RUTHFULLY YOURS

A COMMENTARY Editorial

The jihadist siege of a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris on January 9 was not the beginning of a new threat to French Jews and the Jews of Europe. Rather, it was the culmination of a decade of crisis. And it will not be the end.

The new era of deadly anti-Semitism in France began with the January 2006 murder of 23-year-old Ilan Halimi. He was coming from a Shabbat meal with his mother when he was ambushed by a gang in a Paris slum. The gang held him captive for 24 days, during which time he wasbeaten, stabbed, burned with acid, mutilated, lit on fire, and tortured to death. Halimi’s murderers were African and North African Muslim immigrants with ties to Islamic extremists. They called themselves the Gang of Barbarians. And they chose Halimi because he was a Jew.

France’s 5 million Muslims account for 10 to 12 percent of the country’s total population. It is the largest Muslim population in Europe; it is also the most problematic. Several factors contribute to thisreality.

The first is radical Islam. Since the late-20th century, a Saudi-funded, anti-Semitic strain of Islamist radicalism has spread to all corners of the Muslim world. Many of France’s recent Muslim immigrants from North Africa have brought their Islamist and jihadist sympathies to Europe.Indeed, a 2013 poll found that a startling 27 percent of French Muslims younger than 24 support ISIS.

AS the English writer George Orwell well understood, you can invariably rely on members of the Western intelligentsia to make profoundly silly comments and to ignore difficult facts. The responses by barrister Julian Burnside and journalist/historian Paul Ham to the Islamist murders in Paris illustrate the point.

In the immediate aftermath of the most recent terrorist attacks in France, 7.30presenter Leigh Sales interviewed the Paris-based Ham. In response to the first question, Ham recounted how he had attended “the huge meeting in the Place de la Republique last night” following the attack on Charlie Hebdo . He added that this area “is the symbol of the revolutions of 1830, of 1848, of 1870 and it is the strongest, most powerful recognition of the values the French hold dear — of equality, of liberty, of fraternity”.

The answer to French anti-Semitism

January 16 is the nine-year anniversary of the beginning of the Ilan Halimi disaster.

On January 16, 2006, Sorour Arbabzadeh, the seductress from the Muslim anti-Jewish kidnapping gang led by Youssouf Fofana, entered the cellphone store where Halimi worked and set the honey trap.

Four days later, Halimi met Arbabzadeh for a drink at a working class bar and agreed to walk her home. She walked him straight into an ambush. Her comrades beat him, bound him and threw him into the trunk of their car.

They brought Halimi to a slum apartment and tortured him for 24 days and 24 nights before dumping him, handcuffed, naked, stabbed and suffering from third degree burns over two-thirds of his body, at a railway siding in Paris.
He died a few hours later in the hospital.

The late, great illustrator Charles M. Schulz — creator of the famous comic strip Peanuts — is not around to comment on the jihad against satirists and Jews in Paris less than two weeks ago. But the words of his characters, which have rung true since their debut in the 1940s, give us an idea.

One musing, uttered by the hero of the series, the lovable and self-deprecating Charlie Brown, is particularly apt. “It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black,” he said, making a humorous play on a more uplifting adage. What is happening in the Islamist world today, however, is no laughing matter.

Nor should any of us take comfort in the “unity rally” in France on Sunday, attended by an estimated 3.7 million people, many of whom were waving “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) banners. Referring to the targeted slaughter of 10 staff members at the anarchist weekly Charlie Hebdo — and incidentally to the murder of two policemen stationed outside the newspaper’s headquarters, another police officer in a separate incident, as well as four Jewish hostages at a kosher supermarket — most of the demonstrators and world leaders who joined them were missing the point.

Even while calling the related killings of 17 people at the hands of Islamist terrorists “France’s 9/11,” officials and journalists across the West were rushing to condemn and warn against anti-Muslim sentiment. Indeed, though the post-massacre edition of Charlie Hebdo was purchased in the millions, most American and European TV media outlets decided not to show its cover, which depicts Muhammad holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign below the headline “Tout est pardonne” (“All is forgiven”).

