RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14956/turkey-ergodan-has-badly-overplayed-his-hand-in

Mr Erdogan, who has been the main driving force behind efforts to cause the Saudis maximum discomfort, now has an abundance of problems of his own, challenges which could spell the end of his 16-years in charge. After Mr Erdogan’s Islamist AKP party lost badly in last April’s mayoral election for control of Istanbul, the Turkish leader now finds himself trying desperately to salvage Turkey’s battered economy, where the currency is in free fall, foreign debts remain vast, and inflation and joblessness are alarmingly high.

Many Turks blame their country’s plight on Mr Erdogan’s obsession with pursuing his radical Islamist agenda, which includes supporting groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Many prefer him to concentrate instead on addressing their domestic concerns, a view the Turkish president would be well-advised to take on board if he intends to remain in power.

A year after the brutal murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, attempts by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to exploit the controversy to boost his own political standing have back-fired.

Ever since Mr Khashoggi was murdered moments after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October last year to obtain documentation for his forthcoming marriage, Mr Erdogan has skilfully exploited the incident to cause maximum embarrassment to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he regards as one of his major regional rivals.

Ankara has been at loggerheads with Riyadh ever since the Muslim Brotherhood, a key ally of Mr Erdogan, came to power in Egypt in 2012, a move bitterly resisted by the Saudis, who regard the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14911/scandinavia-crime

“Most immigrants are not criminals, but when the immigrant population is overrepresented in almost every crime category, then there is a problem that we must dare to talk about.” — Jon Helgheim, immigration policy spokesman for the Norwegian party Fremskrittspartiet (FrP).

“In the more than thirty years that the surveys cover, one tendency is clearer than all others, namely that the proportion of the total amount of crimes committed by persons with a foreign background is steadily increasing….” — Det Goda Samhället (“The Good Society”), Invandring och brottslighet – ett trettioårsperspektiv (“Immigration and crime – a thirty-year perspective”). All statistics for the report were supplied by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

Unless Scandinavian political leaders begin actively to engage with the facts that these statistics describe, the problems are only going to become more intractable — to the point where they may be entirely unsolvable.

In Sweden, discussing who is behind the current crime epidemic in the country has long been taboo. Such a statistic has only been published twice by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ), in 1996 and in 2005. In 2005, when BRÅ published its last report on the subject, “Crime among people born in Sweden and abroad,” it contained the following note:

“Critics have argued that new results can be inflated, taken out of context and misinterpreted and lead to reinforcing ‘us and them’ thinking. There is every reason to take such risks seriously. However, BRÅ’s assessment is… that a knowledge-based picture of immigrant crime is better than one based on guesses and personal perceptions. The absence of current facts about the crime among the foreign-born and their children facilitates the creation and consolidation of myths. If crime is a problem in certain groups of the foreign-born, then the problems do not disappear unless you highlight them and speak openly about them. A correct picture of the extent and development of the problems should instead be the best basis for analyzing conditions and improving the ability of all residents to function well in Sweden, regardless of ethnic origin.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/icnas-violent-islamist-relations-kashmir-joe-kaufman/

On September 22nd, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the stage with President Trump, at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. 50,000 attendees, including this author, watched in awe, as Modi told of the changes that have taken place in India: changes to India’s economy and infrastructure, changes to Indian hygiene, and changes to how India deals with the terrorists in Kashmir. This last subject drew the most emotions and not just inside the arena, but outside as well, as busloads of protesters took to the streets decrying human rights violations in Kashmir. Yet, the group leading the demonstration has numerous links to the terrorists.

Kashmir or more properly Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is a state located in India. However, Article 370 of the Indian Constitution gave a special status to Kashmir, granting autonomy to those residing in the state and disallowing non-citizens of Kashmir the ability to purchase property within the state. As a result, the Muslim-majority of Kashmir, which stands today at around 70%, was protected and others were rendered second-class citizens. This special status was always deemed a temporary one; though, for decades, Indian authorities have been reluctant to alter it. That is, until now.

