RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://standpointmag.co.uk/dispatches-november-2018-jeffrey-gedmin-chemnitz

Recently, I sat in my hotel a few steps away from the Gedächtniskirche — West Berlin’s iconic “church of remembrance,” left in ruin at the end of World War II to remind Germans of the horror of their aggression — preparing for a meeting with Reiner Haseloff, minister president of the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The 64-year-old Haseloff is a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Like the Chancellor, Haseloff grew up on the country’s communist side, in the so-called German Democratic Republic. He, too, was trained as a scientist. Merkel holds a PhD in quantum chemistry; Haseloff’s doctorate is in physics.

I wanted to speak with Haseloff about the growing tensions between East and West Germans, three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall; about the country’s shifting political landscape, about social cohesion and security, and Germany’s migration policies, the last being a subject where Haseloff and Merkel part ways. Haseloff has distanced himself from the Chancellor’s liberal migration policy; in 2015, Germany permitted some one million refugees from mostly Muslim majority countries to enter the country.

At the last minute my meeting with Haseloff was cancelled. The minister president was on his way to Köthen where a fight at a playground between two young Afghan men and a 22-year-old German man resulted in the German suffering a fatal heart attack. In Köthen, the mood was tense. Two weeks earlier, on August 26, violent protests had erupted in the east German city of Chemnitz where a 35-year-old German man was stabbed to death at a festival celebrating the city’s founding. A 22-year-old Iraqi and a 23-year-old Syrian were arrested for murder. If that were not enough, the same Sunday afternoon of the death in Köthen, September 9, a killing occurred in Neukölln, a Berlin neighbourhood where Turks and hipsters rub shoulder. In this case, a 36-year-old Lebanese-born man was shot to death, with five men fleeing the scene by car. Authorities suspect a clan dispute. Police estimate that 20 large families of foreign extraction in Berlin are involved in drug running, prostitution, and other organised crime. After Neukölln, Chemnitz, and Köthen a senior Berlin official said to me, with resignation, “People will have to accept some of this violence as the new normal.”

http://standpointmag.co.uk/features-november-2018-david-abulafia-antisemitism-labour-party-jeremy-corbyn

J’accuse . . . It may seem impudent to use Émile Zola’s famous opening to his defence of Alfred Dreyfus. And yet, as on that occasion, the issue of anti-Semitism has become intertwined with wider political questions, in this case a party leader who consorts with terrorists in Ireland and the Middle East and admires repressive regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, and a party whose members (including Members of Parliament) are being intimidated by extremists whose loathing for Israel has spilled over into contempt for Jews. This crisis has developed without much more than a murmur from the man at the top, although many, not just those on the Left, were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, assuming that his blindness to anti-Semitism within the Labour Party was another example of the chaotic management of his party that characterised the first year of his reign. But more recent revelations have shown clearly that Jeremy Corbyn is very much part of the problem; he passionately believes what Ken Livingstone or indeed George Galloway believes: that the history of Zionism and of Israel proves his case, and he is happy to keep the company of the Iranians and others who propose to wipe Israel off the map.

His silence was not indolence, incompetence or stupidity, but the silence of one who is content to look the other way and cannily let things develop in the direction he has always wanted. Hence his own lack of fury at what are quite astonishing statements repeated again and again in the press and by public figures that he, the Leader of her Majesty’s Opposition, is an anti-Semite, statements that with any other senior politician would be countered by angry, vigorous, firm denial, a dose of righteous (or unrighteous) indignation, and maybe even recourse to the courts. He should also be aflame with rage at the extraordinary threats and slurs that those professing to be his supporters have flung into the ether by way of social media, some of the most revolting of which are now under investigation by the police for racist incitement. Indeed, it is now reported that the Labour Party itself is under police investigation for sitting on stomach-turning comments about the Holocaust and about exterminating Jews that were apparently supplied by its own members.

