Courts and government bodies still find it hard to make useful distinctions between gratuitous, racist, or violent speech about Islam and Muslims on the one hand, and reasoned argument that questions aspects of Islam, or even the religion overall, from the point of view of human rights, on the other.

The situation in Europe is even more ambiguous. Most European states have laws that purportedly support free speech, yet accusations of hate speech and Islamophobia often lead to trials and sentencing can lead to imprisonment. This skewing of facts is one crucial reason why free speech needs to be defended.

It is more than ever necessary to educate the public and many of its leaders about both the benign and troubling facts of Islamic history, doctrine, and culture. Those leaders who must require a more solid grounding include the ones who deny that terrorism has genuine links to issues such as jihad warfare -- and who are constantly told that "real" Islam is above rebuke.

We must indeed paint a positive picture of what so many Muslims contribute to their host societies. We should, for example, celebrate the way in which Muslim-Americans in Philadelphia launched an appeal that raised over $100,000 to help repair two Jewish cemeteries that had been vandalized. Or the Muslim veteran in Arkansas who volunteered to stand guard with others at any Jewish site that was threatened with attack.

For Hamas, "accuracy" means that a journalist working in the Gaza Strip will show Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the worst possible light -- regardless of the facts.

Instead of honoring the young and dedicated journalist for her courage, Hamas has decided to punish her. Instead of interrogating and prosecuting the corrupt officials whose identities were mentioned in her reporting, investigative journalist Hajer Harb is the one who is now standing trial for telling the truth.

It now remains to be seen whether Western journalists and media outlets will voice any concern at all over the ongoing attempts by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to silence and intimidate Palestinian journalists.

"It is really sorrowful to live in a country that silences, prosecutes, jails its authors and forces them to live in exile," Hasan Cemal wrote in January.

It is worse than "sorrowful," however, that writers in Turkey who promote jihad are given a pass.

North Rhine-Westphalia once had 114 prison imams, but now has only 25. The drop occurred after German authorities carried out security checks on prison imams and discovered that 97 imams were Turkish civil servants whose salaries were paid for by the Turkish government. Turkey refused to allow the imams to be interviewed by German officials.

In an article entitled, "German Becomes a Foreign Language in Many Prisons," the Berliner Morgenpost reported on the growing number of conflicts between German prison officers and foreign inmates because of communication barriers

German authorities are also reporting an increase in inmate attacks on prison staff. In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, since 2016, the number of assaults on prison staff have more than doubled.

It is difficult to find today Christian clergy proud of their colonial past. In contrast, many Muslims consider Islamic colonialism and imperialism sacred and part of their religion.

To be sure, the West has committed sins, but it has apologized for them. Meanwhile, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, says that Islam and Muslims are completely innocent, and that the sole culprit is the West. His position totally ignores the Islamic colonial empire that occupied many countries, looting their wealth and committing massacres.

Sheikh Al-Tayeb not only failed to apologize for the atrocities listed above, but here are a few examples of what is being taught at the university he heads...

It is worth noting that the Hamas and Islamic Jihad members who were killed while participating in the violence near the Gaza-Israel border did not come there dressed in military uniforms or carrying their weapons. Instead, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad men participated in the weekly protests dressed in civilian clothes. They pretended they were ordinary and innocent civilians protesting against the economic crisis in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

While they are in Cairo, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders continue to send thousands of women and children to engage in violent attacks on Israeli soldiers. These leaders do not care about the safety or welfare of their women and children. On the contrary; the more dead women and children, the better. That way, they can blame Israel for killing innocent civilians and incite more Palestinians to join the jihad against Jews.

Those who are encouraging women and children to take part in a violent confrontation with the Israeli army should be held accountable for war crimes. It is time for the international community to call on Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip to stop hiding behind women and children and to stop using them as human shields in their jihad to eliminate Israel.

During his tenure as a Turkish member of parliament, Eren Erdem exposed ISIS and al-Qaeda activities across Turkey and often called on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to stop those activities and bring the militants to account. For that, he has been subject to pressure, investigations and trials.

In 2015, Turkey's president Erdogan condemned Erdem and called him a "traitor". An investigation into treason was launched against Erdem, who also received death threats over social media, with his home address posted by pro-government Twitter users, presumably to enable an attack on his house.

"On January 7, the court decided to release me by unanimous vote, as there is not a single piece of evidence against me...." – Eren Erdem, letter written from prison around January 28.

The mosque that agreed to hold the secret event was in Ilford; the chairman of the Muslim Community Centre at the mosque, Bashir Chaudhry, said the exhibition was an "eye-opener" and added that he would encourage other people to see it.

A story such as this should provide the strongest possible alarm bells to government and civil society. If, in 2019, any Muslim organization wants to commemorate the bravery of some Muslims in the Holocaust, this has to be staged secretly, covertly, and in fear of some violent or non-violent backlash?

In Britain, in 2019, government and non-government figures still feel they must flit around, letting no one know of their movements to commemorate an aspect of the Holocaust. They manage to have a commemoration of the Holocaust in secret. And they think this is a victory.