In August, following action in both houses of Parliament, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind declared the abrogation of the provisions of Article 370. For years, discrimination and terrorism against Kashmir’s non-Muslim minorities have engulfed the region, forcing people to flee their homes. This has been a fully legitimate concern, but it seems not enough of a concern for radical Muslims, who have used the issue as an excuse to voice their outrage. One such group, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), has organized rallies around the US calling for 360 to be reinstated. The group’s motives for doing so are tainted by their ties to the terrorists.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/10/03/forced-to-kiss-the-shoes-of-a-muslim-classmate-called-a-dirty-jew-antisemitic-bullying-exposed-at-australian-schools/?utm_content=news1&utm_medium=daily_email&utm_campaign=email&utm_source=internal/

Shocking accounts of antisemitic bullying at two schools in the Australian state of Victoria over the past year have led to calls for more assertive action by educational authorities to protect Jewish students.

The two cases — one involving a 5-year-old boy at a junior school, the other a 12-year-old boy in high school — revealed a pattern of dehumanizing language and violent behavior on the part of the bullies, alongside a disturbing indifference from officials at both schools when the abuse was brought to light by the parents of the children.

In an interview with the Melbourne-based Age newspaper on Thursday, the mother of the 5-year-old disclosed that her son was repeatedly taunted and laughed at over his circumcised penis — to the point where he began to wet himself in class rather than go to the toilet.

Other insults faced by the little boy at Melbourne’s Hawthorne West Primary School included epithets like “you dirty Jew” and “Jewish cockroach.” His parents began investigating whether there was a problem after the child began wetting his bed at home and complained about going to school. One morning, he reportedly told his mother, “‘Mummy, you shouldn’t love me. I’m a worthless, Jewish rodent. I’m vermin,” while she was making his breakfast.

“I grew up with Holocaust survivors, I used to go to synagogue with my uncle who was a Holocaust survivor and those were the words, literally, he was taunted with when he was five,” his mother told The Age.

The 12-year-old boy, meanwhile, was subjected to several months of antisemitic abuse that began with an incident in which he was forced to kiss the shoes of a Muslim fellow-student.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/paris-knife-attacker-converted-to-islam-18-months-before-attack-report/

The French police employee who killed four of his colleagues at the Paris police headquarters on Thursday was a recent convert to Islam, according to French television BFM TV.

The 45-year-old attacker killed three police officers and an administrative worker, three men and one woman, before being shot and killed by police. Officials so far have not publicly released a motive, and are trying to discover if there was a terrorism link. The man’s wife has been taken in custody.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took to Twitter to offer her condolences to the victim’s families.

“During the Paris Council, we will pay tribute to the victims and will salute the unfailing commitment of police forces serving the security of Parisians. We know what we owe them,” she wrote.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-to-invoke-emergency-powers-to-ban-masks-at-protests-11570089982

Hong Kong’s cabinet will meet Friday to invoke emergency powers to tackle spiraling protests and lawlessness, starting with a ban on people wearing masks that are used to protect themselves from tear gas or hide their identities, people familiar with the plan said.

The city’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam called the special meeting of her executive council to propose the ban, which, if agreed, would become law Friday, one of the people said. The measure is almost certain to be approved as the cabinet comprises mostly pro-government figures.

Police and pro-Beijing groups ramped up calls for the British colonial-era law to be used for the first time in half a century after the city was rocked by the worst day of violence in 50 years during China’s National Day celebrations on Tuesday. Protesters and riot police clashed in more than a dozen districts, leaving more than 100 injured. Police shot one protester in the chest.

The shooting brought people back into the streets to condemn the city’s police force Wednesday evening, targeting subway stations. Police were mostly absent from the streets until about midnight. Officials, who fear similar scenes this coming holiday weekend, have been running out of options to contain the unrest that has increasingly taken over the city and has sent the economy tumbling toward a recession.

The government is taking the unusual step of invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to “end the violence and restore law and order to the streets,” one of the people familiar with the plan said. It would be the first time it has been used since the British colonial government invoked it to suppress 1967 leftist riots that shook the city during China’s Cultural Revolution.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14941/macron-appeasing-iran

Has French President Emmanuel Macron forgotten that he is helping and appeasing a state leading in human rights violations? In 2018, according to Javaid Rehman, the UN expert on human rights in Iran, at least 273 people were executed in Iran, and 6,000 over ten years, according to Iran Human Rights.

In addition, the use of cruel and inhuman punishment is also on the rise in Iran; according to Amnesty International, the use of various forms of torture such as amputation and flogging has been increasing at an alarming rate.

