Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Gordon G. Chang • June 1, 2023 at 5:00 am
What is the world's largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China.
Beijing's primary goal is rule — not domination — of Planet Earth and the near parts of the solar system.
This expansive Chinese view has many implications, but one of them is that China's regime does not believe it is bound by the laws of the international community. China's regime, with this mentality, thinks that whatever it does by definition is within its right and therefore not criminal.
There are in China, for instance, over 700 million surveillance cameras in its SkyNet system, about one camera for every two residents. Those devices are being connected to one centrally controlled system as the regime stitches together a nationwide social credit system to monitor every person in the People's Republic.
Taxis and other vehicles also have government-installed cameras. The CCP has thought of everything. As a result, China is fast becoming totalitarian and a total surveillance state.
The Communist Party cannot run such a state and claim it does not know what is going on.
This means the CCP is responsible for the tens of thousands of Americans annually killed by fentanyl.... The result, Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution wrote, is "the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history."
TikTok... which Beijing effectively controls, glamorizes drug use. Yes, the wildly popular app has community guidelines prohibiting videos promoting drug use, but you can find clips with millions of views teaching kids how to take illegal drugs.
The Chinese gangs use burner phones and Chinese banking apps to move vast sums quickly, quietly, and securely through the Chinese state banking system. The Communist Party of China tightly controls all Chinese banks, and no one could transfer sums through their networks without the cooperation of the regime.
"At its core, the People's Republic of China is focused on gaining geopolitical leverage over countries in Central and South America to be used in an eventual conflict with the United States." — Joseph Humire of the Center for a Secure Free Society to Gatestone, May 2023
These are just a few of China's crimes as detailed in Frank Gaffney's new book, The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party & Friends for Crimes Against America, China, and the World. Unfortunately, American law enforcement prosecutes individuals when it should be prosecuting the Communist Party of China instead.
What is the world's largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China. The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a criminal of the most powerful and insidious kind. Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping attends during the China-Central Asia Summit in Xian, China on May 19, 2023. (Photo by Florence Lo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
China's regime is trafficking illegal drugs, protected wildlife, and humans. It is laundering cash and participating in ransomware attacks. It steals intellectual property. The ruling group, as a matter of state policy, murders people for their organs. The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a common criminal. Perhaps we should say it is an uncommon or state criminal, the most powerful and insidious kind. What is the world's largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China. The Obama administration's "Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime," issued in 2011, defines "transnational organized crime" as "self-perpetuating associations" operating transnationally "for the purpose of obtaining power, influence, monetary and/or commercial gains, wholly or in part by illegal means." These organizations protect themselves "through a pattern of corruption and/or violence."
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by Bassam Tawil • May 31, 2023 at 5:00 am
The "right of return" is not actually a "right," especially if you are the party who started the war and then lost it, as took place in 1948.
The "right of return" is, rather, a demand: that all the Palestinians who fled their homes during the war of 1948 – and all their descendants – be allowed to return to what is currently the State of Israel.
Thousands of wealthy Arabs left their homes in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders' calls to get out of the way of the advancing Arab armies. A handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the crossfire as the Arabs waged war in response to the establishment of Israel.
"There is a limit to how far Abbas should go to appease Israel." -- Saudi commentator, mepc.org, 2012.
[A]n extensive letter to Abbas, signed by 78 Palestinian organizations, contained a semi-veiled death threat.
It has now become clear that when Abbas says he supports the two-state solution, he is actually talking about one Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, and another one that would replace Israel.
In Israel, there are currently about seven million Jews and two million Arabs. An influx of untold millions of Palestinians would mean, literally, the end of Israel. This appears to be exactly what Abbas and other Palestinians are hoping to achieve.
In pursuing this hardline push for the "right of return," Abbas desires a two-state solution: two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and Gaza, and the other in all of Israel.
[Abbas's] time is running out and his people are thoroughly angered and disappointed by his lack of tangible results, either in displacing Israel or in bettering their lives.
Addressing Abbas, the comment reads: "We, the Palestinian people, Mahmoud Abbas, want all of Palestine... 67 and 48, all the land, water, sky, air... and the Jews do not exist with us.... Let history write your name. You admitted that the negotiations with the Zionists were a mistake and a sin... Mr. President. Safed is home and you want to go back to your country...Palestine has tens of millions of owners of the land, and you have been repeating the same mistake for 20 years. The Palestinian people, are tens of millions. We will return. We will expel them [Jews] and displace them. Even their graves, Mr. President, will not remain under our soil... we will kill them."
