RUTHFULLY YOURS

Turkish prosecutors are investigating people who allege on social media that the coup attempt was in fact a hoax.

In a massive purge, the government sacked more than 60,000 civil servants from the military, judiciary, police, schools and academia, including 1,577 faculty deans who were suspended. More than 10,000 people have been arrested and there are serious allegations of torture.

Witnesses told Amnesty International that captured military officers were raped by police, hundreds of soldiers were beaten, some detainees were denied food and water and access to lawyers for days. Turkish authorities also arrested 62 children and accused them of treason.

The good news is that the coup attempt failed and Turkey is not a third world dictatorship run by an unpredictable military general who loves to crush dissent. The bad news is that Turkey is run by an unpredictable, elected president who loves to crush dissent.

In 1853, John Russell quoted Tsar Nicholas I of Russia as saying that the Ottoman Empire was “a sick man — a very sick man,” in reference to the ailing empire’s fall into a state of decrepitude. Some 163 years after that, the modern Turkish state follows in the Ottoman steps.

Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule, was staggering between a hybrid democracy and bitter authoritarianism. After the failed putsch of July 15, it is being dragged into worse darkness. The silly attempt gives Erdogan what he wanted: a pretext to go after every dissident Turk. A witch-hunt is badly shattering the democratic foundations of the country.

Taking advantage of the putsch attempt, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that will run for a period of three months, with an option to extend it for another quarter of a year. Erdogan, declaring the state of emergency, promised to “clean out the cancer viruses like metastasis” in the body called Turkey. With the move for a state of emergency, Turkey also suspended the European Convention on Human Rights, citing Article 15 of the Convention, which stipulates:

Earlier this month, the visitors’ log of the Jewish part of Hebron enjoyed a boost as activists, largely American Jews, ‎descended on the ancient Jewish city. Not as tourists to the Cave of the Patriarchs, or for contemplation ‎or prayer at the Avraham Avinu synagogue, but to organize a protest against “Israel’s crimes” and to support the Palestinian community.

There was no mention of the ‎fact that only 3% of Hebron is accessible to Jews and the remaining 97% is Palestinian, ‎with a small area functioning as a military buffer zone, or that Palestinian Hebron has ‎functioned as a terrorist hub for some time. The group’s main objective, ‎according to their spokesperson, was to take over an old Palestinian factory, now part of ‎the buffer zone, and turn it into a movie theater.

Some of the activists brought ‎popcorn labeled “Cinema Hebron” with them as a prop to drive the point home. ‎There were 45 American Jewish activists and a handful from various other countries. They did their best to provoke the authorities in the already volatile city, but while a ‎few activists with Israeli citizenship were detained and charged with presence in a ‎closed military zone and organizing an illegal protest, the others were merely banned from ‎entering Hebron for two weeks and then permitted to return to Tel Aviv. ‎No violence erupted, and despite a heavy media presence, the event could be ‎considered a calm affair. At around 2 p.m. the activists left Hebron to go have lunch, and, ‎according to their spokesperson, they have no plans to come back to complete the movie theater task.

The leaders of this pack were Peter Beinart, an American left-wing activist and self-‎proclaimed intellectual, and Amna Farooqi, the Muslim president of J Street U. The activists belonged to such well-known groups as J Street, the New Israel Fund and Jewish ‎Voice for Peace, an organization that supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions ‎movement against Israel. During the hours spent in Hebron, Beinart said he was very happy with what they had achieved that day and that he saw this as ‎proof of not only the success of their message, but also of a “new leadership” emerging ‎within the Jewish world. ‎

Beinart has every reason to be happy and content, because he is a major player in ‎one of the world’s most lucrative and trendy industries — conflict and activism. I have ‎personally seen an example of this industry much closer to home, as my home of Sweden is also the home of the infamous Gaza flotilla, known as “Ship to Gaza,” involving well-known intellectuals, ‎politicians and pundits far more concerned with an idea than with actual results. This is clearly demonstrated by their cargo manifest, which includes 10-year-old antibiotics, a few footballs, canned goods, a second-hand fridge and a ‎generator — a considerably more humble contribution than the 700 trucks entering Gaza ‎every day from Israel, carrying building material, food, medicine and clothes.

Both wings of the totalitarian Liberal/Left, The American and European ones, have proven themselves to be as dedicated to suppressing and censoring speech as have been the Muslims. Totalitarian activists like Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg would punish anyone who on Facebook or Twitter says nasty or critical things about Muslims or Islam. As Daniel Greenfieldhas eloquently pointed out, Germans who speak out about the rapes of German women by “migrants” or about the other crimes committed by “migrants’ are likely to be handed penalties as severe if not more so than any migrant charged and sentenced.

