RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15643/can-terrorists-be-deradicalized-part-ii

However pure religious Islam was in its earliest phase, after Muhammad came to rule in the city of Medina and during the successive caliphates that followed his death in 632, it became a dogma that the state must be ruled by Islam, its beliefs, and its laws. Today’s radicals, whether in Iran or as newcomers in Western societies, apparently consider this a view worth fighting to uphold.

As far as Western countries are concerned, radicalization appears to rest on three things: education in many Muslim schools, upbringing in unintegrated Muslim families, and the intensity of close-knit Muslim communities.

When implemented, these measures will certainly increase the likelihood of long-term deradicalization. But more still needs to be done to prevent the spread and acceptance of radical views in the first place.

In the first part of this analysis, “Can Terrorists be Deradicalized? Part I,” of the ongoing threat of Islamic radicalism in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, it seems to have proven difficult to take convicted terrorists and turn them into pious Muslims who repudiate violence.

The great irony, as some reports have shown, is that the very fact of being imprisoned or, in some instances, being trained in deradicalization courses can actually result in further radicalization. So far, not enough work has been done to identify and act on this problem, but it has been recognized by experts such as Ian Acheson. And the UK government has published important findings on the subject.

The truth is that many modern Western states seem to have trapped themselves in a range of social attitudes — such as the well-intended wish to show empathy or sound hospitable, or a fear of offending, or laws condemning “hate speech”, or simple self-censorship — that can unfortunately ignore or even sustain radical Islamic belief systems. This is not to say that the UK, France, or other countries actively promote the sort of radicalization that so often leads to acts of terror; but our failure to act, our insistence on political correctness, combined with a need to appear innocent of anything that might conceivably be considered anti-Muslim “hate crimes”, often leads to such results.

http://Canada’s Conservatives Welcome Extremists, Reject Reformers by Jakob Glogauer

The Conservative Party of Canada might favor extremist Muslims in order to secure more votes and broaden the party “base.” All the while, Muslim reformers with a long history of loyalty to the party are being rejected, and not chosen as candidates. Party members who oppose advancing Sharia law and who run for leadership positions are disqualified.

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and current Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay co-founded the modern Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) based on the promotion of “freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.” Canada’s right-wing, however, has recently been consorting with Islamists patently opposed to these fundamental ideals.

Across the Western world, extremist Muslims have long partnered with the Left, perhaps out of a shared partiality for identity politics; or, at the very least, because progressive movements can easily be exploited to advance radical causes. Now, however, even the Conservative establishment is courting Islamist activists and politicians. At the federal level, frontrunners in the CPC leadership race, Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole, have each welcomed prominent extremist activists into their campaigns.

In January of this year, O’Toole appointed Walied Soliman as his campaign chair. Throughout his professional career, Soliman has supported applying the Sharia banking system in Canada. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Soliman dismissed concerns that a Sharia-compliant economy would violate Canada’s secular system. “This is simply about market demand and interest,” he said. He may, of course, support more than that.

One LGBT group has criticized O’Toole for welcoming an advocate of Sharia into his campaign. Why, they asked, is Soliman “unable to publicly reject sharia law despite repeated attempts for clarification. Does he believe in sharia application to #LGBTQ people?”

O’Toole replied, “I will always oppose any threat to those principles [of “freedom, democracy, and the rule of law”], here and at home, including Sharia law. Any suggestion otherwise is preposterous, tinfoil hat thinking. The fact I even have to say this is profoundly sad.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/bangalore-burning-radhika-singh/

It was pretty late at night; I don’t really remember what exact time though. I was watching some random videos when the phone started to ring. “Don’t get out of the house. Stay put,” warned a friend calling from Delhi.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Your city is burning.”

“What?” I gasped in disbelief.

Bangalore is a peaceful place. The crowd is educated, civilized, white-collared corporate types. Riots are not part of the norm in this city of IT parks. I switched on the TV. Yes. The city was indeed engulfed in flames. The mad mob had come for Bangalore now.

