Professional criminals convince parents that their daughters are going to a better life in Turkey. The parents are given 2000-5000 Turkish liras ($700-$1700) as a "bride price" -- an enormous sum for a poor Syrian family.

"Girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen are referred to as pistachios, those between seventeen and twenty are called cherries, twenty to twenty-two are apples, and anyone older is a watermelon." — From a report on Turkey, by End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT).

Many Muslims have difficulty with, or even an aversion to, assimilating into the Western culture. Many seem to have the aim of importing to Europe the culture of intimidation, rape and abuse from which they fled.

Although the desperate victims are their Muslim sisters and brothers, wealthy Arab states do not take in refugees. The people in this area know too well that asylum seekers would bring with them problems, both social and economic. For many Muslim men such as wealthy, aging Saudis, it is easier to buy Syrian children from Turkey, Syria or Jordan as cheap sex slaves.

People who reflexively blame the wrong party for criminal acts are either misinformed or disingenuous.

The sad truth is that in the Palestinian territories, Christians are forced to live like dhimmis -- second-class citizens who survive largely by the protection-money they are required to pay to buy their daily safety. These barely-tolerated citizens exist only at the whim and pleasure of the ruling Muslim majority. Muslim Arab discrimination against non-Muslims includes economic and socially prejudicial behavior that makes it difficult or impossible for Christian Arabs to run a profitable business or for their families to be fully integrated into society.

It is also appropriate for Catholics to raise with Vatican authorities the issue of Father Twal's continued representation of the Faith in the Holy Land: Who is he serving first, God or man?

The guidelines for teaching Islam in public schools — drafted by the Islamic Commission of Spain and approved by the Ministry of Education — are aimed at stirring religious fervor and promoting Islamic identity among young Muslims in Spain.

The guidelines, which envision the teaching of every aspect of Islamic doctrine, culture and history, are interspersed with "politically correct" terminology... but the overall objective is clear: to inculcate young people with an Islamic worldview.

According to the guidelines, preschoolers (ages 3- 6) are to learn the Islamic profession of faith, the Shahada, which asserts that "there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger." The Shahada is the gateway into Islam: one becomes a Muslim by repeating the Shahada three times in front of a witness. They are also encouraged to "emulate, through different forms of expression, the values observed by Mohammed."

In primary school (ages 6-12), the guidelines call for children to "recognize Mohammed as the final prophet sent by Allah and accept him as the most important."

We hear often that Mahmoud Abbas is keen on having Palestinians vote in a democratic election. Yet Abbas turned 81 last week and appears ready to remain at the helm until his last day -- free elections for Palestinians be damned. That makes sense: Hamas could easily best Abbas in such an election.

Hamas and Abbas's Fatah are still far from achieving any form of reconciliation. This, despite all the talk about "progress" that has been reportedly achieved in talks between the two parties taking place in Doha, Qatar.

Hamas is also cracking down on journalists, academics, unionists and even lawyers in the Gaza Strip.

Yet Abbas's West Bank rivals Hamas in Gaza, in terms of a lack of human rights and freedom of speech. The idea of free and democratic elections there is a joke. Abbas will leave a legacy of chaos.

Erdogan has boasted that he is proud of boldly blackmailing EU leaders into paying him protection money.

Erdogan's threats were almost criminally sinister: "... the EU will be confronted with more than a dead boy on the shores of Turkey. There will be 10,000 or 15,000. How will you deal with that?"

According to the agreement, 80 million Turkish citizens will have visa-free access to the European Union.

The nightmare scenario for a desperate EU is that no matter how much it bows to extortionist demands from Turkey, the migrant crisis will continue to grow. Even if Turkey closes down all migrant routes from Turkey into Europe, refugees could take new routes through North Africa or the Caucasus.

Meanwhile, 800,000 migrants are currently on Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean, according to French Defense Minister Jean-Yves le Drian.

According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015; 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on charges of "terrorism." There are also many journalists among the 1,845 Turks who have been investigated or prosecuted for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he was elected in August 2014.

After the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria, President Erdogan himself filed a criminal complaint against Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, and the Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul.

At a March 25 hearing, the Istanbul court ruled for the whole trial to be held in secret.

"We came here today to defend journalism...We said we would defend the people's right to access information. We defended that and we were arrested." -- Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet.

The trial clearly exhibits how Erdogan's authoritarian rule diverges from Western democratic culture.

The facts show is that all these "excuses" for terrorism are incorrect. Israel is not, for instance, carrying out the "war crimes," "apartheid" or "genocide," which propagandists have persuaded Europeans that Israel is engaged in. Israel is fighting an enemy that breaks every rule of armed conflict, and Israel responds in a manner so precise and so moral that allied nations are concerned that they will not be able to live up to the Israeli military's moral standards the next time they go to war.

Well, what a shock the rest of the world will one day have to undergo. Because if you allow an "excuse" for one false narrative of Islamic extremists, you will then have to allow it for the others. You will, for example, have to accept the word of ISIS that Belgium is a "crusader" nation, deserving to be attacked because it is involved in a "crusade."

The question is not why it took over 24 hours for the UK to find Belgian-colored lights to project in solidarity, but why after 67 years of terror, it still has not found the simple blue and white lights to project the flag of Israel onto any public place.

Sadly, university students, unions, and those in show business who believe they are lending their energy in support of the Palestinian people might take a moment to understand that they are supporting politicians -- both from the Palestinian territories and from terrorist sponsors -- who are, in fact, using the Palestinian people as pawns in a game of chess where oil, money and power are the rewards.