In pursuing this hardline push for the "right of return," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas desires a two-state solution: two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and Gaza, and the other in all of Israel. Pictured: Abbas speaks at the United Nations headquarters in New York on May 15, 2023. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)
May 15 marked the United Nation's latest travesty as it put "Nakba Day" on its official annual calendar. "Nakba" translates as "catastrophe" in Arabic. This international body disingenuously declared to the world that "the Nakba is a moment in time in 1948" -- which just so happened to coincide precisely with the establishment of the State of Israel. The icing on the anti-Israel cake of this event, however, was the hour-long address to the UN by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Seizing the floor for double his scheduled speaking time, he referred to Israel's founding, (or "Nakba," to Palestinians) as a "tragedy [that] constitutes a scar on humanity." Both the UN's and Abbas's predictably anti-Israel rhetoric aside (and comparing Israel to Nazis is quite an aside), the most outrageous statement at the event was Abbas's ultimatum that Israel must accept the Palestinians' "right of return" or be ousted from UN membership.
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by Burak Bekdil • May 31, 2023 at 4:00 am
Erdoğan, as he has always done since coming to power in 2002, did all that he could to use state resources and the media he controls to manipulate the voters both before the May 14 vote and before the second round.
State officials who are bound by the constitution to stay neutral in politics joined Erdoğan's campaign, while blocking every opposition effort.
When a journalist asked Erdoğan "How was this video recorded?" Erdoğan admitted that the video shown was fabricated, but still alleged PKK complicity in the Kılıçdaroğlu campaign.... In fact, the PKK circulated its own, original version; militants dancing and chanting and so on. At the election rally, Erdoğan showed a fabricated version showing Kılıçdaroğlu dancing and chanting with PKK militants.
While Erdoğan will try to maintain a balanced policy between Russia and the West, he will be inclined to favor Russia to the point where he fears that Western sanctions will hammer Turkey's ailing economy.
Putin will keep on drinking his champagne while rooting for his Turkish Trojan Horse in NATO. Turkey's relations with the EU, however, will remain in the deep freeze, where they have been for the past several years, with virtually no chance of reviving Turkey's process for EU membership.
What will happen after [Erdoğan] has left the political stage? The Turks will most likely quickly elect another opportunistic Islamist leader -- another Erdoğan.
Secular Turks and Turkey's Western allies should brace for another five tumultuous years with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. What will happen after he has left the political stage? The Turks will most likely quickly elect another opportunistic Islamist leader -- another Erdoğan. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
The second round of Turkey's consequential presidential election on May 28 did not produce a surprise. Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now in his third decade in power, won 52% of the national vote against 48% by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition leader. In the first round on May 14, Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu had won 49.5% and 45% of the vote, respectively. A previous article summarized the result of the first round as a victory of nationalist identity politics over misery. Erdoğan, as he has always done since coming to power in 2002, did all that he could to use state resources and the media he controls to manipulate the voters both before the May 14 vote and before the second round. State officials who are bound by the constitution to stay neutral in politics joined Erdoğan's campaign, while blocking every opposition effort.
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by J. Christian Adams • May 30, 2023 at 5:00 am
You probably know the [National Voter Registration Act] as "Motor Voter." It is the federal requirement that requires state motor vehicle offices to offer voter registration and the ability to update your address.
Sounds convenient? Now, we have data showing one of the side effects of Motor Voter is to put non-citizens onto American voter rolls.
[W]e have collected extensive records of non-citizens asking to be removed from the voter rolls. Sometimes those records reveal how the foreign citizen was registered to vote, and the Motor Voter process represents the vast majority of cases.
Chicago officials provided registration records where some foreign nationals even checked "NO" to the question of whether the person is a United States citizen, and were still registered.
The Pennsylvania State Department admitted that due to what election officials referred to as a "glitch" that they had been accidentally registering foreign nationals to vote for two decades. They have been fighting for over five years to conceal details, including the number of foreign nationals the Commonwealth registered to vote by mistake.
The reports from Maricopa County and Chicago are not an inventory of every non-citizen vote, but only those who informed election officials they were not American citizens. So, the catalog of confessed non-citizens is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg.
What can be done about non-citizens registering to vote?
Congress can solve the problem by allowing states to validate citizenship effectively. This could be as easy as providing a passport, birth certificate or other evidence of being an American at the time of voter registration.
Another easy fix is for Congress to add citizenship to the National Voter Registration Act's reasonable voter list maintenance requirements for states. Motor Voter does not put the same obligation for states to keep voter rolls free from non-citizens as it does, for example, dead voters.
One of the side effects of the National Voter Registration Act is to put non-citizens onto American voter rolls. (Image source: iStock)
This month marks the 30th anniversary of President Bill Clinton signing the National Voter Registration Act into law. You probably know the law as "Motor Voter." It is the federal requirement that requires state motor vehicle offices to offer voter registration and the ability to update your address. Sounds convenient? Now, we have data showing one of the side effects of Motor Voter is to put non-citizens onto American voter rolls. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, of which I am president, has been examining Motor Voter at 30; the good and the bad. On one hand, the law has greatly increased the transparency in our elections. The law requires that all voter list maintenance records be available for public inspection. When elections are conducted with transparency, we trust the process more regardless of which candidate wins.
