"The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused. They ordered them to gather under a tree and took their Bibles and mobile phones. Then they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead." — Local Christian, reported by World Watch Monitor, May 2, 2019.
"Much of the Islamic anger in Burkina Faso has to do with the teaching of so-called Western thoughts and ideals. Besides churches, schools are also a favorite target of the militants, who are pushing to make the country an Islamic state and impose Sharia Law... Of 2,869 schools in Burkina Faso, 1,111 have been closed in the last three years as a direct result of Islamic extremist violence." — James Murphy, The New American, May 16, 2019.
As with other African Islamic terror groups, the motivating ideology fueling the terrorists of Burkina Faso is distinctly Islamic and jihadi in nature. For example, after eight Muslims were arrested for their role in terrorist attacks that killed 14, their prosecutor said, "they all carried on their foreheads or had white bands on which were written in Arabic the following expression — translated as — 'there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger.'" — Africa News, July 3, 2018.
When five assailants opened fire on the French embassy in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in March 2018, they were heard to cry the jihad's ancient war cry, "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the greatest."). Pictured: A street in Ouagadougou. (Image source: iStock)
Last Sunday, May 12, in the small West African nation of Burkina Faso, as many as 30 armed Islamic terrorists stormed a Catholic church, slaughtered at least six Christian worshippers — including the officiating priest — then burned the church to the ground.
Ousmane Zongo, the mayor of Dablo, where the attack occurred, recalled the incident:
"Towards 9:00am, during mass, armed individuals burst into the Catholic Church... They started firing as the congregation tried to flee.... They burned down the church, then shops and a small restaurant before going to the health centre where they searched the premises and set fire to the head nurse's vehicle.... The city is filled with panic. People are holed up at home. Shops and stores are closed. It's practically a ghost town."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has acknowledged that.... if anyone notices the Islamic Republic it is because its leaders are or pretend to be anti-American. In other words, anti-Americanism upgrades a ramshackle and incompetent regime that is visibly incapable of running a kebab-shop let alone a modern developing society. Zarif says that without anti-Americanism we would, at best, "be something like Pakistan". And, he adds, who cares about Pakistan?
"Our solution is clear. In response to the cost of economic sanctions imposed on us we have to impose costs on the other side so that this war is no longer one-sided.... We have a free hand in striking economic blows at the enemy. America's allies in the region, that is to say Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, are heavily dependent on two things: oil and the glass towers they have built around the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea... We must absolutely, hit the vital vein of those two countries, that is to say their oil exports. And we can do this in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. Such an operation will, without a doubt, force Saudi and Emirati leaders to seek peace with Iran." — Kayhan, the day before the sabotage of four ships in the UAE port of Fujairah.
It is not enough to be anti-American or even anti-Trump to be automatically classed on the side of the angels. It is possible to be anti-American and anti-Trump and yet be a thoroughly obnoxious oppressor of the people and warmonger.
Pictured: The port of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. (Image source: Rizwan Ullah Wazir/Wikimedia Commons)
One of the problems with a dispassionate discussion of matters related to Iran today is that the issue has become too ideological to allow rational, not to say clinical, examination. Taking part in a televised panel the other evening to discuss the "sabotage" of four ships in the UAE port of Fujairah, I noted that there was as yet no evidence to show who had been behind the operation. At the same time, I noted that a leading daily in Tehran had urged the launching of precisely such operations just a day before the Fujairah attack.
Needless to say, I was attacked on all sides. Some claimed that by suggesting there was no evidence regarding the authorship of the attack, I was trying to whitewash the mullahs. Others claimed that by reminding people that such an operation had been urged in the daily Kayhan, representing the views of "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei, meant that I wished to incriminate Tehran to please "American warmongers."
The official Facebook page of Turkey's pro-government daily, Sabah, for example, is filled with praise for the destruction of the cathedral.
Sadly, Islamic supremacism not only targets the churches of Western Christians. It targets Yazidi, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Hindu temples too. These religious minorities in the Muslim world are completely vulnerable, defenseless and severely persecuted.... In many Muslim countries, Muslim-on-Muslim violence is also quite commonplace. The Islamic hatred of different religious groups is not about geography -- the East or the West. It is about religious faith.
What is heartbreaking is that arson and other forms of desecration of churches have been going on in France and other countries on a regular basis, with barely a mention by the media or Western governments.
