RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-cracks-down-in-asias-once-freest-city-11556750356

For most of my life I have advocated change in the world’s most closed, repressive nation: North Korea. As a South Korean, my priority has been peace and freedom on the peninsula I call home. But I cannot ignore the erosion of freedom in what was once one of Asia’s freest cities: Hong Kong.

There used to be parallels between South Korea and Hong Kong. Both are economic “tigers,” with basic freedoms and an openness to the world, living in the shadow of authoritarian regimes to the north.

But now there is a divergence, as Hong Kong is being subsumed into Xi Jinping’s China in the midst of its worst crackdown on human rights since the Tiananmen Square massacre 30 years ago.

Last week Hong Kong authorities handed prison sentences to nine leaders of the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. This is merely the latest alarming example of suppression in the city, in which civil rights are steadily declining.

To be sure, Hong Kong cannot be compared to totalitarian North Korea. Though Hong Kongers are denied universal suffrage, there is still some freedom of expression and a generally fair legal system. Since Britain handed over control to China in 1997, Hong Kong has functioned under the principle of “one country, two systems” with a high degree of autonomy. It was for years the only place in China where people could demonstrate, speak out in the press, or criticize the government without fear of arrest. All that is now in jeopardy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273581/germanys-hypocrisy-israel-joseph-puder

On May 2, 2019, Israel will observe Holocaust Remembrance Day. It would be a good time to re-examine the Jewish state’s relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, formerly Nazi Germany, a nation that perpetrated the greatest crime in history against Europe’s Jews, known as the Holocaust. Naturally, many Germans wish the memory of the Holocaust and its German perpetrators to go away and be forgotten. Young Germans do not wish to carry the burden of guilt for the most heinous crime in modern history.

Monetary reparation paid by the Germans to Holocaust survivors for the stolen properties of European Jews notwithstanding, reality today is that Berlin has not done more than lip service to “solidarity with Israel” and its claims of “Israel’s security being Germany’s raison d’état.” Germany has been a major contributor to anti-Israel resolutions at the UN General Assembly and other UN agencies. Germany moreover, has aided and abetted the genocidal Islamic Republic of Iran in evading U.S. sanctions.  Germany’s non-governmental agencies (NGO’s) supported by the German government fund various anti-Israel groups in the Palestinian Authority and in Israel itself.

According to the Gatestone Institute, Chancellor Angela Merkel has pressured other European Union states to refrain from moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital – Jerusalem. Merkel not only rejected the Trump administration’s move to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, she has authorized the allotment of $100 million to the Palestinian Authority’s allocated budget of $300 million, for payment to Palestinian terrorists to kill Jews.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14166/hong-kong-dark-days

The continued defiance of Hong Kong’s people in the face of Chinese repression is inspiring resistance in Taiwan.

“In the early 1980s the ‘one country, two systems’ concept was created for Taiwan, not for Hong Kong,” said Ma Ying-jeou to Al Jazeera when he was Taiwan’s president in September 2014. “But Taiwan has sent a clear message that we do not accept the concept.”

Xi Jinping, the current Chinese ruler, once held the Hong Kong portfolio in the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. He certainly knows that one of the signs of Chinese regime failure is trouble on the periphery, and he is determined that the open defiance in Hong Kong does not spread to other areas far from the center of Chinese power. Xi has no effective response to Hong Kong, however.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Hong Kong on Sunday to protest planned changes to the city’s extradition law. Many believe new rules facilitating the sending of suspects to China would effectively allow Beijing to grab people at will and thereby completely control the city. “You will be screwed,” said a marcher, a law clerk, to Reuters.

The turnout was high — organizers said 130,000 people took part — in part because the demonstration followed the sentencing of democracy activists for their role in the massive “Occupy Central” protests in 2014. On Wednesday, a lower court handed out prison terms of between eight to 16 months to four of the “Umbrella Nine.” Three others received suspended sentences. One person was given 200 hours of community service.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14163/turkey-armenian-genocide-anniversary

It is estimated that between one and one and a half million Armenians perished.

The government-funded Turkish Institute of History just announced that it is preparing to publish 25 volumes “refuting Turkey’s involvement” in the Armenian Genocide.

“[I]t’s obvious that the recognition and condemnation of genocides are the most effective tools for the prevention of new genocides.” — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, February 13, 2019, ArmenPress.com

April 24 marked the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey. It was on this date in 1915 that Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were arrested in Constantinople and later murdered. It is estimated that between one and one and a half million Armenians perished.

Since then, Turkish authorities have aggressively denied that the genocide even took place, or that Turks carried it out, and penalized those who dare to assert otherwise.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14118/erdogan-friendless

In reality, with the exception of Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Venezuela’s troubled man, Nicolás Maduro, Erdoğan is increasingly friendless.

China’s ambassador to Ankara, Deng Li, diplomatically showed Turkey the most frightening stick. Deng told Reuters: “If you choose a non-constructive path, it will negatively affect mutual trust and understanding and will be reflected in commercial and economic relations.”

It was a shock to the Turkish president to wake up the other day and learn that the genocide suspect whom he embraced as “brother”, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, had been ousted by a coup d’état.

“World leaders hail Erdoğan on local vote win,” the news headline ran, referring to the outcome of Turkey’s local elections on March 31. They laboriously ignored that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist AKP party lost in all of Turkey’s three biggest cities — and for the first time in 25 years in Ankara and Istanbul. They were nevertheless able to find one element to hail regarding Turkey’s strongman. But, “world leaders?”

Here is the full list: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Chairman Milorad Dodik, former Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic, Guinean President Alpha Conde, and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14162/finland-iran

Just a little more than ten years ago, Finland’s flagship telecommunications company, Nokia, was found to have sold to Tehran surveillance technology, which was used a year later to suppress dissident demonstrators’ use of social media.

“[T]here are two documented instances where [the Finnish company] Cargotec-tied cranes have been used for public executions.” — United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) press release.

How Finland behaves today is eerily reminiscent of its behavior with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During that time, Finnish politicians, academics and journalists practiced self-censorship. They knew whom not to talk about, let alone criticize. Today it is criticism of Islam that is aggressively prosecuted under the guise of combating “hate-speech” or “disparaging of religious groups”. It is the same M.O., just a different place and time.

There is a special saying in Finland describing a person’s naïvety: it is called being “blue-eyed”. Unfortunately, there is not a saying that describes the same trait for an entire political class.

Successive Finnish governments could be accurately described as extremely “blue-eyed,” especially during the last decade or so in their relations with Iran.

Part of the problem seems to lie with Finnish politicians, who seem truly to believe that having a dialogue — any dialogue — regardless of who is on the opposite side of the table, is better than having no dialogue at all. So you can easily end up with the equivalent of a businessman trying to reach an agreement with Al Capone, while each holds completely different assumptions about the underlying terms of an agreement, including whether agreements are even meant to be kept.