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • May 29, 2023 at 5:00 am
[He wrote] me: "I'm a graduate student at NYU working on a documentary film." Not "I'm a former graduate student with no current connection to NYU." He was deliberately deceptive and did make false statements.
He apparently believes that because I defend Israel, he is justified in defrauding me.
This, then, is a warning to other people who support Israel to be aware that this fraudulent and pretend "journalist" is out there ready to employ sleazy tactics unworthy of real journalists. No one should ever agree to be interviewed by Novell. And NYU should be aware that its good name is being misused and tarnished by Novell's unethical misrepresentations.
Novell has now tried to shift blame to me, saying that I should have checked him out on Google before agreeing to be interviewed. So I did, and I found nothing that would have alerted me to his fraudulent intentions and action. This is why I am writing this op-ed: so that anyone Novell seeks to interview in the future, will be able to learn about his sordid history.
"Journalists are supposed to be governed by rules of ethics, but too many of them will do anything, violate any rule, break any trust, lie to any source, in order to get a career-building story." — Alan Dershowitz. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Journalists are supposed to be governed by rules of ethics, but too many of them will do anything, violate any rule, break any trust, lie to any source, in order to get a career-building story. Most journalists comply with their ethical obligations, but the ones who do not cause understandable distrust among the general public.
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May 29, 2023 at 3:00 am
Gatestone Institute wishes to thank all the brave men and women of America's armed forces who sacrificed their lives -- and all of you who continue every day to defend our freedom -- so that we may sleep soundly in our beds at night. We are in your debt. — The Editors.
Pictured: An honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington National Cemetery. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
by J.B. Shurk • May 28, 2023 at 5:00 am
[M]edia polling from Harvard-Harris showing that Americans hold almost diametrically opposing viewpoints from those that news corporations predominantly broadcast as the official "truth."
Americans have correctly concluded that [with the "Russia Hoax" and suppressing reported influence peddling in Hunter Biden's laptop ] journalists and spies advanced a "fraud" on voters as part of an effort to censor a damaging story and "help Biden win." Nevertheless, The New York Times and The Washington Post have yet to return the Pulitzer Prizes they received for reporting totally discredited "fake news."
"Under the current approach to journalism, it is the New York Times that receives a Pulitzer for a now debunked Russian collusion story rather than the New York Post for a now proven Hunter Biden laptop story." — Professor Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law School, Twitter, May 15, 2023.
The government apparently took the public's censorship concerns so seriously that it quietly moved on from the collapse of its plans for a "disinformation governance board" within the DHS and proceeded within the space of a month to create a new "disinformation" office known as the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which now operates from within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Although ostensibly geared toward countering information warfare arising from "foreign" threats, one of its principal objectives is to monitor and control "public opinion and behaviors."
As independent journalist Matt Taibbi concludes of the government's resurrected Ministry of Truth: "It's the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age: raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from Congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and surveillance. Then, slowly, adjust your aim to domestic targets."
Democrat Senator Michael Bennet has already proposed a bill that would create a Federal Digital Platform Commission with "the authority to promulgate rules, impose civil penalties, hold hearings, conduct investigations, and support research."
Effectively, a small number of unelected commissioners would have de facto power to monitor and police online communication. Should any particular website or platform run afoul of the government's First Amendment Star Chamber, it would immediately place itself within the commission's crosshairs for greater oversight, regulation, and punishment.
Will this new creation become an American KGB, Stasi or CCP — empowered to target half the population for disagreeing with current government policies, promoting "wrongthink," or merely going to church? Will a small secretive body decide which Americans are actually "domestic terrorists" in the making? US Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone after traditional Catholics who attend Latin mass, but why would government suspicions end with the Latin language? When small commissions exist to decide which Americans are the "enemy," there is no telling who will be designated as a "threat" and punished next.
It is not difficult to see the dangers that lie ahead. Now that the government has fully inserted itself into the news and information industry, the criminalization of free speech is a very real threat. This has always been a chief complaint against international institutions such as the World Economic Forum that spend a great deal of time, power, and money promoting the thoughts and opinions of an insular cabal of global leaders, while showing negligible respect for the personal rights and liberties of the billions of ordinary citizens they claim to represent.
If Schwab's online army were not execrable enough, advocates for free speech must also gird themselves for the repercussions of Elon Musk's appointment of Linda Yaccarino, reportedly a "neo-liberal wokeist" with strong WEF affiliations, as the new CEO of Twitter.
In an America now plagued with the stench of official "snitch lines," censorship of certain presidential candidates, widespread online surveillance, a resurrected "disinformation governance board," and increasingly frequent criminal prosecutions targeting Americans who exercise their free speech, the question is not whether what we inaudibly think or say in our sleep will someday be used against us, but rather how soon that day will come unless we stop it.