The Pope, too, was more concerned about not arousing the wrath of angry Muslims by taking free speech too far than about the mass murder of his flock at their hands.

Now it seems a media spell has been broken and even some of the neo-cons who cooed and gushed about the “Arab Spring” as if it were the dawn of democracy among barbarians are now acknowledging left, right and middle that Islam is the source of the violence and evil warring against the civilized West. And, perhaps- just perhaps- it is also the source of the ongoing Arab war against Israel. True some still use the words “Islamist” or “radical” for cover.
I confess that prior to 9/11 I was not really familiar with the word “jihad” or the Koranic imperatives against all infidels. I knew the word “dhimmi” which I learned from my late friend Joan Peters and I was lulled by the false narratives of Bernard Lewis, that there was some “golden age” of comity between Arab/Moslems and Jews…..And then I met and befriended Andrew Bostom.
Andy, a physician and Professor of Medicine (who is also my go-to second opinion on everything from gall stones to cholesterol) introduced me to the real Islam- he introduced me to Robert Spencer and Gisele Bat Ye’or and Geert Wilders, and Diana West and Ibn Warraq, and the writing of the late Saul Friedman and the realism of Professor Moshe Sharon of Israel. He opened my eyes and mind to the reality that Arab terror against Jews and Israel was faith driven Jihad. While others were struggling with naming the villain, Andy wrote major volumes:
The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History May 30, 2008 by Andrew G. Bostom and Ibn Warraq
The Legacy of Jihad Dec 29, 2010
by Andrew G. Md Bostom and Ibn Warraq
Sharia Versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism Nov 6, 2012
by Andrew G. Bostom
Check out his amazon.com page
http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Bostom/e/B00NWX8HIO/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1421409912&sr=1-2-ent

The liberal way of life is remarkably fragile. Is the West willing to fight for it?

Last week, the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were not the only journalists targeted for affronting Muslim doctrine. Raif Badawi, founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, who was convicted of blasphemy by a Saudi court in 2012 and later resentenced, more harshly, to ten years’ imprisonment, a fine of 1 million riyals, and 1,000 lashes, received his first flogging two days after the massacre in Paris. Although the Saudi regime joined the worldwide condemnation of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the French cartoonists wouldn’t have fared much better had they made the Gulf state their publishing base. The only difference was the lack of official imprimatur on their execution: they were murdered by Islamist vigilantes, not an Islamist judiciary.

Neither the criminalization of blasphemy in Muslim countries nor the murder of blasphemers in Europe by Islamists is a new phenomenon. On the contrary: from Pakistan to Algeria via Iran and Egypt, blasphemy laws are rigorously enforced. Even in free countries, ever since Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, dissenters have had to fear for their lives. But the coincidence of last week’s events is noteworthy for what it reveals not only about the state of Islamism in the world today but about the state of liberal democracy. Briefly: rather than the West exporting liberal democracy to the Middle East, as many had fantasized during the late lamented “Arab Spring,” it is the Middle East that is exporting Islamism to the free world.

The symbiosis between politically correct speech and CAIR’s enables America’s submission to Islam.

There was an interesting storm-in-a-teacup brouhaha last week that took place after the January 7th Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, between Rupert Murdoch and J.K. Rowling. Terrence McCoy, in his Washington Post January 12th article, “Why J.K. Rowling is so incensed about Rupert Murdoch’s tweet about ‘Moslems’,” wrote:

Aging conservative icon Rupert Murdoch has never had a problem lacing his Twitter account with provocative opinion….

On Sunday, Murdoch struck again. “Maybe most Moslems are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible,” Murdoch declared. Then he dug his heels in. “Big jihadist danger looming everywhere from Philippines to Africa to Europe to US. Political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy.”