Pictured: Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burns as firefighters battle the flames, on April 15, 2019. (Photo by Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images)
French authorities were quick to rule out arson as the cause of the devastating blaze at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15. Whatever the final investigation reveals, many extremist Muslims in Turkey were equally swift in their celebration of the fire that has demolished large parts of the historic structure.
The official Facebook page of the pro-government daily, Sabah, for example, is filled with praise for the destruction of the cathedral.
To advance his goal, Ashraf Jabari recently announced the establishment of a new party that calls for focusing on economic prosperity for Palestinians. The Reform and Development Party seeks to solve the economic problems of the Palestinians, particularly high unemployment, he said. "We have an army of university graduates who are unemployed. We've reached a situation where a young [Palestinian] man holding a Master's degree in law has to work as a street vendor because he can't find work."
Instead of giving Jabari a chance to carry out his initiative, Palestinians have waged a massive smear campaign against him, with many denouncing him as a "traitor" and "collaborator" with Israel and Jews. Some Palestinians have even gone as far as calling for his arrest or execution.
The upcoming peace plan, according to various reports, talks about giving the Palestinians billions of dollars and raising money for them from wealthy Arab countries. Yet, as Jabari's case makes clear, the Palestinians are less invested in gaining economic stability than they are in hating Israel.
For Palestinians, the financial aid is a cynical attempt to lure them away from their struggle against Israel -- and no Palestinian leader has the stomach to face the threats that Jabari is currently confronting. So, far from any "deal of the century," the Palestinian leaders long ago struck a dirty deal of their own: they put their stock in Israel-hatred rather than in their own people.
Ashraf Jabari, a 45-year-old Palestinian businessman from the West Bank city of Hebron, recently launched a new economic initiative with some of his Jewish friends, to advance joint entrepreneurship between Israelis and Palestinians there. (Image source: iStock)
In most normal societies, a businessman who seeks to improve the living conditions of his people by boosting the economy and creating job opportunities for the unemployed -- including a host of jobless university graduates -- is treated with respect. The Palestinians, however, do not seem to belong to those societies.
Ashraf Jabari is a 45-year-old businessman from the West Bank city of Hebron. A member of a large Palestinian clan in the city, Jabari believes in economic cooperation and peaceful coexistence with his Jewish neighbors, including settlers living in the West Bank.
Earlier this year, Jabari and some of his Jewish friends launched a new economic initiative to advance joint entrepreneurship between Israelis and Palestinians there.
It was Iran, not the US, that breached international law by carrying out the US Embassy takeover in Tehran.... It was also Iran, not the US, that immediately began using its proxies, such as Hezbollah, to commit terrorism and incite antagonism towards America.
Should the mullahs be appeased for killing thousands of Americans? For continually taking Americans as hostages? For being the leading executioner of children in the world? For ranking the first in the world per capita when it comes to executing people? For being the world's top state sponsor of terrorism? For making every possible effort to damage US national security and scuttle US foreign policy objectives?
The Iranian government's hatred towards the US often seems the most important reason for its existence. As long as the ruling mullahs remain in power, the Islamic Republic will continue its acts of terror and deep antagonism against Americans, their Sunni neighbors, the lands they try to control -- such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, parts of Gaza and Venezuela, Lebanon -- and the West.
Iran breached international law by carrying out the 1979 US Embassy takeover in Tehran. Iran detained and humiliated 52 Americans and did not release these hostages for 444 days, the longest hostage-taking in modern history. Pictured: Two of the American hostages held by Iran after the takeover of the US Embassy,. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
The argument that the US must take an apologetic stance towards the theocratic establishment of Iran is being repeatedly made without the evidence of any effectiveness to back it up.
Former President Barack Obama created this policy, and insisted that it would be successful. Even as Iran flaunted its disregard for the American government, as well as human life, President Obama would continually apologize to the Iranian leaders. He made it sound as if America was to blame for initiating the hatred that the Iranian government projects toward the United States.
As far as many Palestinians are concerned, there is no difference between Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority and Hamas when it comes to their people being able to tell the truth as they see it.
The two rival parties may disagree on many matters, but they share considerable common ground in their efforts to silence their critics and prevent the emergence of new voices seeking a better life for the Palestinians.
While this muzzling of Palestinian mouths is perfectly visible to the naked eye, the jaundiced eye of the international community and media sees flaws only in Israel.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas may disagree on many matters, but they share considerable common ground in their efforts to silence their critics and prevent the emergence of new voices seeking a better life for the Palestinians. (Image source: iStock)
The first promise the new Palestinian Authority (PA) government made after it was sworn in last month was that it would honor public freedoms, particularly freedom of the media and freedom of expression.
