RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20148/bangladesh-secularism-islamism

Bangladesh’s first constitution, adopted in 1972, the year after the war for independence, created the legal foundation for secular governance. Secularism was declared one of the fundamental principles of the state, and the use of religion for political ends was prohibited.

“The rise of violent extremism and militancy not only in Bangladesh, but also in the South Asia region and the worldwide phenomenon of religious extremism is one of the greatest contemporary threats to global security that can lead to violence and terrorism, and which can permeate all sovereign borders.” — European Bangladesh Forum, Voice of European Bangladeshis.

It is thus critical to neutralize such radical Islamist forces, as Israel is now doing to Hamas, for both ideological and security-related reasons.

The 1971 Bengali genocide is an urgent reminder of the depths to which political ideologies can lead, and why, if one wants to preserve freedom in the West, it is essential to confront them.

As Bangladesh, a nation that is majority Muslim, prepares for January elections, its secular government has come under increasing pressure from Islamists.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), and their allies are holding rallies regarding a single demand: the resignation of the secular government. They insist that the prime minister step aside for an “impartial caretaker administration” to oversee January’s polls.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20018/erdogan-muslims-un-seat

Editor’s note: The following is the last article written for Gatestone by Burak Bekdil, a few days before he tragically passed away last month. Burak was an extraordinary person, and a brave and brilliant journalist. May he rest in peace.

In [Erdoğan’s] speech [at the UN General Assembly], greeted as a brave international challenge by the Turkish media (90% of which he controls), he called on the international community to collectively fight what he thinks is the greatest malady of mankind: Islamophobia. He wants, he said, to revolutionize the post-World War II international political order by giving Muslim nations a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

That is not all. Erdoğan wants the world to recognize the breakaway Turkish statelet of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey. That statelet emerged after Turkey’s illegal invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Still not all. Erdoğan admitted he was holding NATO hostage. On September 26, he said that the Turkish parliament would abide by his pledge to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO if the US sticks to its commitments to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ankara.

Meanwhile, at home, a brave Turkish journalist broadcast a video showing Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists being detained in Turkey, then released and sent to government-run camps for military training.

In Erdoğan’s worldview, Islamophobia is the greatest threat to humanity. Radical Islamist suicide bombers and torturers are not.

The world’s “strategic eyes” should have looked closer at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s speech in September at the UN General Assembly. It was another warning to the West about his intended Islamist design for the entire world — not that he can accomplish this ambition, but what he aims for comes in with several red flags with it.

In his speech, greeted as a brave international challenge by the Turkish media (90% of which he controls), he called on the international community to collectively fight what he thinks is the greatest malady of mankind: Islamophobia. He wants, he said, to revolutionize the post-World War II international political order by giving Muslim nations a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. “The world is bigger than five” has been his dictum over the past several years. He wants Muslim nations, preferably Turkey, to have a veto power, via the UN, over a new world order.

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/11/13/london-has-fallen-n591974

I have been following London’s decline for a while now, and have written a fair amount about the societal decline in Britain.

I often speak of Western culture, and the Anglosphere as a subset of it. Generally speaking, the Anglosphere comprises Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA–the countries that not only predominately speak English, but whose traditions and legal practices derive from English Common Law and the Scottish Enlightenment.

Obviously, these countries differ in important respects. Still, aside from knowing what side of the road to drive, citizens from one country would feel pretty comfortable navigating the streets of any of the others.

I happen to be a fan of the English Common Law and the Scottish Enlightenment and believe that the modern concept of human rights derives from the traditions embodied within them. It’s not that I believe that the ideals embodied in these traditions have been universally upheld by the societies built upon them–that is hardly the case. Rather, we judge the failures to do so based on these very ideals.

When people acknowledge that America’s record of slavery is shameful, we don’t do so based on superior non-Western values, but rather in reference to our own belief in the equality of all men.

This is why I am so saddened to see the obvious decline of London as a home for the values of the Anglosphere. While Washington D.C. may be the informal political capital of these nations, London has been its spiritual hometown.

And London has fallen to the barbarians.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20141/israel-iran-and-the-biden-administration-if

Above all, to have the hostages released faster, there must be as few “pauses” as possible and no let-up by Israel in military pressure.

