RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21072/erdogan-turkey-kurds-hypocrisy

“Turkey is bombing and massacring Kurds tonight. No protests, no marches, no media coverage, no condemnations from UN, no ICC arrest warrants for Erdogan. Since 1914 Turkey has killed over 1.5 million Kurds. Stop Kurdish genocide.” — Hemdad Mehristani, researcher, X, October 23, 2024.

If Turkey has the right to respond to a terrorist attack by bombing dozens of targets belonging to Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria, why is Israel being condemned for responding to the October 7 Hamas-led atrocities against its own citizens? Just because of the “two-state solution”: Michigan and Minnesota?

Not only is Erdogan lying when he accuses Israel of “genocide,” but he is also proving that he is a big hypocrite. If he is really worried about the safety of the Muslims in the Gaza Strip, why does he continue to support Hamas, while denying Israel the right to defend itself against Islamist terrorism? If he believes that he has the right to bomb Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq, why is he denouncing Israel for taking the same action against Palestinian Islamist terrorists?

The complicit silence of the anti-Israel groups on US university campuses towards Turkey’s crimes is simply evidence of a staggering racism and hypocrisy.

Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip in its counterterrorism operation against the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group. Hamas had launched the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, murdering 1,200 Israelis, wounding thousands, and kidnapping more than 240 hostages. Erdogan, whose country has been hosting and supporting some of the leaders of Hamas, threatened that Israel will “eventually pay the price for this genocide.” He added: “There will be no peace in the world without accountability for the genocide in Gaza.”

Erdogan is currently facing the same charges he has leveled against Israel. The only difference is that many in the world are silent when Turkey targets the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, but continue to protest against Israel for defending itself against Hamas murderers and rapists responsible for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21048/iranian-missiles-hit-europe

Iran’s Islamist regime has never made a secret of its ambitions. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who seized power following the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and established the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, said: “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

Ignoring the warning signs will only make the price Europe pays even higher.

The question is, how much more aggression will Europe tolerate before it recognizes the full extent of the threat?

How come Europeans do not seem as distressed about the deaths of civilians in Ukraine as in Lebanon and Gaza?

All the EU seems to do is issue statements of condemnation against Israel, which is sacrificing the lives of its people to save these sanctimonious ingrates.

The first step should be to formally designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite Quds Force as terrorist organizations. This would send a powerful signal that Europe is no longer willing to tolerate Iran’s military and ideological expansion, and it would empower law enforcement across the continent to act decisively against Iranian operatives.

Europe should also take a bold step of shutting down all Iranian embassies and consulates on its soil.

Europe should sever all trade relations with Iran. Every euro that flows into Iran is likely being funneled into Tehran’s military machine and its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The EU also needs to be prepared to form a coalition to back up its words with military action. Continuing to sit passively while Iranian missiles and drones rain down on a European nation is not a strategy; it is a surrender

If Europe finds itself too hesitant to confront the Iranian regime directly, it should at the very least stand by those who are fighting the Iranian regime and its proxies. Israel has taken the lead in confronting Iranian aggression in the Middle East. Rather than undermining Israel for defending itself and the West against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the EU should do everything it can support these heroes. Abandoning Israel while it fights Iranian-backed terror only weakens Europe and plays into the hands of everyone working to bring it down.

By responding with empty words as Iranian missiles hit European soil, the EU is essentially green-lighting Tehran to escalate its aggression. The lessons of Nazi Germany are there for everyone to see.

The time has come for Europe to support those risking their lives to take down this terror regime before they get a nuclear bomb.

Most grateful of all would be the people of Iran.

The European powers’ current approach to Iran is uncomfortably reminiscent of how, in the 1930s, they dealt with Nazi Germany.

European democracies, choosing appeasement over confrontation, turned a blind eye to Hitler’s rising aggression. This indulgence, not surprisingly, simply emboldened the Nazis, and led to the horrors of World War II.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21047/china-blockade-of-taiwan

Beijing maintains that the island has been an “inalienable” part of China since time immemorial. The People’s Republic has never exercised control over Taiwan. In fact, no Chinese regime has ever held indisputable sovereignty to it. Chiang Kai-shek, the first Chinese ruler to exercise control of the whole island, arrived in 1949.

