RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274333/deutschland-%C3%BCber-alles-bruce-bawer

No sane person could have witnessed the coronation this week of the new grand poobah of the European Union without recognizing just how utterly undemocratic – and dangerous – this institution is.

Her name is Ursula von der Leyen, a name that instantly communicates two important facts: (1) she is German; (2) she is a member of a hereditary elite.

To be sure, the “von” is courtesy of her husband, who belongs to an aristocratic family. But her own blood also runs blue. In addition to having a tony Teutonic lineage – she was born into the patrician Albrecht clan – she’s descended from a couple of the biggest slave traders in the American South. Her grandfather, Carl Albrecht, was a psychologist famous for his studies of “mystical consciousness.” Her father, Ernst Albrecht, was one of the very first bureaucrats to tread the corridors of power in what would later become the European Union 

Raised in Belgium, von der Leyen studied in Germany and Britain, and lived for a while in the U.S., along the way picking up degrees in economics and public health and also becoming a gynecologist. But she eventually settled on politics, hitching her wagon to Angela Merkel and climbing the ladder of power in Germany, getting herself elected to the Bundestag and serving in turn as Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth; Minister of Labor and Social Affairs; and Minister of Defense. In the last-named position, she didn’t exactly cover herself in glory: as President Trump has pointed out, Germany has consistently failed to pull its weight in NATO; British journalist Andrew Neil recently referred to her as a “failed” Defense Minister and as “the second most unpopular politician in Germany.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14571/iran-eu-mullahs-friends

Despite these attacks, and attempted attacks, the EU, despite its ceaseless moral sanctimony, continues to soften its tone toward Iran, presumably out of a zeal for doing business even with a country designated the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

The more the EU appeases the Iranian government, the more it empowers it to pursue aggressive and terrorist activities.

The EU needs to stop appeasing the ruling mullahs of Iran who are consistently engaged in terror activities in Europe, and join its old transatlantic partner, the US, in putting even more pressure on Iran’s fundamentalist government.

The extent to which the European Union is willing to go in order to appease the ruling mullahs of Iran, is unfathomable. To witness the EU siding with the fundamentalist government of Iran rather than backing its old transatlantic partner, the United States, is a shock.

Since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the flawed agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) , Iran’s leaders have been consistently pushing for Europe to do more to appease them; more than it is capable of delivering.

First, the EU came up with a mechanism called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Its purpose was to shield the Iranian government from economic sanctions, in order to assist its ruling clerics — and Europe — in gaining more revenues.

Then, Iran became more aggressive and breached the 300kg limit on enriched uranium, among several other malign actions (here, here and here). The increased level of enrichment was a blatant violation of Iran’s agreement and contrary to the shared international desire — except for Iran’s ayatollahs — to de-escalate regional tensions.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14573/persecution-christians-may-2019

“The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused.” So “they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead.” — World Watch Monitor, Burkina Faso, May 2, 2019.

“When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say ‘We are all Christians’?” — Rev. Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, in an address delivered in London.

” [A] new form of persecution is on the rise—Christian girls are being targeted by Muslim men… Influential leaders are literally training young men to target Christian girls to impregnate them”… “[T]hey’re forced into marrying that daughter into a Muslim family…. Once girls are married into the Muslim families, they’re often cut off from or abandoned by their families and they face even more difficult circumstances. In some cases, girls are the second or third wife of their persecutor and they have few freedoms.” — Mission Network News; Lindsey Steele; May 22, 2019. — Indonesia.

“The mob began shouting outside our home asking for our family to exit our home and receive divine retribution for our sin. It did not seem very divine—we just saw raging evil violent people ready to kill us.” — British Pakistani Christian Association; May 21, 2019 — Pakistan.

The Slaughter of Christians

Burkina Faso: A number of fatal Islamic terror attacks on Christians and their churches took place or were reported in May:

On Sunday 26 May, armed Muslims stormed a Catholic church during mass and opened fire on the gathered worshippers; four were killed and several others injured. killing four and injuring others.
On May 13, armed Muslims attacked a Catholic procession, slaughtered four Christians and “burned a statue of the Virgin Mary.”
On May 12, approximately 30 armed Muslims stormed a Catholic church, slaughtered at least six worshippers—including the officiating priest—and then burned the church to the ground.
On Sunday, April 28, Islamic terrorists stormed a Protestant church and killed six worshippers, including the 80-year-old pastor and his two sons. According to a local, “The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused.” So “they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead.”
On April 5, Islamic gunmen entered a Catholic church and murdered four Christians.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14554/europe-get-over-iran-deal

Yet, while Iran shows no sign of scaling down its aggressive stance towards the US and its allies in the region, Europe continues to cling to the wreckage of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to give the nuclear deal its proper name, in the misguided belief that the deal remains the best means of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The determination of the Europeans to stick with the nuclear deal at all costs was very much in evidence earlier this week during a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels at which they came up with the decidedly bogus notion that Iran’s breaches of the 2015 nuclear deal were not significant and therefore did not require the Europeans to withdraw from the JCPOA.

