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Ruth King

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Turkey Scolds Europe by Uzay Bulut

By on January 9th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13518/turkey-scolds-europe

“It is… futile… to discuss Islam using geographical or cultural adjectives, such as European Islam, French Islam, moderate Islam, etc.” — Ali Erbaş, the head of Turkey’s state religious authority, the Diyanet.

The Diyanet does not even recognize Judaism and Christianity as authentic faiths — as is immediately apparent on its official website. In the Diyanet’s interpretation of the verse [Quran, Al-Baqarah 140], the religious figures whom Jews believe to be their prophets, and the religion of Jesus, all originated with Islam: “Ibrahim was neither Jewish nor Christian. He was a Hanafi Muslim… It is the religion of Tawhid [oneness of Allah] that Allah sent to humanity from the very beginning [of time] and that is the most suitable for human nature. So it is completely contrary to facts to claim that [the prophets] were Jewish or Christian…”

How ironic that this is the same Erbaş who claimed at the conference in Cologne that the “increase in anti-Islamic discourse and actions… threaten European multiculturalism,” while the Diyanet is responsible for decrees that do not allow for the slightest bit of multiculturalism in Turkey. In fact, all religious and ethnic minorities in Turkey are persecuted with the blessing of the Diyanet.

The Diyanet’s president’s recent rant against Europe — from a podium in Cologne, no less — was disingenuous, false and a perfect example of projection. It is European liberalism that is under assault, not the other way around.

At a recent conference in Cologne on the future of Europe’s Muslims, Ali Erbaş, the head of Turkey’s state religious authority, the Diyanet, railed against what he called the “increase in anti-Islamic discourse and actions… [that] threaten European multiculturalism.”

In his keynote address to the conference, hosted by Turkey’s main Islamic body in Germany, DITIB — based in the Cologne Central Mosque, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan inaugurated during a visit to Germany in September — Erbaş declared:

“… racism, social exclusion… xenophobia, attacks against mosques… [and] discriminatory discourse and actions disregard human life and honor… restrict [Muslims’] rights, make social and cultural institutions dysfunctional and harm the common morality and conscience of humanity.”

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A Century of Disorder Srdja Trifkovic

By on January 9th, 2019

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2019/January/44/1/magazine/article/10845926/

The Paris Peace Conference opened at the Palace of Versailles 100 years ago (January 18, 1919). It was the most ambitious gathering of its kind in history: Leaders and diplomats of 27 nations convened to shape the future, a mere ten weeks after the Armistice. Far from reestablishing order in Europe and the world after over four years of unprecedented carnage and destruction, however, it produced a flawed treaty that contained the seeds of another, even more destructive war a generation later.

A major weakness of the Versailles system was that two great European powers were not present. Germany and her allies were excluded until after the details of all the peace treaties had been agreed upon by the Big Four—France, Britain, the United States, and Italy—and presented as faits accomplis to each of them separately. Russia was not invited because the Bolsheviks had signed their separate peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918.

Brest-Litovsk was an important precursor of Versailles. Ludendorff’s generals had formulated extremely harsh terms that were seen as excessive even by the German civilian negotiators. This convinced the Entente powers that no reasonable agreement could be reached with Germany, and that they had to fight for an outright victory. By imposing a Carthaginian peace on Russia, the Germans ensured that they could not count on anyone’s lenience when things went wrong for them. When they later complained that Versailles was too harsh, the Allies could point out that it was in fact far less brutal than the terms imposed on Russia.

When the German army finally gave up in 1918 (the stab-in-the-back myth notwithstanding), what with the Kaiser abdicating and the Armistice signed, many Germans hoped that they would be treated as Bourbon France was treated in Vienna in 1815, where Talleyrand was a key player. This was not to be. Germany’s egregious behavior before and during the war, including the execution of thousands of French and Belgian civilians, the introduction of poison gas, unrestricted submarine warfare, and the comprehensive destruction of occupied areas in the east and west alike, made a peace of reconciliation politically impossible.

