RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/europe-and-its-enemies

n 1989, as the Soviet empire was imploding, Alexander Arbatov, a diplomatic advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, addressed a brilliant remark to Westerners: “We are going to do something terrible to you. You will no longer have an enemy.” The disappearance of Communism indeed plunged Europe and the United States into a disorienting euphoria; for the “free world,” it was a symbolic catastrophe. There was something terrible and yet reassuring in the Soviet Union’s hostility: the East/West divide separated good from evil with razor-sharp clarity.

An enemy represents a guarantee for the future, a certainty of solidarity; it mobilizes individuals who would otherwise be ready to go their own way; and it overcomes the apathy that inheres in prosperous societies. The Cold War provided a polemical ordering of memory and of knowledge—a pedagogy for the problems of the present. The obligation to follow and check the adversary’s movements made us attentive to the slightest guerrilla actions and to the most local of conflicts; humanity remained a common concern. The threat that loomed over our social life restored an unprecedented clarity to our institutions, rights, and well-being. Democracy was once again fragile and precious, like a treasure that could be stolen at any moment.

Three decades later, the Old World, which meantime has been overcome with skepticism, seems to have provoked in its uncertainty the encroachments of two enemies: radical Islamism, in the double form of terrorism and Salafism; and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Both view the West with resentment, considering it, in the first case, guilty of hostility toward the religion of the prophet and, in the second, of having brought about the fall of the Soviet Union. There, though, the resemblance ends.

Vladimir Putin sees himself as a hyperbolic Westerner, despising European decadence in the name of the true European values that he claims to incarnate. “The liberal idea,” Putin told the Financial Times in June 2019, “has become obsolete.” All the ills that Russia suffers supposedly come not from Russians themselves but from Europe’s corruption, America’s malfeasance, and a satanic NATO. What the Kremlin’s master dreads above all is democratic contagion, an importation of the spirit of Maidan—Kiev’s Independence Plaza—into Russia itself.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15184/iran-ayatollahs-hard-times

It is an irony that not even the most devoted supporters of the ayatollahs can ignore that a country such as Iran, that prides itself on being one of the world’s largest oil producers, is unable to produce enough fuel to satisfy the needs of its own population.

These are, moreover, hard times for the ayatollahs in many other respects. Not only are the leaders coming under pressure at home for their disastrous handling of the economy. They are also seeing their efforts to export Iran’s Islamic revolution to other corners of the Middle East being roundly rejected, with anti-Iran protests taking place in Iraq and Lebanon.

With the Iranian economy under such intense pressure as a result of the sanctions, however, the regime has little room for manoeuvre, so it faces a stark choice: either radically reform its conduct or continue to face the wrath of the Iranian people.

Any suggestion that the wide-ranging sanctions regime the Trump administration has imposed against Iran was not having the desired effect has been roundly refuted by the nationwide protests that have erupted in response to the regime’s decision to increase petrol prices.

Critics of American President Donald J. Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing the US from the Iran nuclear deal last year and imposing a fresh round of sanctions against Tehran have argued that the measures would fail to have the desired effect, and claimed that the ayatollahs would be able to circumvent the sanctions by trading with countries such as China, that remained committed to the nuclear deal.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15082/iran-crimes-against-humanity

“As Iranian, Saudi and other Muslim women around the globe struggled for freedom from the hijab, which they consider a political symbol that has nothing to do with piety, the reaction among the liberal circles in the West was confounding. Here an increasing number of feminists, leftists and the liberal media glorified the hijab as some exotic symbol of women’s liberation that had to be embraced.” — Tarek Fatah, The Toronto Sun, August 29, 2019

“The Guards are gathering to remove reformists from power.” — Najmeh Bozorgmehr, Iranian journalist, Financial Times, October 13, 2019.

The anti-corruption campaign is led by none other than the hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi…. Raisi is widely considered the most likely cleric to succeed to the role of Supreme Leader when Khamenei retires or dies. But Raisi also carries with him a disturbing reputation for judicial violence.

On October 10 this year, when an aeroplane flew from Tehran and arrived late that night in London, among those on board was a five-year-old girl named Gabriella. Despite her name, Gabriella was not Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Her father, Richard, is English and her mother, Nazanin, is Iranian with British nationality.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among the best known of the multitude of individuals locked up in Iran’s prisons. Her status as a woman with dual nationality, and imprisoned for five years on a charge of espionage without a scrap of evidence, combined with the ongoing campaign for her release by her husband in conjunction with the UK Foreign Office, has given her case repeated publicity in the British press and other media.

A likely reason the Iranian authorities have not responded to the numerous official and unofficial requests for her release, or even an open and fair trial, seems to be a standoff between the UK and Iran over payment of a British debt for £450 million. The debt was incurred when Britain refused to send tanks originally ordered under the late Shah’s regime and not delivered for more than 40 years. Senior government sources have said they believe Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe may be being held as “collateral” to secure the debt repayment.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/bryen-irans-imperial-overreach

Since December 2017, a sort of “rolling rebellion” has been occurring across Iran. It is bigger, deeper and stronger than the Green Revolution of 2009 and taking place in great measure outside Tehran, where the population is more diverse. There have been strikes of truckers, bazaar shopkeepers, teachers, farmers, and students. See #WhiteWednesday on Twitter to watch brave Iranian women go into the streets and take off their head coverings. Sometimes they dance. Sometimes their husbands, fathers, and brothers go with them. Sometimes they are arrested and sometimes they go to jail. Unfortunately, it took the suicide of a young woman facing seven years in prison for attending a soccer match to get the attention of the Western press.

