RUTHFULLY YOURS

ISTANBUL—Syrian merchant Bassel Fouad was once active in the opposition to his country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and sees him as a tyrant who destroyed Syria with his iron-fisted authoritarian rule.

Mr. Fouad, who now lives in southern Turkey, said he doesn’t understand intensified concerns in his host nation over the growing power of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the wake of Sunday’s constitutional referendum. He called Mr. Erdogan “a reformer who led his country forward.”

His view reflects a paradox on Turkey among its Arab neighbors: Even as Mr. Erdogan’s moves have raised concerns over the direction of Turkey’s democracy, some still see him as a fair and strong Muslim leader in a region largely ruled by dynasties and resurgent autocrats.

The results of the referendum, in which Turks voted by a slim margin to concentrate more power in the presidency, were met with supportive nods in corners of the Arab world, though the vote was marred by allegations of irregularities.

Some of the nods came from citizens of countries led by monarchs, stagnant governments or repressive regimes—a sign of how deeply split the Middle East is over ideas of reform and Islamist rule, and how relative and fluid those notions can be.

“As long as the changes came through the ballot boxes, why all this fear?” said Mohammad Diab, a Syrian refugee in northern Germany. Mr. Diab said he believed the Turkish president “will lead an Islamic awakening in Turkey and the region.”

Barakat Alshamrani, who was visiting Istanbul from Saudi Arabia, said he realized Turkey was divided over Mr. Erdogan and whether to grant the president more power, but he shrugged off the debate.

“What we know is that he is a good, fair, popular Muslim leader,” said Mr. Alshamrani. CONTINUE AT SITE

PARIS—A gunman opened fire on the Champs-Élysées on Thursday, killing a police officer and wounding two others in an assault authorities said was likely a terror attack, just days before France’s presidential elections begin.

French officials said the assault began at 8:50 p.m., when a car pulled alongside a police patrol and the gunman jumped out wielding an automatic rifle. Police returned fire, killing the gunman, who was identified by an official as Karim Cheurfi, a French national.

A spokeswoman for antiterrorism prosecutors in Paris said they had opened an investigation into the assault. French President François Hollande said authorities were convinced it was a terror attack and expressed “great sadness” over the police officer’s death.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suspected terror attack, said SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the extremist group’s communications. “We can’t exclude whether there’s one or several accomplices,” Pierre-Henry Brandet, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The attack sent immediate ripples across the political landscape as the closely fought election was entering its final stretch. France 2, the state TV channel, briefly interrupted a live broadcast in which the 11 presidential candidates were outlining their platforms to broadcast footage showing the Champs-Élysées in lockdown. CONTINUE AT SITE

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan,” said Algerian writer Kamel Daoud. Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan.

The West used to be proud of being the land of the free. European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom” at the Mall Gallery in London censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley.

“The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of President Hollande’s culture ministry. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Maastricht, in the Netherlands, is the picturesque city that gave its name to the famous treaty signed in 1992 by the twelve nations of the European Community at the time, and which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.

Maastricht, however, is also the home of “Tefaf”, the most important art and antiques fair in the world. The art work “Persepolis” by the Italian artist Luca Pignatelli was already scheduled when the commission ordered it removed. The work, built in 2016, combined a Persian Islamic rug and a female head. “We are all humbled and speechless”, Pignatelli declared, pointing out that his work had initially aroused the enthusiasm of the commission. The fair’s explanation was that Pignatelli’s work was “provocative”.

The officials of fair presumably did not want to offend Islam and possible Muslim buyers with Pignatelli’s combination of the mat (used by Muslims for prayer) with the woman’s face. “We are shocked, this is the first time this has happened and I think it is legitimate to talk about it”, Pignatelli said. “If in Rome it can happen that you decide to veil art works to avoid offending foreign visitors, well, I do not agree”. The reference is at the Italian government decision to veil the antique Roman statues to avoid offending Iran’s visiting President Hassan Rouhani.

If Europe wants a future, it should be less ideological about Maastricht’s treaty and more against Maastricht’s capitulation to fear. The brave Algerian writer Kamel Daoud said:

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan”.

Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan. The Taliban have killed artists and destroyed art works. The West used to be proud of being the land of the free.

Part 1 can be found here – click.

Part 2 can be found here – click.

The outstretched hand

The hagadah that is read during the pesach [Passover] seder is an intensely concentrated treatise on the subject of freedom. Something similar is happening in France today. The issues are dramatized by reality, realities that were deliberately kept out of sight have suddenly burst into the discourse and cannot be ignored. An intense concentrate of the issues that have been playing out since the end of September 2000* will reach a conclusion on the night of 23-24 April 2017 when the votes are counted and we will know what French citizens have decided to do about jihad conquest. The future of Europe, of the free world hangs in the balance. [* see my latest release, Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century]

Back then, deaf to the alarms of anti-Jewish violence triggered by the al Dura blood libel, French society stumbled from willful blindness to cozy antizionism until the rude awakening of the Charlie Hebdo executions, followed by the November 13th 2015 mass jihad murders. Again, today, the murder of a 67 year-old Jewish woman thrown out the window like a piece of garbage by her Muslim neighbor did not move the media or intrude on a presidential campaign that keeps veering away from the crucial issue of survival.

And now, 18 April, a thunderbolt strikes: Mahiedine Merabet and Clément Baur are arrested in Marseille, suspected of preparing an imminent jihad attack on “the campaign.” They had the full kit: ski masks,koranic verses, a go-pro camera, explosives, nuts and bolts, loaded assault weapons, and a hunting knife for good measure. British intelligence detected their allegiance to Daesh video and informed French authorities. François Fillon is the designated target, “talion law” is spelled out in bullets, and photos of Muslim children killed in bombings are displayed as justification. Mujahidin do not attack civilians…except in retaliation for crimes committed against Muslims.

Four days before the close of the campaign, Islamic totalitarianism pounces on us like a man-eating tiger on a forest path. Doesn’t that change everything? The danger to our democracy is not the employment of family members as parliamentary assistants! Two men of French nationality, one born into Islam, the other a convert, two lowlifes of no particular dimension, two flagged security risks like thousands of others, could have assassinated one of the four leading candidates and an untold number of supporters. Two common ordinary men loyal to the caliphate could have derailed the democratic process. A little monkey wrench thrown into the mechanism brings it to a halt.