"The Palestinian Authority has been offering us money to remain silent. They are trying to bribe us so we would remain silent about the crimes of the police." — Marian al-Hajal, video on Facebook, October 2019.

"We want a civil and humane state based on the rule of law and justice." — Palestinian Professor Jamal Harfoush, who currently lives in Latin America.

As far as Marian is concerned, the PA police version is nothing but an attempt to cover up for their criminal behavior. She and many Christians want the world to know, particularly on the eve of Christmas, that Christians have become easy prey under the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

As far as PA President Mahmoud Abbas is concerned, it is business as usual. The cries of the Christian family in Bet Jala seem entirely lost on him.... Abbas may be worried about the future of the hefty funding he gets from Christian countries and organizations, if they find out what his police did.... What he seeks is to continue ensuring the success of the Palestinian lie that Christians are fleeing because of Israel.

Will the international community and press continue to swallow -- as they have done year after year -- the diet of lies that the PA leaders and spokesmen feed them?

The Greens would be happy to replace Europe's Judeo-Christian cultural order with a radical multiculturalism that includes an acceptance of, and presumably a possible replacement by, the laws of Islam.

Replacing Europe's historical values could be the very path that [former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian] Kurz and his party have claimed to oppose.

The latest annual report of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.... warned that the Erdoğan-aligned Islamist movement Millî Görüş is strongly opposed to Muslim integration into European society....

The Konrad Adenauer Foundation also reported that the German government's initiative to offer Islamic theology courses at five German universities has failed to produce German-speaking imams. This failure stems, in part, from the fact that the Turkish government has refused to cooperate with the initiative.

The German government is unlikely to ban the foreign financing of mosques anytime in the near future. Such a move would, presumably, infuriate Erdoğan, who controls the floodgates of mass migration to Europe. Turkey continues to hold effective veto power over Germany's Islam policy.

Member of Parliament Garo Paylan hinted that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has not only failed to do enough to prevent hate speech, but actually has been instrumental in spreading it.

According to a study conducted by the Hrant Dink Foundation, in 2018, there were 4,839 editorials and news stories targeting national, ethnic and religious groups. Chief among those targeted were Jews and Armenians... The verbal attacks on those groups appear to have concrete consequences.

Perhaps when US President Donald J. Trump meets with Erdoğan in the White House this week, he might ask, as did Paylan: What kinds of activities does your government carry out to prevent hate speech?

"It's easy to go about our lives and forget that in places like Nigeria, Iran and North Korea being a Christian can often lead to death." — Vernon Brewer, founder and CEO of World Help, Fox News, November 4, 2019.

"4,136 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons. On average, that's 11 Christians killed every day for their faith." — Open Doors, World Watch List 2019.

More than 245 million Christians around the world are currently suffering from persecution. — Open Doors, World Watch List 2019.

"Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity... close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN." — Review led by Rev. Philip Mounstephen, the Bishop of Truro, April 21, 2019.

"[A] 2006 law states that any non-Muslim worship be conducted in specific, designated buildings. But since this law came into effect, no Christian places of worship have been designated by the government of Algeria." — William Stark, regional manager of International Christian Concern (ICC), to Gatestone.

"Algeria's blasphemy laws make it difficult for Christians to share their faith out of fear their conversation may be considered blasphemous and used against them." — Open Doors, 2018.

Sadly... even Pope Francis is sugar-coating the plight of his co-religionists in the North African country.... "The time of peace to which he refers remains unclear." — Bethany Blankley, Patheos, 2018.

If the Tehran media are to be believed Soleimani defeated the Israeli army in 2006, crushed Bashar al-Assad's opponents in Syria and dismantled ISIS's so-called "Caliphate" in Iraq and Syria while installing stable governments in Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad.

To me, at least, it is clear that Soleimani has achieved virtually nothing in Syria apart from helping prolong a tragedy that has already claimed almost a million lives and produced millions of refugees. Regardless of what denouement this tragedy might produce, future Syria will in no way reflect the fantasies of Soleimani and his master Khamenei.

...Soleimani's militias in Lebanon are likely to be in self-preservation mode rather than acting as the vanguard of further conquests. In other words, in medium-term, the Islamic Republic has already lost in both Lebanon and Syria.

An Iraq where gunmen in Soleimani's pay paste portraits of Khomeini and Khamenei on every wall may look good to the octogenarian mullahs still in control in Tehran. However, an Iraq where peace and stability reign without the paraphernalia of Khomeinism is better for Iran's own national security and interests.

"Europe is a cultural continent, not a geographical one... It is its culture that gives it a common identity. The roots that have formed it, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. [...] In this sense, throughout history Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. That is why I think it would be an error to equate the two continents." — Pope Benedict XVI, Le Figaro Magazine, 2007.

In Germany, Turkey controls 900 mosques out of a total of 2,400. These Islamic centers not only serve members of the Turkish diaspora, but also stop them from assimilating into German society. Speaking with Turks in Germany, Erdogan urged them not to assimilate, and called the assimilation of migrants in Europe "a crime against humanity."

