RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273678/palestinian-rocket-terror-against-israel-joseph-klein

Palestinian terrorists fired at least 650 rockets into Israel this past weekend. Although most of the rockets either landed in open fields or were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, the rocket attacks killed at least four Israelis and injured more than 100 others. Israel retaliated with airstrikes against more than 320 key targets that included an attack tunnel, an underground rocket factory, rocket launcher sites and other military facilities used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s second-largest terror group and a proxy of Iran. Israel also went after specific militants, including, the New York Times reported, “a man who the Israeli military said had been responsible for large transfers of cash from Iran to Hamas…”

Moreover, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) appears to be preparing for a possible land war by deploying to the Gaza area on Sunday two reinforcement brigades – the Golani Infantry Brigade and the 7th Armored Brigade. Commenting on the deployment of the 7th Armored Brigade, IDF Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said, “An armoured brigade is ready for various contingencies but earmarked for an offensive mission being by definition a mission that goes inside enemy terrain.” The Golani Brigade is considered one of the IDF’s most highly decorated infantry units and has fought in all of Israel’s wars.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14164/iran-targeting-christians

“In Iran, any practice that contradicts Islam is regarded as a national security threat, punished severely by the court system.” — International Christian Concern, 2019.

“Revolutionary courts were created to guard against all threats to Islam. These courts have evolved into a well-oiled machine of oppres­sion that operates with impunity under state protection. The courts are closely intertwined with the Intelligence Ministry. Judges have at their disposal Revolutionary Guards (secret police) and a network of prisons used to torture and interrogate Christians.” — International Christian Concern.

“If you recant and repent, you’ll go to jail. And if you don’t, you’ll be killed.” — Dr. Mike Ansari from Heart4Iran, an Iranian Christian minister, reported by International Christian Concern.

“Christians may be looking at large fines, detention, lengthy prison sentences, or even execution under Islamic Sharia law. The sentences of Christian converts are left up to the interpretation of the judge and may be founded on anything — the judge’s mood that day, what he had for breakfast, his interpretation of Sharia law, or his level of hatred toward Christianity.” — International Christian Concern.

The daughter of a former pastor in Iran — Dabrina Bet-Tamraz — recently described the persecution and suffering to which her family is being subjected after being sentenced to lengthy prison terms for “crimes” related to Christianity.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14180/iran-two-losers

Forty years after the Islamic Revolution, the clergy-led ruling elite was still behaving like a sect rather than a state, thus preventing Iran from behaving like a normal nation with all its merits and defects.

The fifth and highest stage is that of “statehood,” which becomes possible when society is used to the rule of law regardless of the quality of the law in force, and respects the primacy of state institutions as representations of the public will and interest.

Ruling elites in the Islamic world, including even empire-builders such as the Ottomans and Safavids, progressed through the first four stages described above but never reached the fifth stage, that is to say, the creation of a proper “state” based on the rule of law.

Last November, Westminster University in London organized a seminar with an enticing theme: Is a Plan B for Iran possible?

In its simplest form, the main argument was that 40 years after the Islamic Revolution, the clergy-led ruling elite was still behaving like a sect rather than a state, thus preventing Iran from behaving like a normal nation with all its merits and defects.

In the paper that I presented, I drew on the teachings of several Iranian classical historians, most notably Abul-Fazl Beyhaqi (died in 1077 AD). Tracing the course through which the Ghaznavids, a Turkic warrior tribe, seized power in Iran and established a dynasty, Beyhaqi identifies five stages.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/30/bryen-iranian-cbs

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s appearance over the weekend on CBS’ Face the Nation showed him trying to convince someone — his minders at home, perhaps — that Iran is a moderate, trustworthy, terror-fighting country.

The designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization and the end of oil waivers, he said, would “show the Iranian people that the U.S. is not worthy of being a negotiating partner,” and the Trump administration as “squeezing the Iranian people, not the government.”

He added, “When the Iranian people are pressured, they do not respond with submission, they respond with resistance. They want us to represent them.”

That last one is a dead giveaway that the mullahs are nervous.

https://bit.ly/2VBub5l

“The fertility declines recorded in the Arab world over the past 30 years (1988-2018) have been profound, even revolutionary…The Arab world is in the midst of one of the most dramatic fertility declines in world history….From among the highest to among the lowest [fertility levels] in the world…without major economic development or strong family planning programs….” (Prof. Marcia Inhorn, Yale University, Spring/Summer 2018 issue of The Brown Journal of World Affairs).

This dramatic transformation of Arab/Islamic demography was also documented by American Enterprise Institute’s Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt.

In 2019 – in defiance of conventional wisdom and the demographic establishment – the Westernized Arab fertility, throughout the Middle East, is a byproduct of a dramatic transformation of Arab society:

(a) A radical shift from rural (farming) to urban society has drastically reduced Arab families’ need for manpower, resulting in a much smaller nuclear family.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14135/holiday-massacres-christians

Notably, other Christian holidays, especially Christmas, are also prime times for Islamic terror, and for the same reasons — to make a “point” and because at that time, churches are especially packed.

Commenting on the most recent carnage of Christians — last Easter Sunday’s bombing campaign in Sri Lanka, where more than 250 people were murdered — the country’s archbishop said, “we never expected such a thing to happen and especially on Easter Sunday.”

Sadly, as bombed churches and massacred worshippers during Christian holy days have become the new norm, he and everyone else should expect exactly that.

Although the Islamic terrorist bombings that rocked Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — killing more than 250 people, most in churches — have shocked many, spectacular terrorist attacks on Easter are far more common than supposed.

Jihadi logic is simple: not only do attacks on Christians during their greatest holidays make a symbolic point; but because churches are often packed then — especially Easter, or Resurrection Sunday — they also potentially offer the greatest harvest in casualties.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14168/european-elections-prague

“We are fighting for Europe to remain European, with European values….” — Tomio Okamura, President, Czech Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) and Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies.

“My friends, we are gathered here today to stand up for our freedom and our sovereignty. The most precious things we have. Because without a strong nation state, there is no democracy. And without democracy there are no liberties…. My friends, our countries are strong nations. Based on a Jewish-Christian and humanistic civilization. That should never change. So, we want to control our own borders again. We do not want mass immigration. And we do not want to be invaded by a tyrannical ideology.” — Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV).

“However, my friends, it isn’t easy to leave the EU, as the British have found out. Despite a majority voting for Brexit, the establishment and the EU have colluded to stop us.” — Janice Atkinson, British MEP, who is also Vice Chair of the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) political group in the European Parliament.

“Immigration must be stopped, and the Islamist ideology must be eradicated…. Islamization and globalism are new totalitarianisms that threaten European countries.” — Marine Le Pen, Prague Press Conference.

The leaders of several European nationalist parties campaigned in Prague on April 25, ahead of the European Parliament elections set for May 23-26.The rally was sponsored by the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENF), a pan-European alliance of nine nationalist parties dedicated to stopping mass migration and recovering national sovereignty from the European Union.