RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/09/22/the-death-pains-of-the-european-union/

The largely unspoken trade-off involved in membership of the European Union is that democracy and national sovereignty are sacrificed in return for economic prosperity. Member states give up much of their control over critical policy areas to an unelected, technocratic elite who are entrusted with delivering higher living standards and productivity. But Brussels is not keeping its part of the bargain – and hasn’t for some time.

Worse, the EU economy is about to endure decades of ‘slow agony’. This is the grim prognosis not of a Eurosceptic or populist, but of one of Europe’s most senior technocrats, Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank and ex-prime minister of Italy. Last week, Draghi unveiled a 400-page doorstopper report, commissioned by the EU, on the ‘future of European competitiveness’. Without radical economic reform, he warns, EU member states will suffer from stagnant living standards, technological backwardness and geopolitical impotence.

As Draghi’s report makes clear, the EU has been in deep economic trouble for some time now. At the turn of the century, the EU and US were on a relatively equal footing. But, on a per-capita basis, real disposable income in the EU has grown at only half the rate of the US since 2000. The US now massively outperforms the EU in advanced technology. Only four in the world’s top-50 tech firms are European. Almost a million manufacturing jobs were lost in the EU in the last four years alone. For too long, Draghi argues, policymakers have viewed the growing gap between the EU and US as merely an ‘inconvenience’, rather than the ‘calamity’ it really is.

In truth, Draghi’s bleak assessment actually underestimates the scale of the EU’s economic malaise. Looking at averages across the 27-member bloc obscures the depths of the crisis. Astonishingly, the economies of Italy, Spain and Greece, having been battered by the Euro crisis and EU-mandated austerity, are actually smaller than they were in the late 2000s. Germany, traditionally the EU’s economic powerhouse, is rapidly deindustrialising. In France, the EU’s second-largest economy, debt is spiralling to the kind of levels seen in Italy just before the Euro crisis. The cost of all this foregone growth is a diminished quality of life, stretched public services and decaying infrastructure.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20948/eu-iran-regime

Moreover, maintaining… economic ties grants legitimacy to the regime, signaling that the European Union is willing to overlook Iran’s role in supporting aggression against Ukraine.

To stanch this, the EU urgently needs to stop its economic dealings with Iran.

Along with cutting economic ties, the EU would also do well to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization and close all Iranian embassies in Europe. The IRGC is the primary force behind Iran’s military support for Russia. Isolating it would be a crucial step in weakening Tehran’s capacity to destabilize the entire Middle East.

It [the EU] really has become a principal enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The longer the EU allows the Islamist regime of Iran to operate with no repercussions, the more it strengthens both Iran’s and Russia’s war machines. For the wellbeing of the EU, the Middle East and the Free World, the EU severing its ties with Iran cannot take place soon enough.

It is hardly a secret that without the Iranian regime’s financial, military, and operational backing, its affiliated terror groups — such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis as well as its own militias, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — would not have been able to launch the kind of large-scale attacks against Israel that have upended the broader region. Iran’s support not only provides these groups with financial resources but also with crucial intelligence and military training. Without this support, the military capacity of these groups would be significantly diminished, and the extent of the chaos in the region far less severe.

Iran’s reach extends, of course, far beyond its proxies and militias. Some national governments, notably Russia, have relied on Iran’s support to sustain their military campaigns. Iran’s backing of Russia’s war against Ukraine, for example, only prolonged and intensified it.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20949/why-egypt-prefers-palestinian-terrorists-on-its

“Before el-Sissi, but also during his tenure, cars, motorcycles, clothes, drugs, medicines, alcoholic beverages, and weapons were smuggled through the Philadelphi Corridor over the years, lots of weapons: improved RPG-29 rockets that killed our soldiers in the Iron Swords War, hidden rocket parts, machine guns, mines, and more.” — Nadav Shragai, Israeli author and journalist, Israel Hayom, July 10, 2024.

“[E]ven those who trust President el-Sissi now cannot guarantee that a new [former Egyptian President] Mohammed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood won’t rise to power in the future, as we saw happen in 2012 presidential elections in Egypt. Israel must, therefore, remain in Philadelphi [gateway between Egypt and Gaza]…. Foreign monitoring forces have failed in Lebanon over the years, and they also failed at the Rafah crossing from which European Union monitors fled in 2007.” — Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom, July 10, 2024.