Now that the government has fully inserted itself into the news and information industry, the criminalization of free speech is a very real threat. (Image source: iStock)
If legacy news corporations fail to report that large majorities of the American public now view their journalistic product as straight-up propaganda, does that make it any less true? According to a survey by Rasmussen Reports, 59% of likely voters in the United States view the corporate news media as "truly the enemy of the people." This is a majority view, held regardless of race: "58% of whites, 51% of black voters, and 68% of other minorities" — all agree that the mainstream media has become their "enemy." This scorching indictment of the Fourth Estate piggybacks similar polling from Harvard-Harris showing that Americans hold almost diametrically opposing viewpoints from those that news corporations predominantly broadcast as the official "truth."
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by Amir Taheri • May 28, 2023 at 4:00 am
Atatürkism... tried to reinvent Turkey's identity as a modern state claiming Hittite and Celtic roots, distancing itself from the "decadent Orient" and hoping to regain its proper place in the family of European nations.
More importantly, Atatürk introduced the concept of secularism, using the French term laïcité, to end the centuries' long mixture of religion and politics under the Ottoman caliphs.
The new identity that Atatürk tried to create has also been subverted by Erdoğan's reforms. Erdoğan has tried to re-inject a large dose of Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood type, into the Turkish identity. At the same time he has encouraged the expression of sub-identities, some of them to justify his peddling of Turkish-Islam as the broad tent under which all citizens of Turkey could gather under one flag.
Thus the Kurds, around 15 percent of the population, have been able to discard the identity that Atatürk imposed on them as "Mountain Turks," and claim a bigger role in Turkish politics and culture in their own name.
Atatürk's laïcité has also been upturned. In 1923, it was the state that controlled the mosque through a Ministry of Religion. Today, at times, the demarcation line between the state and the mosque is too pale to be seen by all.
As far as aspirations to be European are concerned, Turkey is now farther away from securing a place in the European family of nations than ever. Even under the Ottomans, Turkey saw itself as a European power, even if lonely as "the sick man of Europe."
Atatürk may also be dismayed by the return of pan-Turkist and pan-Turanist elements with a chauvinistic discourse that he regarded as repulsive.
Would Atatürk be surprised if Erdoğan wins today's election? I don't think so. Erdoğan has a solid support base with some 30 percent of the electorate and has been able to co-opt or bribe a number of smaller constituencies into voting for him. Since the alleged coup attempt in 2016, he has been working to ensure his domination of Turkish politics by removing as many potential opposition bases as possible.
Erdoğan has defanged the military's top brass and dismantled the network of Islamist clubs and businesses associated with exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. He has sent 77,000 real or imagined opponents to prison for varying lengths of time. He has organized trials for 13,500 prominent figures from all walks of life, purged 2,745 judges and public prosecutors, imposed early retirement on 36,000 schoolteachers and 1,755 university professors, deans and chancellors. Overall, Erdoğan has fired 100,000 civil servants, including 9,000 from the Ministry of Interior, which organizes elections.
More importantly, Erdoğan has tightened his party's control over the media by shutting down 45 daily newspapers, 25 weeklies, 23 radio stations, 16 television channels and 29 book publishing companies. His crackdown has also seen the cancellation of 50,000 passports, preventing the holders from leaving the country.
Atatürk served for 15 years as president of the republic he had created, during which Turkey was one of the few countries to escape the tsunami of inflation that had hit Europe, leading to the emergence of Mussolini as ruler of Italy, the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the advent of Hitler.
Today Atatürk will watch the election results as the Turks face economic meltdown, with inflation setting records never known in their history.
The "Father" won't be happy. However, his sole consolation would be that 100 years later, a majority of Turks still see him as a unifying figure at a time the leadership elites of all ideological colors try to divide them.
Atatürkism tried to reinvent Turkey's identity as a modern state claiming Hittite and Celtic roots, distancing itself from the "decadent Orient" and hoping to regain its proper place in the family of European nations. Pictured: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk talks with his advisors, circa 1919. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Today, Turkish voters go to the polls to elect their president while a special task force works on ceremonies to mark the centenary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923. But what would the man who founded the republic think of Turkey today? The man in question is Mustafa Kemal Pasha, alias Atatürk ("Father of the Turks"), the charismatic military commander who transformed the truncated remains of the Ottoman Empire into a nation-state aspiring to modernize itself. At first glance Atatürk would be proud of what he did. The republic he founded is the oldest in the Muslim world and one of the few that were founded by strongmen outside the West in the 1920s to be still in place. More importantly, Atatürk remains the only iconic figure of his time to be still respected, if no longer revered, by all his compatriots across the political spectrum.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • May 27, 2023 at 5:00 am
Since 2021, the Biden Administration has been cozying up to Iran in a way that has often seemed agonizingly embarrassing to entice it back to the disastrous 2015 "JCPOA" nuclear deal of the Obama Administration. Mercifully those efforts did not succeed: the new deal would still most likely have enabled Iran, after a few years, legitimately to have all the nuclear weapons it liked.