While the Israelis were urging the residents of northern Gaza to move south to avoid airstrikes, Hamas’s leaders were ordering the Gazans, to stay in their homes, or were shooting at them as they tried to flee — presumably so that Hamas could have more dead bodies to show the television crews how evil the Israelis supposedly are.

To Blinken’s credit and that of the Biden administration… on November 5, he rebuffed the request of Egypt and Jordan for humanitarian aid, saying that “such a halt right now would only allow Palestinian militant group Hamas to regroup and attack Israel again.”

Unfortunately, Biden also announced that the US will send $100 million in “humanitarian aid” to Hamas and the West Bank, thereby freeing up other funds to be used for further attacks

Israel, regrettably, evidently under US pressure, has just agreed to four-hour “humanitarian pauses.” The concession sounds virtuous, but actually breaks a law that prohibits resupplying terrorists. To Hamas, any pause is a gift. It can restock and plan attacks, and keep re-hiding the hostages. What chance is there that a terrorist group that shoots its own citizens to keep them from fleeing to safety will hand out food water and medicine to anyone but its cohorts?

In fairness, Biden immediately sent US ships , welcome materiel, and a nuclear submarine to the area…

The US president, nevertheless, has not failed to repeat his support for a “two-state solution”, even though it is now clear more than ever that the creation of a genocidal Palestinian state on what is left of Israel’s small border must be unthinkable…. In such a volatile region what if Iran or Islamic State were to take over the new Palestinian State?

If the US were to incapacitate the port Iran uses to ship oil China, or take out base of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — or at the very least, as Gen. Jack Keane has been advocating, the base Iran uses to train troops — the war would likely be over in a minute.

The Ukraine is indeed a worthy US involvement: if Russia can keep the Donbass and Crimea, China’s Communist leader Xi Jinping will be encouraged to take Taiwan, perhaps the Philippines, all the sea lanes in the Indo-pacific, as well as further threaten Australia and Japan.

In January 2021, Iran was on the verge of economic asphyxiation, barely able to continue financing Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The Abraham Accords outlined the prospect of regional peace, and Saudi Arabia was considering joining the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kosovo, Morocco and Sudan. Israel was a respected regional power.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20138/paris-demonstration-gaza

A poll for the daily Le Figaro shows that 37 percent of the French still have sympathy for Israel, while Palestine gets 20 percent and Hamas 5 percent.

Those I talked to in the demo seemed as if they had forgotten October 7, reminding me of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s phrase “What a miser is a human memory!”

In the Saturday demo, there was no mention of the nearly 250 Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The so-called elites have adopted a one-way indignation posture against Israel.

“Paris could become a battlefield!” This was how commentators speculated about a “solidarity with Palestine” demonstration that the police had authorized for last Saturday. The concern was not groundless.

A few days before, a Harris opinion poll had shown that 82 percent of the French feared a wave of terrorism in France and 72 percent believed that something like the 7 October attack by Hamas would happen in Paris.

“People are right to have concerns,” says Brice Hortefeux, a former Minister of the Interior.

In the past decade, France has been hit by over 400 terrorist attacks or attempts, almost all related to the Middle East or what is shorthanded as “Islamic World.” The same concern was expressed in numerous editorials, reminding people that as home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, some 500,000, and highest number of Muslims, around 7 million, France was already “part of the Middle East.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/11/11/irans-less-than-nuanced-view-of-bi-lateral-relations/

One of the more odious aspects of the cornucopia of hypocrisy that is the Left’s “woke” ideology is how, after assuming its intellectual and moral superiority and “privilege” within society, the Left further assumed others cannot elevate their own status without the woke cult’s intercession and assistance. Not surprisingly, such a “top-down,” condescending ideology has consequences, though the affluent “woke” Leftists driving, voting, donating, and foisting these disastrous policies are often insulated from the consequences of their actions. Not so, however, for the “oppressed,” who through no fault of their own have been targeted for “liberation” by the woke cult’s offensive attitude and its injurious, unwelcomed “help;” nor for society as a whole.

For example, the woke cult’s “bail reform” has led to an increase in crime for residents of urban areas, especially those communities already suffering high crime rates.  Other residents and tourists in these cities also are now at greater risk of being victimized by criminals. But this is of no concern to the self-congratulatory Leftists who imposed these perilous policies upon them – unless, of course, these elitists happen to emerge from their gilded communities and are accosted by the physical incarnation of their own smug imbecility.

