RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272477/targeting-hege-storhaug-bruce-bawer

On December 19, I wrote here about my friend Hege Storhaug, whose 2015 book, a bestseller in her native Norway, is now available in English under the title Islam: Europe Invaded, America Warned. In an article that appeared on January 3, I noted that prosecutions for anti-Islam “hate speech” are on the rise in Western Europe – but that Norway, at least, is not racking up the convictions fast enough to suit the United Nations. At a December meeting in Geneva, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination charged Norwegian authorities with failing to tighten the screws sufficiently on people who dare to think that freedom of speech means freedom to offend Muslims.

Well, here we go. On January 6, Hege announced at the website of her organization, Human Rights Service, that she and her Islam book have been reported to that selfsame committee, which has been asked to demand of the Norwegian government that Hege be investigated and punished. In my January 3 article, I mentioned that the committee had been dissatisfied with Norway’s failure to prosecute “high-profile cases of hate speech.” Well, when it comes to dragging people into court for criticizing Islam, Hege is as high-profile a target as you could find in the whole country. Not only was her book a massive bestseller, but because of her participation in TV debates and radio interviews her face and voice are familiar to everyone in Norway. To many Norwegians she is a hero, and to many others – those who are determined to silence any negative commentary about Islam – she is the nation’s most prominent voice of hate.

Who is it, exactly, that has reported Hege to the UN? Well, the report in which she was fingered, which is known as a “shadow report” and which is supposed to represent the views of Norwegian civil society, was sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion. Like all of the Norwegian ministries, this one is under the control of the so-called “blue-green” (i.e. non-socialist) government, which has employed Hege’s organization, Human Rights Service as a consultant on immigration and integration issues. The government, moreover, is a coalition of the Conservative, Liberal, and Progress parties, the latter of which is known primarily for its own criticism of Islamic immigration. Very odd.

Less odd is the fact that the report to the UN was prepared by a representative of the Norwegian Centre against Racism (Antirasistisk senter, or ARS). No surprise there: ARS, which is lavishly funded by the Norwegian government, exists primarily to whitewash Islam and smear its critics. A few years back, when he was an official at ARS, Shoaib Sultan, who is now a Green Party politician, notoriously refused to condemn the Islamic death penalty for gays, and ARS let him get away with it. That’s the kind of outfit ARS is.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13513/britain-multiculturalism-transformation-ii

Not a single Christian was among the 1,112 Syrian refugees resettled in Britain in the first three months of 2018. The Home Office agreed to resettle only Muslims and rejected the four Christians recommended by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees — The Sunday Times.

Islamist groups are “weaponizing” Islamophobia and “cynically” using human rights to promote their ideology. Islamist groups accuse their critics of being anti-Muslim, in an attempt to shut down “legitimate debate” about Islamic extremism. The “use and abuse” of the language of human rights is “perhaps the most concerning” tactic employed by fundamentalist groups — Sara Khan, the UK government’s new counter-extremism tsar.

Women and girls who are coerced into marriage by their families will be allowed to give evidence in secret so they can object to their foreign spouses’ visas without fear of repercussions, according to legal changes announced by UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

JULY 2018

July 1. Mubarek Ali, a 35-year-old former ringleader of a Telford child sex abuse gang, was sent back to prison after breaching the terms of his parole. In 2012, Ali was sentenced to 22 years in prison for child prostitution offenses, but was automatically released in 2017 after serving only five years. Telford MP Lucy Allan said there are “many questions to be answered” about why Ali was released, and also about how the justice system treats so-called grooming cases:

“Now he is back in jail, justice demands that he must serve the remainder of his sentence in custody; anything less would show a casual disregard for the nature of his crimes and for the victims whose lives he changed forever.”

July 2. Abdul Rauf, a 51-year-old imam from Rochdale, was imprisoned for one year and five months after admitting to assaulting more than 20 children at a mosque. Inspector Phil Key, of Greater Manchester Police, said:

“Abdul Rauf is a nasty, bully of a man who beat the children in his classes until it became normalized. The children were left cowering and holding onto their ears, their arms and their legs after he repeatedly used violence as a punishment. The parents of the children had no idea that they were leaving their children in the care of a man who would leave them writhing in pain and covered in marks and bruises.”