Murdoch’s tweet raised the hackles of numerous Muggles and mudbloods. Never mind that, overall, he was correct in his perspective. Observable facts and incontestable evidence must never get in the way of liberal/left and Muslim anger. Feelings, don’t you know, determine reality, and manufacture facts.

Enter Harry Potter to do battle with the evil media mogul.

One of people leading the outrage was author J.K. Rowling, who immediately took issue with Murdoch’s proclamation and let loose with a barrage of pugnacious tweets.

“I was born Christian,” she said. “If that makes Rupert Murdoch my responsibility, I’ll auto-excommunicate. … The Spanish Inquisition was my fault, as is all Christian fundamentalist violence. Oh, and Jim Bakker. … Eight times more Muslims have been killed by so-called Islamic terrorists than non-Muslims.”

Media coverage of Republican presidential contenders has lately been dominated by Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, former governors who have not won elective office in more than a decade. Meanwhile, a current GOP governor has been scoring impressive victories on behalf of limited government and economic growth.

Indiana’s Mike Pence may be the most taxpayer-friendly governor in the country. Elected in 2012, Mr. Pence has already killed the state’s death tax and enacted a plan that will slash the corporate income tax rate to 4.9% from 6.5%. He’s also secured a reduction in business property taxes and a modest cut in Indiana’s personal income tax rate to 3.23% from 3.4%.

And he’s done it while maintaining a state budget surplus, a tradition he intends to continue. In this week’s State of the State address in Indianapolis, Gov. Pence called for a balanced-budget amendment to the Indiana constitution. Balancing government budgets is an issue that has fallen off the media radar since the 2011 fight over the federal debt limit, but remains highly popular among grass-roots conservatives, i.e. Republican primary voters.

Pension and benefit obligations weigh down our cities. Trash disposal in Chicago costs $231 per ton, versus $74 in non-union Dallas.

‘Which side are you on?” That was the question posed nearly a century ago in Florence Reece’s song about the bitter war between miners and coal bosses in Harlan County, Ky. Many Americans, including Franklin Roosevelt, pondered hard—and then sided with the unions.

Today Americans have to choose sides again. This time it is not industrial but public-sector unions that wage war. And this time the unions’ foe is a state or city government, not a private company. But citizens can’t seem to make up their minds. Madison, Wis., has been a battleground ever since Gov. Scott Walker tried to limit the collective-bargaining rights of teachers and other public-sector employees in 2011. Recently many New Yorkers instinctively rallied to support Patrick Lynch, the leader of New York City’s police union, when he blamed City Hall for the recent shooting of two police officers. But the same people spend other seasons simmering in resentment over the tax burden they must shoulder to pay for exorbitant retirement packages for the same kind of public employee.

One reason for such ambivalence may be that most of us don’t know much more about unions generally than a few folk-music chords. Unionspeak features a baffling and tiresome vocabulary that seems designed to deter the generalist. What exactly is an “agency shop,” a “fair-share provision” or a “dues check-off”? Without discerning much difference between a public union and a private one, people default to an emotional response. Policemen—or firemen or teachers—are underdogs who work hard, and we should support them. Roosevelt liked unions, so we should.

On 9/11 my husband and I were in a cafe in Brussels. In order to get there we went through many streets with all road signs only in Arabic….and our cab driver explained they were the equivalent of “no go zones.” At the cafe the TV stopped whatever they were playing and the attack on the World Trade Towers was announced. A large group of patrons actually cheered!! Some were openly sympathetic but outshouted by the cheering bastards…..rsk
BRUSSELS—Belgian police said they had arrested 13 people throughout the country suspected of plotting to kill policemen in an alleged attack that authorities said was potentially hours away from being committed.

Two other people involved in the alleged plot were killed in a firefight in the eastern city of Verviers on Thursday evening, authorities said in a news conference on Friday. Two Belgians were also arrested in France for taking part in the suspected plot.

Police said the arrests started on Thursday.

Several of the people involved in the alleged plot had been to Syria and had subsequently returned, authorities said.