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The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, with their fake narratives about my country, have convinced the world that we are a living hell for the “minorities” — the Muslims who constitute the second largest religious denomination in this country. Far from the truth, these stories are nothing but an orchestrated attempt to paint the Muslim population as a meek, orphaned and harmless segment of our society. The reporting perpetually hides atrocities perpetrated by Muslims and promulgates amplified versions of minor incidents involving a Muslim “victim” — just as the media does worldwide.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/mounting-evidence-points-hezbollah-culpability-ari-lieberman/

Within an hour of the massive explosion that rocked Beirut on August 4, Hezbollah denied any culpability. Lebanon’s president, Michel Aoun, considered a close Hezbollah ally, immediately attributed the blast to the presence of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that ignited after a nearby warehouse housing fireworks caught fire. Lebanese authorities claim that the ammonium nitrate was confiscated from a Russian cargo vessel in 2013 after the ship took a detour from its original destination and docked at the port.

The ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make explosives, was stored at the port for seven years before it blew up with catastrophic consequences. There is ample reason to believe that Hezbollah was responsible for the blast and resulting carnage. The collective evidence is in fact, damning.

First, one must understand that in Lebanon, Hezbollah controls all ports of entry, either directly through force of arms or indirectly, through graft. The obvious purpose is to control the flow of weapons, money and narcotics that pass through these ports of entry. Therefore, it is logical to assume that Hezbollah was aware of the presence of the ammonium nitrate.

In 2008 the Lebanese cabinet headed by the Western-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, attempted to remove security cameras installed by Hezbollah at Beirut International Airport. The cabinet also attempted to remove Brigadier General Wafiq Shkeir, widely regarded as a Hezbollah stooge, from his post as airport security chief. Finally, the government attempted to close separate telecommunication infrastructure that Hezbollah was installing throughout the country.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/austria-must-grapple-its-past-joseph-puder/

Austria today is one of the friendlier members of the European Union (EU) towards the Jewish state. In fact, the current Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz has been particularly friendly toward Israel, and he regularly speaks out against antisemitism. He has also been the one EU leader to convey Benjamin Netanyahu’s fair charges regarding EU policies toward Israel. Kurz’s Austria is the only West European nation whose government is actively shielding the Jewish state from EU sanctions. This year Austria’s parliament passed a resolution calling the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel a form of antisemitism. It also labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Now, Chancellor Kurz has eased conditions for Israeli citizens to receive Austrian citizenship. Unfortunately, like his predecessors, he has thus far failed to confront Austria’s dark past, specifically Austrians behavior during the Holocaust.  Austria has done very little about educating its young people on the Holocaust or prosecuting its many living Nazi criminals.

Austria conducted two trials of Nazi criminals, both in the 1960’s. The first was the trial of Franz Murer, the SS-Oberscharfuhrer, also known as the “butcher of Vilnius.” Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor Nazi hunter, managed to get him prosecuted in 1963. The trial took place in Graz, Austria, lasting a week, and ended with the Austrians acquitting Murer. The second trial was that of Franz Novak, a senior aide to Adolf Eichmann. He stood trial on October 12, 1964, in Vienna, charged with participating in the deportation of 400,000 Hungarian Jews to the death camps in Poland. Convicted and imprisoned, he was pardoned by Austria’s President Rudolf Kirchschlager. Austrians have not bothered to grapple with their role in the Holocaust crimes. The one-time Austria was forced to face reality was in 1986, when Austrian Kurt Waldheim, the former UN Secretary-General, was running for the Austrian presidency. Press inquiries into his past revealed his role in the Nazi regime. Nevertheless, Austrians elected him as their president. Embarrassed by these revelations concerning Waldheim’s past, in 1991, Austria’s Chancellor Franz Vranitzky declared his nation’s responsibility for Nazi crimes. Austrians, however, were still unable to face up to their sordid history. They went from denial of their role in the Holocaust to historical revisionism.