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Unkosher-ban-576528
There seems to be a contradiction between the guarantee of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe and the new bans on kosher slaughter.

Last week, a new law went into effect in Flanders, the northern region of Belgium, banning shechita, kosher slaughter. A similar law will go into effect in southern region of Wallonia in September, covering the entire country.

The law states that animals must be stunned before slaughter. Jewish law stipulates that meat can only be kosher if the animal was healthy before being slaughtered, and stunning constitutes an injury rendering the meat no longer kosher. The law also in effect bans on slaughter according to Islamic law, as well as the Hindu and Sikh methods of meat production.
Antwerp, in Flanders, is home to Europe’s largest Orthodox Jewish community, which will now have to import its meat from countries that have not yet banned shechita. Neighboring France, home to Europe’s largest – but dwindling – Jewish population, will likely experience a boom in its kosher businesses.

The impact of the Belgian kosher ban will go far beyond its local Jewish communities. Swedish journalist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein took to social media last week to lament that she can no longer have meat shipped in from her usual source: “I’m looking for a new kosher butcher/supermarket that delivers to Sweden,” she tweeted, calling herself “a Jew in Europe who LITERALLY just wants to live a Jewish life, but Europe seems to have other plans.”

Many other Jews around Europe will be similarly impacted.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazils-bolsonaro-is-2018s-biggest-winner-11546909119

Twenty eighteen was a disquieting year. Although capitalism continued to raise living standards almost everywhere, the geopolitical outlook dimmed. An antimarket backlash gained strength in many countries, and relations between the U.S. and China continued on a downward trajectory even as global defense spending hit a record high.

Some leaders thrived in this environment—either despite the geopolitical headwinds or because of them. Here are the five men who, for better in some cases and worse in others, were the biggest winners in world politics in 2018.

• Abiy Ahmed. The new prime minister of Ethiopia took office in April and almost immediately launched a stunning series of political and economic reforms. In his first 100 days, the new prime minister released thousands of political prisoners, ended a state of emergency, began liberalizing the economy, and moved to implement a controversial peace agreement with Eritrea. Ethiopian institutions remain weak, and the country faces a tangle of ethnic and security issues that guarantee trouble ahead, but in 2018 Mr. Abiy gave hope to a country that desperately wants to put decades of civil conflict and authoritarian rule behind it.

• Bashar Assad. The Syrian strongman’s forces achieved a series of decisive victories in the bloodiest civil war in Middle East history. A host of morally vainglorious Western leaders demanded for years that Mr. Assad step down; with Russian and Iranian backing, he has had the last laugh. The country he rules is a ruin, but he occupies a palace in Damascus rather than a prison cell in The Hague.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-netanyahu-go-to-riyadh-11546804745

Don’t be surprised if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon visits Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Trump administration has worked for nearly two years to get Riyadh and Jerusalem openly working together. Crown Prince Mohammed loves risk and is eager to turn the page from the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Mideast trip this week seems choreographed for a dramatic finale starring the crown prince.

The U.S. stage managers are in place: National security adviser John Bolton landed in Israel Saturday, and Mr. Pompeo arrives Wednesday in Amman, Jordan, the first of eight Arab capitals he’ll visit in as many days. He plans to deliver a major speech in Cairo and to visit Riyadh early next week.

Mr. Pompeo’s trip is intended to underscore that far from fading out of the Middle East, the U.S. is leading a broad coalition against Iran. The linchpins of the effort are Israel and Saudi Arabia, which share a fear of Iranian expansionism and are the closest U.S. allies in the region. They have maintained informal but not-so-secret contacts, sharing intelligence on their common nemesis. Why not make it official?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13501/eu-brexit-self-harm

Irish PM Varadkar has made an Irish joke out of Ireland by his own opposition to changing the “backstop.” To claim that an easily removable obstacle that will gravely harm Ireland provides essential protection to Ireland may not be the funniest joke in Irish history, but it is a good candidate for becoming the most expensive one.

As the resumption of the Brexit debate looms in the House of Commons, it is reported that the European Commission is haughtily retaining its refusal to consider any revision to the Withdrawal Agreement (WA); this attitude is also backed by the numerous leaders of European Union countries whom UK PM Theresa May has contacted. Those leaders assume that, like most of them themselves, the UK will eventually grovel before the Commission and accept its dictate.