“Even today the city of Rafah [near the border with Egypt] is full of smugglers who bribe the Egyptian police and run a business sector with a turnover in the billions. The smuggling still continues during wartime, as war materiel and other goods flow from Sinai into Gaza every day. And there is fear that such smuggling is, or will be, accompanied by smuggling in the other direction. Senior Hamas figures are likely to try to escape into Egyptian territory, with hostages, and from there to Iran.” — Brig. Gen. (Res.) Amir Avivi, March 4, 2024.

“Palestinians desperate to leave Gaza are paying bribes to brokers of up to $10,000 (£7,850) to help them exit the territory through Egypt… Very few Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, but those trying to get their names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large ‘coordination fees’ by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the Egyptian intelligence services…. a network of brokers, based in Cairo, helping Palestinians leave Gaza has operated around the Rafah border for years…. The Guardian has spoken to a number of people who have been told they would have to pay between $5,000 and $10,000 each to leave the strip, with some launching crowdfunding campaigns to raise the money. Others were told they could leave sooner if they paid more.” — The Guardian, January 8, 2024.

“A company owned by an influential Egyptian businessman and ally of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi is making around $2m a day from Palestinians fleeing Israel’s war on Gaza… Hala Consulting and Tourism Services, a firm owned by Sinai tribal leader and business tycoon Ibrahim al-Organi, has been charging Palestinians crossing from Gaza’s Rafah to Egypt at least $5,000 per adult and $2,500 for children under 16. It has a monopoly on providing transfer services at the Rafah crossing….” — Middle East Eye, May 1, 2024.

Anyone who believes that the Egyptians would act differently if and when Israel withdraws from the border area must be living on another planet. If the IDF leaves, Hamas will swiftly return to the border, and the Egyptians will continue looking the other way.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20945/but-no-boycotts-on-russia-china-or-iran

[T]he UK government announced that it is imposing an “immediate” weapons embargo against Israel. The statement followed almost a year of relentless attacks on Israel, not only by Iran’s proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — but by Iran itself, and probably several tons of unverified propaganda by Hamas that Israel is supposedly committing “war crimes.”

Even South Africa is seeking to extend the deadline for presenting evidence against Israel at the International Court of Justice, for lack of evidence of its allegations of genocide. So far, all evidence points to Israel being “the world’s most moral army.” Meanwhile, the same cannot be said for the entities attacking it.

The UK suspended “around 30 licences for items used in the current conflict in Gaza which go to the IDF, from a total of approximately 350 licences to Israel” allegedly because of Hamas-induced fear that they “might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” [emphasis added]

Hamas, on the other hand, continues to receive Britain’s support: Although UNRWA has proven itself to be identical with Hamas, with roughly 10% of its members proven to have been terrorists or with ties to terror groups, and having used its entire Gaza infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, for the purpose of facilitating terror and missile attacks against Israel and its civilians…

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in his announcement of the weapons embargo to the House of Commons, said, “in July, I told this House that this government’s priority in the region would be to advance the cause of peace” — apparently because nothing spells peace more than emboldening terrorists.

The UK government worries about Red Cross access to terrorists who participated in the most gruesome crimes, while the ICRC’s blatant lack of interest in the Israeli hostages held by Hamas did not even merit a mention by Lammy.

The UK’s arms embargo appears to represent nothing so much as pure racist perfidy. Lammy completely ignores the extreme lengths to which Israel has gone to avoid civilian casualties, as well as the huge amounts of humanitarian aid it has facilitated into the Gaza Strip.

Spain has also suspended arms export licenses to Israel since October 7. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said the Gaza war “made us realize the importance of a fair and lasting solution” to the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Fair and lasting, evidently, means siding with terrorists. It is particularly unbecoming of Spain, after 60 years of having combated the terrorist group ETA, to throw the first stone.

By contrast, Germany is massively arming Qatar, which, alongside Iran, is the most significant backer of Hamas, and effectively every other Islamic terrorist group.