A quarantine is a cunning maneuver at a time that China is not prepared for a full-scale war and is not ready to start hostilities by launching an invasion of Taiwan’s main island.

Not prepared? Xi Jinping does not trust the Chinese military, a war on Taiwan would be extremely unpopular with the Chinese people, and the Chinese regime is extremely casualty averse.

Xi, therefore, is trying to intimidate everyone else into submission.

“The real target is the United States.” … They were “practicing ways to ambush the U.S. Navy if it heads towards an already held-hostage Taiwan.” — Chang Ching of the R.O.C. Society for Strategic Studies.

Xi’s implied threats to use these weapons are particularly ominous. We have to ask ourselves: When in history has a militant regime engaged in belligerent acts and constantly threatened to go to war but did not actually do so?

China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait.

The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People’s Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country’s three aircraft carriers.

The Chinese Coast Guard participated in the massive drill as well, carrying out, as the Economist noted, an “unprecedented” patrol around the main Taiwan island.

The drill, according to the Chinese Coast Guard, was a “practical action to control Taiwan island in accordance with the law based on the one-China principle.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21041/iran-assassinations-europe

“In order to maintain a degree of separation from the terror cells it operates in Europe and to ensure plausible deniability, there is no direct contact between Tehran and members of the cells. In the case of the recently detained French cell, instructions on where and when to carry out attacks were relayed via international networks of criminals and drug smugglers.” — Daniel Dolev, Israeli investigative journalist, shomrim.news, September 5, 2024.

In addition to the Iranian dissidents that it has been hunting for years, the Iranian regime now literally hunts Jews in Europe.

Iran, in other words, has extended its operations from having terrorists as proxies to having criminals as proxies.

According to Britain’s MI5, the situation is about to get much worse….

Despite all this clear knowledge… the leadership of the European Union and the UK refuse to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization. Instead, European countries target Israel with arms boycotts, constant condemnation and general opprobrium, although Israel’s fight against Iran belongs at least as much to Europe and the West, no matter how hard — out of dread — they might try to deny it.

If they think that pressuring Israel not to confront this existential threat will make it disappear, they are sadly mistaken. As in World War II, it is by supporting Israel in defeating aggression that they will stop it.

Last year, by an overwhelming majority, the European Parliament passed a resolution to that effect, but the EU nevertheless refused to designate the IRGC as such. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell claimed there were legal obstacles, however, that claim has been refuted as a lie.

After Iran’s direct missile attack on Israel on April 13, the European Parliament again, by an overwhelming majority, adopted a resolution to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization…. It also requested that the EU add Hezbollah to the terror list. Borrell, once more, simply refused, arguing that “listing this organisation as a ‘terrorist organisation’ would have no practical effect.”

Designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would make it possible to press terrorism charges and prosecute both members of the organization and those supporting it. It seems as if the majority of European leaders are once again determined, as in appeasing Churchill’s crocodile, to be “eaten last.”

“Putting IRGC on the EU terror list is an important step to protect the national security, to protect our communities, particularly the Iranian diaspora and the Jewish community because there is a genuine terror threat and because they are not only targeting and conducting terror plots but they are also nurturing homegrown Shia islamist radicalisation, using the Isis and Al Qaeda methods. However, because IRGC is not proscribed (as a terror group), these activities are not outlawed.” — Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, eureporter.co, May 6, 2024.

Are European politicians really that eager for the votes of their unassimilable newcomers — who appear to be planning to take over Europe? Or are Europe’s politicians afraid that if they fail to delegitimize Israel at every opportunity, the newcomers might inflict even more terrorism on European soil? Does Europe really want to live in a state of being permanently extorted? The price goes only one way: up.

https://www.jns.org/despite-designated-a-terror-group-hamas-funding-thrives-in-europe/

The Hamas terror organization has managed to increase its fundraising efforts in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom since its terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, according to four reports that the European Leadership Network released this month.

The reports from ELNET, which convenes leaders to foster close relations between Europe and Israel, focus on the activities of Hamas-affiliated fundraising groups in the five countries.

“In all four reports, we have seen increasing levels of operations since Oct. 7,” Daniel Shadmy, an ELNET spokesman, told JNS.

The reports identify some 30 organizations, which operate under “civil fronts,” including nonprofits and lobbying groups, and people affiliated with Hamas who work in Europe.

