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Stephen Schecter :Canada is showing us how societies collapse. The country is a microcosm for the Western world increasingly becoming a joke — a well-deserved one — and Israel would benefit from keeping its distance.

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Last week, Gay Pride Vancouver held its annual parade, only to cancel it half-way through because 20 to 30 “pro-Palestinian” masked protestors blocked the route of the parade at its mid-way point.

The police said the protest was peaceful and no arrests were made, not even for causing a public disturbance. The organizers stated afterwards that the decision to cancel the parade was not taken lightly, but as “the right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy.”

Given that they “stand in solidarity with the protestors,” the organizers decided to cancel the rest of the parade and “focused on ensuring that our Parade participants and those who came to watch the parade dispersed safely.”

Wasn’t that nice of them?

Having not attended the parade myself, unlike Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sporting a gay rainbow on a black t-shirt, I cannot vouch that among the parade participants this year there was the usual float of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid; but even if there was, it clearly was not enough for the more militant of the LGBTQ2TS+ community, who clearly felt obliged to make a more fervent statement supporting people who rape, mutilate, burn, and murder men, women, and children.

That they did so in their usual cowardly fashion, masking their faces, puts them right alongside the keffiyeh-sporting Palestinians they so adore and champion, as tightly bound to them as they can get without jumping into bed with them. For that, of course, they would be thrown off Gaza rooftops, but this prospect never seems to penetrate their dimwit brains, just as supporting vile murderers never strikes them as perhaps an abuse of free speech.

Nor does it occur to the Vancouver Police Department that this “peaceful protest” on behalf of crazed rapists that put an end to a parade is perhaps a violation of public order and a crime akin to shouting fire in a crowded cinema. But nothing of that sort seems to cross the minds of the good denizens of Vancouver, who pride themselves on the spirit of community that celebrates dead Jews.

Iran’s Mullahs and Their Deadly Serious Plan: The Total Annihilation of Israel and the US by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20866/iran-annihilation-israel-us

This conflict is a battle for survival not only for Israel but for the region, and ultimately for Europe and the United States.

Israel understands the stakes: Iran’s belligerency requires an unequivocally committed response from the United States. In that part of the world, wishy-washy means a green light, open season. The consequences are assumed to vary from minimal to non-existent – and often even a profit!

Iran has no interest in becoming a sand dune. That is why it has proxies, so that they will do the attacking and take the incoming retaliation, ensuring that their devoted patron, Iran, will not have to. Iran’s proxies are its human shields.

“Now, ask yourself, which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran’s maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world? And the answer is clear: It’s America, the guardian of Western civilization and the world’s greatest power. That’s why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy…. That’s why the mobs in Tehran chant ‘Death to Israel’ before they chant ‘Death to America.’ For Iran Israel is first, America is next…. When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons…. [that] threaten every American city…. we’re not only protecting ourselves. We’re protecting you.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Address to US Congress, July 25, 2024.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… has gone as far as proclaiming to the youth of Iran that they will soon witness the downfall of both Israel and American civilization.

Has anyone noticed how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat of using nuclear weapons succeeded in intimidating the Biden-Harris administration? Why wasn’t the Biden-Harris administration intimidating Putin?

As [General Hossein] Salami [chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] boasted, Iran has empowered its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, to such an extent that it now has the capability to “wipe out Israel” on its own. — timesofisrael.com, January 28, 2019.

The US should make it unequivocally clear that any entity that attacks Israel will face costs it cannot even imagine.

The Iranian regime and its proxies appear to believe they have the perfect opportunity to eradicate Israel. They perceive a weak administration in the United States under President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris: the US has released billions of dollars that mainly assist Iran in arming its proxies.

The stakes could not be higher. The United States must prevent Iran’s unfathomably dangerous prophecy from becoming a lethal reality.

The war initiated against Israel on October 7 by the Iranian regime, along with its proxies and terrorist groups — Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Iraqi Shia militias — is far more than a minor skirmish or an isolated act of aggression.