Europe’s insistence on sticking with the nuclear deal, and its refusal to support Washington’s attempts to provide naval protection for international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, could ultimately prove self-defeating.

Europe is far more dependent on energy supplies from the Gulf than the US, and any further attempts by Iran to disrupt oil and gas supplies from the Gulf would have catastrophic consequences for Europe’s economy.

With tensions rising in the Gulf by the day as a result of Iran’s increasingly provocative conduct, the refusal of the major European powers to back the Trump administration’s determination to confront Iran is looking increasingly untenable.

In the past few months Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks on oil tankers operating in the Gulf, and forced a British Royal Navy warship to intervene when a number of fast patrol boats operated by the naval division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attempted to harass a British-owned tanker sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, the main shipping route into the oil-rich Gulf.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boris-johnsons-iran-test-11563741151

Boris Johnson is expected to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom this week with a mandate to deliver Brexit. But before he can even say Brussels, the new leader will confront an international crisis started by Iran. This is an opportunity for Mr. Johnson to display independence and strength while nudging Europe toward a new approach to the Islamic Republic.

On Friday Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized a British-flagged oil tanker and its 23 crew members in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians claimed to board the ship for “security reasons” but this was clearly retaliation.

The British recently impounded an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar because the ship was suspected of bringing oil to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. The Brits have offered to release the ship as long as it won’t go to Syria, but Iran refuses anything but an unconditional release.

“Unlike the piracy in the Strait of Gibraltar, our action in the Persian Gulf is to uphold int’l maritime rules,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted on Saturday. “UK must cease being an accessory to #EconomicTerrorism of the US.” Mr. Zarif is trolling, but his reaction suggests the Trump Administration’s maximum-pressure campaign against the regime is working.

President Trump left the nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action last year not to start a war but to build leverage for new negotiations. Mr. Zarif outmaneuvered John Kerry and got a sweetheart deal in 2015 that allowed the regime to regain its economic strength while temporarily putting its nuclear ambitions on hold. Rather than address Iran’s malign regional behavior, the agreement left Tehran with more cash to finance terrorism and other aggression.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14551/germany-middle-eastern-spies

The report, considered the most important indicator of internal security in Germany, draws a bleak picture and raises questions about the government’s apparent passivity in face of mounting threats…. Meanwhile, the Erdoğan-aligned Islamist movement Millî Görüş (Turkish for “National Vision”), which has around 10,000 members in Germany, is the second-largest Islamist group in the country (the Salafist movement is now the largest Islamist grouping in Germany). Millî Görüş is strongly opposed to Muslim integration into European society.

“The BfV has found that all Islamist organizations active in Germany harbor anti-Semitic ideas and disseminate them in various ways. These ideas represent a considerable challenge for peaceful and tolerant coexistence in Germany.” — Annual report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), 2019

“The goal of HAMAS is the establishment of an Islamist state in the entire territory of ‘Palestine’ — also through armed struggle. A strategy paper written in 2017 states: ‘Resistance to occupation by all means is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws. At the heart of it lies the armed resistance.’ By ‘Palestine’ HAMAS means the area between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan, which also includes the territory of the State of Israel. Western countries such as Germany are seen by HAMAS as a haven where the organization focuses on collecting donations, recruiting new supporters, and propagating its propaganda.” — Annual report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), 2019

The BfV noted a “high number” of attempts by “covert Pakistani procurement structures” illegally to obtain technology for use in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The BfV also observed a “significant increase” in attempts by Iran to obtain technology for its missile program, which was not part of the Iran nuclear deal. The BfV reported that Syrian intermediaries were also continuing efforts to obtain products for weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons.

Foreign intelligence services, especially those from Turkey, Syria and Iran, have increased their activities in Germany during the past 12 months, according to Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency. The foreign intelligence services are not only pursuing dissidents among the large diasporas in Germany, they are also targeting Jewish and Israeli interests in the country.