Hamas’s funding operations are more deeply rooted in the United Kingdom and Germany than in the other countries upon which the report focuses. That makes them “harder to dismantle” in the two countries, according to Shadmy.

Hamas-affiliated groups operate relatively unscathed in Europe, despite European governments and the European Union designating Hamas a terror organization.

One way the groups stay ahead of authorities is by shifting operations to newer organizations, per the ELNET reports.

“One of the key findings of the report is that the Hamas-affiliated network has shut down three older, pan-European organizations, possibly in response to formal designations, and moved their operations to three newer organizations,” Shadmy told JNS.

https://quillette.com/2024/10/15/how-russia-beats-western-sanctions/

Russia currently exists in a state of economic purgatory. Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western powers seeking to limit his nation’s warmaking capacity have instituted one of the harshest sanction regimes the world has ever seen. Imports of Russian oil, above a certain price, have been outlawed, as have exports of sensitive materials, such as semiconductors, engine parts, and communications equipment,that might find their way into Russian weaponry. The country’s banks have been cut off from SWIFT—the main system banks use to coordinate international payments. And some $280 billion worth of Russian assets remain frozen in European banks. 

Despite this, Russia’s war continues. The Russian economy grew at a rate of around 4 percent in the second quarter of 2024, down from a first quarter high of 5.4 percent. And despite predictions that the Russian military would suffer crippling shortages, Putin’s war machine has proved surprisingly efficient at rearming itself. In fact, the Russian arms industry is booming. The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defence think tank, estimates that Russia’s domestic production of Kh-101 cruise missiles has increased eightfold over the last year. And Russian military spokespeople have boasted of supply lines that deliver tanks, drones, and artillery shells in their thousands.  

Though the Russian boasts are surely hyperbole, Russia’s military resilience continues to embarrass the world’s economists. Shortly after Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine, the International Monetary Fund predicted that the sanctions would cause Russian GDP to shrink by more than a tenth by the end of 2023. The Economist speculated about the possibility of a coup. Analysts at Reuters opined that Russia would probably collapse under such financial pressures. How then, has the Russian war machine kept on rolling?

The answer is that trade flows of restricted goods have shifted in response to the global sanctions.

https://www.newsweek.com/new-european-zionism-viktor-orbans-hungary-opinion-1969603

“Zionism for the nations of Europe,” wrote Dutch anti-immigration crusader Geert Wilders in Breitbart this month. “The Europeans should follow the example of the Jewish people and safeguard the sovereignty of their nation-states.” Wilders’ party took first place in Holland’s national elections late last year, a portent of the so-called shift to the Right that propelled nationalist parties to electoral success this year in Germany, France, Austria, and the Czech Republic. But the first European “Zionist” and the inspiration for many European conservatives was Hungary’s long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Hungary is a small nation that is determined to survive the demographic winter that has crept across the industrial nations. It devotes nearly a tenth of its budget to support for families, but even more important than family subsidies is a renewed national spirit and resistance to the European Commission’s attempt to homogenize the nations of Europe into a supranational blur.

“Humans are about to enter a new era of history. Call it ‘the age of depopulation. For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline. But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people,” economist Nicholas Eberstadt Oct. 10 in Foreign Affairs.

That’s a death sentence for Europe’s smaller nations. When Orban came to office in 2010, government demographers gauged the total fertility (number of live births in a lifetime) for Magyar women at just 0.83, then the lowest in the world. Since then, Hungary’s TFR has roughly doubled to about 1.6, and a surge in the marriage rate portends further improvement.

Orban became a figure of controversy in 2016 when he refused to open Hungary’s borders to the millions of Middle Eastern migrants fleeing the Syrian civil war and other conflicts, defying migrant quotas assigned by the European Commission. It also put Orban in conflict with the world’s wealthiest Hungarian, George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation promotes free migration.

European nationalists look to Israel as a beacon of hope. It’s the only high-income country with a fertility rate above the 2.1 breakeven level—so far above breakeven at three children per female that its working-age population will more than double from today’s 4.5 million to 11 million by the end of this century, according to UN demographers. The same UN projections show that the working-age population of Turkey and Iran will fall by about half, and by three-quarters in Taiwan and South Korea.