Olympic Fool’s Gold Follies Algerian boxer Imane Khelif files “criminal complaint” against J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk. by Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/olympic-fools-gold-follies/

J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have been named in a criminal complaint to French authorities over “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, NBC reports. The complaint centers on “bullying” over Khelif’s gender, which allegedly “greatly affected” the boxer, who won a Gold Medal in the women’s 66 kg class. The bullying refers to online comments from Rowling, that men beating up women had become an Olympic sport; Riley Gaines stating that men don’t belong in women’s sports, and Donald Trump saying that he would keep men out of women’s sports.

Nabil Boudi, Khelif’s attorney, told reporters that the lawsuit “could target personalities overseas,” and that prosecutors dealing with “online hate speech has the possibility to make requests for mutual legal assistance with other countries.” As Boudi helpfully clarifies, this is all about punishing free speech.

Female impersonator bullies like Khelif seek to force compliance with their reality dysphoria by creating offenses such as “misgendering” for simple recognition of biological truth. If someone criticizes gender fakery, the parties in question are not the target of “hate speech” and not “oppressed” in any fashion. The gender benders are the bullies and oppressors, and another dynamic is in play.

Men who beat up women are gutless cowards, what previous generations called “chickenshit” without the slightest embarrassment, and they also qualify as underachievers. For example, the former William Thomas was mediocre at best on the men’s swim team at Penn. Against women, with his rudder still intact, he does much better, and the NCAA sanctions the fraud. When swimmer Riley Gaines attempts to make her case, she becomes the target of outright assault.

It would be interesting to see how Imane Khelif would perform against men’s Olympic lightweight champ Erislandy Alvarez of Cuba, or the USA’s Omari Jones, who won the bronze, the only boxing medal for the USA in the Paris games. If anyone thought the American would smack the fertilizer out of the Algerian it would be hard to blame them. So put it to the test, or take it to another level.  Khelif failed a chromosome test with the International Boxing Association, so he might want to take on the professionals.

France: Political Chaos by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20854/france-political-chaos

Rebellious France is not only a far-left party, it is also a party tinged with anti-Semitism and counts supporters of Islamism and terrorist groups such as Hamas in its ranks.

The left-wing coalition has clearly been gaining ground. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Rebellious France, to emphasize that he accepts anti-Semitism and supports Hamas and Islamism, gave a speech about his party’s results while standing on stage next to an Islamist pro-Hamas activist, newly-elected Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan. Hassan wore a keffiyeh and displayed on her clothes a small Palestinian flag.

An unprecedented situation in France took shape: all the candidates from other parties were asked to withdraw from the election and support the candidate of another party better placed to defeat the National Rally candidate, even if the better-placed candidate belonged to a party that they totally rejected.

The French mainstream media contributed to the operation and fueled fear of “fascism”. They accepted the propaganda. Rappers, who are widely listened to in Islamic no-go zones, released a song that calls for the murder of Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, the rape of party leader Marine Le Pen, and the elimination of “Zionist Jews”. The song was described by some journalists as a courageous “song of resistance” and was broadcast over the radio. One of the lines from the song goes: “From the Jordan to the Seine, Palestine will be free” – a call not just for the destruction of Israel, but for the submission of France to Sharia law and Islam.

The “left”, with 184 seats, became the largest group in the National Assembly; Rebellious France, its most powerful component. The party’s leaders present themselves as the spearhead of the “anti-fascist struggle”; claim that they must govern the country, and that to remove them would be to make “concessions to fascism”. They do not bother to hide their anti-Semitism and their support for Hamas and Islam.

France has become almost ungovernable. No political party has a majority. No party can form a government coalition without having to renounce the most essential part of its program.

The power acquired by Rebellious France means that a government which does not have its approval cannot claim to govern. In addition, no new parliamentary elections can be organized for a year.

Polls have shown for months that a majority of French people would like a firm fight against crime, a stop to illegal immigration, and an end to the Islamization of the country. All these points were on the program of the National Rally.

Every year, on average, 500,000 new immigrants, mainly from the Muslim world, settle in France. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants reside in the country. Few are expelled. Islamic no-go zones are growing.

On the evening of July 7, Rebellious France organized a large rally in Paris’s Place de la République. Palestinian flags were everywhere; French flags almost nowhere. Speakers presented hateful slogans against the National Rally, Israel, Jewish journalists, and the police. Demonstrators burned cars and trash cans, and destroyed stores.

