would-be suicide bomber was turned into “a loaded gun” by Islamic extremists in Britain. The 22-year-old changed his name to Mohammad Abdulaziz Rashid Saeed-Alim in 2004 in tribute to the jihadists who attacked New York on September 11, 2001. Kim Reilly said: “They were telling him he would be in paradise with 44 virgins, and he believed it.”

On May 7, Pizza Express, a British restaurant chain, revealed that halal meat was being used in all of its chicken dishes in all of its 434 restaurants across the UK. Under Islamic law, chicken can only be eaten if the bird’s throat has been slit while it is still alive. A Koranic verse is also recited during the ritual. On May 15, it emerged that at least a dozen top universities, including Oxford University, have been secretly serving halal meat to unsuspecting students.

On May 30, a Somalian doctor with a practice in Birmingham was struck off the medical register after he was found by a medical malpractice tribunal to have told an undercover reporter how to arrange female genital mutilation abroad for her two nieces.

In June, Tablighi Jamaat, a radical Islamic group committed to “perpetual jihad” to spread Islam around the world, edged one step closer to building one of the world’s largest mosques in London after a star Muslim opponent of the controversial project was intimidated into silence. The proposed mega-mosque would be built on a 16-acre site near the Olympic Stadium, and would have a capacity for more than 9,000 worshippers.

On June 17, British Prime Minister David Cameron warned that British citizens and other Europeans fighting alongside Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Syria posed the biggest threat to Britain’s national security.

But on June 22, the Financial Times reported: “The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has halved its counter-terrorism budget even as officials warn of the most severe threat to the UK from overseas terror groups since the London bombings in 2005.”

Also on June 22, the Sunday Times reported that British jihadists are faking their deaths on the battlefield in Syria in an attempt to return to the UK undetected. In one instance, the martyrdom of a fighter in Syria was announced by his colleagues on social media, only for police to arrest the “dead” individual at the port town of Dover.

The Times also reported that a British jihadist using the nom de guerre Abu Rashash Britani recently posted a message on Twitter that said: “When we establish khilafah [an Islamic state], a battalion of mujahideen shud head to UK & capture David Cameron & Theresa May n behead them both :)”

Another jihadist from Birmingham named Junaid Hussain tweeted that the “black flag of jihad” will soon fly over Downing Street. He also tweeted: “Imagine if someone were to detonate a bomb at voting stations or ambushed the vans that carry the casted votes. It would mess the whole system up.” Hussain re-tweeted a warning from a like-minded countryman for British people to “watch out,” because “we’ll come back to the UK and wreak havoc.”

Meanwhile, a 19-year-old jihadist from Portsmouth named Muhammad Hassan promised a “killing spree” of British citizens if he were ever to return to Britain.

On June 16, a new law entered into effect, which makes forced marriage a self-standing criminal offense in England and Wales and is punishable by up to seven years in prison. Research commissioned by the government estimates that up to 8,000 young women in Britain are the victims of forced marriages each year, but charities say the actual number is far higher because many victims are afraid to come forward.

On June 12, the BBC reported that some Muslim families in Britain have begun hiring bounty hunters to track down the victims of forced marriage who try to run away.

On June 25, Britain became the first Western nation to issue Islamic bonds, completing a plan that was more than seven years in the making. Investors placed £2.3 billion ($3.9 billion) of orders, more than 11 times the amount of bonds on offer.

On June 24, the Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, said that a Sharia-compliant alternative to the conventional student loan could become available in the UK beginning in 2016. He said: “It would be a tragedy if any student, particularly a Muslim student because of concerns about so-called interest rates, were put off from going to university.” He added: “This does not mean we are introducing Sharia law in the UK.”

On June 6, the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) admitted that non-Muslim soldiers are unknowingly being fed halal meat on military bases.

Also in June, an investigation found that all of the chicken and lamb meat being served at the University of Warwick is halal. A first-year student commented:

“It’s disgusting that only Islamic meat is provided and no others. How is it acceptable for me to eat blessed meat of another religion that is different to my own? To effectively impose a monopoly on my choice leads me to question whether their religion (Islam) is prioritized over my own.”

On June 9, government inspectors found that the library at Olive Tree Primary School, a Muslim school in Luton, included books that advocate stoning and lashing. Leaders of the school accused the inspectors of “Islamophobia.”

In July, analysts at SITE, a group that monitors radical Islamic propaganda, reported that a growing number of British women have moved to Syria to raise children under the Islamic State. One such woman is Aqsa Mahmood, a 20-year-old woman from Glasgow, Scotland who left for Syria in November 2013.

Mahmood attended private schools and had wanted to become a doctor, but she dropped out of university without warning and vanished overnight in order to become a jihadist and marry an IS fighter. Using the jihadist name of Umm Layth (Arabic for “Mother of the Lion”) Mahmood uses social media to encourage other British Muslim women to leave their families behind and join the jihad in Syria. She wrote: “Once you arrive in the land of jihad, the Islamic State is your family.”

On July 3, the Inner London Crown Court sentenced six Muslims to a combined 36 years in prison for attacking two black men with a baseball bat because they were not Muslim. Judge Ian Darling said: “Not only was there a religious aspect to this offense, but there was an undoubted racial element.”

On July 4, a British jihadist who uses the nom de guerre Abu Osama told the BBC’s Radio 5:

“If and when I come back to Britain it will be when this Khilafah, the Islamic state, comes to conquer Britain, and I come to raise the black flag of Islam over Downing Street, over Buckingham Palace, over Tower Bridge and over Big Ben.”

On July 6, a British jihadist using the alias Abu Dugma al-Britani, warned that the Islamic State would capture Downing Street and hold executions in Trafalgar Square. Using Twitter, he wrote: “Downing Street will be a base for Muslims. Trafalgar Square is where public executions will take place. Army of Islamic State is coming.”

On July 8, Lord Richard Scott, a former British Supreme Court judge, called on Christians to marry Muslims to tackle Islamophobia. He said:

“Of my two sons one has become a Muslim and of my two daughters one of those has become a Muslim, and I have 12 lovely grandchildren, seven of whom are little Muslims.