At the same time, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be operating with impunity in Germany, while, according to the BfV, the number of Salafists in the country has tripled in recent years and now exceeds 11,000. Overall, the BfV estimates that Germany is home to more than 26,000 Islamists, an unknown number of whom pose an immediate threat of attack.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14550/argentina-counterterrorism-hezbollah

Argentine President Mauricio Macri is taking a historic step and preparing to officially designate Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in Argentina, the first designation of its kind in Latin America.

Hezbollah, Lebanon’s “Party of God,” is first and foremost the primary terrorist proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. By calling and legally designating them for what they are — a foreign terrorist group — Argentine officials can now begin to anticipate Hezbollah’s actions by communicating with more than 57 nations worldwide in the same counterterrorism language.

The purpose of anti-terrorism is to anticipate terrorist actions in order to neutralize them. It is hopeless to wait until an attack takes place and then take action. By designating Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization President Macri is leading Latin America in the global fight against Islamist terrorism. In doing so, he is also honoring the memory of the 85 Argentines who died in the 1994 AMIA attack and reminding us all that Iran and Hezbollah are very much a global threat.

This week we honor the 85 victims of the largest Islamist terrorist attack in Latin America’s history: the bombing the Asociación Mutual Isrealita Argentina (AMIA) on July 18, 1994. Twenty-five years have passed since the morning when a Renault van packed with 300 kilograms of explosives detonated in front of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It took more than a decade — until 2006 — for the Argentine government to formally charge the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terror-proxy, Hezbollah, for carrying out the attack. Now, 13 years after that, Argentine President Mauricio Macri is taking a historic step and preparing to officially designate Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in Argentina, the first designation of its kind in Latin America.

The significance of this executive action in Argentina cannot be understated. President Macri and his national security team have done what was once seen as politically impossible in Latin America — to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization — and make it politically possible.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-taliban-smell-blood-11563318903

Even when the Taliban talk peace, they make war. Discussions in Doha, Qatar, have not stopped their attacks in Afghanistan. One killed a U.S. serviceman Saturday. A July 7 car bomb killed at least 14 people and wounded more than 180, including scores of children. This talk-and-shoot approach reflects the Taliban’s belief that the talks concern only the orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. That won’t do. The U.S. should now suspend talks with the Taliban to drive home the point that peace, not simply withdrawal, is America’s goal.

The two sides seem to have been working at cross-purposes since the negotiations began last October. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan reconciliation, described the goal of his first meeting with Taliban representatives as exploring the prospect of “a peaceful Afghanistan where all Afghans see themselves included.” The Taliban insisted in their statement that the talks were about “the end of occupation and a peaceful resolution for the Afghan issue.”

After eight rounds of direct talks, and several side meetings aimed at facilitating dialogue among Afghan political factions, the Taliban’s stance on the scope of discussions remains the same.

The head of the Taliban delegation to Doha, Abbas Stanikzai, explained last week that “there is no word of reducing violence.” He argued that the Taliban’s actions could not even be described as violence, since they were part of “a fight against foreign occupation.” In May, when Mr. Khalilzad publicly broached the subject of halting the violence, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid snapped back with tweets describing the idea of the insurgents putting down arms as “fantasies.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274319/muslim-who-killed-jewish-woman-after-shouting-daniel-greenfield

It’s easy to characterize this as anti-Semitism.

But there’s a raft of Muslim terrorists in Europe who were passed off as mentally ill because they’d used drugs. It’s a strange counterpart to the “low IQ due to lead poisoning” strategy that a bunch of defense lawyers have seized on recently in the United States.

I wrote about the Halimi case two years ago. From the very beginning, even before she was murdered, French authorities chose not to act against the Muslim killer of an elderly Jewish woman. Since then, there has been the usual round of obstructionism and legal hopscotch.

The 66-year-old director of an Orthodox Jewish nursery was woken from her sleep when she was violently beaten by her twenty something Muslim neighbor who then dragged her to the window.

Yonathan Halimi, Sarah Lucy’s son, describes the killer’s family as being known for its anti-Semitism. “One day, one of the killer’s sisters pushed my sister down the stairs, and the next time she called her a dirty Jew,” he described. Sarah’s brother said that the killer called Sarah and her daughter, “dirty Jews”.

On the day before Passover Eve, a thousand Jews gathered outside the building where the latest Halimi was murdered. As they memorialized Sarah Lucy Halimi, the colorful and multicultural settlers of this portion of occupied Paris, greeted them with thrown bottles and shouts of, “Dirty Jews”.