Meanwhile, in Israel, on May 22, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides was asked, "Can Israel attack Iran without the US? What about the lack of meetings between President Biden and PM Netanyahu?" Nides answered: "The coordination between Israel and US vis-à-vis our mutual enemies, our common threats in the region, is rock solid. One of the things President Biden assured both PM Bennett and Lapid, and Netanyahu, was that there would be complete transparency regarding coordination on Iran.... And it's not just Iran, it's its proxies. We stand here to support Israel and work with it to make sure Iran never attains a nuclear weapon."
The trouble is, can we believe him?
So far, the Biden Administration's lack of strategy towards the Iranian regime also became evident during the recent briefing about Iran that disappointed U.S. Senators.
"Strategic ambiguity on Iran policy only serves to embolden the regime and push our partners closer to China." — Senator Jim Risch, May 17, 2023.
The Biden administration is also not putting any pressure on the European Union to stop trading with Iran. In fact, bragged the Tehran Times, "The value of Iran's export to the European Union (EU)'s member states rose 28 percent in the first nine months of 2022."
Iran's increasing trade with and exports to the EU are also increasing the regime's revenues and assisting it to supply more weapons to Russia.
"The source claimed that two Russian-flagged cargo ships, departed an Iranian port in January bound for Russia via the Caspian Sea, carrying approximately 100 million bullets and around 300,000 shells. Ammunition for rocket launchers, mortars and machine guns was allegedly included in the shipments. The source said Moscow paid for the ammunition in cash." – Sky News, March 8, 2023.
Finally, Iran is now producing more oil and selling it at levels close to the pre-sanctions era to countries such as China, which desperately needs more oil, while the Biden Administration suspended new oil and gas leases on public lands and waters.
The Biden Administration's policies of appeasement are directly energizing the Iranian regime. We need to remember what Winston Churchill warned against about appeasing aggressors: "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last."
Ever since President Joe Biden assumed office, Iran has been freely enriching uranium to levels just short of nuclear breakout – levels not needed for peaceful nuclear technology – and violating sanctions. Pictured: The Isfahan uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan, Iran. (Photo by Getty Images)
The Biden Administration's reluctance to enforce existing sanctions on Iran -- the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, according to the State Department in 2021 -- looks suspiciously like total appeasement of Iran's ruling mullahs. Since 2021, the Biden Administration has been cozying up to Iran in a way that has often seemed agonizingly embarrassing to entice it back to the disastrous 2015 "JCPOA" nuclear deal of the Obama Administration. Mercifully those efforts did not succeed: the new deal would still most likely have enabled Iran, after a few years, legitimately to have all the nuclear weapons it liked. Meanwhile, in Israel, on May 22, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides was asked, "Can Israel attack Iran without the US? What about the lack of meetings between President Biden and PM Netanyahu?" Nides answered:
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by Raymond Ibrahim • May 26, 2023 at 5:00 am
A savage jihad — replete with massacres, beheadings, and sexual enslavement — has been raging in the Christian-majority nation of Mozambique since 2017.
Few in the West are aware of this, not least as the situation has been garbed in Marxist language that seeks to depict radical terrorists as "victims" and those resisting them, including the Mozambican government, as "oppressors."
By May 2020, the massacres had reached the point that a "Genocide Warning" was issued. As of December 2021, the terrorists had slaughtered 3,340 people and displaced nearly a million more. The numbers of those killed and displaced has grown in the last year-and-a-half, though there appear to be no official statistics.
As in other African nations, the Muslim terrorists of ISM are deliberately targeting Christians.
"They say their goal is to set up a caliphate similar to ISIS in Iraq and Syria. And they are in some cases, literally going door to door. They ask, 'Are you a Christian? Or are you a Muslim?' If you're a Christian, you're killed [including by crucifixion]. If you're a Muslim, then you get the opportunity to quote some Quranic verses. And if you can quote them sufficiently, you save your life. Otherwise, you also get killed [for being insufficiently Islamic]." — Todd Nettleton, The Voice of the Martyrs USA, June 28, 2021.
"Islamic militants turned a village soccer field in northern Mozambique into an execution ground when they beheaded more than 50 people during three days of savage violence between Friday, November 6, and Sunday, November 8...." — Barnabas Aid, November 10, 2020.
After decapitating a Christian pastor, ISM terrorists handed the pastor's severed head to his widow and ordered her to deliver it to police.
Three years and countless more slaughters later, the world still has no idea what is happening, and the international community is nowhere to be seen.
Why? One reason is the media. They are committed to presenting the situation in purely economic terms, rarely if ever indicating that the terrorists are fueled by an expansionist, jihadist agenda to create an Islamic caliphate and subjugate if not slaughter Christians.