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On ‘Stupid’ Emergency Laws By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on January 9th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-stupid-emergency-laws/

I’m getting to be a bit of an old dog to learn many new tricks, but maybe some day I’ll learn not to be flip when the situation calls for something more thoughtful.

This morning, I was interviewed by Fox News’s Bill Hemmer about what to expect from President Trump’s speech tonight and, in particular, whether the president could legitimately declare a national emergency in order to rationalize the reallocation of Defense Department funds for the construction on the southern border of a “wall” — or, at least, some kind of physical barrier (the semantics of which are of more interest to the Beltway’s posturing antagonists than they are to me — if I may be flip about it).

I don’t think the president should do this because it is bad policy (I’ll come to why); and I hope he won’t do it because it would be smarter to try to convince more of the public that he has a good case, which would put pressure on Congress to address the problem. But that said, I do not doubt that federal law empowers the president to declare a national emergency and reprogram funds to construct civil-defense projects the president deems essential to national defense. (See, e.g., Section 2293 of Title 33, U.S. Code.)

Speaking with one of the producers as commonly happens before these interviews, I glibly opined described as “stupid” this and other laws strewn through the federal code that authorize executive action on the president’s unilateral determination that action is required.

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15-year-old girl stabbed in Jerusalem attack

By on January 9th, 2019

https://worldisraelnews.com/15-year-old-girl-stabbed-in-jerusalem-attack/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1547013665&pushcrew_powered=1

A teenage girl was stabbed and wounded in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.

The victim, 15, was was stabbed several times including in her neck. She was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem and is reportedly in light-to-moderate condition.

The teenager said she was standing at a bus stop when an Arab man attacked her. She told the security forces who arrived at the scene that she did not know her attacker.

Security forces launched a manhunt for the assailant.

The Armon Hanatziv neighborhood is situated adjacent to Arab neighborhoods and has been the site of several terror attacks, some of them deadly.

Most recently, a knife-wielding terrorist scaled the fence at a police station in the neighborhood and attacked four officers. He was shot and killed.

Two years ago on this day (Dec. 9), an Arab terrorist rammed his truck into soldiers waiting at a bus stop in Armon Hanatziv, killing four and wounding 13.

One of the most deadly attacks in the area took place in October 2016 when two Arab terrorists boarded a bus and shot and stabbed passengers, murdering Alon Govberg, Haim Haviv and Richard Lakin, the latter of whom was also an American citizen.

Another 17 Israelis were wounded in that attack.

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Lawsuit: Sorority Punished for ‘Hazing’ for Requiring Members to Study 25 Hours per Week By Katherine Timpf

By on January 8th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/lawsuit-sorority-guilty-of-hazing-for-requiring-members-to-study-25-hours-per-week/Academic learning is supposed to be the entire purpose of college.

A predominantly Latina sorority is suing the University of Virginia on the grounds that it was wrongfully punished for hazing.

According to an article in The Daily Progress, Sigma Lambda Upsilon — also known as Senoritas Latinas Unidas — was punished for “hazing” because of a policy that required its members to study 25 hours per week. The sorority was suspended last March and filed the lawsuit in September, but the situation made news only when The Progress reported on it earlier this month.

According to the news source, the sorority got in trouble when one of its recruits went to a professor to complain about the requirement. The professor then contacted the student affairs office and the police. (Yes — the police.) UVa conducted an investigation and found that the forced studying did in fact violate the school’s anti-hazing policy.

The sorority argues that this determination was unfair because other classes and athletic programs on campus require a similar amount of studying, and claims that the school’s ruling amounts to discrimination.

UVa defines “hazing” as any situation that occurs either on campus property or during a campus event “that is designed to or produces mental or physical harassment, discomfort, or ridicule.”

“Such activities and situations include, but are not limited to, creation of excessive physical or psychological shock, fatigue, stress, injury, or harm,” the hazing policy states.