It’s not that German authorities are incompetent. A January headline informs us, “Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants”. Merkel forged a censorship deal with Facebook and Twitter. So that next time Muslims commit thousands of sexual assaults, it will be much harder for the populace to get the news out through the digital curtain of dot com censorship and propaganda.

With her Communist background, Merkel understands the mechanics of censorship. And that makes her an accessory to the war crimes that Muslim migrants have committed in their invasion of Europe both before and after the fact.

A 29-year-old German woman had received five months probation for her outrage over Muslim rapes of women. In today’s Germany, the sentences for Muslim sexual assaults and for denouncing them are eerily similar.

It is an issue of self-loathing, for the Muslims as well as for the likes of Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg, the censor and her enabler. As Muslims hate existence as well as their own, alleged “Westerners” like Merkel and Zuckerberg also hate their own and the superiority of the West. The poppies must be leveled, and everyone reduced to the lowest common denominator and if that means reducing men of independent thought to non-thinking conformists, erasing beauty as Muslims tried to erase Lara Logan in Tahrir Square, as the killers of Bataclan in Paris tortured and mutilated Westerners. When attempting to understand why many Westerners would turn against the civilized milieu in which they were raised, one can’t help but venture into a bit of “psychologizing.” Muslims subscribe to the notion that they are not fit for living except to serve Allah; why not ascribe the same or similar motive to Merkel and Zuckerberg? Merkel hails from a failed Communist regime, and is apparently making up for that by turning Germany into a fascist dictatorship that eats the non-Muslim or non-“migrant” citizens.

Zuckerberg undoubtedly comes from a society that holds self-sacrifice as a paramount moral virtue, as did Bill Gates, who has made it a goal to liquidate his own fortune, “to give back” what he claims he took from society. Altruism can emasculate a person, and turn him not only into a self-sacrificing nonentity but move him to become a monster who wishes to sacrifice anyone else who does not apologize for his existence or for what he may say.

Adel Kermiche made his first attempt to join the caliphate in March 2015. Alerted by his family, authorities picked him up in Germany and sent him back to France where he was placed under surveillance. In May 2015, he left again, this time using his cousin’s ID. He was picked up in Turkey, sent back to France via Geneva , and placed in detention awaiting trial on terrorist charges. He reportedly shared a cell with a 32 year-old Salafist. In early March 2016 the investigating judge responded favorably to his request for parole. The higher judicial authority objected, a 3-magistrate appeals panel overruled the authorities and released him on parole with the array of restrictions and requirements detailed above. (correction: he only had to report to the police once a week, not every day.)

One could write in advance the first reports about this jihad attack or the next one. The perpetrator(s) is always a nice guy, maybe a bit rough around the edges but friendly, likes music and partying. Nothing but absolutely really I mean completely totally nothing would have even slightly hinted that he might commit such untold violence. He wasn’t even religious! N.B. Islam is a religion of peace, has nothing to do with jihad, sharia, throat-slitting and other mass murders. But the sign that the suspect wasn’t suspicious is…he wasn’t religious. And what happens, two days later, when reporters get to the ‘hood? A year ago or two years ago, x changed. Grew a beard. Talked about nothing but jihad, sharia, Daesh, the koran, hung around the mosque, acted scary.

The second church killer is almost identified. They say it took this long to verify his identity because his facial features were obliterated by commando gunfire, he has never been fingerprinted because he has no criminal record. Though he was flagged as a security risk. Described as “brilliant,” he just earned his baccalauréat degree in business. He was living with his family in Aix les Bains. His mother swears he is not a terrorist but for some reason the specialized terrorist unit had been frantically trying to locate him a few days before the church attack. The “wanted” bulletins described him as dangerous and likely to go into action. Imminently. He left home on Monday, telling his mother he was going to visit a cousin in Nancy. Called home on the eve of the church slaughter. Then nothing. Named by sources as Abdel Malik P. he is probably the accomplice seen in a video testament sent by the pair to the Daesh agency (AMAQ) and proudly displayed.

Debate, as I said yesterday, is raging, and everything that can be said within the limits of decency is being said. The government is on the defensive, inside information is spilling out on all sides, the president, the PM, and the Interior Minister go from TV studios to church services to stand-up declarations in front of their palatial ministries but nothing will stem the tide.