RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12760/australia-immigration-model

“Europeans think it’s easy in Australia to control our borders, but they’re just making up excuses for doing nothing themselves.” — Major General (Ret.) Jim Molan, co-author of Australia’s asylum policy.

“We have got hundreds, maybe thousands of people drowning in the attempts to get from Africa to Europe… [The] only way you can stop the deaths is in fact to stop the boats”. — Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

“My long experience in Australian politics has been that whenever a government is seen to have immigration flows under control, public support for immigration increases, when the reverse occurs hostility to immigration rises.” — Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

It must be crushing to live in a country where governance might be questionable at best, and economic opportunities limited, if that. People know they are risking their lives in search of a better break. But if the West is not to be overwhelmed, these problems seriously need to be addressed.

Four years ago, the Australian government sparked criticism after it ran an advertisement aimed at discouraging asylum seekers from traveling illegally to the country. “No Way”, the poster read. “You will not make Australia home. If you get on a boat without a visa, you will not end up in Australia. Any vessel seeking illegally to enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters”.

It was an extremely tough message, but it worked. “Australia’s migration rate is the lowest it’s been in 10 years”, said Peter Dutton, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister. Speaking last week on the Today Show, Dutton added that the drop was about “restoring integrity to our border”. The Australians are apparently happy about that. A new poll just revealed that 72% of voters support Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s immigration policy. Australia, a Western democracy, has for years, tried to deal with a migration crisis from the sea.

“Europeans think it’s easy in Australia to control our borders, but they’re just making up excuses for doing nothing themselves,” said retired major general Jim Molan, co-author of Australia’s asylum policy.

In 2013, Tony Abbott was elected Prime Minister under the slogan “Stop the boats”. “Stop the boats” is now also the slogan of the new Italy’s new Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, who, since the formation of a new government last month, has been totally focused on curbing immigration from “the world’s most lethal” route: across the Mediterranean.

It would seem that the best possible model for Europe to implement is a skills-based immigration system to curb the illegal one.

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001784.html
CONTENTS

ANTISEMITIC HATE POSTS ALLOWED BY FACEBOOK (KATE GIBBONS-THE TIMES OF LONDON

U.K.’S JEWISH PAPERS DENOUNCE LABOUR PARTY AS “EXISTENTIAL THREAT” (STEPHEN CASTLE- NEW YORK TIMES)

JEREMY CORBIN IS BLIND TO RACISM IN HIS PARTY (DANIEL FINKELSTEIN- THE TIMES OF LONDON)

LABOUR ACTS AGAINST MARGARET HODGE FOR CALLING CORBIN RACIST (PIPPA CRERAR AND HEATHER STEWART -THE GUARDIAN)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pro-palestinian-bds-movement-versus-german-culture-festivals-a-1217664.html

EXCERPT: “Belgian choreographer Alain Platel and American composer Elliott Sharp also sent letters of protest. Sharp wrote that the decision to rescind the Young Fathers’ invitation had really upset him. He wrote that it has “must be possible to criticize a violent, authoritarian regime without it being labeled as anti-Semitism.” On this issue, Sharp wrote, “I speak as a Jew and son of a Holocaust survivor.”

The Middle East conflict has arrived in Germany in the form of boycotts against German cultural festivals. The development raises the question of where the line is crossed between criticizing Israel as a state and anti-Semitism.

The Young Fathers sound a bit like gospel singers who have long been locked up in a church — and have now been released into freedom, into a world of unlimited possibilities, but also one filled with many truths and conflicts. They sing about identity and power, violence and war, love and sex. And often about God and the devil.

It is the music of doubtful young men, one white and two black, a Scottish pop group in the digital postmodern era. Critics have dubbed them “the most interesting newish band in the English-speaking world,” and Stefanie Carp, the new artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale, an annual music and cultural festival in Germany’s Ruhr region, was proud when she succeeded in booking the Young Fathers for a concert. In a cheerful announcement, organizers of the festival, which begins in August, described the group’s music as “genre-defying.”

But it’s possible that the band member’s political views may indeed fit into a category — and not a nice one: anti-Semitism. The mere question as to whether they can be classified as such has been the subject of considerable controversy and the debate is creating problems for Carp, with some journalists and politicians demanding her resignation. Last week, The New York Times even reported on the case. The story’s  tone: The criticism of the festival has little to do with the band’s music, but much to do with German history.

Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society
It always amazes me how quickly after the UK Parliament shuts down for the summer recess – as it did this week – both the pace of work in politics and the news headlines change.

After weeks of knife-edge Conservative Brexit drama, Trump visitations and Labour anti-Semitism crises, today’s BBC homepage offered comment on “blood moon” sightings and the longest heatwave in Britain’s history since the infamous summer of 1976. Given the weather, perhaps it is indeed a good thing that the hot air from Westminster is being vented elsewhere for a change. But rather than using the summer as a time of malaise, perhaps our politicians should consider it an opportunity to do something different and more worthwhile.

There are few other periods in our 24/7 society when our leaders get a chance to take a break from the frenetic pace of political life today. They should use it to recharge, but also to think. For there is currently a policy vacuum in the heart of British politics that requires filling urgently.

Ever since the EU referendum of 2016, the political agenda has been filled with but one issue: Brexit. The one attempt our political parties had to refocus attention – the General Election of 2017 – turned out disastrously when the British public returned an unimpressed verdict on their efforts through a hung Parliament. Since then, neither major party – nor any of the minor ones – have come up with a political idea that has really caught the imagination.

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/

Of all the world’s unstable countries perhaps the most concerning is Pakistan. Not just because of the extent of the religious zealotries that exist there, the power of the clerics or the unstable nature of successive governments. But primarily of course because on top of all this the country is a nuclear power, armed with munitions which many extremist groups in the country would be very glad to have in their immediate control.

It is for this reason more than any other that political events in Pakistan deserve considerable attention from the wider world—and the reason why anybody seeking the highest offices there should be subjected to an unusual degree of inspection.

As of today Imran Khan has claimed victory in this week’s election in the country. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that his own party will not contest the results, despite the usual claims and evidence of corruption at the polls. If Imran Khan is to now take control of the country the wider world will have to spend far more attention on him than it has to date.

To date most of the international coverage has focused on Mr Khan’s celebrity and his former fame as a cricketer. Certainly this all helped him to get a platform in his home country—a country where, like most others, celebrity is an enormous advantage in any election. But it is the layers beneath the famous skin that need to be probed deeper.

Throughout his career in recent years Mr Khan has proven himself adept at manoeuvring around the perilous tracks of Pakistan’s domestic politics. But such navigation is hugely compromising. It has included him having meetings with—and appearing on stage with—extremists who should not be on anybody’s invite list. And of course all of this has presented challenges of its own. To what extent have some of Khan’s public appearances and statements been a necessary evil and to what extent are they the product of sincere and indeed fundamental belief? This is not an easy question to answer. But perhaps over the coming years, once he has been in power, we will be able to see the answer for ourselves. It is much to be hoped that Khan has been engaging in necessary politics in recent years. If not, then Pakistan and the wider world are in for a period which will be perilous even by their standards.