What will be the result of the embargoes? Western leaders claim to want de-escalation, but placing Israel under arms embargo only serves to strengthen and empower Qatar, Iran and Iran’s terrorist proxies — which in turn can lead only to further destabilizing the Middle East, particularly after Iran regime succeeds in acquiring nuclear

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/09/16/islamists-and-the-woke-left-are-the-enemies-of-civilisation/

The new UK Labour government has declared war on free speech. Within weeks of gaining power, it scrapped a law upholding free speech in universities. In early August, following rioting across England, it announced plans to tighten the regulations on online speech. Perhaps most troubling of all, Keir Starmer is also considering writing a broad definition of ‘Islamophobia’ into law, which would make it almost impossible to criticise Islam and even Islamic extremism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali – writer, activist and author of Prey: Immigration, Islam and the Erosion of Women’s Rights – returned to The Brendan O’Neill Show last week to discuss the importance of free speech in the battle against Islamist extremism. What follows is an edited extract from the conversation. You can listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: Why do you think politicians – even those who would define themselves as ‘liberal’ – are so willing to adopt a phrase like Islamophobia?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I think it has to do with guilt about the past. When it comes to the Jews, many European countries did not protect them from Nazi persecution, so there’s definitely a sense that we don’t want to do the same to our Muslim minorities. When I was living in the Netherlands, this was a very potent argument. The Dutch felt extremely guilty about the fact that, in proportion to the Dutch population, more Jews were removed from their homes and sent to concentration camps, than in any other country in Europe. So there’s definitely a sense of ‘let’s not repeat history’. But this is also what makes me so angry, because the Islamists – and to a certain extent, the leftists – will exploit this. They will exploit what is essentially the goodness of human beings, a desire to ‘do right this time round’, in order to do wrong.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20931/stop-hamas-qatar-iran

The Biden-Harris administration’s lifting of sanctions is what enabled Iran to profit to the tune of an estimated $100 billion, used for waging terror against Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia — and the US. Just since October, Iran and its terror proxies and militias have attacked US troops in the Middle East more than 160 times, killing three and wounding more than 120…

By turning a blind eye to the actions of the Iranian regime’s while releasing roughly $100 billion to the treasury of the mullahs, the Biden-Harris administration is responsible for empowering these entities.

This week in Gaza, more deaths were reported after Israel took out a Hamas command center embedded in what used to function as a school in a “humanitarian zone.” If Hamas cares about the Palestinians and does not want them killed, why does it deliberately put its terrorist command centers in the middle of crowded “humanitarian zones”?

“He was murdered by Hamas…. And if you want the hostages home, which we all do, you have to increase the cost to Iran…. Iran is the Great Satan here. Hamas is the junior partner…. They [could not] care less about the Palestinian people.” — US Senator Lindsey Graham, referring to the murdered US-Israeli hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Fox News, September 1, 2024.

It is a clear call for the Biden-Harris administration to hold Iran accountable for the remaining hostages, and to target Iran’s oil refineries if the hostages are not immediately released.

So long as the US government continues to sit on the sidelines, the brutality and savagery of Hamas and their Iranian benefactors will only escalate. It is high time to confront Iran’s regime head-on and stop its spread of barbarity before more innocent lives are lost — above all, before the world’s “leading state sponsor of terrorism” produces nuclear weapons.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20924/france-at-war-with-itself

The French people, the plurality of whom voted “right-wing” in the first round, were astonished to discover, after the second round, a “left-of-center” National Assembly, a parliament that seemingly does not represent the real country.

The message seems to be the all-too-familiar Marxist concept of Volksrache (“the people’s revenge”): arousing hatreds in order to channel them towards the “enemies of the regime”, and, in the end, liquidate them. The murder of a policeman, the burning of a synagogue, the death of a delinquent, a war in the Middle East, elections, no elections: everything is used as a pretext for the hate-filled, agitprop vituperation of the minions of La France Insoumise, who, by stirring up hostilities and resentments, particularly anti-Semitic ones, appear to be whipping up violent — even terrorist — militancy, in the tradition of France’s 18th-century terreur.

France appears to be sliding, slowly but surely, towards a version of chaos — the ancestral breeding ground for the violence that would be the victory, the horizon and the ultimate goal not only of Mélenchon’s phalanx, but of all those trying to take down the West.

Since the results were announced of France’s July 2024 legislative elections, President Emmanuel Macron has been unable to build a majority in the National Assembly, which appears more divided than at any time in the history of what the French call “the Fifth Republic”.

The elections produced three blocs, all of which appear to hate each other: the left, coalescing around Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”), Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, and Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Rassemblement National (National Rally).

Three factors seem to favor France’s slide towards an open or latent form of even greater internal conflict.