Ibrahim Milhem, the new spokesman for the PA government, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, said in a radio interview that no Palestinian journalist would be arrested for expressing his or her views. Milhem promised that his government would allow the press to play its role as a watchdog over the performance of the ministers and their ministries.
Palestinian journalists living and working in PA-controlled territories in the West Bank welcomed Milhem's statement and expressed hope that it would mark the beginning of a new era between the media and the government.
For the Palestinian journalists, the promise indicated a refreshing change of direction, particularly after years of PA crackdowns on freedom of the media in the West Bank.
I urge all visitors to join me in a conspiracy to violate the UN Security Council Resolution...Obama, himself, engineered the Resolution. He pushed it through the Security Council despite some reservations by other members, including Egypt, which believed that the Resolution itself could become a barrier to a negotiated two-state solution. After all, if Israel's control over Judaism's holiest site is deemed illegal, then Israel would have to negotiate its legality with the Palestinians.
These Jewish areas were illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967 and lawfully recaptured by Israel in a defensive war, started by Jordan when it fired mortars at civilian targets inside pre-1967 Israel.... Yet there were no United Nations Resolutions, campus protests or other organized shows of opposition by the international community. Only after Israel liberated these historically Jewish areas, did the world, and Obama, decide -- in violation of international law -- that they were illegally occupied.
Declaring the Western Wall to be illegally occupied territory is akin to declaring the Vatican, Mecca or other religious, holy sites to be occupied by those who pray at them. The Western Wall is lawfully part of the nation state of the Jewish people. It will remain so as long as Israel exists. If there is to be any hope of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the world must recognize that historic, moral and legal reality.
Pictured: Notes placed by visitors in the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
Last week, in Israel, I committed a flagrant violation of international law. This "war crime" consisted of placing a note asking for "peace, salaam, shalom" in the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site. The reason the note requesting peace constituted "a flagrant violation of international law" and a "war crime" is that the United Nations Security Council, in a Resolution adopted in December 2016, declared that all areas captured by Israel during the 1967 War are illegally occupied territories. That includes the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem and the access roads on Mount Scopus to the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital.
"By Allah, even if we have only a penny left it will be spent on the families of the martyrs and prisoners, and only afterwards will it be spent on the rest of the people." — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Media Watch, July 24, 2018.
Evidently, the "rest of the people" includes not only the Palestinian Authority (PA) employees, but also Palestinian patients who are in need of medical treatment. Abbas has now decided to punish these patients by depriving them of medical treatment in Israel.
The PA decision to stop patients from receiving medical treatment in Israel does not apply to senior Palestinian officials.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided that Palestinians will no longer be able to receive medical treatment in Israel -- with the exception of senior Palestinian officials. Last week, Jibril Rajoub, a senior official with Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank, was admitted to Ichilov Hospital (pictured), the largest acute care facility in Israel. (Image source: Avishai Teicher/PikiWiki)
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided that Palestinians will no longer be able to receive medical treatment in Israel. Last March, the PA Ministry of Health in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, announced that it was halting medical transfers to Israeli hospitals and promised to find alternatives for Palestinian patients in private and government hospitals.
The PA says that it took the decision in response to the Israeli government's deduction of payments the Palestinian government makes to families of security prisoners and "martyrs" from tax revenues the Israelis collect on behalf of the Palestinians.
A new Israeli law allows the government to impose financial sanctions on the PA for its "Pay for Slay" policy, which encourages terrorists to carry out attacks against Israelis because they know they and their families will be receiving salaries (from the PA government) for the rest of their lives.
Once purchased, women and girls are typically locked in a room and raped repeatedly, with the goal of getting them pregnant quickly so they can provide a baby for the family. After giving birth, some are allowed to escape -- but forced to leave their children behind.
That women and girls are being abused throughout Asia is sickening enough, and warrants immediate attention by the international community. But that Christian girls in particular are being targeted in Pakistan makes the current prostitution ring a double human-rights abuse that needs urgent looking into.
That women and girls are being abused throughout Asia is sickening enough, and warrants immediate attention by the international community. But that Christian girls in particular are being targeted in Pakistan makes the current prostitution ring a double human-rights abuse that needs urgent looking into. (Image source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person in the article.)
The New York-based international non-governmental organization, Human Rights Watch, warned on April 26 that "Pakistan's government should be alarmed by recent reports of trafficking of women and girls to China. These allegations are disturbingly similar to the pattern of trafficking of 'brides' to China from at least five other Asian countries."