Double Effect and Human Rights in War The flawed moral reasoning of the ICC’s panel of legal experts would have approved the arrests of Churchill and Eisenhower. Nigel Biggar

https://quillette.com/2024/08/11/double-effect-and-human-rights-in-war-israel-gaza-icc-loac-ethics/

When, in June, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and defence minister over their conduct in Gaza, the Conservative government objected that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over Israeli citizens. Last week, the new Labour incumbents of No. 10 abandoned that challenge. 

But lack of jurisdiction is only the weakest ground for objection. Had the reasoning of the panel of legal experts invited to justify the prosecutor’s action been applied to the Allies’ invasion of Normandy in June 1944—the eightieth anniversary of which we have just celebrated—it would have approved the arrests of Churchill and Eisenhower. 

According to the experts’ report, there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the Israeli ministers have committed war crimes in Gaza. This is because they have “intentionally” used the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare against Hamas, by depriving civilians of “objects indispensable for their survival” and so of their “fundamental rights.” They have done this by “deliberately” impeding the delivery of humanitarian relief and by “attacks directed against” facilities that produce food and clean water, civilians attempting to obtain relief supplies, and humanitarian workers and convoys. “Either … the suspects meant these deaths to happen,” write the lawyers, “or … they were aware that deaths would occur in the ordinary course of events as a result of their methods of warfare.” As for the crime of extermination, “the number of deaths resulting from starvation is sufficient on its own to support the charge.”

Objections to the panel’s report could be raised on factual grounds, since responsibility for the failure of aid to reach its intended recipients and the question of whether or not Gaza has in fact been on the brink of starvation at all both remain hotly contested. But I shall let these pass, since my own objection is ethical rather than factual. 

Iranians Rooting For Israel Against Their Monstrous Regime And what will happen if Israel delivers a decisive blow? by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iranians-rooting-for-israel-against-their-monstrous-regime/

Some revealing man-in-the-street interviews in Iran, where hatred of the regime has put many people on the side of Israel, and made them receive with pleasure the news of Ismael Haniyeh’s assassination, can be found here: “Iranians side with Israel, even against their own regime,” by Emily Schrader, Ynet News, August 5, 2024:

For 45 years, the Iranian people have been subjected to a dictatorial Islamic government that prioritizes support for terrorism and enables rampant levels of corruption, over the wellbeing of the people, the Iranian economy, and the future of the state itself….

While Iranians endure a cratering economy, with the leaders of the regime have been enriching themselves. Ayatolah Khamenei now controls a “financial empire” worth $95 billion, according to a six-month investigation by Reuters. How much of that he has pocketed for himself and his immediate family is unknown. But he’s likely to have far exceeded even the three greedy leaders of Hamas, whose net worth— four billion dollars for Khaled Meshaal, three billion for Mousa Abu Marzouk, and four billion for the late Ismail Haniyeh — all comes from aid money that foreign donors intended for the people of Gaza, but instead it went to a handful of thieves living in Doha.

How bad is that Iranian economy? Consider only this: in 2015 a dollar was worth 32,500 Iranian riyals. Today, a dollar is worth 650,000 riyals. The riyal has thus depreciated to one-twentieth of what it was valued at less than a decade ago. Many Iranians have seen their life savings evaporate. And they are enraged not just at the corruptions at the top, among the ayatollahs and the IRGC commanders, but also at the spectacle of their government spending billions of dollars to supply their proxies in the Middle East — the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and especially, Hezbollah in Lebanon — with money and expensive weaponry. How much, they wonder, of Iran’s wealth has gone to supplying 200,000 rockets and missiles for the Lebanese terror group?

That is why Iranian protesters shout not the slogans favored by the regime: “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” but, rather, “Death to Palestine,” “Help us, not Gaza,” and “Leave Syria alone and deal with Iran.”

Ynetnews spoke with Iranians in the aftermath of the historic assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil to see their feelings and reactions regarding a potential war against Israel. As there are currently Iranians on death row for speaking to Israeli media, we cannot publish the names of the Iranians interviewed for their own protection.

