Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Giulio Meotti • July 16, 2018 at 5:00 am
Today, 510 million Europeans live in the European Union with 1.3 billion Africans facing them. If the Africans follow the example of other parts of the developing world, such as the Mexicans in the US, "in thirty years... Europe will have between 150 and 200 million Afro-Europeans, compared with 9 million today". Smith calls this scenario "Eurafrique". The controversial quota system for migrants has already failed. The European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary for detaining migrants. European governments cannot stop, deport, arrest or repatriate the migrants. What do the authorities in Brussels suggest? Bring everyone to Europe? French Jews have fallen victim to a form of ethnic cleansing, according to a manifesto signed by, among others, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy and former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
This year, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (second from left) was invited to join the leaders of the four "Visegrad Group" countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) at their June 21 summit meeting. High on the agenda were the issues of mass-migration and border protection. (Image source: Austrian Federal Chancellor's Office)
"Far from leading to fusion, Europe's migration crisis is leading to fission", Stanford's historian Niall Ferguson recently wrote. "Increasingly, I believe that the issue of migration will be seen by future historians as the fatal solvent of the EU". Week after week, Mr. Ferguson's prediction seems to be turning into a reality. Not only does Europe continue to fragment as anti-immigration sentiment gathers political strength, but, as a result of the migrant crisis, the EU's border-free internal zone, Europe's most cherished prize after the Second World War, is now defined as "at risk" by the Italian government, among other governments, such and Austria. Immigration is also redefining the intra-EU contract.
Continue Reading Article
by Guy Millière • July 15, 2018 at 5:00 am
Organizations representing the families of the Bataclan victims said that an Islamic rap concert praising jihad, in a place where people were murdered and tortured by jihadists, would be an insult to the memory of the victims, and asked that the concerts be canceled. "France is at war, and leaves the enemy in peace". — Ivan Rioufol, journalist, in Le Figaro. Macron and the French government speak and act as if the enemy has won and as if they want to gain some time and enjoy the moment before the final surrender.
Pictured: Policemen outside of the Bataclan Theater in Paris, France on November 16, 2015, three days after the murderous terrorist attack. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
"The French Suicide" ("Le suicide français") is a book published by the author Éric Zemmour in October 2014. Just one year later, on November 13, 2015 in Paris, a horror took place at the Bataclan Theater, when three terrorists fired into the crowd during a concert, murdered 130 people, and injured 413. Some of the victims had been tortured. The French population reacted as usual: shock and horror quickly gave way to resignation and submission. Flowers, candles and teddy bears were placed at the scene of the attacks. The government promised to act, but did almost nothing. A ceremony was organized that ended with a song that said, "When All You Have is Love". A parliamentary commission of inquiry drafted a report. Military forces, deployed in the streets before the attacks, were reinforced. A climate of resignation and submission reigned.
Continue Reading Article
by Majid Rafizadeh • July 15, 2018 at 4:30 am
You [Europeans] are supporting a terrorist regime that is determined to terrorize your countries. You are supporting a regime that does not hesitate to commit some of the worst human rights abuses inside its own country, and abroad. Where is your sense of decency and respect for human rights that you boast about so often?
Pictured: U.S. and Saudi military personnel inspect the damage to Khobar Towers near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, following the terrorist bombing of the building on June 25, 1996. (Photo By Getty Images)
Tens of thousands of Iranians, and non-Iranian human rights defenders from all across the world, recently gathered at a Free Iran rally in Paris, France, to further peace and extend human rights to every person. European, American, and Middle Eastern leaders, as well as many other influential people participated, including former Canadian foreign minister John Baird and other international leaders. Suddenly, according to Reuters, an Iranian diplomat, along with six other individuals, was arrested in Europe over a plot to commit a terrorist attack at that rally. First of all, please imagine the plot these men had in mind for their terrorist attack; it parallels so many other attacks that have occurred. If those men had been successful in this attack, many more people, including international leaders, could have been injured or killed.