Of course, his way of thinking should have been obvious from the moment that he installed Shami Chakrabarti and her colleagues on his commission to examine the presence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. The most significant feature of their conclusions was the way references to anti-Semitism were wrapped up alongside other forms of racism — in other words, it was always being relativised, shown to be inherently implausible because it was inconceivable that a party committed to anti-racism and the fight against Islamophobia would be hostile to Jews. Far from generating action, the report was seen as an opportunity to declare that action had been taken.

https://www.steynonline.com/8895/the-majority-as-identity-group

The sold-out Mark Steyn Club Cruise departed Quebec City just as a wild tsunami of an election result crashed on the Plains of Abraham and washed away the National Assembly. On Monday François Legault’s brand new party, the CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec), won 74 out of 125 seats and became the first government in half-a-century to be neither Liberal nor separatist. The CAQ is described as “center-right”, but that term doesn’t really cover it: Like many of the emerging parties in the new Europe – from Sweden to Italy, France to Hungary – M Legault concluded that the sweet spot on the spectrum lay in being both fiscally protective and socially protective. That’s to say, these new parties are not “center-right” in terms of Milton Friedman economics – they do not seriously challenge expectations of the big welfare state – but they are nationally assertive on the cultural front.

And so it was that Quebec’s new premier, in his first press conference, pledged to cut immigration by twenty per cent and to use the Notwithstanding clause to uphold the government’s ban on the niqab in the public service. Once again we see a clear difference between the English world (America, Britain, anglo-Canada) and the rest of the west (continental Europe, Quebec) when it comes to the rights of the majority versus the provocations of Islam. Here’s what I had to say on the subject in Maclean’s in 2010 :

The other day, a reader wrote to say that, while en vacances au Québec, he had espied me in a restaurant. With a couple of obvious francophones. And, from the snatches of conversation he caught, I appeared to be speaking French. “Appeared” is right, if you’ve ever heard my French. Nevertheless: “You’re a fraud, Steyn!” he thundered. The cut of his jib was that I was merely pretending to be a pro-Yank right-wing bastard while in reality living la vie en rose lounging on chaises longues snorting poutine with louche Frenchie socialists all day long.

I haven’t felt such a hypocrite since I was caught singing The Man That Got Away in a San Francisco bathhouse two days after my column opposing gay marriage. But yes, you’re right. I cannot tell a lie. I have a soft spot for Quebec. Not because of its risible separatist movement, for which the only rational explanation is that it was never anything but one almighty bluff for shakedown purposes. Yet, putting that aside, I’m not unsympathetic to the province’s broader cultural disposition. I regard neither Trudeaupian Canada nor Quietly Revolutionary Quebec as good long-term bets, or even medium-term bets. But, if I had to pick, I’d give marginally better odds to the latter. And the reasons why can be found in the coverage of Ms. Naema Ahmed and her “illegal” niqab, the head-to-toe Islamic covering that only has eyes for you.

The facts—or, at any rate, fact—of the case is well-known: a niqab-garbed immigrant from Egypt has been twice expelled from her French-language classes at the Saint-Laurent CEGEP and the Centre d’appui aux communautés immigrantes by order of the Quebec government. That much is agreed. Thereafter, the English and French press diverge significantly. The ROC reacted reflexively, deploring this assault on Canada’s cherished “values” of “multiculturalism.” In the Calgary Herald, Naomi Lakritz compared Quebec’s government to the Taliban. So did the Globe and Mail, in an editorial titled “Intolerant Intrusion.” In La Presse, Patrick Lagacé responded with a column called “The Globe, Reporting From Mars!”

The headline was in English, and on the whole M. Lagacé’s English is better than the Globe’s French. He began by noting their unbelievably stupid editorial on O Canada, in which they endeavoured to balance their charge of sexism in the English lyrics (“in all thy sons command”) by uncovering sexism in the French—”terre de nos aïeux” or “land of our forefathers.” Where, fretted the Globe for a couple hundred words, are the foremothers? This is what happens when your claims to be Canada’s national newspaper rest on the translation services of Babel Fish. As M. Lagacé pointed out, “aïeux, en français, englobe hommes et femmes.” Englobe maybe, but not in Globe.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271473/speech-i-never-gave-bruce-bawer

A few prefatory words: I was invited to give a talk in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Saturday, September 29, as part of an “Alternative Book Fair.” The Gothenburg Book Fair was being held that weekend, and the point of the alternative event was to highlight books – mostly about Islam, I gathered – that the official fair had rejected. I was asked to talk about freedom of speech, a freedom that is in increasingly short supply in Sweden, as elsewhere in Western Europe. As if to prove the point, civic officials – at the urging of police, who were spooked by Antifa threats – banned the “Alternative Book Fair.” Here’s what I planned to say.

