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The Widespread Desecration of Christian Graves by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14728/desecration-christian-graves

While the persecution of a Christian can be motivated by particular circumstances — conflicts, sexual attraction, convenience, gain, and so on — attacks on inanimate symbols would seem to reflect a hatred for Christianity and its followers that needs no “reason” and seemingly gains nothing.

From one end of the Middle Eastern world to the other — and in Arab, African and Asian nations, and increasingly in the West — this sort of hate has become a regular occurrence, seemingly “normalized.”

Although so-called “mainstream media” reported some of the desecrations — probably mostly because the Islamic State had already publicized them — they rarely report that “everyday” extremists also engage in this macabre practice.

Sadly, despite the Western establishment’s insistence that religiously-inspired terror is a product of anything and everything but teachings, doctrines and text, the widespread appearance of people desecrating Christian graves and their crosses speaks of something else.

Although the persecution by members of some religions of live human beings, such as Jews and Christians, is certainly more monstrous, attacks on inanimate religious symbols possibly give an even clearer indication of a deadly hate borne for the “other.”

Consider, for instance, extremists desecrating and destroying Christian cemeteries and their crosses. While the act itself is largely “symbolic” — in that no living person gets hurt — it is also reflective of a committed hatred that transcends, say, responding to a physical threat. While the persecution of a Christian can be motivated by particular circumstances — conflicts, sexual attraction, convenience, gain, and so on — attacks on inanimate symbols would seem to reflect a hatred for Christianity and its followers that needs no “reason” and seemingly gains nothing.

From one end of the Middle Eastern world to the other — and in Arab, African and Asian nations, and increasingly in the West — this sort of hate has become a regular occurrence, seemingly “normalized.” A brief list follows, ordered by desecrations committed by formal terrorists, such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and similar organizations; informal terrorists, such as religious mobs; and theocratic governments.

Enabling China’s Mass Surveillance System How an American organization is helping a communist tyranny control its people. Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274668/enabling-chinas-mass-surveillance-system-mark-tapson

In the 18th century, Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, introduced the idea of the Panopticon, a disciplinary concept brought to life in the form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of prison cells. Each cell is flooded with light, which creates an environment in which prisoners are under constant watch. Even if no guard is on duty, a prisoner will always feel as if they are being watched. Bentham described it as “[a] new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind.” The Panopticon is the optimal prison; it enables an unprecedented level of surveillance.

When we discuss the concept of surveillance, one country automatically springs to mind.

China’s transition from what Rebecca MacKinnon calls a “networked authoritarianism” to what is now a form of networked totalitarianism is almost complete. The difference is not merely semantic. As John Naughton writes, “An authoritarian regime is relatively limited in its objectives: there may be elections, but they are generally carefully managed; individual freedoms are subordinate to the state; there is no constitutional accountability and no rule of law in any meaningful sense.”

In contrast, according to Naughton, totalitarianism “prohibits opposition parties, restricts opposition to the state and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life.” The historian Robert Conquest put it best when he argued that a totalitarian state recognizes no limits to its authority.  Proponents of totalitarianism have no respect for privacy. In a totalitarian state, privacy is but an illusion.

Who’s Funding Illegal Palestinian Settlements in Area C: Part 1 Confronting the history. Edwin Black

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274664/whos-funding-illegal-palestinian-settlements-area-edwin-black

“Area C,” which comprises some 60 percent of the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria, is making news these days. This time, the hot button issue is illegal Palestinian settlements sprouting across the region, shredding the last vestige of the Oslo Accords, which, for a generation, propelled the “two-state solution.”

Most observers of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis are accustomed to hearing talk of “illegal Jewish settlements” on slivers of land comprising one to two percent of the West Bank, mostly near the green line of Israel proper. But, attention now focuses on an explosion of thousands of illegal Palestinian constructions: village clusters, agricultural tracts, water networks, roads, and general infrastructure crisscrossing Area C of the West Bank. All of this violates the 1993 and1995 Oslo Accords, which specify full Israeli administrative control in Area C. Under the international agreement, only the Israeli Civil Administration can authorize new construction in the zone—for Israeli and Arab alike. However, continuous waves of recent Palestinian settlements are being established without permits—often without even bothering to apply. One senior official of the Israeli security apparatus called it “the wild west.” 