Continue Reading Article
by Amir Taheri • July 15, 2018 at 4:00 am
The Khomeinist regime is programmed in its DNA to be anti-American, anti-West, anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, anti-Turk, anti-Russian, and more importantly perhaps, anti-Iranian. The "Supreme Guide" is getting less and less "supreme". Signs that he is being cut down to size by events, including nationwide protests, have multiplied. He still makes speeches, summons civilian and military officials, and issues orders. But, increasingly, people hear him but don't listen. Khamenei's power is declining not because he is challenged by anyone inside the establishment but as knocks on his door. Even if he wanted to do a Kim Jong-un, he can't. He has no organized political party and, heading for his 80th birthday, is unable to attract young Shiites who are thinking of their future.
Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Image source: kremlin.ru)
The other day in Tehran, the arrival at the International Airport of a US-registered passenger plane triggered an avalanche of rumors that, for a brief moment, buried the anxieties that grip Iranians with regard to the looming confrontation with the Trump administration in Washington. The wildest, and most popular, rumor was that the "American plane" had brought a special emissary from Washington to invite the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei to a summit with President Donald Trump with a view to "doing a North Korea". The rumor wasn't all that fanciful. The history of relations between the US and the mullahs is full of cloak-and-dagger episodes.
Continue Reading Article
by Soeren Kern • July 14, 2018 at 5:00 am
Karam Majdi, a 19-year-old failed asylum seeker believed to be from Egypt, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 14-year-old girl he met online. Majdi claimed to be an unaccompanied minor from Syria when he arrived in the UK in 2016. During the 2018 Quds Day rally in London, Sheikh Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour of the Islamic Centre of England sent a message "to the Jewish people of Palestine": "You can be sure that the resistance will come, free Palestine, and wipe Israel off the map." A protection order was issued in Sheffield for three sisters, aged one, four and six, deemed at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM).
In London, Southwark Cathedral hosted an iftar dinner — a meal after sunset during the month of Ramadan — as part of the program of events to mark the anniversary of the London Bridge attack. (Garry Knight/Wikimedia Commons)
June 1. Karam Majdi, a 19-year-old failed asylum seeker believed to be from Egypt, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 14-year-old girl he met online. Majdi met the girl and a friend at East Croydon train station in 2017 and raped her in a nearby youth hostel. Majdi claimed to be an unaccompanied minor from Syria when he arrived in the UK in 2016.
Continue Reading Article
by Judith Bergman • July 13, 2018 at 5:00 am
Swedish police report that Muslim children have told their classmates they will cut their throats, while showing them beheadings on their mobile phones, according to the new study of Salafism in Sweden by the Swedish Defence University. "Many women live worse [lives] here than they would have in their former countries" — Swedish care worker. The inability -- willful blindness is probably a more apt description -- to see that jihadist terrorism does not emerge from a vacuum, but is nurtured in particular environments, is hardly an exclusively Swedish situation. The insistence of so many European and other Western authorities on describing terrorist attacks as instances of "mental illness" illustrate it perfectly.
The Swedish Defence University has published a new study that paints a bleak picture of the ongoing radicalization of Muslims in Sweden. (I99pema/Wikimedia Commons)
A new study[1] of Salafism in Sweden, conducted by the Swedish Defence University, paints a bleak picture of the ongoing radicalization of Muslims in Sweden. The Salaf are the "pious ancestors" during the first three generations of the followers of Mohammed; its ideology has come to be associated over the last few decades with al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as with local al-Qaeda affiliates. According to the study, Salafists, who believe in Islam as Mohammed's early followers practiced it, tend to reject Western society in favor of a "pure" Islam: "Not all Salafists are jihadists, but all jihadists are Salafists". [2] Although the study does not give an estimate of how many Salafists are in Sweden, it does describe how Salafist milieus there have evolved and grown stronger, especially during the past decade, and lists several examples of the influence they wield in different Swedish cities and localities.