“The family relationships since those events took place have been as happily familial, as close and as good as any parent or grandparent could wish.

“I do just wonder that if an improvement is needed between the faith groups, one way of promoting that might be to encourage interfaith marriages.”

On July 14, a Muslim checkout worker at a Tesco supermarket in London refused to sell non-Muslim customer ham and wine because it was Ramadan. The checkout clerk told Julie Cottle that he would not touch the items because they are considered forbidden by Islam and advised her to use the self-service tills instead. When Cottle complained to the manager, he backed the worker’s right to refuse to serve her because it was the holy month of Ramadan and he was fasting. Tesco later apologized for the incident and said the worker had been “spoken to.”

On July 18, a government report leaked to the Guardian revealed that a group of Islamic fundamentalists, mostly men of Pakistani origin, infiltrated the management of at least ten schools in Birmingham, sometimes breaking the law in order to introduce Muslim worship and sex segregation. Their activities were unimpeded by council officials who were fearful of allegations of Islamophobia and who forced ousted teachers to sign gagging clauses rather than treating their complaints seriously as whistleblowers.

On July 28, the Star City entertainment complex in Birmingham barred non-Muslims from entering a cinema because they were not celebrating the Islamic festival Eid. One non-Muslim complained on Facebook:

“My friends family have just been refused entry at VUE cinema as they are not Muslim this is a shocking disgrace. If the shoe was on the other foot there would be uproar. Can you imagine banning all Muslims to star city because it’s Christmas.”

In August, data released by the Office of National Statistics [ONS] showed that Mohammed was the most popular given to boys born in Britain in 2013. Although the ONS claimed that Oliver was the top name with 6,949 boys, it was in fact Mohammed when the top three spellings for the name (Muhammad, 3,499; Mohammed, 2,887 and Mohammad, 1,059) are combined to yield 7,445 boys.

On August 21, it emerged that there are now more British Muslims fighting for the Islamic State than for Britain’s military.

On August 23, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, warned that radical Islam is on the rise and “imperiling our way of life, threatening to undermine the values that have been bitterly won over the centuries.” He called on Britons to “recover a confidence in our own nation’s values. For too long we have been self-conscious and even ashamed about British identity.” He added:

“By embracing multiculturalism and the idea that every culture and belief is of equal value we have betrayed our own traditions of welcoming strangers to our shore.

“The fact is that for too long the doctrine of multiculturalism has led to immigrants establishing completely separate communities in our cities. This has led to honor killings, female genital circumcision and the establishment of sharia law in inner-city pockets throughout the UK.”

On August 26, Alexis Jay, the leader of an independent inquiry in the sexual abuse of children in Rotherham, released a horrifying report that found that gangs of mainly Muslim men of Pakistani heritage had groomed, terrorized and abused at least 1,400 girls, some as young as 11, in Rotherham over a 16-year period between 1997 and 2013.

On August 31, the Independent on Sunday reported that a House of Commons committee would launch an investigation into whether Tony Blair’s Labour government knew about the Rotherham child abuse scandal as far back as 2001, but refused to act because of his government’s desire to pacify Muslim communities.

On August 30, a straw poll conducted by the BBC’s Saturday Morning Live Show found that 95% of respondents said that they think multiculturalism in Britain is a failure.

In September, new census data showed that the number of Muslim children in Birmingham was greater than the number who are Christian for the first time. Of Birmingham’s 278,623 children, 97,099 were registered as Muslim and 93,828 as Christian. There were also 54,343 children who were recorded as following no religion, showing the rising trend of atheism in the country.

On September 12, London Deputy Mayor Stephen Greenhalgh warned that London children under the age of ten are being “trained to be junior jihadis,” a disturbing sign of the growing extremist threat in the capital. He said:

“It’s pretty horrendous when you hear how some of these children are being radicalized. The threat of radicalization of young people is real and this is a problem that is going to be with us not just for a couple of years, but for the next generation.”

On September 5, it emerged that networks of Islamic radicals are recruiting British jihadists through mosques and prayer centers. Previously, most British jihadists were recruited via online networks. But a combination of a Turkish border clampdown and a focus by counter-terrorist police on taking down online networks has made recruitment on the ground more important.

On September 3, eight Muslim men were charged with sexually abusing girls under the age of 16. The charges followed series of police raids involving 120 officers in the Thames Valley. On September 9, five Muslim men went on trial in Sheffield, accused of trafficking a 13-year-old girl for sex.

On September 10, the government announced that Muslim students will be offered Sharia-compliant interest free student loans in an effort to get more Islamic pupils to go to university.

In September, a customer at a Leicester branch of KFC was refused a hand-wipe as it might offend Muslims. Graham Noakes, 41, said staff at the fast food chain’s outlet in St George’s retail park refused to give him a hand-wipe because it was against its halal policy. Staff said this was because the wipes are soaked in an alcohol-infused liquid and alcohol is forbidden in the Koran.

In October, a 75-year-old retiree was arrested for “racism” after saying “I’m not Muslim” when he was asked to remove his shoes at security at Stansted Airport. Paul Griffith was charged with causing “racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress.”

In October, a taxi company in Rochdale, a town tainted by a child sex-grooming scandal perpetrated by Muslim gangs, began offering customers “white” or “local” drivers on demand. The move came after two local drivers of Pakistani origin were jailed for their part in the rape and trafficking of young white girls.

On October 23, the BBC reported that a memorial for Lee Rigby, a British soldier who was murdered by two Muslim converts in May 2013, will not bear his name. Greenwich Council said a stone would be placed in St George’s Chapel garden, opposite Woolwich Barracks where Rigby was based, but that the memorial would pay tribute to all fallen servicemen and woman. Local MP Nick Raynsford said that a Rigby memorial would attract “undesirable interest from [Islamic] extremists.”