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The 380,000 Just how many unnecessary employees does the federal government employ? By James Freeman

By on January 8th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-380-000-11546987811

This column doesn’t wish to seem hard-hearted but feels obliged to ask the various parties negotiating an end to the partial government shutdown why the affected agencies have been employing nearly twice as many workers as they deem necessary to fulfill their missions. Whether President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decide to call structures at the border walls or fences, they ought to at least explain how they are managing the public payroll inside the United States.

Various media reports have noted that the temporary closure of 25% of the government has forced roughly 420,000 federal workers deemed essential to continue working while some 380,000 who are not deemed essential stay home. If it were a business, this non-essential portion of just a quarter of our government would be among the largest private employers in the country. Does this mean that non-essentials approach 1.5 million across the entire government? As American businesses scour their communities for talent during an historic worker shortage, taxpayers seem to be paying to maintain the world’s largest reserve force of bureaucrats.

An incurious press corps seems largely uninterested in the appropriate size of the federal workforce. Numerous recent reports have covered the shutdown story largely as a tale of a villainous President inflicting uncertainty on civil servants who wonder when they will be able to pay their mortgages.

“As thousands of furloughed federal employees worry about when their next paycheck will arrive, their bills are piling up,” writes Renata Birkenbuel in a recent Newsweek story.

“Government Shutdown Leaves Workers Reeling,” reads a New York Times headline from January 3.

Government Executive magazine reported the next day on legislative efforts to ensure that federal shutdowns never again threaten federal paychecks:

Maryland’s Senate delegation on Thursday reintroduced a bill to ensure that federal workers furloughed during the partial government shutdown, and any potential future shutdowns, will be promptly given back pay once federal agencies reopen.

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Thoughtcrime and Punishment: A Year Of Shunning and Law Suits at a Canadian University written by Lindsay Shepherd

By on January 8th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/01/08/thoughtcrime-and-punishment

In late 2017, I found myself at the centre of a controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University, where I was an M.A. student and teaching assistant (TA) in the Communication Studies department. In the class for which I was serving as TA, I played part of a panel discussion that had aired on Ontario public television. As many readers will know, this material featured University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson making the argument against alternative gender pronoun usage, as well as Sexual Diversity educator Nicholas Matte’s arguments encouraging their use.

Because I chose not to disavow Peterson’s views before airing the clip, I was brought into a subsequent disciplinary meeting. The supervisor for the course in question, Nathan Rambukkana, as well as the coordinator for my M.A. program, Herbert Pimlott (also known, at times, as “Hillary X Plimsoll”), and Gendered Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention manager Adria Joel accused me of breaking the law by airing a clip of Peterson in a classroom, as well as threatening and targeting trans people, thereby creating a toxic environment. All of this is well-known because I taped the whole meeting.

Apparently, “one or more” students had complained about the class in question—though that claim later turned out to be false. Both Rambukkana and Wilfrid Laurier University President Deborah MacLatchy apologized to me, and I was cleared of any wrongdoing after a neutral third-party fact-finding investigation concluded I hadn’t done anything wrong. The investigator also determined that “basic guidelines and best practices on how to appropriately execute the roles and responsibilities of staff and faculty were ignored or not understood.”

Professors Rambukkana and Pimlott disappeared from public view after the semester ended in December, 2017. Rambukkana deleted his personal social media accounts, and Pimlott locked his Twitter account. The posters and décor they had on their office doors were stripped away and the doors were locked for the entirety of 2018. Pimlott was the instructor for my graduate colloquium course, but all of our colloquium meetings for the remainder of that term were cancelled. For the January-April, 2018 semester, he was replaced by another professor, with no explanation offered to students. I also noticed that Pimlott’s name had been removed from the website listing our M.A. program coordinator. I emailed an administrative assistant to ask why Pimlott was no longer the program coordinator, and she told me there had been “departmental changes.” Our graduate class year-end get-together was cancelled.

