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Ruth King

Anti-Semitism: The Fast Track in Turkey to a Government Career? by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13370/anti-semitism-turkey

“King Mohammed VI of Morocco made a breakthrough in the Muslim world and told the world press that ‘education has the power to fight ugly phenomena such as discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism.'” — Mois Gabay, Şalom.

“What about the fact that… an awakening about Israel and Jews is on the rise in many other majority-Muslim countries.” — Mois Gabay, Şalom.

“The government should immediately recognize anti-Semitism as a hate crime and impose penal sanctions on the perpetrators.” — Işıl Demirel, an anthropologist from Turkey; Avlaremoz.

Demirel’s suggestion would make perfect sense in a free and genuinely democratic society. But in a country where the president, his advisers and MPs regularly and proudly spit out hatred not only against Jews, but also against other minorities, how is anti-Semitism to be dealt with when demonizing Jews or Israel seems to serve as a fast track to a career in government?

As the Islamist government of Turkey grows increasingly authoritarian, religious minorities in the country seem to be the most targeted and affected group.

The concerns of Turkey’s Jewish community were addressed recently by Mois Gabay, a columnist for the country’s Jewish weekly, Şalom, in an article entitled, “What Kind of Turkey Are We Living In?”

In it, Gabay discussed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s establishing nine councils, the members of which he appointed, and who are responsible for “offering policy proposals, ideas and strategies to the president” on the economy, foreign policy, education and law.

Among those appointed to official positions within these councils, Gabay wrote, are well-known public figures who have made blatant anti-Semitic statements.

In an interview with the Turkish journal Yörünge in August, for instance, author Alev Alatlı, now a member of Erdogan’s culture and art council, said that the “anti-Erdogan forces of the world” are led by Jews and motivated by millennia-long Jewish teachings. “The real project [of the Jews] is to cleanse the universe of goyim,” she said, referring to “goyim” as those “for whom there is no place in the world unless they serve the Jews.”

Political Turmoil Grips Sweden The high stakes if new elections are called. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272105/political-turmoil-grips-sweden-joseph-puder

Political turmoil is gripping Sweden. Since the September 9th, 2018 elections in which the Swedish Democrats (the nationalists), an anti-immigrant party took 17.5% of the vote, gaining 62 seats in the 349 seat Swedish parliament or Riksdag, no new government has been formed. Nevertheless, the Swedish Democrats (SD) have become the king-makers.

The leftist Social-Democrats, although the largest vote getter with 100 seats, do not have enough partners to form a coalition government. On the center-right, Ulf Kristersson, 54, leader of the Moderate party (70 seats), cannot form a government with his opposition partners without having at least the silent support of the Swedish Democrats. The Center (31 seats), and Liberal (20 seats) parties, however, will not accept a situation in which the Swedish Democrats are silently backing the government. That leaves Kristersson with only his 70 seats in addition to the Christian Democrats 22 seats, to form a minority government of 92, and even with the Swedish Democrats backing, it would garner only 154 seats, less than the 175 seat majority. Similarly, the Social Democrats cannot form a coalition government with the Left party (28 seats) and the Greens (16 seats). Their total is even smaller with 144 seats. The third scenario is a coalition of the Moderate Party plus the Center party for a total of 143 seats, not enough to form a functional government.

Jimmie Akesson, 39, the new leader of the right-wing Swedish Democrats party, has reformed the image of the party. He has imposed a zero-tolerance on open expression of racism and xenophobia by its members. He also changed the party symbol, a flaming torch, into a friendly blue and yellow flower (blue and yellow are the colors of the Swedish flag). The Swedish Democrats under Akesson have captured 17.5% of the vote, or 62 seats in the Riksdag, up from 49 seats in 2014. The SD party gained the highest number of seats (13), whereas the Social Democrats lost 13. The SD party has capitalized on the limitless immigration policy that has characterized the Lofven government.

Muslim Migrants Terrorize a Sleepy German College Town One Syrian rapist, 29 crimes. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272123/muslim-migrants-terrorize-sleepy-german-college-daniel-greenfield

29.