On October 16, a new report showed that in just six months, nearly 2,000 women and girls in England were treated by the National Health Service after undergoing female genital mutilation [FGM]. In September alone, 467 female patients in England were newly identified as having been subjected to FGM. The data published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre [HSCIC] were the first official figures to have been published on the numbers of FGM cases seen in hospitals in England.

On October 30, a new study found that child sexual exploitation has become “the social norm” in many parts of Greater Manchester. The report—Real Voices, Child Sexual Exploitation In Greater Manchester—estimated that nearly 650 children reported missing in towns across Greater Manchester in 2014 were at risk of child sexual exploitation or serious harm. But despite almost 13,000 reports of child sex abuse in the past six years, only about 1,000 people have been convicted. The report’s author—Labour MP Ann Coffey—was criticized for failing to address the fact that many street grooming gangs are made up of Muslim men. She said it would be “wrong” to focus on “Asian” gangs targeting teenage girls.

On October 30, a Populus survey found that one in seven young British adults has “warm feelings” towards Islamic State. A tenth of Londoners and one in 12 Scots view Islamic State favorably, but sympathy for the militant group reaches its highest levels among the under-25s.

In November, British police foiled an Islamist plot to behead Queen Elizabeth at a Remembrance Day event at the Cenotaph, a war memorial situated on Whitehall in London.

In London Borough of Croydon, a couple from Afghanistan threatened to kill their daughter if she rejected a forced marriage and to behead her if she contacted authorities for help.

On November 5, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, told an international terrorism conference that his officers are “struggling to cope” with the speed of immigration and because many of those coming to Britain speak different languages and hold different views of authority.

On November 16, senior officials at Scotland Yard advised British police officers not to wear their uniforms on the way to and from work amid concerns that Islamic extremists are plotting to target them on the streets.

On November 10, The Times reported that British intelligence officials warned senior ministers that the scale of terrorist activity is so great that an attack is “almost inevitable” in the coming months.

On November 26, the British government unveiled sweeping new counter-terrorism measures which—if approved by Parliament—would give the United Kingdom some of the “toughest powers in the world” to fight Islamic terrorism.

On November 12, the BBC reported that the British Islamist Abu Rumaysah skipped bail after being arrested on terrorism charges and is thought to be in Syria, despite being banned from leaving the UK. Rumaysah left London on a bus bound for Paris after blundering police failed to confiscate his passport. On November 2, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Rumaysah, who said:

“Ultimately, I want to see every single woman in this country [Britain] covered from head to toe. I want to see the hand of the thief cut. I want to see the adulterer stoned to death. I want to see Sharia law in Europe. And I want to see it in America, as well. I believe our [Sharia] patrols are a means to an end.”

On November 1, a new report by Sharia Watch UK exposed the activities of Islamist speakers on British university campuses. The report—Learning Jihad—documented how Islamists are making anti-Semitic remarks, deriding Western notions of human rights, advocating female genital mutilation and calling for a raft of strict Sharia punishments such as stoning adulterers to death.

On November 11, the new Muslim owner of the exclusive Bermondsey Square Hotel in London abruptly banned alcohol and pork from the bar and grill at the hotel, in order to run it “in accordance with Sharia law.” The £220 ($340)-a-night hotel is believed to be one of the first in the UK to introduce the strict Muslim policy, but staff said the changes have caused business to plummet, with many reservations cancelled.

Also on November 11, it was reported that thousands of Muslim school children in East Lancashire were being offered a pork-based vaccine as part of a major new flu immunization program. The new nasal spray, which is made with gelatin derived from pigs, is part of a pilot project, but Muslim leaders complained that the decision not to offer an alternative was “outrageous” because they consider the spray to be ‘haram’ or sinful. Public Health England, which is leading the project, said in a statement: “There is no suitable alternative to [the porcine-based] Fluenz [vaccine].”

On November 13, police in Manchester arrested 13 members of human trafficking gang after a pregnant woman was duped into travelling to England before being sold into a sham Sharia law marriage. The 20-year-old Slovakian woman, who was 25 weeks pregnant, was tricked into flying to Luton airport in May believing that she would be able to meet her sister. After meeting a man at the airport who claimed to be her sister’s friend, however, she was taken to an address in Oldham. She then discovered that she had been sold to a Muslim man who had paid the gang £15,000 (€19,000; $23,000) to provide her a sham marriage. Police say the purpose of the marriage, which took place under a Sharia ceremony in Rochdale in July, was to improve the man’s chances of avoiding deportation from the UK.

On November 10, the BBC reported that police in Rotherham not only ignored, but actively obstructed investigations into child abuse victims, apparently because the perpetrators were Muslim. On November 19, the Birmingham Mail reported that the Birmingham City Council “buried” a politically incorrect government-funded report that revealed to sexual exploitation of young white girls by Muslim men. The author of the report, Jill Jesson, told the newspaper that the report was never published and all copies were to be destroyed. She said:

“I was employed to do the work because I think they thought I would be objective,” she said. “I was told to reveal what I saw. I did – and some people didn’t like it.

“Every time a news item has come on about sexual grooming of young girls and girls in care, and the link, too, between private hire drivers, I have thought, ‘I told them about that in 1991 but they didn’t want to acknowledge it.’ I think the problem has got worse and worse over time.”

On November 24, the Law Society withdrew controversial guidelines for lawyers on how to draft “Sharia compliant” wills amid complaints that they encouraged discrimination against women and non-Muslims. The guidelines advised lawyers on how to write Islamic wills in a way that would be recognized by courts in England and Wales. They set out principles that meant women could be denied an equal share of inheritances while unbelievers could be excluded altogether.

In December, a radio presenter for the BBC Radio 4’s Feedback program, Roger Bolton, wrotean article for the Radio Times, a weekly magazine, in which he warned that British school teachers are afraid to teach their students about Christianity out of fear of offending Muslims. Bolton said that this was creating a generation of British youth who are ignorant about Christian culture and its role in British history. He cited a study that found that a quarter of British children indicated that they have never read, seen or heard of Noah’s Ark,’ that a similar proportion had never heard of the Nativity, that 43% had never heard of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and that 53% had never read, seen or heard of Joseph and his coat of many colors.