According to Israeli activist watchdog groups, such as Regavim, in the past half-decade, illegal Palestinian settlements and infrastructure have sprawled across more than 9,000 dunams in more than 250 Area C locations, supported by more than 600 kilometers of illegally constructed access roads and more than 112,000 meters of retaining walls and terracing. This massive works project is being conducted in broad daylight, often heralded by tall announcement placards and proud press releases.

Germans Under Siege Police stats reveal Germans overwhelmingly victims of migrant crimes. Stephen Brown

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274676/germans-under-siege-stephen-brown

“…civilization is precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.”
-Will Durant, historian

It is a situation that the left-leaning German media averts its eyes from because it disrupts the multicultural idyll it promotes: that Germans are, overwhelmingly, the victims of migrant crime.

But leftist journalists’ looking away does not prevent German police from putting the real face on this terrible situation.

“Germans were more often the victim of a crime committed by a migrant than the other way around,” stated Germany’s Federal Crime Office in a publication titled “Criminality in the Context of Migration.”

And crime statistics provided by the German national newspaper, Die Welt, unfortunately, bear this out. The Federal Crime Office stated that in 2018 230 Germans fell victim to the crimes of murder and manslaughter, committed by a least one migrant suspect, while 33 asylum seekers were killed by German suspects.

How a US Congresswoman Can Help Palestinians by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14754/tlaib-help-palestinians

While Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib is using the controversy surrounding her visit as an excuse to launch scathing attacks on Israel, Palestinians seem to be more worried about failed leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This concern is not something that Tlaib seems to share with Palestinians because for her the only wrong-doing is coming from Israel.

“Praising suicide bombers and pushing blood libel is not ‘criticizing Israeli policy.'” — Charles Sykes, The Bulwark, August 19, 2019.

As a Congresswoman, Tlaib should have been worried that a US Embassy was forced to cancel an event to help Palestinians because of threats and calls for a boycott.

It would have been helpful had the Palestinian-American Congresswoman made an effort to persuade Palestinian Authority officials to resume their relations with the US administration and explore ways of boosting the Palestinian economy and improving living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As a Congresswoman, she should be working to build, and not destroy, bridges between her people and the US. Her fierce attacks on Israel and the US administration, however, embolden Palestinian hardliners and fuel hate against Israelis and Americans.

If Tlaib really cared about the Palestinians, she should be campaigning against the PA and Hamas leaders engaged in a power struggle over money and power. Moreover, she should be calling for reforms and democracy under the PA and Hamas. The least she could do is demand an end to human rights violations by the PA and Hamas or demand that they hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections. She could also demand an end to crackdown on freedom of speech under the PA and Hamas.

Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib is apparently upset because she was not able to agitate against Israel during a proposed visit to her grandmother there.

Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Afghanistan and an Opportunity for the West by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14739/al-qaeda-isis

In the short term, al-Qaeda evidently wants to pressure the United States to withdraw from direct involvement in the Middle East. ISIS, on the other hand, wants to cleanse the region’s Arab regimes of secular dictatorships, corrupt ruling elites and insufficiently devout Muslim intelligentsia.

There is, however, a serious complication. The Taliban-al-Qaeda coalition is now being challenged by increasingly strong ISIS forces in several Afghan provinces. The United Nations recently estimated that ISIS still have roughly $300 million at their disposal. Moreover, some “disaffected” or hardline Taliban fighters opposed to ongoing negotiations with the U.S. are defecting to ISIS.

The West should take no pleasure in the global competition between al-Qaeda and ISIS. It is a competition that incentivizes each terrorist network to upgrade its recruitment appeal for the next generation of jihadists.

In its effort to sustain a pro-Western regime in Afghanistan, the United States might instead take advantage of an opportunity already in place. In an area of such unrest, and where it is still unclear what the word of those making promises is worth, it might be wise to keep a modest footprint rather than withdraw all troops. To abandon the area totally, as President Obama abandoned Syria and Iraq, and then find it overrun with terrorist groups, would be, as one saw, a catastrophic mistake…. Although admittedly less than ideal, it still be might be far less costly in life and treasure, as with the Middle East, to safeguard the area and gather intelligence, rather than to leave and then have to go back. It is an opportunity that would be foolhardy to give up.

