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EU’s Collusion with Iran by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14006/eu-collusion-

The main purpose of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) is to ensure that Europe — and potentially third countries — can continue doing business with the mullahs in Iran without risking US penalties for contravening US sanctions.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini seems strongly committed to ensuring that Iran — and Europe — continue receiving economic benefits from the illegal, unsigned, and unratified Iran nuclear deal. Mogherini insisted that Iran is complying with the JCPOA. It is not. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, referring to documents seized by Israel, stated that the nuclear deal was “built on lies” .

No amount of human rights abuses, however atrocious — or terrorism, even against its own citizens; or cheating to acquire deliverable nuclear capability to unleash on Israel, the US and eventually threaten the entire West — will, it seems, deter the EU from its criminal collusion with Iran. Europe seems determined to wade into its own destruction with its eyes wide open.

On January 31, Britain, France and Germany announced a new payment mechanism known as the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). It was designed to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, after the US left the deal in May 2018 and reinstated — as well as broadened — US sanctions on the country in November 2018. The main purpose of INSTEX is to ensure that Europe — and potentially third countries – can continue doing business with the mullahs in Iran without risking US penalties for contravening US sanctions.

“INSTEX will support legitimate European trade with Iran, focusing initially on the sectors most essential to the Iranian population — such as pharmaceutical, medical devices and agri-food goods,” the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France said in a joint statement. In the longer term, INSTEX aims to be open to other countries wanting to trade with Iran, the statement said. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, said INSTEX was “essential for the continued full implementation of the nuclear deal”.

The BDS Movement Is a Cleverly Disguised Campaign to Destroy Israel By Alex Titus & Alexander Khan

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/the-bds-movement-is-a-cleverly-disguised-campaign-to-destroy-israel/

Don’t be fooled by talk of ‘social justice’ and ‘human rights.’ The movement is anti-Semitic to its core.

Outrage ensued on social media and university campuses across America this past week when it was reported that the U.S. government had denied prominent Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti entry into the country. Barghouti had planned to come to the U.S. to promote the highly controversial Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement he co-founded.

BDS supporters claim that they want to put economic pressure on Israel to reach agreement on a peaceful and fair solution to its conflict with the Palestinians, and their message has found increasing traction in the U.S. The controversial Democratic representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have lent the movement high-profile support. The New York Times Magazine recently published a pro-BDS cover story written by a highly controversial political journalist. Altogether, 31 universities have passed BDS measures since 2015, and, since 2005, 127 such measures have been considered.

The truth is that many of the students and activists who support the movement have been duped into thinking they’re supporting a noble cause. In fact, BDS is little more than a ploy established and run by radical anti-Semites who deny Israel’s right to exist and seek to destroy it.

Peter Smith Brexit: Brexit-Crashing Out is the Only Exit

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/peter-smith/2019/04/brexit-crashing-out-is-the-only-exit/

Is Brexit a mystery to you? Let me say that it is complete mystery to my relatives and a couple of friends that I have in Liverpool here in the UK, where I have been for the past week or so. For my part, I have immersed myself in quality newspapers in order to see more light. Also, I approached two middle-aged chaps in the pub where I am staying. Unlike others I have spoken to, they were up with events and I could hardly stop them talking. They were both Leavers and now of conservative mindsets, though one said he used to be a Labour man.

As knowledgeable as they were, they both explained that the deal Mrs May has come up with is unclear to them; as, it became evident, is the so-called “Backstop.” I mention that because of a view among many in the Labour Party, and some in the Conservative Party, that a new referendum is the way to go. The options I have heard about would be three. Remain, leave with no deal, or leave with Mrs May’s deal.

I am not sure what would happen if the vote were to be split without any proposal getting 50 percent. Like so much of what I have heard it is nonsense. People in the cities, towns and countryside are simply not equipped to make finely-tuned decisions on complex deals struck in backrooms in Whitehall and Brussels.

The referendum’s options was clear: Leave or Remain. Leave won and the three-quarters of the British parliamentarians who wanted Remain to get up have worked assiduously to subvert the process of leaving. Blame is directed to Mrs May for coming up with her “bad deal,” but the two chaps I spoke to were inclined to blame the BBC, which one called the ABBC (the Anti-British Broadcasting Corporation), and which he said had run an unremitting campaign to undermine the result of the referendum. Half a world away from the ABC, it made me feel at home.

As I write, Mrs May has just returned from Brussels with an extension of time. Six months has been graciously given by Macron, Merkel and company. She wanted a shorter period (to 1 June). They wanted until the end of the year. The compromise pleases no-one, least of all Brexiteers who fear delay much beyond the upcoming May 23 European elections is code for Remain.