On December 10, a new report by a human rights group exposed the vulnerability of Muslim women living in Islamic “marriages” in the UK. The report—Equal and Free? 50 Muslim Women’s Experiences of Marriage in Britain Today—found that the widespread practice of polygamy has left Muslim women without legal rights upon “divorce,” entirely dependent on their “husbands” for financial support, and often unable to leave sham “marriages” for fear of social ostracism or bringing “shame” to their family.

On December 11, the House of Lords held debates on female genital mutilation [FGM] and the “impact of Sharia Law on the United Kingdom.” Lord Faulks, Minister of State for Civil Justice and Legal Policy, cited research that “revealed that approximately 60,000 girls are at risk of FGM in the UK.” In the following debate, Baroness Cox said: “The establishment of Sharia courts or councils in this country has promoted the application of gender-discriminatory provisions in ways which are currently causing considerable distress for many women.” She also asked why “polygamy is allowed to flourish” in Britain even though bigamy is illegal.

Finally, December saw the launch of the faceless “Deeni Doll,” (deeni is Arabic for “faith”) which is adorned with a traditional hijab headdress, but has no nose, mouth, or eyes, in order to comply with Islamic rulings regarding the depictions of facial features. The toy, which retails for £25 ($40), was designed by a former teacher at a Muslim school in Lancashire. She said:

“I came up with the idea from scratch after speaking to some parents who were a little concerned about dolls with facial features. Some parents won’t leave the doll with their children at night because you are not allowed to have any eyes in the room. There is an Islamic ruling which forbids the depiction of facial features of any kind and that includes pictures, sculptures and, in this case, dolls.”

Categories: Al Qaeda, Antisemitism, Britain, Caliphate, Human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Political correctness
Tags: Al Qaeda, Antisemitism, Britain, Caliphate, human rights, Ideology, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Political correctness

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Europe’s Year of the Jihadist

December 29, 2014

Europe’s Year of the Jihadist, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, December 29, 2014

(But the world is less violent than it has ever been. It is also more tolerant. Thus spake Obama.

— DM)

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Among the trends of 2014 – “Gone, Girl,” Lena Dunham, and $55,000 potato salad – was another the list-makers seem to have missed: it was also a very good year for Islamic jihad. And while this was true on the battlefields of Syria and the cities and villages of Pakistan, it was true, too, in more subtle ways throughout the West – and especially in Europe. It was, for instance, the year of Mehdi Nemmouche’s slaughter of four Jews at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

It was the year that Belgium itself was named a “terrorist recruiting hub” by the Wall Street Journal. And in Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands, pro-Islamic State demonstrations laid bare the growing support of terrorism and Islamic jihad among Europe’s expanding Muslim population – all while politicians either stood back or even contributed to the praise.

Throughout 2014, Europeans faced pro-IS, anti-Jew demonstrations in Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London and The Hague, and the establishment of “sharia zones” in London, Wupperthal, and elsewhere. True, such zones do not necessarily delineate areas in which sharia law, rather than state law, applies. But the term helps them define those largely-Muslim neighborhoods whose residents tend to be radical and who often support jihadist movements both at home and abroad.

Combined, these events signal the increasing success of Islamists who are working to change Europe from within – sometimes through violence, but more often through strategies known as “stealth jihad” – a way of applying social and political pressures to transform the current culture.

Take, for instance, the response of Josias van Aartsen, mayor of The Hague, to radical Muslims who called for the death of Dutch non-Muslims and Jews during pro-IS rallies in August: then on holiday, Van Aartsen declined to return home, ignoring even the throwing of stones at non-Muslims and the police. Only when a counter demonstration against IS was planned in the same, Muslim-majority neighborhood did Van Aartsen take action: he forbade it. “Too provocative,” he said.

Or there are the recently-leaked intelligence briefs in France, as reported by the Gatestone Institute, that “Muslim students are effectively establishing an Islamic parallel society completely cut off from non-Muslim students,” while “more than 1000 French supermarkets, including major chains such as Carrefour, have been selling Islamic books that openly call for jihad and the killing of non-Muslims.”

In England, an “Operation Trojan Horse” outlined plans to Islamize schools in Muslim neighborhoods. According to the Guardian, a government investigation of the program last summer found a “‘sustained, coordinated agenda to impose segregationist attitudes and practices of a hardline, politicised strain of Sunni Islam’ on children in a number of Birmingham schools.” Among those responsible for the “Operation” were the Association of Muslim Schools – UK and the Muslim Council of Britain – the same organization that, in 2011, declared that women who do not veil their faces “could be guilty of rejecting Islam.”

Ironically, it seems to have been England’s own culture that allowed the rise of Islamist teachings in its schools to begin with. Even Britain’s education secretary Nicky Morgan admitted to the New York Times that much of the operation’s success could be attributed to public “fear of being accused of racism and anti-Islamic views.” Not for nothing did former Obama advisor Lawrence Krauss declare the British “too polite” and “scared of offending ‘vocal and aggressive Muslims.'”

The government’s discovery of “Operation Trojan Horse” and immediate efforts to dismantle it are commendable, but it is difficult to assess the damage already done to Muslim children in the British schools. By some accounts, as many as 2,000 Britons have joined the (Sunni-led) jihad in Syria and Iraq. That includes the man known as “Jihadi John,” who beheaded U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. And, experts warn, the number of so-called “junior jihadis” – children under 10 who have become radicalized – is on the rise.

Not that such warnings are likely to do much good: The UK has, until recently, spent tremendous resources on programs aimed at preventing Muslim youth from joining militant groups, which have for the most part failed. “Having undertaken the ‘most significant domestic program by any Western country to foster a moderate version of Islam and prevent radicalization, the UK has effectively given up trying to stop jihadists from being created,” James Brandon, the former research director at one such program, told Reuters.