That’s how many crimes one single Syrian migrant had allegedly committed since entering Germany four years ago. He had already been wanted for drug trafficking and had been investigated for a rape last year. And then he struck again, this time in a case that has once again torn apart a sleepy college town.

Freiburg is a German city of 226,000 people. Foreigners make up 36,800 or 16% of the population. Of the foreigners in Freiburg, whose name means fortified city of free people, 18,750 or 8.5% are men.

Even though foreigners are only a small percentage of the population, they commit 42% of the crimes.

These days, Freiburg is mainly known as a college town. One site describes it as the “sunniest and warmest city in Germany” with a “progressive mindset” and “a remarkable commitment to the environment”. The University of Freiburg’s 30,000 college students make the area a magnet for parties, clubs and eateries catering to the booming student population. And for those who prey on the students.

The medieval cobblestone streets of Freiburg bulging with bars aimed at college students had come to host a very different population as a mass of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis and others claiming to be refugees poured into Germany. Facilities catering to refugees quickly popped up all over the sleepy college town.

Unaccompanied minors, migrants, many of them claiming to be underage when their actual ages ranged into the twenties and even the thirties poured into Freiburg. By November 2016, 577 of these ‘minors’ had showed up in Freiburg. And crime, drugs, theft and sexual assaults came traveling along with them.

“From the River to the Sea”: A Guide to the Perplexed David Schraub:

https://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2018/12/from-river-to-sea-guide-to-perplexed.html
So we’re all talking about the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — which, after Temple Professor Marc Lamont Hill said it at a UN conference, reportedly caused his termination from CNN.

I don’t want to talk about Hill directly though. Quickly: He should face absolutely zero professional consequences at Temple — that’s a straightforward academic freedom issue. There is no academic freedom analogue to a sinecure at CNN, but I probably wouldn’t have fired him either — then again, I have a pretty high bar for firing people in cases like these. Certainly, the network that employs Rick Santorum doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on in this respect.

What I do want to do is give some context — hopefully helpful — to the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I do not wish to directly challenge anyone’s substantive political commitments on the score. Much the opposite: my assumption is that there are a great many people for whom the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” sounds wholly innocuous if not laudatory — who doesn’t want freedom for all people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea? — and are a bit baffled that such a statement could trigger such an intense backlash.

In particular, my target audience is someone I imagine thinking along roughly the following lines:

They support freedom for all people who happen to reside between the Jordan and Mediterranean;
They read “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as a pithy way of expressing the above commitment;
They’ve noted, with some confusion, that many Jews seemed to react extremely poorly to the use of this phrase; and
They assume that there’s at least a decent chance that the reason for this negative reaction is not that the Jews in question are opposed to all or some people between the Jordan and the Mediterranean being free, and accordingly wonder what the actual reason is.

Illegal Aliens in a Dismantled Identity Theft Ring The uncounted victims of illegal immigration. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272111/illegal-aliens-dismantled-identity-theft-ring-michael-cutler

For the most part, when the issue of crimes related to illegal immigration is raised, the discussion most often turns to crimes committed by illegal aliens that cause death or grievous injuries to the victims, whether the crime involved an assault or a motor vehicle accident at the hands of an unlicensed and/or drunk-driving illegal alien.

Undoubtedly there is no shortage of such infuriating and tragic examples of the consequence of illegal immigration.

Of late, attention has focused on transnational gangs such as MS-13 that has its origins in El Salvador and Los Angeles, California; however, it must be noted that because human nature is human nature, transnational gangs can be found in every ethnic community whose residents come from every country on this planet.

There are other crimes, however, that have a direct nexus to illegal immigration that do not directly involve violence or loss of life but nevertheless claim huge numbers of victims in the United States that may have a profound and life-altering impact.

One of the most serious of those crimes involves the theft of the identities of millions of United States citizens and lawfully-admitted immigrants whose citizenship, lawful immigrant status and good names are valued commodities that provide millions of illegal aliens with a sort of “camouflage.”