Mrs May is holding talks with Jeremy Corbyn, much to the chagrin of Tory Brexiteers.

What Happens to Palestinians Who Demand a Better Life? by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14057/hamas-gaza-protests-torture

Mohammed Safi is reported to have lost his eyesight while being held in a Hamas prison. His crime: participation in demonstrations calling for an end to the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip and protesting new taxes imposed by the Hamas rulers.

“The interrogator hit him in the head from behind three times and told him: ‘This is so you won’t be able to see at all.'” — Ahmed Safi, Mohammed Safi’s brother.

Safi simply sought to communicate that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living under a brutal Islamist regime that has offered them nothing but terror — directed towards Israel and towards themselves. He wanted the world to know that Palestinian leaders deflect the heat on the Palestinian street towards Israel.

Safi chose to speak truth to power and place the misery of the Palestinians in Gaza squarely where it belongs: at the feet of Hamas. He paid dearly for that choice. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders can now claim another “achievement” in their jihad against Israel: they managed to transform a clear-headed and courageous young man into a blind and disabled one.

Mohammed Safi, 27, is the latest victim of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that has been controlling the Gaza Strip since 2007.

While voters in Israel were heading to the ballot boxes to elect a new parliament, Safi, who is from the town of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, is reported to have lost his eyesight while being held in a Hamas prison. His crime: participation in demonstrations calling for an end to the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip and protesting new taxes imposed by the Hamas rulers.

PAKISTAN: WOMEN BARRED FROM CONFERENCE ON WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Imam Mohamad Tawhidi (@Imamofpeace)
4/9/19, 6:29 PM
Conference on Women Empowerment in Pakistan, but the women have to stay at home. pic.twitter.com/16XHQDr6e0

Europe’s New Beggars written by Johan Wennström

https://quillette.com/2019/04/10/europes-new-beggars/

Recently my wife and I walked along the fashionable shopping street Avenue Montaigne, situated between Place de l’Alma and Champs Elysées in one of the most affluent Parisian districts. Passing the elegant window fronts of Chanel, Givenchy, Jimmy Choo, Luis Vuitton, Prada, Valentino, and YSL, we noticed a woman and child half-lying on the pavement in tattered clothes, appealing to passersby for money. While it was a particularly appalling sight in this prosperous setting, it was not an anomaly in the urban fabric of Paris. Such expressions of extreme poverty and deprivation have, in fact, become sadly familiar features of most Western European cities of late.

Indeed, as a result of the European Union’s eastward expansion during the previous decade, and the principle of free movement of persons within the E.U., thousands of rough sleepers, mostly ethnic Roma from the ex-socialist countries Bulgaria and Romania, have arrived in the streets, parks, and playgrounds of the E.U.-15 countries.

Contrary to the purpose of free movement, most have not come to work or study, but to beg in the most abject manners. France is perhaps the most notorious country for child begging in Western Europe, but even in more child-friendly societies in Scandinavia, we see children of 13 and younger being used for begging by adult family members. Other beggars display, or, more often, simulate, physical disabilities to evoke compassion. For instance, a beggar encountered in Hamburg by the German Der Spiegel magazine “learned how to be a good beggar on his first day in Germany. […] At the beginning of his lesson, he was told to put on two old sweaters and was given a blue crutch so that he could practice walking with it. He would throw his left leg further forward than his right, causing his hips to buckle as he stumbled across the grass.” Depressingly, the same feigned convulsing can be observed in Barcelona, Rome, and almost any other Western European city.

The Craven Pile-On of Hollow Conservatives by Mark Steyn

https://www.steynonline.com/9295/the-craven-pile-on-of-hollow-conservatives

The real problem, in America, Britain, Canada, Oz, NZ, is not the left, who know what they want and are serious about getting it, but the pansy right. It’s easy to mock AOC and Justin and Jacinta Ardern, but all they’re doing is sailing full steam ahead for their desired utopia. The right, who profess to disdain the final destination, nevertheless follow along, albeit at a more desultory rate of knots.

We see this routinely in their urge to “distance” themselves: In Washington, as I mentioned the other day, House Republicans ostentatiously distanced themselves from their colleague Steve King, because in an ill-advised interview with The New York Times he appeared to endorse “white supremacist” concepts such as “western civilization”. For some of us, it’s hard to see the point of a conservatism that distances itself from western civilization.