Despite such developments, European lawmakers have had a hard time figuring out how to deal with Muslim radicals, especially with returnees from Syria and Iraq. England is hardly the only place where politicians fear “offending” the sensibilities of Muslim groups. Although an estimated 450 Germans have joined the jihad in Syria, German Green Party domestic policy expert Irene Mihalic told the magazine Der Spiegel in September that tougher counterterrorism laws were unnecessary because “there are already ‘sufficient levers available to impose bans and limitations’ on terrorists and their supporters.” Majority parties apparently disagreed. Later that month, Germany became the first country to fully outlaw IS, along with all expressions of support for the terrorist group, from banners and graffiti to public demonstrations and endorsements by local mosques.

Such has hardly been the case in Denmark, though, where unwillingness to “offend” or “provoke” the country’s Muslim community has translated into a program that seeks to rehabilitate returning jihadists, rather than imprison them. In the country that boasts the second-largest number (per capita) of Muslims to join jihadist groups, returnees receive generous handouts in the form of government assistance in finding homes and jobs, or tuition aid in order to continue their education. In addition, the rehab program “does not try to change the fundamentalist beliefs of the returning fighters – as long as they don’t advocate violence,” CNN reports.

Evidently pampering jihadists isn’t working very well: Danish intelligence recently warned that returnees from IS and Al Nusra camps now pose a “significant” threat to the country. One jihadist profiled by CNN said that he plans to return to Syria to rejoin the caliphate once he completes his Danish government-funded education.

Other European governments have been reluctant to prosecute those recruiting for ISIS and other terrorist groups – groups that are in effect encouraging people to commit murder. In December, Dutch courts declared a 20-year-old woman “not guilty” of recruiting women to join the jihad in Syria on the grounds that women in IS are not permitted to fight – and hence cannot be considered terrorists. In another case, 23-year-old “Imad al-O” was found guilty of helping a 16-year-old girl travel to Syria via Egypt. His sentence? Three months prison time and 240 hours of community service.

Through it all, “lone wolf” radicals continue their attacks in European cities, such as the Dec. 21 attack in Dijon by a man who drove a car into a crowd of pedestrians, claiming he was “acting for the children of Palestine.”

The attack “for the children of Palestine” occurred just as French officials determined to join Sweden in recognizing a Palestinian state – a kind of international version, you might say, of England’s decision to stop trying to keep Muslim youth from radicalizing and becoming warriors for Islam. Unlike Kickstarter potato salads, it’s a trend we can well leave behind as we move into the new year.

Categories: Britain, Diversity, Europe, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Terrorism
Tags: Britain, DIversity, Europe, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Terrorism

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The U.S. President is Not Omnipotent

December 28, 2014

The U.S. President is Not Omnipotent, Algemeiner, December 28, 2014. This article was originally published by Israel Hayom.

full-senate-300x200

The United States Senate.

Will the 114th Congress follow in his footsteps, or will it abdicate its constitutional responsibilities?

Congress has often abdicated its constitutional power in the area of foreign policy, failing to fully leverage the power of the purse: funding, defunding and “fencing.”

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White House and State Department officials contend that, irrespective of Congress, President Barack Obama can apply effective diplomatic, commercial and national security pressure and coerce Israel to partition Jerusalem and retreat from Judea and Samaria to the 9-15 mile-wide pre-1967 sliver, surrounded by the violently turbulent and unpredictable Arab street.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro recently voiced this inaccurate underestimation of the power of Congress — which has traditionally opposed pressure on Israel, echoing the sentiments of most constituents — saying, “What is unmistakable about our foreign policy system is that the Constitution provides the president with the largest share of power.”

The assertion that U.S. foreign policy and national security are shaped by presidential omnipotence can be refuted by the U.S. Constitution as well as recent precedents. The Constitution was created by the Founding Fathers, who were determined to limit the power of government and preclude the possibility of executive dictatorship. They were apprehensive of potential presidential excesses and encroachment, and therefore assigned the formulation of foreign policy and national security to both Congress and the president. Obviously, the coalescing of policy between 535 legislators constitutes a severe disadvantage for the legislature.

According to the Congressional Quarterly, the U.S. Constitution rectified the mistakes of its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, upgrading the role of Congress to the primary branch of the U.S. government. “Hence, the first article of the Constitution is dedicated to Congress. The powers, structure, and procedures of the national legislature are outlined in considerable detail in the Constitution, unlike those of the presidency and the judiciary.”

Unlike all other Western democracies — where the executive branch of government dominates the legislature, especially in the area of international relations and defense — the U.S. Constitution laid the foundation for the world’s most powerful legislature, and for an inherent power struggle over the making of foreign policy between the legislature and the executive, two independent, co-equal and co-determining branches of government. Moreover, while the president is the commander in chief, presidential clout depends largely on congressional authorization and appropriation in a system of separation of powers and checks and balances, especially in the areas of sanctions, foreign aid, military assistance, trade agreements, treaty ratification, appointment confirmation and all spending.

Congressional power has been dramatically bolstered since the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and globalization, which have enhanced the involvement of most legislators in international issues, upgraded the oversight capabilities of Congress, dramatically elevated the quality and quantity of some 15,000(!) Capitol Hill staffers and have restrained the presidency.

However, Congress has often abdicated its constitutional power in the area of foreign policy, failing to fully leverage the power of the purse: funding, defunding and “fencing.” Legislators prefer to focus on domestic issues, which represent their constituents’ primary concerns and therefore determine their re-electability. Hence, they usually allow the president to take the lead in the initiation and implementation of foreign and national security policies, unless the president abuses their trust, outrageously usurping power, violating the law, assuming an overly imperial posture, pursuing strikingly failed policies, or dramatically departing from national consensus (e.g., the deeply rooted, bipartisan commitment to the Jewish state). Then, Congress reveals impressive muscle as befits a legislature, which is the most authentic reflection of the American people, unrestrained by design, deriving its power from the constituent and not from party leadership or the president, true to the notion that “the president proposes, Congress disposes.”

