Barely an hour after the flames began to rise above Notre Dame -- at a time when no explanation could be provided by anyone -- the French authorities rushed to say that the fire was an "accident" and that "arson has been ruled out." The remarks sounded like all the official statements made by the French government after attacks in France during the last decade.

The Notre Dame fire also occurred at a time when attacks against churches in France and Europe have been multiplying. More than 800 churches were attacked in France during the year 2018 alone.

Churches in France are empty. The number of priests is decreasing and the priests that are active in France are either very old or come from Africa or Latin America. The dominant religion in France is now Islam. Every year, churches are demolished to make way for parking lots or shopping centers. Mosques are being built all over, and they are full.

So, how does anyone, much less a professor, promote views that are so clearly stated and so profoundly wrong?

John Maszka probably figured that he knew what my views were well enough not to have to bother with the tedious exercise of verifying what they actually are.

In this, he depressingly typifies much of Middle East studies: too dim to have common sense, too lazy to bother with research, too ideological to fix factual mistakes, and too smug to care about the harm caused by them.

The current violence, which has been getting worse since early 2017, "is slightly different, in that it is a series of targeted attacks on Christian communities attempting to displace farmers and take land for herders." — Nathan Johnson, International Christian Concern, Regional Manager for Africa.

"Christians in Nigeria are treated as second-class citizens in the twelve northern states, where sharia law is implemented. They are victimized in many ways. Christian girls are kidnapped and forced into marriage to Muslim men. Pastors are abducted for ransom. Churches are vandalized or completely destroyed." — Nathan Johnson.

"The Nigerian government and the international community... have from the start done little to address the situation. This lack of participation is not surprising: they cannot even acknowledge its roots, namely, the intolerant ideology of jihad. As a result, the death toll of Christians has only risen -- and will likely continue to grow exponentially -- until such time that this reality is not only acknowledged but addressed." — Raymond Ibrahim, author and Middle East expert.

The summoning of Iraqi mercenaries showed that Khamenei isn't quite sure of the regime's military and security apparatus and, when the chips are down, relies on his foreign legion.

Soon, however, it became clear that "Islam's bravest soldier since Imam Ali," Major-General Qassem Soleimani, owed part of his reputation to bluffing and his talent for self-aggrandizement.

Western gullibility has contributed to overrating a brutal regime and a mediocre leader, thus helping spread the fear that such regimes and leaders rely upon for their survival.

"[T]he neighborhood has... platoons, companies, battalions, Kalashnikovs. I don't know any more if we, as a police force, have the political mandate to clear the area. This region is a matter for the army now." — Stavros Balaskas, vice president of the Greek Federation of Police Officers, April 6, 2019.

"...[T]here are now too many illegal immigrants in Exarchia who are drug traffickers [and] gun traffickers... they have essentially taken over the whole place." — Michalis Chrysochoidis, a former Greek Minister of Citizen Protection, who was responsible for the 2002 dismantling of the "November 17" domestic terrorist organization, April 8, 2019

In Exarchia, these groups -- which conduct criminal activities and terrorize local residents -- have, in effect, created a "no-go zone," where even police are afraid to enter.

"The external enemies want to tell us how to run our country.... Angela Merkel and her fellow travelers, George Soros, the immigration mafias, believe that they can tell us who can and cannot enter our country. They demand that our boats pluck so-called castaways out of the sea, transfer them to our ports and shower them with money. Who do they think we are?" — Ortega Smith, Secretary General of the Vox party, Spain.

"These.... groups stand out not because of prejudice ('Islamophobia' or racism) but due to their being the least assimilable of foreigners, an array of problems associated with them, such as not working and criminal activity, and a fear that they will impose their ways on Europe.... Other concerns deal with Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims, including Christophobia and Judeophobia, jihadi violence, and the insistence that Islam enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis other religions" — Daniel Pipes, historian, "Europe's Civilizationist Parties," Commentary, November 2018.

"We all know about the lack of freedom, if not direct persecution, suffered by women and Christians in Islamic countries, while here they enjoy the generosity characteristic of freedom, democracy and reciprocity, of course, all of which they systematically deny...." — Santiago Abascal, President of the Vox party, "Trojan Horse," Libertad Digital, December 2014.

"The left defends any gratuitous offense, even the most beastly ones, against Christians as 'freedom of expression.' At the same time, the mere fact of criticizing Islam is branded as 'Islamophobia.' .... Is this still Spain or are we in Iran?" — Elentir, blogger, Contando Estrelas.

As protesters gathered outside the Chinese Embassy on April 10 in Manila, to express their outrage at China's naval aggression, U.S. and Filipino troops conducted a joint military exercise in the South China Sea, aimed at preparing the Philippines to "deal with any potential island invasion."

Any such shift on the part of Manila towards Moscow should cause Washington to step up its engagement with the Philippines, to prevent Chinese and Russian attempts at controlling the South China Sea's rich resources and China possibly seizing it as a maritime chokepoint.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's threats serve as a reminder that Hamas and other Palestinian terror group consider Israel one big settlement that needs to be annihilated. Above all, Hamas has never accepted the "two-state solution" or changed its charter, which explicitly states: "When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad [holy war] becomes a duty binding on all Muslims.... We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters."

Hamas cannot reach any political deal with Israel because it does not agree to Israel's right to exist. This is the message that Sinwar and leaders of all Palestinian terror groups want the world to hear. For the terrorist leaders, the only peace they will accept is one that results in the elimination of Israel and the evacuation of all Jews from their homes.