One week later, Pakistani authorities arrested 12 suspects -- eight Chinese nationals and four Pakistanis -- in a case involving the sex trafficking of young Pakistani women to China. Many had been sent as so-called "brides." Most of them, some as young as 13, belong to Pakistan's Christian minority.
During just the first two weeks of February, "[a]t least 10 incidents of vandalism and desecration of Catholic churches have been reported in France." — Catholicherald.co.uk, February 15, 2019; France.
"The attack was so terrible that Haroon's kidney was cut into two pieces" from the stabbings....After he was rushed to hospital, "doctors were forced to remove his kidney." As is common in such cases, police and local authorities tried to pressure the family not to press charges against the Muslim youths.... — Persecution.org; International Christian Concern; February 21, 2019; Pakistan.
"A group of kidnappers meets in a mosque to discuss potential victims. They keep a close eye on Christians' houses and monitor everything that's going on. On that basis, they weave a spider's web around [the girls].... I remember a Coptic Christian girl from a rich, well-known family in Minya. She was kidnapped by five Muslim men. They held her in a house, stripped her and filmed her naked. In the video, one of them also undressed. They threatened to make the video public if the girl wouldn't marry him.... The kidnappers receive large amounts of money. Police can help them in different ways, and when they do, they might also receive a part of the financial reward the kidnappers are paid by the Islamisation organisations." — Testimony by "G", Persecution.org, February 19, 2019, Egypt.
February witnessed a significant increase of state-sanctioned persecution of Christians in Iran. In the city of Rasht (pictured), nine Christians were arrested. One of them, a pastor who took over after his predecessor was arrested, was himself arrested on February 10 during church service. (Image source: Ahmadrizo/Wikimedia Commons)
Massacres of Christians
Nigeria: A number of fatal Islamic terror attacks targeting Christians occurred throughout February:
The question is: who will take the reins in Iran and make sure that the vast country does not morph into yet another "ungoverned territory" in the heart of the Middle East?
I think the question is designed to dodge the issue of confronting a rogue regime that has provoked the current crisis. Iran has an old and well-established bureaucracy, dating back to the 16th century, and capable of operating within a strong culture of governance. Despite the serious damage done to state structures by the mullahs and their acolytes, the reservoir of experience and talent available is vast enough to ensure governance even on autopilot.
The mullahs are playing with fire and, "He who plays with fire risks being burned!"
If the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran collapses, who will take the reins and make sure that the vast country does not morph into yet another "ungoverned territory" in the heart of the Middle East? Pictured: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and President Hassan Rouhani. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
Talking to European think-tankers and policymakers in recent weeks, one gets the impression that, seen from Europe, Iran is a recurring nightmare that everyone wishes would go away. A couple of years ago, many in Europe believed that it had faded into oblivion. Now, however, the nightmare is back with a vengeance, with drums of war beating in the background.
The truth is that, apart from wishing it would go away, the European Union has never had a coherent policy for dealing with the nightmare. Eight years of President Barack Obama's dancing around the Iran issue enabled the Europeans to postpone serious analysis of the situation in the Islamic Republic.
A secular government that uses religious law to suppress human rights is a sign of how deeply ingrained homophobia is in Muslim countries, most of them much more conservative than Tunisia.
How is it, then, that LGBT people who claim to love the Palestinians and care about their lives, pinning all blame for whatever suffering they undergo on the state of Israel, never say a word about the excesses against gays – and other extreme abuses -- by of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority?
More perversely, why is nothing said about Aguda and the work it does to save and protect gay Palestinians?
Why are no gay rights activists boycotting any of those lowest-ranking countries or protesting outside their embassies? Why do they choose instead to condemn and act against one of the world's most genuinely progressive and liberal states?
In 2015, Israel ranked number 7 on the first Gay Happiness Index, a survey that measured public opinion, public behaviour, and life satisfaction for gay men in 127 countries. Pictured: The annual LGBT pride march in Tel Aviv, Israel, on June 8, 2018. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Early in April, the British gay newspaper Pink News ran a headline: "LGBT performers to boycott Eurovision in Israel with online broadcast". The broadcast, known as Globalvision, will be part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which tries hard to delegitimize Israel economically and politically.
Referring to a letter which activists had written to the pop star Madonna, Pink News reported:
"We feel we must write to you to express our deep concern at the political use of the Eurovision that is being made by Israel this year, and to highlight in particular the issue of 'Pinkwashing,'" the letter said.