For example:

On August 1, 2014, Democratic senators forced Obama to separate the $225 million funding of Iron Dome batteries from the highly controversial $2.7 billion immigration and border security bill.
Since 1982 the Senate has repeatedly refused to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and since 1999 it has rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The January 2013 defense authorization bill tightened restrictions on the transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo to the U.S. In May 2009, Majority Leader Harry Reid foiled Obama’s attempt to close down the detention camp.
On February 17, 2011, Obama reluctantly vetoed a U.N. Security Council condemnation of Israel’s settlement policy, due to bipartisan congressional pressure.
In September 2012, a $450 million cash transfer to the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt was blocked by Congress.
The 2012 budget cut into Obama’s foreign aid spending request by more than $8 billion.
In 2009, bipartisan congressional opposition prevented the appointment of Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council.
In 1990-1992, Congress approved a series of amendments, expanding U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation to unprecedented levels despite presidential opposition.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush failed in his attempt to cut Israel’s foreign aid by 5 percent due to congressional opposition.
In January 1975, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was signed into law, in defiance of the president.
Congress ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam (the 1973 Eagleton, Cooper and Church Amendments), Angola (the 1976 Clark Amendment) and Nicaragua (the 1982-1984 Boland Amendments).
In 1991, Senator Daniel Inouye fended off administration pressure to withdraw an amendment to upgrade the port of Haifa facilities for the Sixth Fleet: “According to the U.S. Constitution, the legislature supervises the executive, not vice versa.”

Will the 114th Congress follow in his footsteps, or will it abdicate its constitutional responsibilities?

Categories: Foreign policy, Ideology, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Obama, Peace process, Political correctness, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Constitution, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Middle East, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Peace Process, Political correctness, Settlements, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

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Time to wake up

December 19, 2014

Time to wake up, Israel Hayom, Dror Eydar, December 19, 2014

(Is anybody there? Does anybody care?

— DM)

Who is responsible for most of the terrorist acts around the world today? Mother Theresa? What percentage of Muslims support militant Islamist organizations? These are not “lone-wolves” — this is a serious phenomenon with grave implications on the free world. It is something that needs to be confronted, rather than ganging up on anyone who points it out.

Isn’t it time to wake up?

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1. They haven’t woken up yet. Certainly not in Australia. Even after the deadly terrorist attack at a cafe in Sydney, parts of the institutionalized Australian media are still trying to delude their audience, maintaining that it was a “lone-wolf” who perpetrated the horrific assault. The Australian prime minister “took comfort” in the knowledge that the assailant had a history of mental illness.

A European court decided this week that Hamas is not a terrorist organization — it is a charity group with some “lone-wolf” members. The West’s basic instincts have become dull, after decades of suppressing its own survival mechanism by self-imposing a stern “politically correct” regime. Most of the leading figures in the West (and in Israel) are more concerned with how they are perceived by the community, and that they say the “correct” words that they are allowed to say, than they are with actually confronting the truth.

Who is responsible for most of the terrorist acts around the world today? Mother Theresa? What percentage of Muslims support militant Islamist organizations? These are not “lone-wolves” — this is a serious phenomenon with grave implications on the free world. It is something that needs to be confronted, rather than ganging up on anyone who points it out.

In February 2007, Professor Raphael Israeli — an international expert on Islam and professor at Hebrew University — was interviewed by an Australian newspaper. In the interview, Israeli warned that the Muslim minority living in the continent posed a real threat to the Australians. His studies suggest that life can become unbearable when the Muslim population of a Western country reaches critical mass (in one study he even attached a number to this idea of critical mass: 10 percent of the general population). It is a rule of thumb, he said, and if it applies everywhere, it certainly applies in Australia.

As an example, he cited the riots in Paris in 2006. Israeli suggested that the Australians ban the entry of Muslim radicals and adopt a preventative approach to avoid flooding the continent with immigrants from Indonesia. Muslim immigrants, he argued, have a reputation of taking advantage of Western tolerance and hospitality to advance their own ends. Trains in London and in Madrid were not blown up by Christians or Buddhists. They were blown up by Muslims. Precautions must be taken, he warned.

Not too far from Australia, in Bali, Islamist organizations perpetrated two horrifying terrorist attacks in 2002 and in 2005. Bali bomber Amrozi bin Nurhasin, who was charged with causing the deaths of more than 200 people, stood up in court in front of the global media and cried out “Jews! Remember Khaibar. The army of Muhammad is coming back to defeat you.” Not one of the 200 victims was Jewish. The Australians watched, read the warnings, and went back to what they were doing.

When Israeli was interviewed, the Bali attacks were still fresh, but the regime political correctness made sure to take the string out. Israeli became the target of a Bolshevik-style witch hunt. He was accused of racism, xenophobia, and was called a plethora of derogatory names. He received death threats. In response, the Middle East expert told the Australians to wait and see what happens. This week, one would hope that the Australians recalled Israeli’s cautionary words. Maybe some of them wondered why they didn’t heed his warning. Maybe.

2. On Monday, radio personality Tali Lipkin-Shahak interviewed Professor Israeli. It wasn’t the interview that was notable, but the style in which it was conducted — a style shared particularly by many Israeli journalists, and Western journalists in general. “You were ahead of your time,” she said to him. Israeli replied that he had been investigating the Muslim “diaspora” in Western countries for over a decade, and that in that time the Muslim population has grown to alarming proportions.

“But why do you attribute violent intentions to the immigration process?” the interviewer asked him. “Joseph also immigrated to Egypt,” she remarked, evoking the Book of Genesis.

True, the professor answered, remarking that he had written five books on the subject, “but Joseph’s family had not proclaimed that it planned to conquer Egypt or to convert Egypt to become Israelite.”

“The Muslims explicitly say that they did not come to Europe in order to become European, but to Islamize Europe.” They have vowed that a Muslim flag will wave over 10 Downing Street in England and over Versailles Palace in France within 25 years, he explained.

Lipkin-Shahak then said that “one can always [always!] talk about those people in terms of a negligible, extremist minority, including the terrorist attackers.” Even ISIS, she said, “has no more than several thousand members.”