Must Australia Submit? Mervyn Bendle

The fact that two key ministers, Tony Burke and Jason Clare, will face Muslim candidates running on pro-Palestinian platforms at the next federal election should be welcomed, as it provides an opportunity for their community to engage in the nation’s political process. It will also highlight for the rest of Australia the dangerous waters into which the country is sailing as sectarian political parties emerge while confidence in the mainstream parties continues its radical decline.

Australia will be able to make up its mind about what sort of future: a thriving liberal democracy or some sort of stifling, hybrid theocratic-socialist dystopia.

Australia has not yet gone very far down the path followed by Britain and France, but under this ALP federal government we are not far behind. To understand how Australia could slide into a theocratic-socialist dystopia, people need to recognize only one thing: key élites of Western countries would sell them out in a heartbeat. That is the primary lesson to be drawn from the two best-selling books about the crisis of Islam in France: Soumission (‘Submission’, 2015) a novel
by Michel Houellebecq; and Le Suicide Français (‘The French Suicide’, 2014) a history of French decline by Éric Zemmour. Let us review the frightening scenarios they depict.

For Houellebecq, this treachery begins with academics and the universities, as emphasizes by making François, the protagonist (or anti-hero) of his narrative, a professor of literature at Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. There he specializes in the work of the influential nineteenth century novelist of decadence, J-K Huysmans, most famous for À rebours (1884), published in English as Against Nature. This is a work saturated with hatred and contempt for the West, Christianity, and the values and conventions of middle-class life, as is the vast bulk of the work done by arts and humanities academics today. François lives vicariously in this realm of aestheticist indulgence, musing nihilistically how the Western masses are little more than animals, living their lives mindlessly, without feeling the least need to justify themselves. “They live because they live, and that’s all”.

China Is Now Goading Iran into Attacking Israel by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20855/china-goading-iran-attack-israel

As countries around the world pressure Iran not to strike Israel — Tehran blames the Jewish state for the bomb that killed Haniyeh on July 31 — China was, in effect, publicly goading Iran to act.

Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Iran’s regime believes that it is no one’s proxy, but the Chinese seem to think that Iran is indeed theirs.

First, there is Beijing’s direct economic lifeline to the ailing Iranian economy.

Beijing also provided diplomatic cover for the assault on Israel. Propaganda support may have been even more important: Some 96.5% of the videos on Hamas carried on the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok support the terrorist group. China’s Communist Party uses that platform to amplify favored narratives.

[T]he [Gulf] region is now especially concerned about the flood of Chinese weapons into the hands of Iran and its terrorist proxies. Regional leaders should be: All three of Iran’s main proxy groups—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — fight with Chinese arms.

China’s President Xi Jinping, apparently adopting the views of Mao Zedong, has been promoting “chaos” to pave the way for worldwide Chinese rule. Wang Yi in his call on the 11th to Tehran made a bold chaos move.

China, from all indications, wants more war in the world’s most war-torn region.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on August 11 told Iran’s acting foreign minister that Beijing supports the Islamic Republic defending its “sovereignty, security, and national dignity.” Wang said that killing Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the terrorist group’s political leader, in Tehran violated Iran’s sovereignty and threatened regional stability.

As countries around the world pressure Iran not to strike Israel — Tehran blames the Jewish state for the bomb that killed Haniyeh on July 31 — China was, in effect, publicly goading Iran to act.

Why would the Chinese foreign minister do that? Perhaps because Beijing believes that its proxy, Iran, is losing a war and has to act fast.

Hamas is a proxy of Iran. Iran’s regime believes that it is no one’s proxy, but the Chinese seem to think that Iran is indeed theirs.

Dhimmi Britain Sinks into Authoritarianism, Death to Free Speech by Robert Williams

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20852/britain-authoritarianism-free-speech

The teenage son of a Rwandan migrant family stabbed three little girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport, a city near Liverpool, on July 29. The murders triggered protests and riots by Britons who have apparently had enough.

Within a day of the first protests, Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave a speech in which he barely mentioned the murdered little girls, yet painted those who protested as “far right thugs…” He added that he was creating a special Violent Crime Unit, dedicated to fighting — guess who — the protesters.

Incredibly, Starmer’s first act after the murders was not, as one might expect, to deal with concerns over the safety of British citizens, but to dedicate funds to new emergency security for mosques.