This situation is a duplicate of the situation in Nigeria: there, Muslims are committing genocide against Christians for purely ideological (Islamic) reasons, while here, in the West, the media and establishment are insisting that "religion is not driving extremist violence [in Nigeria]," to quote Johnnie Carson, then-President Barack Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
[A] report, "How poverty and corruption fuel terrorism across Africa," argues that such attacks, which "are on the rise across the African continent," are "a consequence of poverty, [and] domestic grievances new and old..." — Channel 4, April 16, 2021.
A genocidal jihad is being waged against Christians in virtually every corner of sub-Saharan Africa — from Nigeria in the northwest, to Mozambique in the southeast — but, for some reason, these black lives apparently do not matter.
A savage jihad — replete with massacres, beheadings, and sexual enslavement — has been raging in the Christian-majority nation of Mozambique since 2017. Pictured: Displaced persons from the town of Impire in Cabo Delgado province, on June 14, 2022, flee from jihadists who attacked their community. (Photo by Alfredo Zuniga/AFP via Getty Images)
A savage jihad — replete with massacres, beheadings, and sexual enslavement — has been raging in the Christian-majority nation of Mozambique since 2017. Few in the West are aware of this, not least as the situation has been garbed in Marxist language that seeks to depict radical terrorists as "victims" and those resisting them, including the Mozambican government, as "oppressors." A December 2021 report details how the Islamic State came to power in this southeast African nation: "Mozambique is a majority Christian country, with Muslims comprising around a fifth of its population. "A religious movement, Ansar al-Sunna, first appeared in 2015 in the north of the country, formed by followers of radical Kenyan cleric Aboud Rogo Mohammed who has been linked to the 1998 US embassy bombings.... "It started building mosques and religious schools, becoming more and more popular with locals.
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by Richard Kemp • May 25, 2023 at 5:00 am
I asked what they now needed most from our countries. Of course more guns, more ammo, more tanks, more rockets plus combat planes always featured. But another consistent answer was striking even if not surprising: please do not try to force our country to make peace with the invaders.
The government in Kyiv has so far documented 19,393 kidnapped children, and there are most likely many more that are as yet unidentified.
Like the torture and murder of civilians in Izium and elsewhere, and the summary execution of prisoners of war, these kidnappings are war crimes. It is for these abductions that the International Criminal Court in March issued arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and his so-called Children's Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova.
Putin's forces and civilian bureaucrats have seized children from orphanages and children's homes, removed them directly from their parents or taken them into "care" after killing their families. Some have been forcibly fostered or adopted in cities including Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Rostov. Names and dates of birth are sometimes changed to render them untraceable.
While torture and murder cannot be undone, Russia's child kidnapping can, and it is inexplicable that so far there has been no large scale international outrage.
[K]nowledge of these wicked depredations is why they fight; and why they and the fighting men on Ukraine's other battlefields remain determined to keep attacking, holding the invaders from their families' doors until they drive them back beyond their borders, no matter what the personal cost might be.
Russian forces and civilian bureaucrats have seized nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children from orphanages and children's homes, removed them directly from their parents or taken them into "care" after killing their families. Knowledge of these wicked depredations is why Ukrainians fight on the battlefield, determined to keep attacking, holding the invaders from their families' doors. Pictured: A Ukrainian soldier in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on April 23, 2023. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)
This week, near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, I spent time with commanders and soldiers who have been fighting the Russian invaders in the shattered city, sometimes for months on end. This has been one of the longest battles anywhere in the world since 1945 and by far the most brutal in this war, with Russians and Ukrainians often fighting at close quarters, artillery hammering the city into Stalingrad-like rubble and a level of slaughter unequalled anywhere else in Putin's vicious war.
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by Burak Bekdil • May 24, 2023 at 5:00 am
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tirelessly struggles to harm Western interests. He should be punished and sanctioned for doing that. Instead, the UN, under U.S. direction, rewarded Turkey by appointing a close Erdoğan confidant to a critical Afghan post, and the Biden administration rewarded Erdoğan by requesting Congressional authorization to sell critical fighter jet parts to Turkey.
In an effort to help Putin evade sanctions, Turkey agreed to pay 25% of its natural gas bill to Russia in rubles. In return, to help Erdoğan find a way out of a punishing economic crisis, Putin deferred repayment Turkey's $20 billion gas debts to Russia until 2024.
By contrast, Turkey's relations with the West have seen one bottom after another.
Erdoğan's request for the extradition [from Sweden and Finland] of "terrorists" does not fit into the judicial system of any democratic country: he insists that everyone who opposes his rule is a "terrorist" -- therefore more than half of 85 million Turkish citizens are terrorists.