When I was twenty years old, there was a famous free-speech case in the state of Illinois. Nazis wanted to march in a Chicago suburb called Skokie, which had a large population of Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors. Skokie sued successfully in county court to prevent the march. The Nazis, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, took the case to the state appellate court and the Illinois Supreme Court. Long story short, after the case had gone to the United States Supreme Court, the Nazis were allowed to march.

As I say, I was twenty years old at the time. The Supreme Court’s decision filled me with admiration. Not because I liked Nazis, but because that ruling demonstrated that in the United States of America, even the most reprehensible expression was protected. Innocuous speech doesn’t need protection. What requires protection is controversial speech, extremist speech, speech that perhaps everyone on earth except the speaker finds offensive. Without such protections, any dissent from received opinion is in danger of being shut down. It’s a simple point but a crucial one. Without absolute freedom of speech, freedom itself – all freedom, every freedom – is threatened, period.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13064/turkey-alliances-russia-china

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Chinese President Xi Jinping are discussing more trade — and in their local currencies, rebuffing the dollar.

As of now, Turkey sees the United States as an ungrateful ally and Russia is Turkey’s new love affair. For Erdoğan, it is still “Russia time.”

Germany needs Turkey’s cooperation in halting the flow of Islamic jihadists currently stationed in Syria but who may always use Turkish territory to reach the EU. Turkey needs German technology, investment and money.

Turkey’s President does it all the time. In 2009, then-prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused China of genocide for the deaths of hundreds of Uighur Turks. Less than a decade later, with his newfound “Eurasianism,” Erdoğan’s Turkey and President Xi Jinping’s China are discussing more trade — and in their local currencies, rebuffing the dollar .

In 2015, the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian Air Force fighter jet along Turkey’s troubled border with Syria. Russia responded strongly in 2016 by imposing punishing sanctions on Turkey. At the time, Erdoğan was courting Washington. In fear of further — and even military — punishments from Moscow, Erdoğan described Turkey’s relations with Washington as a “strategic partnership.”

A Turkish apology for the downed Russian plane eventually ended sanctions in 2016 and Erdoğan, once again, rediscovered his anti-Western, pro-Eurasian self. This time, Erdoğan described Turkey’s relations with Russia as a strategic partnership. This strategic partnership will probably survive until Erdoğan will have to turn to his NATO partners after potential — and possibly serious — divergences with Russia over the future of Syria.

As of now, Turkey sees the United States as an ungrateful ally and Russia is Turkey’s new love affair. Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum at a time when Turkey’s national currency had lost 40% of its value since the start of the year. The nominal NATO allies had found themselves in a multitude of geostrategic and other disputes, including Turkey’s arrest of an America pastor on bogus terrorism and espionage charges (he is now under house arrest in Turkey).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/france-freezes-iranian-assets-over-bomb-plot-blamed-on-tehran-1538487926

France froze assets of Iran’s intelligence agency and two agents in retaliation for an alleged Iranian terror plot on French soil, seeking to punish Tehran for planning terror activities in Europe even as the French government tries to salvage the Iran nuclear deal.

The freeze will apply for at least six months to two officials—Assadollah Asadi and Saeid Hashemi Moghadam—whom European authorities allege were involved in the foiled attack, and the internal security directorate of Iran’s intelligence ministry.

The moves mark an attempt by the French government to discipline Iran for a plot it has linked directly to Iranian government officials without undermining talks over the Iranian nuclear accord, Europe’s top diplomatic priority with Tehran. European governments are scrambling to keep Iran signed on to the deal after Washington withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

The U.S. and Israel, Iran’s main international opponents, have used the foiled attack to urge Europe to abandon its support for the accord. They allege that Iran has an extensive covert-operations network that is hunting down opponents of the regime on European soil.

The alleged Iranian operation “confirms the necessity of a forceful approach in our relations with Iran,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Tuesday.

It remains unclear what assets the Iranian intelligence officials and the directorate hold in France, if any. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-atomic-agency-rebuffs-israeli-criticism-over-iran-sites-1538494912

The United Nations atomic agency hit back Tuesday at Israeli claims it is failing to police Iran’s nuclear work, rebuffing criticisms of the agency’s credibility.