The letter said that 'pinkwashing' is a "PR tactic used by Israel which cynically exploits support for LGBTQIA people to whitewash its oppression of the Palestinian people."
Critics say that the bill, as it currently stands, would not only create a legal backdoor for polygamous migrants to become German citizens, but would effectively legalize the practice for Muslim immigrants. The changes would, consequently, enshrine into German law two parallel legal systems, one based on German Civil Law and another based on Islamic Sharia law.
In May 2013, RTL, one of Germany's leading media companies, aired a documentary about how Muslims in Germany use polygamy to commit welfare fraud. Muslim men residing in Germany routinely bring two, three or four women from across the Muslim world to Germany, and then marry them in the presence of a Muslim cleric. Once in Germany, the women request social welfare benefits, including the cost of a separate home for themselves and for their children, on the claim of being a "single parent with children."
"The acquisition of German citizenship is more than just a formality, but also expresses the recognition of a system of values. Polygamy is a form of marriage that disregards the rights of women and is incompatible with this order of values. Therefore, there is a need for legislative action here." — Secretary General of the Free Democratic Party, Linda Teuteberg.
"If people who are arriving here are married to several women according to foreign laws, we currently have to recognize these marriages. This is an unacceptable contradiction. We cannot just accept polygamy because another legal system allows this. We do not want to accept harems in Germany." — Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback.
The German government has withdrawn proposed legislation that would have banned immigrants in polygamous marriages from obtaining German citizenship. The Deputy Leader of the anti-mass-migration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), Beatrix von Storch (pictured), said: "To allow Islamic polygamy in Germany is a betrayal of our Western values and a slap in the face for equal rights." (Photo by Ronny Hartmann/Getty Images)
The German government has withdrawn proposed legislation that would have banned immigrants in polygamous marriages from obtaining German citizenship. The proposed ban had been included in draft changes to Germany's naturalization law, but was quietly removed from the final text, apparently in the interests of political correctness and multiculturalism.
Although German law clearly prohibits polygamy for German nationals, some have argued that the law is unclear as to whether the law applies to foreign nationals living in Germany. The interior ministers of Germany's 16 states had unanimously called on the German government to clarify the issue by enshrining into law a blanket ban on German citizenship for polygamous migrants.
Pictured: An illustrative image of rockets fired by Hamas toward Israel from the Gaza Strip. (Image source: IDF/Flickr)
After raining down some 600 rockets that killed four Israelis this past week, the Netanyahu government responded with overwhelming force, deploying jet fighters to carry out multiple air strikes, killing 23 Gaza residents including a pregnant woman, according to Palestinian Authority officials. (The pregnant women and her child, however, are now confirmed as having been killed by a Palestinian rocket that feel short.)
And, so, the cycle of violence makes another cruel revolution. What makes the events of the past week different from earlier rockets-and-retaliation episodes? The reaction of Arab intellectuals and other thought leaders in Muslim world.
[The Jordanian mayor] went on to say that he believes in the "liberation of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River" – meaning that he supports the elimination of Israel.
The campaign against the Jordanian mayor is the direct result of anti-Israel incitement in Jordan and most of the Arab and Islamic states. While some of the leaders of these countries may appear to be relatively moderate in their views towards Israel, their people continue to reject any form of normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have been radicalizing their people on a daily basis against Israel. They have delegitimized Israel in the eyes of their people to a point where they can no longer be seen talking to or making peace with Israelis.
One is left wondering how any Arab leader would accept any peace plan with Israel when a mayor is being widely condemned and shamed for being caught on camera in the company of Israelis.
In order to achieve peace with Israel, Arab and Muslim leaders need to start preparing their people for peace, and not inciting them against Israel.
Ibrahim al-Karaki, the mayor of the Jordanian city of Al-Karak, 87 miles to south of Amman, with a view to the Dead Sea, is under attack for hosting Israeli (Jewish) tourists during the Jewish Passover holiday. His critics have accused him of promoting normalization with the "Israeli enemy" and are demanding his resignation.
Although Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, many Jordanians remain opposed to any form of normalization with Israelis. The same applies to Egypt, the second Arab country that has a peace treaty with Israel and where the "anti-normalization" camp remains one of the strongest in the Arab world.
Al-Karaki is reported to have helped the Israelis cross a valley that is closed to tourists. His other "crimes" include feeding the Israeli tourists and presenting them with plaques of appreciation from the city.