On April 17, the Biden administration officially notified Congress about the planned sale to Turkey of critical avionics software upgrades for its current fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft. "Turkey is a longstanding and valued NATO ally," a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. "The Biden administration supports Turkey's efforts to bring the avionics of its F-16 fleet up to standard."
Anything for a sale?
Perhaps the Turkish foreign minister was right to call Biden "charlatan."
On April 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed Moscow's burgeoning energy and wider economic ties with Ankara as he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took part virtually in a ceremony inaugurating Turkey's first nuclear power plant. "This is a flagship project," Putin said. Pictured: An aerial photograph taken on April 26, 2023 showing the construction of the Russian-built Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Mersin Province. (Photo by Ozan Kose//AFP via Getty Images)
Some Western governments, in particular the U.S. administration, have a bizarre way of sanctioning Russian President Vladimir Putin's staunchest allies: by flooding them with rewards. Take, for instance, Putin's not-so-secret Trojan Horse in NATO, Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tirelessly struggles to harm Western interests. He should be punished and sanctioned for doing that. Instead, the UN, under U.S. direction, rewarded Turkey by appointing a close Erdoğan confidant to a critical Afghan post, and the Biden administration rewarded Erdoğan by requesting Congressional authorization to sell critical fighter jet parts to Turkey.
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by Burak Bekdil • May 23, 2023 at 5:00 am
There will be a second round for the presidential vote on May 28, but an opposition victory seems unlikely.
Turkey is a country where average schooling is 6.5 years. In other words, the average person is a 7th grade drop-out. Ninety-five percent of Turkish citizens have never travelled abroad.
Many Turks are captivated by identity politics: Ideology over everything else. Erdoğan's Islamism and nationalism still matter to tens of millions of starving Turks. This is their make-believe world: that Erdoğan will one day rebuild the glorious days of our Ottoman ancestors.
Under pressure from the Erdoğan government, which apparently feared opposition propaganda on social media, Twitter announced on May 12, two days before the elections, "In response to legal process and to ensure that Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today."
"This [a likely Erdoğan victory] is not only bad news for Turkey but also for other democracies around the world ... I don't know how Turkey will cope with a total economic collapse." — Daron Acemoglu, a Turkish-American economist who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993. – Cumhuriyet, May 16, 2023.
A Turkish collapse is likely -- but the Turks will probably blame it on the Crusaders while worshipping the man who caused it.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's re-election campaign, after a rule of 21 years, has highlighted "our country's survivability against major Western powers, the Crusaders, enemies within, traitors, terrorists, atheists and homosexuals." Pictured: Erdoğan casts his ballot in presidential and parliamentary elections, in Istanbul, on May 14, 2023. (Photo by Umit Bektas/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
On May 14, 64 million citizens of Turkey went to polling stations in the wake of a punishing economic crisis, widening democratic deficit and a government revealed as totally helpless in relief efforts after February 6 earthquakes killed more than 50,000 people. The opposition bloc had never been stronger against an autocratic regime that is giving serious signs of metal fatigue. Turkey is a poor country where per capita income is barely $9,000. Budget and current account deficits have been ballooning, annual inflation is running at 43% (official) to 105% (unofficial) and unemployment is soaring. In response, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's campaign, after a rule of 21 years, highlighted "our country's survivability against major Western powers, the Crusaders, enemies within, traitors, terrorists, atheists and homosexuals." Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said that if the opposition won, they would legalize humans marrying animals.
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by Bassam Tawil • May 22, 2023 at 5:00 am
If anyone has been desecrating al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Muslims who have been rioting and using rocks and fireworks to attack police officers and Jewish visitors. Muslim rioters -- not peaceful Jewish visitors -- are the real threat to the sanctity of the mosque.
Israeli authorities have clarified that the route of the "flag parade" absolutely does not include entry into any mosque.
Assurances by the Israeli authorities, however, have not stopped Palestinians and other Muslims from spreading fake news and libels against Jews.
Iran's terror proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have also used the celebrations in Jerusalem to spread the libel that Jews are planning to "desecrate" al-Aqsa Mosque.
As far as Hamas and other Palestinians are concerned, the very presence of Jews at their holy site and in Israel is supposedly a "provocation."
Hamas and several terror groups in the Gaza Strip, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also repeated the lie that "al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger."
When the terror groups talk about "resistance," they are referring to the need for terrorism against Israel, including firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, and attacks by stabbing, shooting and car-ramming.
"The people of Palestine have no historical rights to Palestine. They have no right that dates back 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000 years. The right of the Canaanites to Palestine is equal to the pharaohs' right to Egypt. Is it conceivable that any Muslim in Egypt would say: 'I am Pharaonic and proud of it?' Well, it is the same if a Muslim in Palestine said, 'I am a Canaanite and proud of it.' To hell with your Canaanite identity and to his Pharaonic identity. People, our history is simple and it is not ancient. It must not be said that the Palestinians have Canaanite roots. Our history dates back only 1,440 years.... The only thing you are allowed to say is: Oh Palestinians, you are Muslims." — Issam Amira, Palestinian Islamic scholar, al-Aqsa Mosque, April14, 2023
The revival of the "al-Aqsa is in danger" libel is part of an ongoing effort by Palestinians and other Muslims to delegitimize and eliminate Israel. Palestinian leaders and Muslim "scholars" spread lies about Israel and Jews to encourage and justify terrorism.