The Hamas Charter is a straightforward, unambiguous message that says: "[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]....There is no solution to the Palestinian problem expect by Jihad."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has undoubtedly read the Hamas charter. He knows that if he accepts any peace plan that does not include the expulsion of all Jews from their homes, he will be denounced by his rivals in Hamas as a traitor. Abbas is also aware of Hamas's threats to shower Israel with rockets. He knows that at the same time as Hamas attacks Israel, it will seek to flatten him for "betraying" Arabs and Muslims in "allowing" Jews to continue living in "their" state. This is the Palestinian reality that the "Deal of the Century" is about to be dealt.

Supporting one-sided resolutions against Israel is not Germany's only unfriendly act against the Jewish state. Chancellor Angela Merkel has put pressure on other European Union states so that they do not transfer their embassies to Israel's capital. Stopping the murder of Israelis is also not on the German government's agenda.

Last year the Palestinian Authority (PA) allocated $330 million to pay terrorists, and Germany paid $100 million to the PA. So it is fair to say that Germany pays the PA to reward the murder of Jews.

While Chancellor Angela Merkel talks about "Germany's special historical responsibility for Israel's security", her government channels German taxpayer money to murderers of Jews, and President Steinmeier sends congratulatory telegrams to those who plan the annihilation of the Jewish state.

"We must no longer let Israel down at the UN. It is madness that we are constantly on the side of countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Yemen against Israel" — Frank Müller-Rosentritt, member of the German parliament's committee on foreign relations for the opposition Free Democratic Party (FDP).

After President Trump's visit to the region, the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have ratcheted up their efforts to fight extremism. The UAE and other Gulf states have been participating with the US in a multinational mission.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been encircling Saudi Arabia with the apparent goal of taking over Saudi oil fields and holy sites, and the major international shipping lanes on either side of the Arabian Peninsula: the Bab al Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has also been occupying Syria and Iraq; running Lebanon by means of Iran's terrorist proxy group, Hizballah, and funding yet another terrorist group, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, presumably in the hope of destroying Israel.

Even more alarming, by far, is that Iran is on the threshold of obtaining nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Iran, in short, has adopted a dangerous, expansionist ideology that needs to be taken seriously.

America must stop Iran from taking over Yemen.

In the 1980s, the Social Democrats had formed a committee to examine the results of immigration. The negative findings that emerged were rejected by the party's leaders, who instead released a pro-immigration report.

The bad news is that the Danish mainstream media and pro-immigration politicians do not tell voters the truth: that the presence of hundreds of thousands of unintegrated Muslims is endangering Danish society. Journalists have not been telling the truth out of denial; politicians possibly also for fear of losing immigrants' votes.

Despite Iran's destructive behavior, such as support for terror and militia groups across the region, the European Union has chosen to help the ruling mullahs of Iran, ostensibly to maintain the flimsy, illegal, never-signed, unratified "nuclear deal" -- but possibly even more as an embarrassingly transparent attempt, if the EU could be embarrassed, to navigate around US economic and political pressure and continue doing business with the regime.

If the EU does not change its position and continues its support of Iranian leaders and the nuclear deal, Tehran's aggressive policies in the Middle East will persist, and Tehran will keep on pursuing its subversive agenda of attacking Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States via Yemen, Israel through Syria and Lebanon, and the US via Venezuela.

While President Donald Trump may have his critics, his hard-line sanctions are the only kind of political message the Iranian leaders can understand.

Since taking office in 2013, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has done little to alleviate the problems in the military. The best-known projects during her tenure were kindergartens for the soldiers' families; the procurement of flat screen television sets and mini-fridges for the barracks; the announcement of efforts to make the German army "more attractive for gay, lesbian and transgender people"; buying uniforms for pregnant soldiers, and making battle tanks suitable for pregnant soldiers. As worthwhile as these efforts may be, they do little to address the core problems.

"Apparently the readiness of the Bundeswehr is so bad that the public should not be allowed to know about it." — Tobias Lindner, a Greens Party member, serving on the budget and defense committees.

In Germany, four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March alone. "In this country," PI-News, a German news site, explained, "there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on mountain-summit crosses, on sacred statues by the wayside, on churches... and recently also on cemeteries."

In virtually every instance of church attacks, authorities and media obfuscate the identity of the vandals. In those rare instances when the Muslim (or "migrant") identity of the destroyers is leaked, the desecraters are then presented as suffering from mental health issues.

"Hardly anyone writes and speaks about the increasing attacks on Christian symbols. There is an eloquent silence in both France and Germany about the scandal of the desecrations and the origin of the perpetrators.... Not a word, not even the slightest hint that could in anyway lead to the suspicion of migrants... It is not the perpetrators who are in danger of being ostracized, but those who dare to associate the desecration of Christian symbols with immigrant imports. They are accused of hatred, hate speech and racism." -- PI News, March 24, 2019

Russia has imposed the Caspian Convention it dictated, but vetoes Iran's membership in the Euro-Asian "economic family" and the Shanghai Group. Russia's interest is keeping Iran out of the international gas market, thus holding Moscow's Damocles Sword above the EU's head.

As for Turkey, its chief interest in the Islamic Republic is to secure support for killing Kurds, something that runs counter to Iran's own national interests.

As long as the Islamic Republic believes that it can do whatever it likes without risking any punishment it would make little difference through which dummy the ventriloquist utters his text.