Rather than promote boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), well-meaning idealists might consider how best to assist the Palestinians, whose own leaders siphon off aid money they receive from other countries. Students might consider how to establish industries to improve the Palestinian job market, instead of boycotting Israeli companies that employ thousands of Palestinians. They might make an effort to understand the real situation and work towards promoting a lasting peace, instead of misguidedly worsening the plight of Palestinians.

Peace requires empathy; the BDS movement, with its secret aim of destroying a free and democratic nation, promotes nothing but resentment, division and hate.

Freedom of speech is the ultimate liberal value -- and it is the first value that people who wish to control us would take away.

If a court in a Western society decides to censor or punish Geert Wilders or others for non-violent speech, the court not only attacks the very humanistic values and liberal society we claim to hold dear; it brings us a step closer to totalitarianism. Even the idea of having an "acceptable" range of views is inherently totalitarian.

But what does one do if immigrants prefer not to assimilate? Europeans may be faced with a painful choice: What do they want more, the humanistic values of individual freedom or an Islamized Europe?

Censorship is not a path we should wish to take. While we may rightly fear those on the political right, we would do well to fear even more the autocratic thought-police and censorship on the political left.

The Palestinian Authority has no intention of recognizing Israel's right to exist. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Methodists are laboring under the false hope that "peace and justice" is possible if only Israel would be more accommodating.

The United Methodist Kairos Response Committee has adopted "apartheid" and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) strategies, without considering how this may instead actually increase friction, strife and division.

The Methodists and other Christian groups with "peace and justice" interests such as the Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, Scottish Presbyterian Church and the members of the World Council of Churches need to accept some responsibility for aggravating the anti-Semitism energizing the popular imagination today.

The Methodist Church could instead consider actions of a kind designed to help rather than undermine peace -- projects envisioned by a variety of goodhearted and resourceful people, who see opportunities where others clearly appear to be more interested in hurting Israel and the Jews than in actually helping the Palestinians.

The problem on campuses across the country is that pro-Palestinian activists, in their zeal to seek self-affirmation, statehood, and "social justice," have waged an extremely caustic cognitive war against Israel and Jews.

Being pro-Palestinian on campuses today does not necessarily mean that one is committed to helping Palestinians be productive, live well, build a free and open nation or create a civil society with transparent government, a free press, human rights, and a representative government.

What being pro-Palestinian seems to have come to mean is continually denigrating and attacking Israel with a false historical narrative and the grotesquely misused language of human rights. What is claimed to be anti-Israel sentiment often rises to the level of raw anti-Semitism.

It is enough to make Jewish students, whether or not they care about Israel at all, uncomfortable, unsafe, or even hated on their own campuses.

"Over 500 Christian villagers were slain in one night." — Emmanuel Ogebe, Nigerian human rights lawyer, March 2, 2016.

What Christians in Nigeria are experiencing is a live snapshot of what millions of Christians and other non-Muslims have experienced since the seventh century, when Islam "migrated" to their borders: violence, persecution, enslavement, and the destruction of churches.

The Obama Administration refuses to associate Boko Haram — an organization that defines itself in purely Islamic terms — with Islam, just as it refuses to associate the ISIS with Islam.

In all cases, the Obama Administration looks the other way, while insisting that the jihad is a product of "inequality," "poverty" and "a lack of opportunity for jobs" — never of Islamic teaching.

Before the bodies of Israeli victims were carried to their homeland, the Turkish make-up showed signs of falling apart and the ugly reality emerged.

"Let the Israeli citizens be worse, I wish they all died." — Irem Aktas, head of the women's and media division of the AKP party branch in Istanbul's Eyup district.

Aktas's mistake was probably to express publicly what millions of Turks only thought, but did not say, in the face of a suicide bomb attack.

Two "unaccompanied refugee children," remanded in January on suspicion of the aggravated rape of a younger boy at an asylum house in Alvesta, were revealed to be much older than 15 years old -- the age they claimed to be. One of them, an Afghan man, wrote on Facebook that he was 44.

On Sweden's most popular TV show, host Gina Dirawi and a children's choir rewrote Sweden's national anthem -- instead of "I want to live, I want to die in the North", they sang, "I want to live, I want to die on Earth." The producer stated that the show "is not for those who get upset if the national anthem is changed. The focus should be on the people of this country who have 'different roots.'"

Adult migrants with residence permits now have a right to bypass Swedes in waiting lists for housing. There is a massive shortage of housing, which has led to young Swedes, well into their 30s, being forced to live with their parents.

While the anti-Israel activists are busy protesting against Israel on Western campuses, Palestinian students and professors are persecuted by their own Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas governments.

Let us redefine "pro-Palestinian." Instead of bashing Israel, real pro-Palestinians will demand democracy for those they champion, and scream for public freedoms for Palestinians under the PA and Hamas regimes, which have always smashed dissent with an iron fist.

PA security forces systematically target students and academics under various pretexts. Hundreds of students have been rounded up. Many remain in detention without the possibility of seeing a lawyer or a family member.

Palestinians on campuses in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have once again been reminded that they remain as far as ever from achieving a state that would look any different from the other Arab dictatorships in the region. The campus incidents, which have hardly caught the attention of the international media and anti-Israel activists in the West, also expose the media double standard about human rights violations.

In the first case of its kind under the PA, Kadoori University in Tulkarem suspended a student who hugged his fiancée in public.