The same fate has now befallen the most thoughtful and serious of living conservative philosophers, Roger Scruton. I have a modest acquaintance with Sir Roger, both personal (he’s married to a friend of a friend) and professional: We once appeared in a debate moderated by none other than Margaret Thatcher. Mrs T obviously adored Roger and reckoned I was there just for the cheap laughs.

But that was then, and this is Theresa May’s Tory Party. So Roger Scruton gave an interview to The New Statesman, which is left-wing but once employed him as its wine critic. But that was then, etc. At the new New Statesman he fell into the hands of one of those lefties whose goal in the interview is to talk to you for two hours and then pluck three partial quotes uttered twenty-five minutes apart that destroy your career and get you banished from public life. In this case, it was various Scrutonisms on China, Islam, Hungary and homosexuality, all of which are worth thinking about seriously.

100 Anti-Semitic Incidents by Muslims in Germany in 2017 Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273452/100-anti-semitic-incidents-muslims-germany-2017-daniel-greenfield

These numbers don’t sound all that high, but there aren’t that many Jews in Germany. For obvious reasons. Much of Germany’s Jewish population consists of Russian immigrants, many of them non-Jewish, but who found it convenient to move to a wealthier country. The actual number of Jews, measured by community affiliation, is much smaller than the 100,000 statistic that has often been quoted. It’s some tens of thousands. The Muslim population is far larger and proving to be more aggressive.

In a major break with the past, the German agency for domestic security — Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz — has published a 40-page report whose title translates as “Antisemitism in Islamism.” The report defines Islamism as a form of political extremism among Muslims that wants to eliminate democracy, and where antisemitism is an essential ideological element…

The study concludes that the more than 100 antisemitic incidents officially caused by Muslims in 2017 are most likely only the tip of the iceberg. Due to the importance of the government agency that has published this report, Muslim antisemitism in Germany has now finally been officially detailed to the public. This has been lacking for far too long.

No doubt they are.

But the numbers are still quite high considering that the number of Jews is small, and while there is a large Muslim population, it’s still a fraction of the overall German population.

Quick Thoughts on Assange Arrest By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/julian-assange-arrest-quick-thoughts/

Here are a few things we know, and a few to think about, with respect to the arrest of Julian Assange by British police in London.

Assange wore out his welcome with Ecuador, which hosted him for seven years.

The Brits have a comparatively minor charge against him: essentially bail jumping in 2012, when he failed to appear as directed to a court in Westminster. That was during the time when he was trying to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Those charges have been dropped, although Swedish authorities could revive them. The fact that the underlying charges are no longer in effect is not a defense to jumping bail. Still, it makes the offense appear more minor.

Consequently, the driving force of today’s arrest seems to be an American effort to have Assange extradited. The Washington Post is now reporting that, in 2017, the Justice Department charged Assange in a sealed indictment with conspiring to publish classified U.S. documents — specifically, conspiring in 2010 with then-Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, among others.

The Metropolitan police in London have acknowledged that Assange’s arrest is based, in part, on U.S. extradition request. Even our British ally will not extradite people to the United States unless charges have been filed.

Last year, in a court in the U.S. district court in Alexandria, the Justice Department accidentally filed an application to seal a criminal complaint. It was not Assange’s case, but the prosecutor obviously cut and pasted from a similar motion that had been filed in a case involving Assange, and had failed to take out Assange’s name.

It is customary to file an arrest complaint under seal if the person charged is not in custody. An arrest warrant is issued, and the complaint is unsealed when the person is arrested and is presented in court. The sealing, obviously, is done to discourage flight and the destruction of evidence — though it would not have much effect in the case of Assange, who was already in flight and well aware that the U.S. Justice Department was trying to make a case on him.

Julian Assange faces a year in British jail after dramatic arrest at Ecuadorian Embassy – as US demand we hand him over The WikiLeaks founder, 47, has been holed up in the embassy since 2012 and was dragged out this morning

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8839586/julian-assange-wink-thumbs-up-arrest-embassy/
“NARCISSIST” Julian Assange faces a year in British jail after his dramatic arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy ended seven years in hiding today.

The bearded WikiLeaks founder has spent 2,487 days holed up in the embassy to avoid Swedish sex claims and US authorities, who want him over an alleged conspiracy with whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Julian Assange winked and gave a thumbs up from the police van as he arrived at court following the dramatic arrest this morning.

The 47-year-old was blasted a “narcissist who can’t get beyond his own self interest” as he was found guilty this afternoon of skipping bail in 2012 – relating to his time at the embassy.He now faces a battle against extradition to America where he was today charged in his absence with “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the US”.