While the world’s two most prominent and competing jihadist networks, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), share the ultimate objective of establishing a global Islamic caliphate and ushering in the apocalyptic age of the Mahdi. Their intermediate goal seems to be replacing the liberal nation-state system with a worldwide Muslim Ummah. Their immediate aims are different.

In the short term, Al-Qaeda evidently wants to pressure the United States to withdraw from direct involvement in the Middle East. ISIS, on the other hand, wants to cleanse the region’s Arab regimes of secular dictatorships, corrupt ruling elites and insufficiently devout Muslim intelligentsia.

The Mullahs’ Provocations Iran heightens the stakes. Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274647/mullahs-provocations-joseph-puder

The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote in his Twitter account last week that the UN embargo on Iran will expire soon, and he asked the Iranian regime to end its “destabilizing behavior.” He added that the “clock is ticking,” and urged the international community to recognize that it means the Islamic Republic will be able to resume its nuclear weaponization and that its Quds Force (part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps or IRGC) commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani will be able to travel freely again and foment trouble and instability worldwide. Pompeo called upon the western powers to continue their support for sanctions on the Iranian regime.

Pompeo charged Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with inciting violence against Israel on the eve of the ninth of Av, a tragic day for Jews, which commemorates the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem. The Ayatollah Khamenei exhorted Muslim pilgrims to Mecca to take an active part in defeating America’s “deceit,” a reference to the U.S. Middle East Peace Plan, also known as the ‘Deal of the Century.’ 

Pompeo tweeted in response that: “It’s sick that on the eve of Tisha (ninth) B-av, a solemn day for the Jewish people, Khamenei calls for violence against the Jewish state.” Pompeo took issue with Khamenei’s hypocritical positioning of Iran as the champion of the Palestinians. He wrote that Khamenei’s “faux concern” for the Palestinian people runs so deep, that under his reign of terror he provided less than $20,000 in aid since 2008, while the U.S. provided $6.3 billion in support to the Palestinians since 1994.” In another tweet, Pompeo wrote that, “Khamenei doesn’t see “progress” as prosperity for the Palestinian people, but for Palestinian terrorists switching from rocks to rockets to kill more Jews.”

Denmark: How to Deal with Integration? by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14563/denmark-immigration-integration

How does a society deal with religious institutions that profess values which are the very opposite of the value system of the Western society in which they live?

“When I was in high school, there were around 50,000 people with a non-Western background in Denmark. Today, there are almost half a million. In one generation, our country has changed”. — Lars Løkke Rasmussen, then prime minister of Denmark, January 1, 2019.

The Integration Barometer — which measures the degree of assimilation in the municipality among young people with a non-Western background — showed that almost one third of 18-29 year-olds (31%) believe that “religious and cultural laws must be adhered to, even though they may be contrary to [Danish] law”. The issue, then, is whether these young people believe that Islamic sharia law should take precedence over Danish law…. In addition, the number of youths who view democracy in a positive light has fallen from 86% in 2016 to 79% in 2018.

It recently came to light… that a committee under the government’s Ministry of Church Affairs, which is responsible for formally approving mosques in Denmark, has been handing out approvals for them without knowing “whether they [the mosques] were ruled from abroad, whether women’s rights were suppressed, or there were other problematic conditions”. Formal approval of a mosque means that the mosque becomes eligible for tax benefits and is permitted to bring foreign preachers to Denmark on a special visa.

When the association behind the mosque [asked]… to be approved as a religious community, it had in its statutes a provision saying it operated under the supervision of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At first, this news was a matter of concern for the Ministry of Church Affairs, but then Ahlul Bait simply rewrote its statutes and the ministry gave its approval.

Earlier this year, in his New Year’s speech, Denmark’s prime minister at the time, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, mentioned that religious parallel societies constitute a problem and that immigrants need to learn to “put secular laws over religious ones”.

What, however, if, in the community involved, there seems no desire to do that?