Continue Reading Article
by Alan M. Dershowitz • July 13, 2018 at 1:00 am
Justice Kavanaugh is extraordinarily well qualified by his educational and academic background and judicial history. He should be given a hearing and asked probing questions about his judicial philosophy and his approach to constitutional construction and precedent. Senators should approach this process with an open mind. Before I finally make up my own mind, I will be listening carefully to his answers.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Some Democrats showed their disdain for the process by opposing President Trump's pick even before it was made. (Photo by Alex Edelman/Getty Images)
The framers of our constitution would be turning over in their graves if they could see what happened to their words "with the advice and consent of the senate." Now senators neither advise nor consent to Supreme Court nominations. They politicize, delay, demonize, obscure, fabricate and discredit what should be a non-partisan process of assuring that the most qualified lawyers serve on our highest court. Instead we have come to expect votes that are cast largely along party lines. It was not always what it has now become. Even in the recent past, highly qualified but controversial nominees -- such as Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- were confirmed with hardly any dissents. No more.
Continue Reading Article
by Bassam Tawil • July 12, 2018 at 5:00 am
Mahmoud Abbas and his West Bank-based government seek to prolong the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They want the international community to continue to believe that Israel is responsible for the ongoing, intense suffering of the Palestinians. They are hoping to use the crisis there to pursue their campaign to delegitimize Israel. Palestinian leaders would prefer to see their people starve than make any form of concessions for peace with Israel. Yet Al-Aloul and Abbas are not the ones who are facing starvation. There is nothing more comfortable than sitting in your fashionable house in Ramallah or Nablus and talking about starvation and humanitarian aid. The Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, who are desperate for jobs and a better life, do not really care about Trump's upcoming peace plan. They also do not really care about a settlement or a checkpoint in the West Bank. This is the essence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The Palestinians' number one priority -- the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinians in general -- is destroying Israel. They would rather die than give up their dream of destroying Israel.
The border between Israel and the Gaza Strip remains open for delivering food and humanitarian and medical aid into Gaza. (Image source: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
For years, Palestinian leaders have been complaining that the Gaza Strip was "on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe." Time and again, they have warned that unless the world helps the Palestinians living there, the Gaza Strip will "erupt like a volcano." Israel and the US are now offering to help improve the living conditions of the Palestinians living under Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip. But guess who is fiercely opposed to any attempt to resolve the "humanitarian and economic crisis" in the coastal enclave, home to some two million Palestinians? Answer: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction. In the past few weeks, both Israel and the US administration have come up with different ideas to help the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.
Continue Reading Article
by Ahmed Charai • July 12, 2018 at 1:00 am
By renegotiating the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act, [US President Donald J. Trump] can strengthen American exports, create new export-related jobs and foster development-oriented investment on the continent. By reforming U.S. humanitarian aid to Africa, he can cut considerable bureaucratic waste, and effectively increase assistance without increasing the cost. Washington can also take advantage of the close relationships between them and one of its biggest allies, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of UAE, who has a strong ties with many African leaders and who has played an important role during the different negotiations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. UAE's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has welcomed the reestablishment of cordial relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. He has stressed that such an agreement will positively reflect on boosting security and stability in both countries, the Horn of Africa and the MENA region. Making America great again, as Trump's campaign slogan goes, means helping Africa rise and stabilize.
President Trump with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed at the White House. Washington can use its alliance with the UAE to strengthen ties with Africa. (Official White House Photo: Shealah Craighead)
The leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a declaration on July 9, ending a state of war between the two countries. It was a major step toward resolving one of post-colonial Africa's bloodiest and most protracted conflicts. The U.N. Security Council said the peace declaration signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea after 20 years as enemies "represents a historic and significant development with far-reaching positive consequences for the Horn of Africa and beyond." The council commended Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki for signing the agreement and welcomed their commitment "to resume diplomatic ties and open a new chapter of cooperation and partnership." A statement by the governing party of Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Africa, said it would "fully accept and implement" the agreement with Eritrea, a former province of Ethiopia, which was signed but never honored.
Continue Reading Article
by Soeren Kern • July 11, 2018 at 5:00 am
The gang, most of whose members are Turkish Germans, is said to be involved in organized criminal activity in all of Germany's 16 federal states. It is also believed to have close ties to the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The gang, which profits from prostitution, extortion and the trafficking of weapons and drugs, operates across Europe. The group claims to have more than 3,500 members in Germany and elsewhere. The German ban comes less than a day after Buzzfeed, an American internet media company, falsely accused Gatestone Institute of fabricating the existence of such gangs in Germany.