The real threat to the mosque and other holy sites in Jerusalem is posed those Palestinians and Muslims who use battle cries to incite violence, terrorism and Jew-hate.
Incomprehensibly, much of the international community, the media, and even prominent self-declared "human rights" organizations persist in defaming Israel and ignoring this fabricated, toxic incitement by Palestinian and Muslim leaders.
If anyone has been desecrating al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Muslims who have been rioting and using rocks and fireworks to attack police officers and Jewish visitors. Muslim rioters -- not peaceful Jewish visitors -- are the real threat to the sanctity of the mosque. Pictured: Israeli firefighters try to put out the flames of a tree that was set ablaze by Palestinian rioters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, on April 22, 2022 (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinians are again repeating the lie that al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is in danger because the Jews are planning to "storm" and "desecrate" it. Some Palestinians and Muslims have gone so far as to accuse the Jews of plotting to destroy the mosque. The latest campaign of lies and misinformation arrived as Jews, on May 18, were preparing to celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem by holding a flag parade in the city. For days, the hashtag "al-Aqsa Mosque is in Danger" was trending on various social media platforms, evidently as part of a concerted campaign to smear Jews and rally Muslims against them.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • May 21, 2023 at 5:00 am
"The Taliban are offering money for Afghans to turn in any Christians they know. And Afghans are desperate, further heightening the security risk [to] Christians." — mnnonline, April 3, 2023, Afghanistan.
[P]olice raided a large group of Christians, mostly college students, as they "gathered to sing and record video clips for social media." One-hundred-and three of them, "mainly students," were arrested and sent to prison. "This latest arrest puts the number of Christian prisoners detained indefinitely without trial in Eritrea to more than 500.... Mai Serwa [prison]...is ... known for its use of torture and other forms of mistreatment, including beatings, starvation, and denial of medical care. The Eritrean government detains individuals without charge or trial and has held many in detention for years without access to legal representation or the due process of law." — International Christian Concern, persecution.org, April 24, 2023, Eritrea.
[I]n one night of unfathomable horror ... men, women, and children were slaughtered like chicken...." -- persecution.org, April 28, 2023 — Democratic Republic of Congo.
The "pure genocide" of Christians, as it has been characterized by several international observers, reached new levels, according to an Apr. 10 report, which found that since 2009, 52,250 Christians in Nigeria "have been butchered or hacked to death." – Nigeria.
"Political Islam replaces the laws or interprets them differently so that they restrict the practice of other religions. It also works to change the culture of society — which puts it under great pressure — so that it becomes more radical and extreme, not only toward other religions but also toward other Islamic sects." — catholicnewsagency.com, 2023, Libya.
[P]olice arrested two illiterate cleaners—a Christian widow and a Muslim gardener—on the accusation that they had intentionally burned pages from the Koran, thereby committing "blasphemy." — morningstarnews.org, April 24, 2023, Pakistan.
"Don't tell me that if you entered a church your faith would waver. Every other person of a different religion here hears the [Islamic] call to prayer five times a day [and their faith doesn't waver]." — Syed Saddiq, Malaysian politician, christiantoday.com, April 7, 2023, Malaysia.
"Indonesia's Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 (SKB) makes requirements for obtaining permits nearly impossible for most new churches. Even when small, new churches are able to meet the requirement of obtaining 90 signatures of approval from congregation members and 60 from area households of different religions, they are often met with delays or lack of response from officials. Well-organized radical Muslims secretly mobilize outside people to intimidate and pressure members of minority faiths." — morningstarnews.org, April 6, 2023, Indonesia.
Official intelligence reports concerning two separate terrorist attacks that occurred on Jan. 25, 2023, when a Muslim man from Morocco wounded a priest and slaughtered a Christian sacristan in Algeciras, Spain, were released in April and shed more light on the nature of the crime. Pictured: The scene of the murder of Diego Valencia, the sacristan, in Algeciras. (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of April, 2023: Generic Muslim Abuses against Christians Afghanistan: According to a brief Apr. 3 report, "Taliban puts bounty on Afghan Christians": "The Taliban are offering money for Afghans to turn in any Christians they know. And Afghans are desperate, further heightening the security risk [to] Christians."
Eritrea: Sometime in April, police raided a large group of Christians, mostly college students, as they "gathered to sing and record video clips for social media." One-hundred-and three of them, "mainly students," were arrested and sent to prison. According to the Apr. 24 report:
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