Israeli insisted that these atrocities are nothing new. In the past, Muslims who immigrated to Australia, Scandinavia and Germany, as well as other places, have perpetrated very serious attacks.

The overly concerned interviewers rushed to protect the ears of her tender listeners, saying “I have to be the one to tone things down, or at least present the opposing view,” she said. “What you are saying, it is very serious. You are vilifying an entire population; you are contributing to the process of hatred and counter-hatred, which only causes harm and intensifies the violence.”

Israeli was not surprised. “That is exactly what they told me in Australia, until they became the victims of a catastrophe…This is my job. Anyone who wants to listen can listen. Anyone who doesn’t, they can wait for the next catastrophe.”

Lipkin-Shahak stuck to her guns: “We listened, but we voiced a skeptical opinion. We disagree.”

“What are you basing your opinion on?” Israeli wondered in desperation. “I am basing my opinion on thirty years of research, studying Islam, and you are basing yours on a trend, on the fact that it is not nice to say these things. We are talking on two completely different planes.”

Indeed, two completely different worlds. Facts vs. beliefs. Reality vs. fantasy. Make love not war; imagine there’s no countries, and no religion too. A very special kind of liberal fundamentalism. The moment the truth comes knocking, they retreat into their politically correct shells and refuse to recognize the facts. There is no such thing as Muslim terrorism. The terrorists come from outer space. Islam is a religion of peace and we mustn’t link it to all these terrible acts perpetrated in its name. Sadly, the people who think this way — the politically correct — have the microphone. The researcher with the facts is only a momentary guest.

3. The politically correct mechanism that launders the language that we use makes it very hard to express doubt in these John Lennon-esque fantasies, like the Oslo Accords for example. It may be hard to believe, but the principles of the Oslo Accords are still being marketed, under new names, to this day. Case in point: The recent empty declarations made by newfound partners Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog regarding their ability to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For our own good, we need to examine the remarks made by the late Arab-Palestinian minister Ziad Abu Ein, who, in 1979, murdered Boaz Lahav of Tiberias and David Lankri of Beit Shean and seriously wounded five others when he detonated an explosive device inside a trash can on a busy Tiberias street.

In July, 2006, Abu Ein told Al-Alam Iranian television that “the Oslo Accords are not the dream of the Palestinian people. However, there would never have been resistance in Palestine without Oslo. Oslo is the effective and potent greenhouse whish embraced the Palestinian resistance.”

“Without Oslo, there would never have been resistance. In all the occupied territories, we could not move a single pistol from place to place. Without Oslo, and being armed through Oslo, and without the Palestinian Authority’s A areas, without the training, the camps, the protection afforded by Oslo, and without the freeing of thousands of Palestinian prisoners through Oslo — this Palestinian resistance and we would not have been able to create this great Palestinian Intifada.”

Isn’t it time to wake up?

Categories: Europe, Fatah, Foreign policy, Hamas, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jihad, Political correctness, Terrorism
Tags: Europe, Fatah, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Islamic slaughter, Israel, Jihad, Political correctness, Terrorism

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Geert Wilders Was Right

December 19, 2014

Geert Wilders Was Right, Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, December 19,2014

“Hate Speech” was invented in the Kremlin of the USSR by political operatives who saw that it could be used effectively against anyone who did not agree with you, whom you wanted to silence.

It would seem indispensable for all people who want to defend their liberty to take a stand against criminal and violent people who aim to destroy or damage their societies. If those people are extremist Muslims, why should they be exempt? And if they are not extremist Muslims, why should they not be protected from the same threats and violence that menace us?

Ironically, however, it is not the violent Islamic teachings inspiring these crimes that are questioned, criticized — or prosecuted — as hate speech on major media outlets or among political circles. It is, instead, the victims of these teachings: among others, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lars Hedegaard, Susanne Winter, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Imran Firasat, and Geert Wilders.

What Geert Wilders does cannot be called hate speech. It is legitimate a struggle, if occasionally imperfect, to protect the liberties of all of us in the face of unending threats and attacks, most recently from Islamic extremists.

Geert Wilders is not an extremist of any kind. He is a democrat who defends Western values, the most important of which are liberty and life. We should not prosecute Wilders. We should thank him for sacrificing his life to defend us — and defend him back.

What a week. In an Australian café, a self-declared jihadi seized at least 17 hostages, two of whom were killed; and in Pakistan, 148 people, including 132 children, were massacred by the same branch of the Taliban that tried to murder Mala Yousafzai to prevent her from being educated.

Whether the terrorist in Australia acted alone or had an organization behind him is irrelevant. It did not stop him from killing two hostages. The manager of the Lindt cafe, 34-year-old Tori Johnson, and a 38-year-old lawyer and mother of three, Katrina Dawson, lost their lives.

What we have in both slaughters are individuals motivated by the same ideology, Islamism, and committing attacks against innocent civilians. More alarming is that many people apparently seem not to want to talk about the motivations, apart from mental illness, behind both attacks: Islamic ideology. Perhaps they fear being exposed to the same violence one day, or perhaps they fear jeopardizing business deals or votes. There may also be the temptation to run away from reality, in the hope that the more you deny it, the farther you are from it.

The ideology that flew planes into the World Trade Center in the U.S. and that took people hostage in Australia and that murdered over a hundred schoolchildren is one and the same. Without discussing it — what is there in or about it drives people to violence and hatred? — violent attacks, threats and intimidation are here to stay.

A wise and courageous man in Europe, Geert Wilders, has been speaking out about these truths for years — and has been made to pay a huge price for it. When the filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in 2004 over his short film, Fitna [ordeal], the paper on the knife in his back promised that Wilders (and Ayaan Hirsi Ali) would be next. Wilders lives in a state-provided house with high security; for his defense of freedom, he has received countless death threats and has been called “a hate mongering racist,” “a bigot,” “an extremist” and other names intended not to flatter. He is the founder and leader of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom (PVV), ranked number one in the polls; the creator of the film Fitna, and also author of the book, Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me.