Erdogan has also been expanding Turkey beyond its borders – starting with Cyprus, the Greek Islands, Suakin Island (Sudan) and Syria.

Mosques, migrants and the military are now Erdogan's new weapons in his threats against the West.

"This judgment has major implications for online freedom of expression around the world.... The ruling also means that a court in one EU member state will be able to order the removal of social media posts in other countries, even if they are not considered unlawful there. This would set a dangerous precedent where the courts of one country can control what internet users in another country can see. This could be open to abuse, particularly by regimes with weak human rights records." — Thomas Hughes, executive director of ARTICLE 19, a non-profit organization that works on "protecting the right to freedom of expression around the world," October 3, 2019.

The judgment from the Court of Justice of the European Union... appears to give EU member states unprecedented power to determine public discourse online -- to determine what citizens can and cannot read.... [T]he prospects now look even bleaker for the future of free speech in Europe.

China, with control of 5G, will be in a position to remotely manipulate the world's devices. In peacetime, Beijing could have the ability to drive cars off cliffs, unlock front doors, and turn off pacemakers. In war, Beijing could paralyze critical infrastructure.

There is no mystery to how Beijing thinks it will grab control.... The Chinese will use Huawei Technologies.... Huawei is a dagger aimed at the heart of America, and as the unnamed adviser... suggests, the threat is a mortal one.

There are various strategies for meeting China's 5G challenge, but the most direct one is crippling Huawei. The Trump administration has taken steps to do so, but now that effort is on the verge of collapse.

The Commerce Department looks set to support that dangerous Chinese firm. US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is thinking too small. The United States, instead of trying to make sales, should be stopping everyone from selling to Huawei.

The Trump administration should be forcing others — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan — to make a choice: sell to Huawei or sell to the world's largest market, America's.... If they should not be buying Huawei, then Americans should not be supplying that Chinese company either.

Let us put Huawei out of business, not support its efforts to harm us.

The nationwide protests taking place in both Arab states [Lebanon and Iraq] are also driven by a burning desire to end Iran's blatant attempts to turn them into de facto fiefdoms of Tehran.

The protests, moreover, could not have come at a worse time for Iran, where the economy is in freefall as a result of the wide-ranging sanctions that have been introduced by Washington.

Local protesters are now making plain that their dislike for Iranian meddling in their affairs could soon spell the end for Tehran's ambition to become the region's dominant power.

President Donald Trump claimed the entire credit for this outcome. But in reality it was the culmination of a scheme that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been planning since at least January 2019.

The drama of recent weeks began with joint Turkish-US patrols along the Syrian side of the border and ended with joint Russian-Turkish patrols. This switch already indicates who intimidates Erdogan and who does not.

Above all, the "Joint U.S.-Turkish Statement" nowhere defined the length or even the depth of the "safe zone," allowing Erdogan to understand it to mean – as in the various Turkish statements at the UN – the entire length of the border and a variable depth enabling the settlement of one or two or three million Islamist Syrian refugees.

Assad and Putin may be scheming to recapture Afrin in same style as they have used to regain most of western Syria, namely, Assad regime infantry backed by heavy Russian bombing. Only this time the SDF will be available to serve as infantry.

Note the opinion of Robert Pearson, a former US Ambassador to Turkey, speaking on Middle East Forum Radio on October 23, that "Sooner or Later, Putin Will Force Turkey out of Syria."

This debate about repatriation is another example of how confused the West has become when trying to apply its moral principles. The real victims here are the people who were murdered, injured, raped, tortured or displaced by ISIS. Their children, if still alive, will have to live with the consequences of ISIS terror.

If European governments have to choose between supporting a Yazidi rape survivor and her unwanted child or a woman who willingly left Europe to spit in the face of Western societies and the values of her country of origin to join ISIS, they should choose the former. Sorry, do-gooders. These deserters should not be allowed back to Europe.

We are not witnessing a legitimate impeachment process, and certainly not any form of justice recognizable in America since the Massachusetts Spring of 1693.

Will United States Attorney John Durham empanel a grand jury and indict anyone? What of the "journalists" in the overtly partisan American press corps? Will a brave US Senator dare to ask: "What did President Obama know, and when did he know it?"

While the House Intelligence Committee negligently fixates on carrying out their coup against the President, what are they missing from the real threats arrayed against our country?

What Iran evidently wants is to see Arabs protesting against the US and Israel -- and against nothing else.

It now remains to be seen whether the Arabs who have finally woken up to realize that Iran -- and not Israel -- is the real threat to their well-being will be able to keep up the momentum and continue their uprising against corruption and Iranian dominance over their countries.

Instead of firing rockets at Israel and demonstrating at the Gaza-Israel border, Palestinians ought to learn from their brothers in Lebanon and Iraq who their real enemies are: Iranian-backed dictators and fake Palestinian leaders, who only know how to lead their people towards further suffering.