Pictured: A member of the "Osmanen Germania BC" Turkish boxing gang in Germany takes aim with an assault rifle. (Image source: Osmanen Germania BC official video)
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has banned a Turkish boxing gang called "Osmanen Germania BC" ("Germania Ottomans") on the grounds that it poses a serious threat to public order. The gang, most of whose members are Turkish Germans, is said to be involved in organized criminal activity in all of Germany's 16 federal states. It is also believed to have close ties to the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The German ban comes less than a day after Buzzfeed, an American internet media company, falsely accused Gatestone Institute of fabricating the existence of such gangs in Germany. Seehofer said the gang "poses a serious threat to individual legal interests and for the general public." He added:
Continue Reading Article
by Yves Mamou • July 11, 2018 at 4:00 am
The same government that wants to deport Japanese investors, accepted 100,000 migrants from Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa alone in 2017 -- most of them with no skills and no money. The same government that wants to deport the Japanese creators of a spectacular new wine in France is about to release from prison an Al Qaeda terrorist, Djamel Beghal, linked to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015. "We fear a possible connection between Muslim gangs from the suburbs and jihadists soon to be liberated on one hand, and jihadists coming back from war in Iraq on the other". — A source who asked to remain anonymous.
The ISIS jihadist who slit the throat Father Jacques Hamel (left), in his church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray (right) on July 26, 2016 had been under surveillance and was being monitored with an electronic ankle bracelet.
A curious story is getting attention in France. Two Japanese winemakers who have been living in Banyuls-sur-Mer since 2016 were notified that they would have to leave France due to a lack of financial resources. Rie Shoji, 42, and Hirofumi Shoji, 38, had arrived there in 2011 with the idea of becoming winemakers. First they worked as farm workers and wine merchants in Bordeaux and Burgundy, and studied and received degrees in farm management and oenology. In 2016, they invested 150,000 euros ($170,000) to buy land. Their plan was to produce a natural, organic wine, in an area -- the eastern Pyrenees -- where everything is done by hand. Their first wine, named Pedres Blanques, appeared in 2017, and was considered a "revelation". It is already on the wine list of many famous restaurants in France and Spain. "Its price is skyrocketing," said their lawyer, Jean Codognès, "and the prefecture is saying that their wine has no future. The government is not thinking straight".
Continue Reading Article
by Francis Menton • July 10, 2018 at 5:00 am
You may be aware that the UN actually has an official definition of "extreme poverty," which is "liv[ing]... on less than $1.90 per person per day." $1.90 per day would come to just under $700 per year. An April 2018 study by John Early for the Cato Institute found that counting the $1.2 trillion of annual redistributions toward the income of the recipients -- a sum often misleadingly excluded from poverty statistics -- reduces the official poverty level in the U.S. from 12.7% all the way down to about 2%. And the remaining 2% would be people who for some reason had not sought out the benefits. In other words, the U.S. distributes to its low-income residents resources beyond their income equal to an additional 40 times per person the amount officially deemed by the UN to constitute "extreme poverty."
"It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America." — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images)
Is the United Nations a group of people of good faith, joining together in the effort to help bring peace and justice and economic development to the world? Or is it a group of haters of freedom and capitalism engaged primarily in spewing ignorance, malice or both toward the United States? For a clue, you might take a look at the "Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America," recently issued by the UN's so-called Human Rights Council. Yes, this is the same Human Rights Council from which the U.S. just announced its withdrawal. It is also the same Human Rights Council that includes among its members China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- with ambassadors who think that the best use of their time and resources is to criticize the economic and human rights record of the U.S.
Continue Reading Article
by Nonie Darwish • July 10, 2018 at 4:00 am
After the ruling class, the highest respect and wealth is given to the jihadist class or military leadership class. Otherwise, the jihadist or military class might turn against the leadership and Islamic system itself. That is one reason why the highest pensions in most Muslim countries, as in Gaza and the West Bank, go to widows, parents and children of jihadists and military retirees. "We [the Muslim world], don't work and if we work, we don't do it professionally. We do not produce . . . and we import everything from the needle to missiles... Muhammad ordered us to excel in everything 'if you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly...' How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us? They have become superior through knowledge and technology and work ethics." — Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. Today, as Muslims are escaping their vast, poverty-stricken Islamic territories in 54 Islamic nations for the greener lands of Europe and America, Westerners seem to think they are rescuing refugees. Many times they are, but other times this is just the latest version of a story that has been repeating itself for 1,400 years.