Wilders warned Australia. He has devoted his life to warning us all. In a February 2014 television interview, he spoke to Australians about Islamism:

“Look how in societies today where Islam is dominant and prominent, how any non-Islamic person, whether it’s a Christian or an apostate or a woman or a critical journalist, how they are treated. This is in a very bad way, often with the death penalty or imprisonment or all those kind of terrible things.”

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Geert Wilders warns Australians about the dangers posed by Islamism, multiculturalism and mass immigration, on ABC Lateline, Feb. 13, 2014.

Due to an enormous influx of people from Islamic countries in the last decades, he continued, Dutch society has changed and worsened, so that,

“unfortunately non-Western immigrants, often Muslims, are over-represented in statistics of crime, of dependency on social benefits, that we have honor killings, that we have genital mutilation, that we have streets where women with headscarves and burqas are not the exception any more. And that it’s getting worse… What I’m trying to do when I visit your beautiful country, Australia, is warn Australians that even though it might not be the case today, learn from the mistakes that we made in Europe: be vigilant and look at Islam for what it really is. Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is a totalitarian ideology. The best example is that if any person, any Muslim wants to leave Islam, then the penalty is death. It is not even allowed to leave it.”

Wilders made clear that he was not threatening or attacking anyone for a religious or ethnic identity:

“I have nothing against the people. I have nothing against the Indonesian people or the Arab people or the Muslim people. I’m talking about the ideology. And indeed, as long as a country has a culture, a religion, an ideology where Islam is dominant, it will never be a democracy. It’s also happening in Indonesia. Look at how they treat Christians in Indonesia or how they treat Christians in any other country where Islam is dominant.”

…

“Why is it not possible to build a church in Saudi Arabia, where, as we in the Netherlands, have almost 500 mosques being built; why is it not possible to buy or sell a Bible in any Muslim or most of the Muslim countries, whereas we can buy a Koran here on every street corner? This is the exact example of the fact that Islam is an intolerant society.”

Wilders emphasized that there is no moderate or non-moderate Islam, but there are moderate and non-moderate Muslims:

“As a matter of fact, the majority of the Muslims living in our society are moderate people. But don’t make the mistake that even though there are moderate and radical Muslims that there is a moderate or a radical Islam. There is only one Islam, and that is a totalitarian ideology that has no room for anything but Islam. You see it once again in any country in the world where Islam is dominant.”

Wilders’s critics claim he is a bigot who hates all Muslims and wants to drive all of them out of Western countries, regardless of who they really are and what they do. Those claims are completely false.

Wilders has made it clear countless times that what he opposes is Islamic violence and totalitarianism, and that he has no problem with Muslims who are peaceful and law-abiding. The problem, he says, emerges when Muslims engage in violence or criminal acts, or try to impose their religious beliefs on non-Muslims, or attack or threaten those who do not agree with them, or try to establish the parallel legal system of sharia courts in their neighborhoods, or rape (with our without a gang) European girls, and so on.

“I believe that Muslims that are in our society today are of course equal as anybody else, as long as they adhere to our laws, to our constitution, to our values. And as long as they do not cross this red line — if they commit crimes, if they start beating up women, if they start the genital mutilation, if they start to commit other crimes and honor killings as they unfortunately do in Western Europe, many times — if they do that, I believe we should expel them, the same day if possible, from our country.”

“So to stop the immigration to our societies — because we have had more than enough Islam in our societies — and people who are here and who are behaving according to our laws and our constitutions are happy to stay, are equal to anybody else, or even want to help them with the better education, but if they cross the line of crime, start acting according to Sharia law, there will be no place for them in our free societies….”

It would seem indispensable for all people who want to defend their liberty to take a stand against criminal and violent people who aim to destroy or damage their societies. If those people are extremist Muslims, why they should be exempt? And if they are not extremist Muslims, why should they be not protected from the same threats and violence that menace us?

In September 2010, an Australian Islamic fundamentalist preacher, Feiz Mohammad, in an internet chat room incited his Muslim followers to behead Wilders.

Ironically, however, it is not the violent Islamic teachings inspiring these crimes that are questioned or criticized — or prosecuted — on major media outlets or among political circles. It is, instead, the victims of these teachings: among others, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lars Hedegaard, Susanne Winter, Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolf, Imran Firasat, and Geert Wilders. They are threatened by Muslims, accused by progressives of being “extremists,” interrogated by authorities, and even sued and made to stand trial.

Wilders lives in a state-provided house, outfitted to be bulletproof, and heavily guarded by police. He is driven from his home to his parliament office in an armored police vehicle, has round-the-clock bodyguards, and wears a bulletproof vest. “I am in jail, he says, “and they are walking around free.”

The life Wilders is forced to lead stands as proof that there is something terribly wrong with the current Western stand toward Islamic terrorism and “hate speech.” “Hate speech” was invented in the Kremlin of the USSR by political operatives who saw that it could be used effectively against anyone who did not agree with you, whom you wanted to silence[1]. It is a way to try forcefully to coerce others to your religion or way of thinking, or, failing that, to make them afraid to speak and neutralize them. Islamists and jihadists use hate speech to convert impressionable people, as Adolf Hitler did, to their way of thinking, and to recruit followers and jihadists who might enjoy torturing and beheading.

What Geert Wilders does cannot be called hate speech. It is a struggle, if occasionally imperfect, to protect the liberties of all of us in the face of unending threats and attacks, most recently from Islamic extremists. Geert Wilders is not an extremist of any kind. He is a democrat who defends Western values, the most important of which are liberty and life. We should not prosecute Wilders. We should thank him for sacrificing his life to defend us — and defend him back.

[1] Flemming Rose, The Tyranny of Silence (Cato Institute, 2014. 240 pp.)

Categories: Freedom, Geert Wilders, Islamic slaughter, Jihad, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Terrorism
Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Freedom, Geert Wilders, Islamic slaughter, Jihad, Moral equivalence, Multiculturalism, Political correctness, Terrorism

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