This was a common pattern from thereon out: No one at Wilfrid Laurier University would give me a straight answer about anything. It was a climate of evasiveness and secrecy.

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60 Years On: Reflections on the Revolution in Cuba written by Jorge C. Carrasco

By on January 8th, 2019

https://quillette.com/2019/01/07/60-years-on-reflections-on-the-

Sixty years ago, as thousands of Cubans celebrated the fall of Fulgencio Batista’s regime, an atmosphere of hype and hatred was also overtaking Havana. Not many people foresaw what was to come, but on January 1, 1959, the Republic of Cuba was murdered. Few tears were shed for her at the time—some were too busy desperately packing their bags, while others were preoccupied with burning cars and smashing storefront windows. The institutions not destroyed by the previous dictatorship were savagely dismembered in the following months and years by the Castro regime. Cuba’s National Congress would never again return to session in the National Capitol building (or anywhere else, for that matter). Christmas, bars and cabaret clubs, independent trade unions, religious schools, private clubs, large and small businesses, any and all vestiges of what was Cuba before communism—all of these were destroyed, expropriated, or otherwise expunged from the lives and minds of the Cuban people.

The Cuban Revolution never disguised its contempt for the greatest symbol of the Republican era: Havana itself. The Havana Hilton hotel was renamed, and the city’s glorious buildings, beautiful parks, grand mansions, statues, theatres, and museums were all deemed too bourgeois and ostentatious by the revolutionaries, products as they were of the hated “capitalists and imperialists” they had just driven from power. All this too was now consigned to oblivion or simply neglected as if it had been complicit in some unimaginable evil. “Bourgeois Havana,” hitherto one of the world’s most socially and culturally rich cities, gradually collapsed. One by one, its buildings fell into ruin and disrepair, and in their place, nothing was built after 1959 that would return the city to its former splendor.

The bourgeois Republic’s glamour had masked its cruelty and inequality, but the Revolution ushered in a violent and grotesque cruelty of its own, as ugly as the Soviet brutalist architecture that now filled the Havana suburbs with hundreds of square housing complexes devoid of elegance and grace. Havana began to resemble a permanent war zone, in which a seemingly unending battle would be waged for the next 60 years and counting between the revolutionary tyrants and the ordinary people who populate the city, and who, generation after generation, give it life.

Fidel Castro knew that Cubans in the 1950s would not receive him as some kind of redemptive socialist deity (as North Koreans had done with the Kim dynasty). So, instead, he demanded allegiance to the Revolution itself, the romantic idealism of which masked the pitilessness of the political system that had replaced the Republic Castro despised. “Revolution” meant the liberation of the island and its people from Batista’s dictatorship and battles in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. It meant “social justice” and the promise of equality for all. It meant the sugarcane harvest, the nation’s newly forged ties to the equally revolutionary Soviet Union and its Communist Party, anti-imperialism, and the cult of Che Guevara. And, in the end, of course, it meant Fidel Castro himself.

If you had a house, ate the State-rationed food, enjoyed access to free healthcare and education, then this was all thanks to the Revolution. And if you suffered or went hungry, or were persecuted and oppressed, if you denounced your “counter-revolutionary” neighbors and relatives to the secret police and pelted political dissidents and homosexuals with eggs, then this too was all for the Revolution. Every time a Cuban referred to the Revolution, instead of the Republic or the government or simply Cuba, he became more than a mere citizen—he became a soldier of revolutionary progress. Uncountable crimes were perpetrated and justified in the name of that single word.

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Media Completely Ignores Isaam Akel, An American Brutalized Like Khashoggi . Ben Weingarten

By on January 8th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/07/media-completely-ignores-isaam-akel-american-brutalized-like-khashoggi/

A U.S. political establishment that was just months ago woke to anti-Semitism—it least when it might use that to dunk on Trump—has been missing in action about Isaam Akel.

An Arab man with deep ties to America dissented against an authoritarian Middle Eastern regime. As a consequence, he was held captive, reportedly beaten, and his life may be over.