In May of this year, widespread upheaval convulsed the country and thousands were arrested. This weekend, news of increasing protest in Iran comes from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — an organization with a mixed record of acceptance by the U.S. government, but with indisputable reach inside the country. According to NCRI’s Washington office, at least 65 cities have seen violent demonstrations, with people killed and injured by authorities. Videos, presumably from cell phones, show that pictures of the Ayatollah Khameini have been set on fire and demonstrators are chanting “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to Rouhani.” You can follow @AlirezaNader for more.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15037/denmark-shootings-gang-violence

“These numbers underline, first of all, that we are talking about a problem that has to do with ethnicity. The argument that this has nothing to do with foreigners has to be taken off the table.” — Trine Bramsen, legal affairs spokesperson for the Social Democrats, in Berlingske Tidende, August 24, 2017.

“In addition to a common fondness for crime, the culture of immigrant gangs is a cocktail of religion, clan affiliation, honor, shame and brotherhood… The harder and the more brutal [you are], the stronger you are, and then you create awareness of yourself and attract more [people]”. — Naser Khader, member of the Danish Parliament for the Conservative Party and co-founder of the Muslim reform movement, in a blog, “Immigrant gangs are also culture and religion” in Jyllands-Posten, November 2018.

“[T]he price for the failed integration [of immigrants] is [paid] by those with the least resources. It is the schools and neighborhoods of the working classes that are destroyed….” — Niels Jespersen, op-ed in Berlingske Tidende, October 1, 2019.

People with the means to move, such as Lunøe, will take their children and run to safer areas. What will happen to the many that are unable to do so and have no choice but to stay in the crosshairs of the shootings, the knives and the car-torchings?

On September 24, the US embassy in Denmark published a security alert. It warned US citizens in Copenhagen that:

“The Danish National Police urge individuals living in or visiting the areas of Nørrebro, Ishøj, and Hundige to exercise heightened awareness at all times due to a recent increase in gun violence. Copenhagen Police have instituted a stop-and-search zone in a large area covering Nørrebro. The ordinance – which will run through September 30 – allows police officers to stop and search anyone within the area without cause”.

The alert also encouraged US citizens to “keep a low profile”, “do not physically resist any robbery attempt” and “use caution when walking or driving at night”.

Police in Copenhagen eventually decided to extend the stop and search ordinance in parts of Copenhagen until October 14.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15182/hamas-islamic-jihad-united

Hamas is hardly on its way to transforming itself into a non-violent movement that would uphold Israel’s right to exist. Its decision to refrain, this time, from pounding Israel with rockets is in no way a sign of moderation or pragmatism. Instead, the terror group needs a break from the fighting in order to prepare better for its main goal: to take down Israel down, once and for all.

Hamas leaders – like their PIJ counterparts – are motivated for their own well-being; the well-being of the two million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip is a joke to them. Why else would PIJ endanger their people by forcing Israel to respond to the launching of hundreds of rockets toward Israeli civilian communities?

This is not a good guy/bad guy scenario. Instead, it is a temporary rift between two extremely bad guys, both of whom are wholly committed to destroying Israel, even if that means destroying their own people along the way as well.

Iran’s Palestinian proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), after last week’s round of aggression towards Israel, are said to be at odds with each other. PIJ is reportedly disturbed that Hamas did not join in firing rockets at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of senior PIJ commander Bahaa Abu al-Ata in the Gaza Strip. PIJ, it seems, feels that Hamas left it out in the cold.

The two terror groups may not enjoy a full meeting of minds – as witnessed by Hamas’s current failure to bombard Israel with rockets, but these differences are unlikely to escalate into a major confrontation between Hamas and PIJ.

At the end of the day, both groups share the same strategy and goals, as well as the same “enemy” – Israel. They may disagree, but when it comes to waging jihad (holy war) and eliminating Israel, Hamas and PIJ always manage to find common ground.

PIJ’s disappointment in Hamas has nothing to do with Hamas’s recognizing Israel’s right to exist and laying down its weapons: Hamas has done neither. Rather, PIJ and its supporters are disappointed because Hamas chose to refrain, this time, from firing rockets into Israel when PIJ was busy doing just that last week.

Hamas, of course, remains committed to its ideology. Its charter, to which it also remains committed, states:

“There is no solution to the Palestinian problem expect by jihad. Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection; no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it.”

Hamas’s charter also makes it clear that the terrorist group “views the other Islamic movements with respect and appreciation.” The charter goes on to explain that even when Hamas “differs from them in one aspect or another on one concept or another, it agrees with them on other points and understandings.”