Criminals frequently assume aliases as a means of disguising themselves to thwart law enforcement and to conceal their movements and activities. This is why suspects who are arrested by law enforcement authorities are photographed and fingerprinted. Increasingly, other bio metrics, such as DNA and facial recognition technology, are being used to properly identify these individuals to help prevent them gaming the system.

NeverTrump Groups Profit from Left-Wing Philanthropist’s Cash By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/03/nevertrump-groups-

Just in time for the holidays, a group of philanthropic leaders released a joint statement urging Americans to support what they view as one the country’s most urgent needs: The need to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

“In the United States of America, the rule of law is paramount,” they write. “No one is above the law, including the president, his family, and others who serve in his administration. The special counsel’s investigation must be allowed to continue unimpeded. “

The letter campaign was organized by Democracy Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based foundation. Its wealthy benefactor is Pierre Omidyar, an Iranian-born billionaire and co-founder of eBay. Omidyar and his wife have a net worth of around $10 billion, and they’ve pledged to donate most of that fortune to charity. They fund an extensive network of nonprofits, programs and foundations around the world that underwrite everything from early education projects in Central America to microloans in Africa.

One of Omidyar’s charity cases closer to home is the NeverTrump movement, a loose collection of disgruntled “conservatives” and Republicans now partnering with the Left to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency, his family, and anyone else in the president’s orbit. Omidyar donated $250,000 to a NeverTrump political action committee in 2016. He remains a powerful foe of the president and—like everyone on the Left—inexplicably views Trump’s reign as a dire threat not just to American democracy but to the entire world.

Omidyar is a former donor to the Democratic Party and a devoted Leftist whose main causes include promoting open borders, climate change, and racial politics. But his latest crusade, funded to the tune of $100 million, is to infect every corner and crevice of the public square with anti-Trump bias.

“Over the past two years, I have seen alarming and sometimes unprecedented violations of our country’s democratic norms,” Joe Goldman, Democracy Fund’s president, wrote last summer. “At Democracy Fund, we firmly believe these threats demand a full-throated response. Admittedly, the approach I have outlined is far more aggressive—necessarily so—than the one we took during our first few years of operation. This moment demands something more than business as usual.”

Could Jerome Corsi’s lawsuit destroy the Mueller investigation? By Elad Hakim

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/could_jerome_corsis_lawsuit_destroy_the_mueller_investigation.html

Perhaps the media and the various “experts” should reconsider salivating over the recent information stemming from the Michael Cohen plea agreement in light of the lawsuit filed by Jerome Corsi. According to Fox News, “Corsi filed a ‘criminal and ethics complaint’ against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, accusing investigators of trying to bully him into giving ‘false testimony’ against President Trump.” If this is true, Michel Cohen’s “admissions” will be rendered virtually meaningless, and Robert Mueller’s investigation should be immediately terminated.

As part of his plea agreement, Michael Cohen admitted to making false statements in a letter to Congress in 2017 regarding a 2016 Moscow building project that was being considered by the Trump administration. According to Cohen, the discussions regarding the deal continued until June 2016, as opposed to January 2016, as he previously stated in his letter.

Many well respected legal scholars have opined that Cohen’s admission has no bearing on President Trump and the Russia investigation. According to Alan Dershowitz, “special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is creating crimes rather than uncovering past ones,” and the “devastating” report he will write will be based on people “who have lied.” Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett agreed with Dershowitz. According to National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, Mueller is building a report as opposed to a legal case. Said McCarthy, “With respect to the president and ‘collusion,’ Mueller does not have a crime he is investigating. He is investigating in hopes of finding a crime, which is a day-and-night different thing.” Together, these comments paint a picture of an investigation that is reeling and a prosecutor hoping to find something he can use against the president that would justify his interminable investigation.

Pitzer College Professors Vote to End School’s Partnership With the University of Haifa By Toni Airaksinen

https://pjmedia.com/trending/pitzer-college-professors-vote-to-end-schools-partnership-with-the-university-of-haifa/

The majority of Pitzer College faculty voted on November 8 to end the school’s study abroad partnership with the University of Haifa in a boycott, divest, sanctions (BSD)-inspired move.