In spite of the fact that Reagan ultimately won the Cold War -- and the Soviet Union subsequently fell -- his policies and extraordinary global achievements were partially discarded by the failures and laziness of the U.S. intelligence community. Starting in 1993, the US cut back excessively its military defenses. And the US allowed China both militarily and non-militarily to run rampant.

Almost worse, the intelligence community failed to recognize the rise of Islamic terrorism in Iran and elsewhere, which would culminate in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What is clear, is that the U.S. intelligence community often has a terrible track record where threat assessments are concerned. Alarmingly, it would not be surprising they were wrong again today.

The "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" is being portrayed as a "historic pledge of fraternity" and applauded as a "historical breakthrough." The problem is that one of the two men who signed it, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, has repeatedly contradicted — when speaking in Arabic and appearing on Arabic media — all the lofty sentiments highlighted in it.

Al-Tayeb's predecessor, Egypt's former grand imam, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (d. 2010), had, "without even being asked, removed all the old books and placed just one introductory book, [but] when al-Tayeb came, he got rid of that book and brought back all the old books, which are full of slaughter and bloodshed." — Dr. Islam al-Behery, a popular Egyptian theologian.

"In March 2016, before the German parliament, Sheikh al-Tayeb made unequivocally clear that religious freedom is guaranteed by the Koran, while in Cairo he makes the exact opposite claims..." — Cairo Institute for Human Rights.

It is difficult, therefore, to see this document as anything more than a superficial show, presumably for the West, and al-Tayeb's signature on it unfortunately not worth all that much.

To harness both the trust and the loyalty of the Iranian people, Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers initially portrayed themselves as spiritual people who had no desire to rule the country.

One of the regime's worst mass executions of political prisoners took place when approximately 30,000 individuals, including children and pregnant women, were executed within a period of four months. According to a US congressional condemnation, "prisoners were executed in groups, some in mass hangings and others by firing squad, with their bodies disposed of in mass graves."

Even more surprising than Iran's flourishing indifference to the rule of law is that some Western politicians and governments have attempted, and are still attempting, to appease this inhumane regime.

For Russia, Turkey and Iran, the terrible troika, Syria is an ungoverned territory, the future of which must be decided without its "inhabitants."

All three wish to dilute the Arab aspect of Syria's identity. The official media in the troika is full of supposedly learned papers claiming that only 50 percent of Syrians are Arabs. All three oppose naming the future state as "Arab Republic of Syria." Iran is campaigning for the term "Islamic Republic," which is also used in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan and Mauritania.

The Russians want a federal system that would enable them to hang on to their enclave on the Mediterranean regardless of what happens to the rest of Syria. The Turks and Iranians oppose federalism because they fear Syrian Kurds might end up with an autonomous state of their own.

Syria isn't a blank page on which the Russo-Turco-Iranian wannabe empire builders could draw whatever they dream of. The international community should not accept the re-emergence of a 100-year old colonial monster.

It seems the Palestinian leadership would rather see Iran continue to pose a threat to Arab countries than see peace between those countries and Israel.

Several Arab countries appear completely fed up with the Palestinians, particularly the continued bickering between Fatah and Hamas. Egyptian intelligence officials have devoted years trying to convince Hamas and Fatah to work together for the benefit of the Palestinians.

Instead of doing so, however, Palestinian leaders are preoccupied with blocking Arab participation in a conference that could see the creation of a coalition against Iran -- the same country Abbas and his loyalists hold responsible for the ongoing divisions among the Palestinians. Might it be possible that the Arab countries are finally rousing themselves from their long slumber and beginning to seek better lives for themselves and their neighbors?

The partnership of Beijing and Moscow is certainly up to no good. As an initial matter, the duo, powers from the other side of the world, are in Venezuela to take on the United States, not help it.

It is doubtful, as Matt Ferchen of the Leiden Asia Center in the Netherlands suggests, that Beijing can help another society transition to democracy. The same, of course, can be said about Vladimir Putin's Russia. After China and Russia worked to turn Venezuela into "the Syria of the Western Hemisphere," they are not about to democratize it.

An outreach from Washington "would legitimize the concept that Russia and China have a constructive role to play in Western Hemisphere security... the U.S. has everything to lose from inviting China and Russia to the table, and no realistic prospect of gains." — Robert Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College, to Gatestone.

China and Russia make no global problem better. The only sensible approach, therefore, is to remove them from our hemisphere, and the place to begin to do that is Venezuela.

The picture sent shockwaves through the Turkish grassroots: A poor Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, handcuffed by the Turkish police, put aboard a Turkish Airlines plane to fly back to Cairo, to be tortured and eventually executed. Is President Erdoğan not a staunch supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is he not an eternal enemy of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power after toppling the Muslim Brotherhood man, former president Mohamed Morsi, a darling of Erdoğan?

The "mistake" was that the Erdoğan administration was not expecting Hussein, so the immigration officers treated him as just another illegal entry. He would not have been arrested and extradited if the Turkish authorities had known he was a member of the Ikhwan.

False alarm. Erdoğan apparently has not changed, after all.