Yet, the woke cult’s physical incarnations of their own smug imbecility do not end at the city limits or even the waters’ edge.  And nor do the consequences of the woke ideology.

As reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to Iran’s Channel 1 on November 1 and reiterated his less than nuanced position on bi-lateral engagement with the United States: “The situation between America and Iran is this: When you chant ‘Death to America!’ it is not just a slogan – it is a policy.”

After carping how this is not the first time he has had to publicly state the obvious and his historically revisionist complaints for it, Iran’s Supreme Lesion deigned to do so again; and, waxing homicidal, railed against the U.S., Israel, and current events:

“For many years, from the 1940s to the 1970s – that is 30 years – the Americans did everything they could do against the Iranian nation.  They hit Iran in any way they could – financially, economically, politically, scientifically, and morally.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/hong-kongs-deteriorating-academic-freedom

Hong Kong’s once-vibrant academic environment, known for its commitment to free thought, critical discourse, and intellectual inquiry, has experienced a troubling erosion of academic freedom in recent years, as Beijing tightens its grip on the city’s autonomy. The recent case of Rowena He, an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) known for her research on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, illustrates the growing restrictions on Hong Kong’s academic institutions. The scholar was fired from her professorship after Hong Kong authorities rejected her visa renewal application, preventing her from returning there from the U.S., where she was on an academic fellowship.

He’s scholarly contributions include her book Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China and numerous articles on China’s democracy movement. Her work exemplifies the rich intellectual tradition that Hong Kong once represented.

The persecution of academics in Hong Kong is not new. Benny Tai, a former law professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), is a well-known activist and scholar who played a prominent role in the 2014 Umbrella Movement, which called for universal suffrage and fair elections in Hong Kong. In July 2020, HKU’s governing council voted to dismiss him after the Hong Kong government convicted him of charges related to his involvement in the Umbrella Movement. Unlike with He, however, the charges against Tai stemmed from his role in organizing and participating in pro-democracy protests, not from what he taught or researched as a professor. He’s case thus signals Beijing’s growing censorship of, and control over, academic output in Hong Kong.

He’s dismissal also fits into the broader context of the rapid erosion of freedom in Hong Kong. Just a few weeks earlier, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee delivered his annual policy address, in which he vowed to enact Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law by the end of 2024. This bill is Hong Kong’s version of the Beijing-imposed Hong Kong National Security Law of China, enacted in 2020, which has been used to destroy freedom of speech, press, and expression in the bustling city.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/10/iran-houthis-red-sea-missiles-israel-hamas-us-navy-carriers/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

Six days ago, the US aircraft carrier Dwight D Eisenhower – Ike – transited the Suez Canal southbound and headed into the Red Sea as part of her pre-planned but accelerated deployment to the Gulf Region. En route she joined USS Ford and her carrier battle group in the Eastern Med for some interoperability training and the obligatory formation photo. 

It is impossible to say for certain that this overt display of around two hundred thousand tons of nuclear-powered naval firepower – to say nothing of all the escorts – is what has kept Hezbollah relatively quiet over the last few weeks but it’s bound to have influenced their thinking. It is also risky to say that this effect will endure, but for now, it appears to be a win for carrier-based deterrence. Given how many predicted a region-wide escalation by now, this is one piece of good news alongside the horror of Gaza.

Aside from sporadic attacks on US troops inland in Iraq and Syria, there is one other Iranian-backed terrorist group in the region which hasn’t got the memo yet, and that’s the Houthis. They overthrew the legitimate government of Yemen in 2014, and Saudi Arabia and her allies have been engaged ever since trying to restore some semblance of order there with varying degrees of success. That the Saudis are often painted as the villain of this piece baffles me, although that is an article for another time. This year at least has seen fighting in Yemen slowing with talks between Saudi and Iran, mediated by the Chinese, apparently making some progress despite al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’s best efforts to derail them. 

However, as one would expect of Iranian proxies who see disruption and fear as endstates in themselves, the Houthis didn’t wait long after the Hamas incursion to start firing missiles up the Red Sea at Israel. USS Carney intercepted four in one go but there have been more since, forcing the US and Israeli navies to station destroyers and corvettes to intercept further firings. 

What is clear is that Saudi and US efforts to prevent Iranian-supplied arms from entering Yemen over the last few years haven’t entirely worked and that the Houthis are still able to move and fire them without being detected and destroyed prior to launch.

But it’s possible that this might be about to change.