The dispute comes as European countries, China and Russia seek to uphold the 2015 deal that placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, a deal which the Trump administration quit in May. Israel has consistently opposed the agreement, arguing it wouldn’t prevent Tehran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency oversees compliance with the agreement and polices Iran’s nuclear work. Tehran claims its nuclear program, which was scaled back under the 2015 deal, was for peaceful purposes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has twice alleged over the past six months that Iran is cheating on the deal and is still harboring a nuclear-weapons program.

In April, Mr. Netanyahu said Israeli agents had extracted thousands of documents and material from what he alleged was a nuclear archive in Tehran. The information was passed to Washington and to the IAEA.

Last week he showed images of what he said was a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran that he said the Iranian government is now trying to cleanse. Iran has denied the claims.

Speaking at the U.N. last week, Mr. Netanyahu said that despite sharing the nuclear archive information with the IAEA, the agency had “still not taken any action” and that he was therefore going public in disclosing the alleged nuclear site.

“Well, Mr. Amano, do the right thing,” he said of IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. “Go inspect this atomic warehouse. Immediately. Before the Iranians finish clearing it out…And Mr. Amano, while you’re at it, inspect the other sites we told you about. Once and for all, tell the world the truth about Iran.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-pivots-to-china-with-nafta-deal-in-hand-1538431208

White House officials are betting that concluding a trade deal with Mexico and Canada will give them more ammunition in their high-stakes battle with China on economic issues and national security.

A renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement, Trump advisers argue, removes the possibility that a trade war could break out on the continent and will make North America a more attractive place for investment.

When combined with U.S. tariffs against China, which boost the costs of production there, foreign companies will start moving investment out of China, the administration calculates. That would weaken China’s ability to produce next-generation technology and put additional pressure on Beijing to make trade concessions sought by the U.S.

The U.S. will “reclaim a supply chain that has been off-shored to the world,” President Trump said at a press conference Monday.

Former White House strategist Steven Bannon said the Trump strategy from the outset was to pull investment out of China and remake global supply chains, but then the effort got thrown off track when administration deputies battled over steel and other trade issues and the U.S. launched fights with Europe, Canada and other allies.

“Nafta was the key to pick the lock on the global supply chain,” he said.

Some big technology companies have said privately that they have begun weighing whether to shift some production out of China to avoid U.S. tariffs. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13063/turkey-mosques-christianity

While Turkey’s latest mosque is being inaugurated in Germany, the greatest Christian Orthodox theological school has remained closed for almost 50 years by the order of the Turkish government. Moreover, less than a kilometer away from the shuttered Christian seminary, a major new center of Islamic studies spanning a total area of 200 acres is scheduled to be built.
The Greeks of Turkey — the remnants of the once great Byzantine Empire — are a severely persecuted and even almost completely exterminated people. They have been exposed, among other crimes against humanity, to a genocide, pogroms and forced deportations at the hands of multiple Turkish governments. As a result, there are only around 1,300 Greeks left in Istanbul. But in spite of its tiny size, the dying Greek community still suffers from discrimination and violations of its rights.
The Turkish government, which keeps the country’s greatest Christian theological school closed, is spending a large portion of its annual budget on the worldwide construction of mosques.

The Turkish government spends hundreds of millions of dollars building mosques as part of a long-term effort to promote Islam around the world. Many Muslims hope that new mosques throughout Europe will advance and facilitate their wish to spread Islam to non-Islamic countries and persuade the Christian “infidels” to abandon their faith in favor of Islam.

On September 29, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated Turkey’s latest European mosque, “The Cologne Central Mosque,” located in the Cologne, Germany.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

‘We believe that significant parts of the UK media have failed their audiences by producing flawed reports that have contributed to an undeserved witch-hunt against the Labour leader [Jeremy Corbyn] and misdirected public attention away from antisemitism elsewhere.’

Flawed reporting on antisemitism claims against the Labour party Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Ken Loach, Brian Eno, Des Freedman, Justin Schlosberg and 21 others write about a recent report by the Media Reform Coalition.”We have long had serious concerns about the lack of due impartiality and accuracy in the reporting of allegations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. The recent report by the Media Reform Coalition examining coverage of Labour’s revised code of conduct on antisemitism shows that we are right to be concerned.”