The University of Haifa is the only university in Israel where Pitzer students can study abroad, according to the school’s website. Each year, a handful of Pitzer students take classes taught in English at the school.

According to the Pitzer newspaper, the partnership has existed as early as 1980. Student Ari Sherman, after visiting Haifa through Pitzer, wrote in April 1980 that not only did he enjoy his visit, but that he now calls the country of Israel “home.”

With the recent vote, it appears that partnership will come to an end. While it’s unclear how many faculty attended the meeting for the vote, 172 faculty are listed in the Pitzer directory. The voting information is sealed.

While the vote wasn’t public, at least one student government official attended.

Three days later, students published a resolution on the issue, urging Pitzer to keep ties with Haifa and claiming the vote maliciously singled out Israel and failed to involve other campus stakeholders.

“Only the University of Haifa study abroad program was called into question… marking a departure from [considering] a program on its merits but rather forwarding a clear political agenda,” says 55-R-04, authored by students Isaiah Kramer and Brendan Schultz.

Neither student could be reached by PJ Media. Pitzer University spokeswoman Anna Chang did note that the partnership is still “ongoing” at least till the end of the academic year while the campus community mulls it over.

Dozens of pro-Israel and Zionist nonprofits made statements denouncing the vote, as reported by Jackson Richman of the Jewish News Syndicate.

“The vote to suspend Pitzer College’s study-abroad program with the University of Haifa is a despicable effort by the faculty to impose their hateful anti-Semitic, anti-Israel political agenda on students,” said Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. CONTINUE AT SITE

Vive le Nationalisme! Macron’s ambitious agenda clashes with Germany’s pursuit of its own self-interest.By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vive-le-nationalisme-1543880136

Perhaps French President Emmanuel Macron was busy examining the damage wrought by rioters at the Arc de Triomphe this weekend, but he has not yet responded to a telling suggestion from German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz. Mr. Scholz proposed last week that France turn over its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council to the European Union. Only a French nationalist could disagree, right? And Mr. Macron has made a point of denouncing nationalism as selfish and immoral.

But Mr. Macron’s posturing aside, the French are nationalist to the core. Ask the European parliamentarians and their staffers who must make the expensive, time-consuming, carbon-emitting trip from Brussels to Strasbourg once a month to maintain the absurd fiction that French Strasbourg is the home of the European Parliament. Ask any European negotiator who has tried to prune back the Common Agricultural Policy, a giant boondoggle under which France is the largest recipient of funds. Ask any Italian diplomat about French policies in Libya. Ask any American negotiator about France’s approach to trade. Ask any German diplomat who has had a few drinks.

French diplomacy under President Macron is as nationalist as ever. His core objective is to shift EU economic policy in France’s favor. Mr. Macron hoped introducing market-based reforms in France would persuade Germany to loosen the EU purse strings and give Paris more fiscal running room. Then, perhaps, the resulting boost to the French economy would reconcile public opinion to Mr. Macron’s reforms. But he has not made much progress, in part because the German government is too weak to take large political risks. Now he is facing voters’ wrath.

Tickets for Clintons’ stadium speaking tour now marked down 90% By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/tickets_for_clintons_stadium_speaking_tour_now_marked_down_90.html

If only this could be called a “close-out sale.” Eagle-eyed Don Surber reports:

Those of you who waited to purchase your tickets to see a power couple from the last century are in luck. Prices for some of the tickets have been sliced by 90% or more.

When the tour was announced two months ago, the cheapest seats were $70.

Now, $6 gets you in.

Don links to the site vividseats.com, selling tickets for tomorrow’s Bill and Hillary Clinton stadium tour event at Smart Financial Centre in Sugarland, Texas, a suburb of Houston in Fort Bend County. The seating capacity of the municipally owned theatre is 6,400.

Obviously, the humiliation of facing a crowd in Toronto last week that filled fewer than 17% of the seats in the giant hockey-basketball arena was more than the Clintons could bear. Even with a theater about one third as big, the danger of a sea of empty seats was so big that drastic markdowns were necessary.

Everyone who paid the original prices is now officially a sucker.