“When I was in high school”, Rasmussen continued “there were around 50,000 people with a non-Western background in Denmark. Today, there are almost half a million. In one generation, our country has changed”.

Just how great are the problems was revealed in a recent survey, Integrations Barometer 2018, published by the municipality of Copenhagen. The Integration Barometer — which measures the degree of integration in the municipality among young people with a non-Western background — showed that almost one third of 18-29 year-olds (31%) believe that “religious and cultural laws must be adhered to, even though they may be contrary to [Danish] law”.[1] The issue, then, is whether these young people believe that Islamic sharia law should take precedence over Danish law. The statistic represents an increase from 2016, when a similar survey showed that 24% wanted sharia law. In addition, the number of youths who view democracy in a positive light has fallen from 86% in 2016 to 79% in 2018[2].

Latest Antics from the Israel-Bashing Industry by Andrew Ash

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14753/israel-bashing-industry

Rashida Tlaib had asked to go to “Palestine,” which so far does not exist, on a trip arranged and co-sponsored by a Palestinian not-for-profit organization, Miftah, headed by longtime Israel-antagonist, Hanan Ashrawi. The group is described by Becket Adams in the Washington Examiner as “an exceptionally anti-Semitic group that praises Palestinian terrorists and claims Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover. The organization also publishes Neo-Nazis and calls for the destruction of Israel.” Miftah has also called female suicide bombers heroes.

“I have never felt more Palestinian, than I have felt in Congress”, she defiantly declared to the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights in April 2019. That does seem a bit rich, coming from the same woman who has taken succour in tweeting that Senators who supported a pro-Israel bill “forget what country they represent.”

She simply seems uninterested in any type of protest that does not involve either noisy eviction or arrest, or in which she cannot get attention or be regarded as a victim. It is hard not to wonder what she is doing for her constituents. Is the wish to bash Israel actually what keeps the good voters of Michigan awake at night? And is anti-Semitism now the accepted new face of the Democrat party?

“I have to tell you, we have to understand first, what is the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement? It’s an anti-Semitic, basically genocidal movement that wants to see the end of Israel. So make no mistake, these are not moderates coming to visit Israel. Israel per its 2017 law has a right to prohibit activists, especially those who want to see it wiped off the map, from coming in.” – M. Zuhdi Jasser, Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D- Michigan) decided to pull the plug on the trip to Israel she was due to make, originally with her fellow “Squad” member, Ilhan Omar, after they both were invited on an official congressional trip but declined.

Although both Tlaib, and the equally outspoken Ms Omar, had initially been refused entry because of their radical views promoting the obliteration of Israel by boycotting it, being boycotted back was not part of the plan, it would appear. Tlaib was finally granted permission on “humanitarian grounds”, after an emotive plea to Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, in which she set out her reasons for wanting to visit her Palestinian grandmother in the West Bank.

Gulf States Shrug as India Seizes Kashmir New Delhi is a major trading partner and powerful friend in a dangerous region. By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gulf-states-shrug-as-india-seizes-kashmir-11566255385

The Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed a unique status in predominantly Hindu India for more than 70 years. No more. Both houses of the Indian Parliament have approved legislation to divide Kashmir into two “union territories” and allow non-Kashmiri Indians to move freely into the region, open businesses and buy land. Many Kashmiris fear the result will be a wave of migration that ends any hope of Kashmiri independence or autonomy.

Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India over Kashmir, reacted with rage, but it isn’t getting much support from its purported Muslim allies in the Persian Gulf region. As hundreds of Kashmiri intellectuals, journalists and activists were arrested, and as telephone and internet service to much of the state was cut, Saudi Aramco announced a $15 billion investment in an Indian oil company. On Sunday evening, after stone-throwing crowds confronted security forces in Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the United Arab Emirates next week to receive the country’s highest civilian honor. From the U.A.E., he will travel to Bahrain on the first-ever visit to that country by a sitting Indian prime minister.

Civil libertarians and human-rights activists in India and around the world have condemned the crackdown in Kashmir, but a recent opinion poll found 57% of Indians wanted Kashmir to lose its special status. Sixty-five percent said they thought Mr. Modi could solve the Kashmir problem in five years.