Macron also fails to recognize that the nuclear deal never contained or adequately addressed Iran’s multifaceted threats, which include but are not limited to: The arming and financing of terror and militia groups in the region; intervening in the internal affairs of regional countries; pursing a sectarian agenda by pitting Shiites and Sunnis against each other; carrying out cyber attacks against other nations; and committing human rights violations inside Iran and abroad through its proxies.

French President Emmanuel Macron appears to be following the footsteps of former US President Barack Obama when it comes to appeasing the top state sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In a recent development, the French government offered $15 billion to bail out the Iranian government from US sanctions, and a plea to “restart negotiations.” The Iranian government was most likely thrilled; a headline of a major Iranian state-controlled media outlet, Abrar Eqtesadi read: “Iran to receive $15 billion line of credit!”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-opens-a-second-front-along-israels-border-11570056375

Israel is fighting off Iranian expansion across the Middle East, but danger for the Jewish state lurks near its own borders. Painstaking work by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their loyal proxies has succeeded in laying the groundwork for a second Iranian front with Israel in the Golan Heights.

The first front is to Israel’s north in South Lebanon. The Golan, which Israel won from Syria in 1967, lies further east. Though Israel rules the skies, the Syrian land adjoining Israel’s border appears increasingly to belong to Iran. Reports from both Israelis and Syrian opposition groups have revealed glimpses of the methods the Iranians and their allies have employed to build a military infrastructure on the Syrian side of the Golan.

One is “The Iranian Conquest of Syria,” a report published last month by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The authors are two retired senior Israeli military intelligence officers, Brig. Gen. Shimon Shapira and Col. Jacques Neriah. They explain how Iranian and Hezbollah fighters have crept methodically westward from the Syrian lava field of Lajat, 40 miles from the Golan Heights in Syria’s southwest, to the broken nation’s Quneitra province, which is even closer.

The Iranian element, made up of the Revolutionary Guard, Lebanese Hezbollah and the local Syrians they have recruited, is tightly woven into the border villages and the official Syrian security forces. That much is clear from the locations of the four permanent bases used by Lebanese Hezbollah in southwest Syria. One is at Al Haraq, within an area controlled and maintained by the Syrian army’s 52nd Brigade. Two others are in the Lajat area. These are used to train locally recruited fighters and store short- and medium-range missiles.

The fourth base is in Quneitra, outside Al Hadr, about 3 miles from the Israeli border. According to the Israeli researchers, the base is protected by the Quneitra Hawks Brigade, which is part of the Syrian National Defense Forces, a reserve army established by Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. The base is situated within a position of the Syrian army’s 90th Brigade and used mainly for intelligence gathering and eavesdropping. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.jns.org/corbyn-sparks-controversy-for-rosh-hashanah-video-featuring-ha

Jeremy Corbyn sparked outrage for releasing a Rosh Hashanah video that features an activist who last year led a public Jewish mourning prayer for dead members of Hamas.It features Rob Abrams, a Jewish anti-Zionist activist who in May 2018 led the Kaddish prayer in Parliament Square for 62 Palestinians killed on the Israel-Gaza border, at least 50 of whom were Hamas operatives.

In the clip posted on Twitter ahead of the Jewish holiday, Corbyn visits a grocery store with Jewish Labour Party members to discuss the symbolism of honey and apples for the Jewish new year and promote Labour’s “Green Industrial Revolution” program.

Alongside him is Rob Abrams, a Jewish anti-Zionist activist who in May 2018 led the Kaddish prayer in Parliament Square for 62 Palestinians killed on the Israel-Gaza border, at least 50 of whom were Hamas operatives, according to the Jewish Chronicle.

Israel activist David Collier wrote in response to the clip, “There is no way you are not aware much of the Jewish community were outraged when this person explicitly led a prayer service for dead Hamas terrorists. Which makes your actions here deliberate. Your spiteful nature highlights you are a real danger.”

Also in the video is Labour counselor Sue Lukes, who tweeted an article titled the “Jewish ‘War against Corbyn’ risks bringing real antisemitism to Britain” and wrote a piece to “honor” Malia Bouattia, the former National Union of Students president who was accused of anti-Semitism.