No, his name is not Jamal Khashoggi. Unlike Khashoggi, this man is a U.S. citizen. And he was not consorting with or propagandizing on behalf of Islamists, but enraging them by consorting with America’s closest ally in the region.

While Issam Akel has not been made a cause celebre, perhaps he should be. An American resident of East Jerusalem, Akel was arrested by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in October 2018 and sentenced to life in prison with hard labor for allegedly committing the mortal sin of “selling a house to the enemy in Jerusalem.”

You see, according to the PA’s kangaroo court, Akel had the temerity to broker the sale of a house in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to Ateret Cohanim. That organization seeks to acquire land to settle Jews in non-Jewish areas of the Old City, and in small pockets within heavily Arab neighborhoods.

Under “Palestinian” law, selling property to Israelis—namely, Jews—is punishable by death. There’s a long history of legal codification of such barbaric Jew-hatred, as catalogued by Rabbi Schmuley Boteach:

The concept of killing a man for doing business with a Jew was put into force by the Jordanians in 1948 during the kingdom’s occupation of Judea and Samaria. From there, it would be incorporated into the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)’s legal code in 1979, which enforced the penalty of execution on any of those ‘traitors’ caught ‘transferring positions to the enemy.’ Since then, the law has been further clarified. The term ‘positions,’ as it turns out, refer to any sort of land or real estate. ‘Transferring’ has been elucidated by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to include any act of ‘diverting,’ ‘selling,’ or even just ‘renting’ a property. As for the ‘enemies,’ this refers to ‘an enemy state or one of its subjects,’ which, coming from the PLO, refers explicitly to Jews. The law has been reaffirmed by Palestinian officials on several occasions — in 1973, 1979, 1997, 2010, 2014, and 2018.

It’s truly Nazi-esque. But a U.S. political establishment that was just months ago woke to anti-Semitism—it least when it might use that to dunk on Trump—has been missing in action.

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Yes, Anti-Zionism Is The Same As Anti-Semitism ‘Anti-Zionism’ is the predominant justification for violence, murder, and hatred against Jews in Europe and the Middle East. It’s now infiltrating American politics. By David Harsanyi

By on January 8th, 2019

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/08/yes-anti-zionism-is-anti-semitism/

In a recent New York Times op-ed titled “Anti-Zionism isn’t the same as Anti-Semitism,” columnist Michelle Goldberg defended Ilhan Omar, a newly elected House representative who has claimed that Jews have hypnotized the world for their evil works. A person can oppose “Jewish ethno-nationalism without being a bigot,” Goldberg explained. “Indeed,” she went on, “it’s increasingly absurd to treat the Israeli state as a stand-in for Jews writ large, given the way the current Israeli government has aligned itself with far-right European movements that have anti-Semitic roots.”

It’s true, of course, that anti-Zionism isn’t “the same” as common anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism is the most significant and consequential form of anti-Semitism that exists in the world today. Anti-Zionism has done more to undermine Jewish safety than all the ugly tweets, dog whistles, and white nationalist marches combined. It is the predominant justification for violence, murder, and hatred against Jews in Europe and the Middle East. And it’s now infiltrating American politics.

What was once festering on the progressive fringes has found its way into elected offices and the heart of the liberal activist movement. As Democrats increasingly turn on Israel, Jewish liberals, many of whom have already purposely muddled Jewish values with progressive ones, are attempting to untether Israel from its central role in Jewish culture and faith for political expediency.

Now, of course, merely being critical of the Israeli government isn’t anti-Semitic. No serious person has ever argued otherwise. I’ve never heard any Israeli official or AIPAC spokesman ever claim that Israel is a “stand-in for Jews writ large,” nor have I ever heard an Israeli prime minister profess to speak for all Jews. (We have the ADL for that.) Israel has featured both left-wing and right-wing governments, and like governments in any liberal democracy, its leaders can be corrupt, misguided, or incompetent. Israelis criticize their governments every day.

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