Starmer could have stopped the demonstrators in their tracks by listening to — and addressing — the concerns of “ordinary” people in the wake of the murders. Instead, he chose to brand them as “far right thugs”, thereby inflaming an entire country…

Police further inflamed matters by setting their dogs on harmless protesters, arresting many, and handcuffing a 73-year-old lady with a pacemaker who had never been arrested before, and was guilty of just peacefully protesting the murders of young girls.

“I’m 73 years old and I’ve here because of them babies that has died and I’m being arrested,” said the woman, who was surrounded by riot police.

In Plymouth, according to one report, while leftist radicals were destroying a church… police were not stopping the radicals, but instead beating the protesters.

The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, chillingly warned that sharing and retweeting online material of the riots was a serious offense that would lead to arrest.

So, retweeting posts on X now gets you sent to the pokey. A Muslim brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle on social media, however, while threatening to blow people’s heads off, is apparently acceptable.

What the police did not do was arrest the gangs of armed Muslim men who took to the streets across British cities. In Birmingham, Bolton, and Middlesbrough, “Muslim patrol” members beat white people, whom they accused of being part of the anti-mass migration protests.

Why were no police officers present? When West Midlands police were asked why they did nothing about “an awful lot of people armed with various weapons” (Muslim gangs) in Birmingham, the answer was that the Muslim communities had been allowed to “do their own policing”.

“We have really strong business and community relations [with Muslim communities]… we had the opportunity to meet with [Muslim] community leaders, meet with [Muslim] business leaders… to kind of understand the style of policing that we needed to deliver…” — West Midlands Police Superintendent Emlyn Richards.

He [Richards] then went on to note that the counter-protesters (the Muslim gangs) had “the right intentions” and that only “a small minority” of people had been intent on causing “either criminality, disorder or fear within our communities.”

Curiously, British police did not acknowledge “right intentions” of those protesting the Southport murders and that only “a small minority” had engaged in violence and riots against the police, hotels hosting illegal migrants, and mosques.

Contrary to what the police said, Muslim “elders” appeared to incite members of their community in Birmingham, telling them to “protect the house of Allah” against the “far right” and messaging Starmer that they were fully able to “defend themselves”.

The Chief Constable of the West Midlands… released a video statement addressed to the Muslims in the region, greeting them deferentially with “Salam Alaykum,” and reassuring them of the police’s support and giving “huge thanks” to their “elders” for their “cooperation.”

Using the ongoing protests across Britain to crack down — one-sidedly — on basic rights, Starmer has successfully exacerbated racial conflict, inflamed tensions, created division, penalized free speech and neatly sneezed at legitimate concerns.

Don’t let free speech be a victim of these riots The despicable behaviour of the few must not become a pretext for silencing the many. Fraser Myers

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/05/dont-let-free-speech-be-a-victim-of-these-riots/

Here comes the crackdown. After days of rioting and disorder across England, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to get tough – and not just on those criminal and far-right elements directly involved in the despicable violence that followed the horrendous murder of three young girls in Southport last Monday. The thuggish and racist behaviour of the few has rapidly become a pretext for constraining the liberties of the many.

The UK prime minister, in two Downing Street press conferences last week, unveiled a suite of proposals to try to quell the rioting. He vowed to impose criminal-behaviour orders on certain agitators. He threatened to roll out facial-recognition software and AI to help track people’s movements. Most striking of all, he damned the supposedly malign influence of ‘large social-media firms and those who run them’, and demanded that they get a firmer grip on the posting of misinformation. He also warned that there would be consequences for those who ‘whip up’ disorder by spreading rumours or speculation online.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, went further this morning on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She declared social-media companies to be responsible for both the ‘shocking misinformation that has escalated’ the riots, as well as ‘the deliberate organisation of violence’ on these platforms.

It is entirely possible to loathe the actions of these rioters, while also being alarmed by the government’s response and its implications for free speech. Any crackdown on so-called misinformation, or even on the ‘whipping up of hatred’, is not going to be confined to those who are directly participating in or inciting violence. It will inevitably be wielded against dissenting views more broadly. This is always what happens.