The European leaders are too young, perhaps, to remember that most of their countries would have become German dominions and satellites if the UK had not refused to grovel to Hitler in July 1940 after the Fall of France, fighting on alone in Europe and North Africa. As Germany discovered later that its misjudgment of the UK would end with the devastation of Germany, today the UK is preparing resolutely for a no-deal Brexit that will cost it dearly, but the EU more dearly.

For one thing, the European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Günther Oettinger, warned on December 27 in an interview with the Westfälische Rundschau that EU members will have to pay up if the UK saves itself the estimated €42 billion that it would owe the EU according to the provisions of the WA. Merely in 2019, Germany itself would have to pay about half a billion euros extra (“ein mittlerer dreistelliger Millionenbetrag”). As for himself, he is planning to leave the European Commission for the private sector in the spring, that is, about the time when the UK is scheduled to leave the EU (March 29).

The source of the trouble (if anyone still does not know) lies in one part of the WA, the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, the so-called “backstop.” It provides for a “temporary” customs union between the UK and the EU in the case that negotiations between the two parties on the Future Relationship have not finished by the end of 2020 (the date specified in the WA). The purpose of the “backstop” is allegedly to guarantee a fundamental interest of the Irish Republic: that there should not be a “hard border” between it and Northern Ireland, when the latter leaves the EU along with the rest of the UK.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13500/france-in-free-fall

French officials evidently understand that the terrorists are engaged in a long war and that it will be difficult to stop them; so they seem to have given in. These officials are no doubt aware that young French Muslims are being radicalized in increasing numbers. The response, however, has been to strengthen Muslim institutions in France.

At the time President Macron was speaking, one of his emissaries was in Morocco to sign the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which defines immigration as “beneficial” for the host countries. Under it, signatory states pledge to “strengthen migrant-inclusive service delivery systems.”

A group of retired generals published an open letter, saying that signing the Global Compact was a further step towards “the abandonment of national sovereignty” and noted that “80% of the French population think that immigration must be halted or regulated drastically”.

The author Éric Zemmour described the “yellow vests” revolt as the result of the “despair of people who feel humiliated, forgotten, dispossessed of their own country by the decisions of a contemptuous caste”.

Strasbourg, France. Christmas market. December 11th, 8pm. A man shouting, “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is the greatest”) shoots at passersby, then wounds several with a knife. He murders three people on the spot and wounds a dozen others, some severely. Two will later die of their wounds. The murderer escapes. Two days later, the police shoot him dead.

He was known to the police. When members of the General Directorate of Internal Security and some gendarmes came to his home a few hours earlier, he had escaped. Although they knew he was an armed and dangerous Islamist ready to act, and that Christmas markets had been, and could be, likely targets, no surveillance was in place.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13499/iran-schizophrenia

The Khomeinist revolution in Iran has failed to “export” its model to a single country, while making Iran poorer and more vulnerable than it had been under the Shah.

The political schizophrenia gives the impression that one is dealing with two Irans: one Iran as a state and another as a revolution. The good news is that, perhaps out of necessity, a new political culture is taking shape inside Iran, one that instinctively links politics to concrete issues of real life rather than abstract notions linked to revolutionary utopias.

What millions of Iranians demand is a restoration of the authority of their state which, in turn, requires, the closure of the revolutionary chapter.

As the leadership in Tehran prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of the Khomeinist revolution, a growing number of Iranians are wondering whether the time has come for their country to close that chapter and resume its historic path as a nation-state.

The need for Iran to move beyond the Khomeinist revolution was the theme of a seminar last month at Westminster University in London where the return of Iran as a nation-state was highlighted as an urgent need for regional peace and stability.

The Khomeinist revolution in Iran has failed to “export” its model to a single country, while making Iran poorer and more vulnerable than it had been under the Shah.

The main reason for this is that the Khomeinist revolution failed to create a new state structure with credible and efficient institutions. Unable to destroy the Iranian state as it had developed over some five centuries, the new Khomeinist rulers tried to duplicate it by creating parallel organs for exercising power.