British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary, who was sentenced prison for "urging support" for ISIS, called unemployment and welfare benefits for Muslims a "Jihadi allowance," as if it were, or should be, an entitlement. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
Recently, the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, dismissed President Trump as just a "tradesman" who lacked the qualifications to handle political and international affairs. At face value, the criticism might sound similar to that of an opposition party alleging that Trump lacks political experience. Coming from an Islamic leader, however, it reflects a much deeper meaning: on how differently the Islamic culture views the work ethic and the means of acquiring wealth. Although there are many Muslims who work tirelessly and are immensely successful, Islamic culture in general has little respect for manual labor and even for business owners. People who engage in legitimate "trade" for a living are often viewed with scorn or as "having" to labor for a living.
Continue Reading Article
by Andrew Jones • July 9, 2018 at 6:00 am
The approach the British authorities have taken in response to this national disaster appears largely based on countering secondary issues -- most notably, individuals that protest the grooming, including at one point the arrest of parents attempting to rescue their daughter from her abusers. There also seems to be a tacit alliance with much of the media to silence public discourse and, when all else fails, outright suppression.
Of the British Parliament's 650 MPs, a mere 20 were willing to sign an open letter to support the protection of children subjected to gang-rape, trafficking and torture, and at times murder. Pictured: The Palace of Westminster in London, meeting place of the Houses of Parliament. (Arpingstone/Wikimedia Commons)
In response to Britain's ongoing sexual grooming scandal, a group of 20 MPs signed an open letter to recently appointed Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, urging coordinated action. As the UK Parliament has 650 MPs, the 20 signatories constitute a mere 3% willing to support the protection of children subjected to gang-rape, trafficking and torture, and at times murder. Such a paltry number of politicians willing to speak out against child sexual slavery seems yet more evidence of the moral bankruptcy of Britain's political elite and how low the country appears to have sunk. Britain's media elite have ignored the letter. Reporting has been limited to the local press in Oxford and Rochdale -- areas afflicted by grooming -- as well as a few alternative media outlets such as Breitbart London, and indirect reference on Sky News.
Continue Reading Article
by A. Z. Mohamed • July 9, 2018 at 4:00 am
"Western observers... will need to accept Islam's vital and varied role in politics and formulate policies with that in mind, rather than hoping for secularizing outcomes that are unlikely anytime soon, if ever." — Shadi Hamid, author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World. "'Islamic exceptionalism' is neither good nor bad. It just is." — Shadi Hamid. "As the transition from pre-modernity to modernity proceeds with its twists and turns, the Muslim world, over time will progress and develop to the point that eventually there will arise a theology, as occurred in Christendom, consistent with the needs of Muslims and reconciled with modernity." — Salim Mansur, author of The Qur'an Problem and Islamism: Reflections of a Dissident Muslim.
Hassan Mneimneh (left) and Shadi Hamid (right) at a panel discussion for The Middle East Institute, July 27, 2016. (Image source: Middle East Institute video screenshot)
In early May, the Brookings Institution held a lecture and panel discussion in India on the question of whether Islam is "exceptional" and what it means for the future of Western democracy. A main speaker at the event was Shadi Hamid, author of a 2016 book, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World. Hamid, an American Muslim, repeated the thesis of his book, summarized in an op-ed in Time magazine. "Because of its outsize role in law and governance, Islam has been — and will continue to be — resistant to secularization," he wrote. He explained: "Unlike Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad was a theologian, a preacher, a warrior and a politician, all at once. He was also the leader and builder of a new state, capturing, holding and governing new territory. Religious and political functions, at least for the believer, were no accident. They were meant to be intertwined in the leadership of one man.
Continue Reading Article
|
