RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12821/turkey-neighborhood-bullies

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s foreign ministry keeps bullying his country’s neighbors and the region, just like his friends, President Maduro of Venezuela and President al-Bashir of Sudan.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s motorcade arrived at his 1,100-room palace on an unusually rainy day in Ankara on July 9. His armored Mercedes was showered with red roses, thrown at the car by crowds cheering him hours before an extravagant inauguration ceremony. A 101-gun salute and an Ottoman military band greeted him along with 10,000 selected guests (this author was on the guest list but, in protest, preferred not to attend).Whereas pompous scenes from Erdoğan’s palace ceremony showed the glittering face of Turkey on July 9, events from the day before were saddening and unveiled “the other Turkey.” A passenger train derailed in the Thrace region west of Istanbul, killing 24 and injuring more than 300. On the same day, students from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara were arrested for carrying placards “insulting the president” at their graduation ceremony.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12830/boris-johnson-burkas

“I believe that the public will see this for what it is — an internal Conservative party witch hunt instigated by Number Ten against Boris Johnson, who they see as a huge threat.” — Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.

“Taken to its logical conclusion, the anti-Johnson brigade’s stance would mean that nobody is allowed to offer their view on any matter in case it causes offence. Is that really the kind of country we want to live in? … We live in a country that used to believe passionately in free speech. As we all know, even when exercised with care and responsibility, free speech can and does offend some people. But timid politicians who take the easy option and prefer not to tell people what they really think about things like the burka are killing this vital right.” — Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

“Boris Johnson should not apologise for telling the truth…. [female facial masking is] a nefarious component of a trendy gateway theology for religious extremism and militant Islam…. The burka and niqab are hideous tribal ninja-like garments that are pre-Islamic, non-Koranic and therefore un-Muslim. Although this deliberate identity-concealing contraption is banned at the Kaaba in Mecca it is permitted in Britain…” — Taj Hargey, imam at Oxford Islamic Congregation.

Former foreign secretary (and possible future prime minister) Boris Johnson sparked a political firestorm after making politically incorrect comments about the burka and the niqab, the face-covering garments worn by some Muslim women.

The ensuing debate over Islamophobia has revealed the extent to which political correctness is stifling free speech in Britain. It has also exposed deep fissures within the Conservative Party over its future direction and leadership.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12568/europe-public-prayer

These Arab countries know better than Europe that to contain Islamic fundamentalism, it is crucial to control the street.

That 140,000 Muslims recently gathered in England for a public prayer event organized by a mosque known for its extremism and links to jihadi terrorists, should not only alarm the British authorities, but those in other European countries as well.

A few months ago, a global media tempest erupted after Polish Catholics held a mass public prayer event across the country. The BBC deemed it “controversial”, due to “concerns it could be seen as endorsing the state’s refusal to let in Muslim migrants”.

The same controversy, however, did not erupt in Britain when 140,000 Muslims prayed in Birmingham’s Small Heath Park, in an event organized by the Green Lane Mosque to mark the end of Ramadan.

France is debating whether or not to block prayer on the street. “They will not have prayers on the street, we will prevent street praying” Interior Minister Gerard Collomb announced.

“Public space cannot be taken over in this way”, said the president of the Paris regional council, Valérie Pécresse, who led a protest by councilors and MPs. In Italy, hundreds of Muslims prayed next to Colosseum, and Muslim prayers were held in front of Milan’s Cathedral.

The numbers are telling. When Muslims throughout Europe celebrated the final day of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan with public prayers, city squares — from Naples (Italy) to Nice (France) — overflowed. The annual Birmingham event began in 2012 with 12,000 faithful. Two years later, the number of the faithful rose to 40,000. In 2015, it was 70,000. In 2016, the number was 90,000. In 2017, it was 100,000. In 2018, the number was 140,000. Next year?

“While the two [local] churches are nearly empty, the Brune Street Estate mosque has a different problem — overcrowding,” noted The Daily Mail, exposing the situation in London.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12814/sweden-antisemitism

The municipality of Malmö uses taxpayers’ money to support “Group 194,” an organization that posts anti-Semitic images on its Facebook page — such as a defamatory cartoon portraying a Jew drinking blood and eating a child.

In Sweden, imported Middle Eastern anti-Semitism is funded by taxpayer money, so when scandals occur, they are often addressed by the same people who have participated in spreading its message.

No effective actions are currently being taken against the spread of anti-Semitism in Sweden.

Just as European anti-Semitism was defeated by rejecting and condemning the ideology after World War II and isolating its proponents, so must Sweden’s “new” anti-Semitism be defeated by isolating its advocates and marginalizing all organizations spreading its ideas. This means that all direct and indirect government funding of these organizations has to end. As long as this does not happen, Jews in Sweden will continue living in fear and insecurity.

As major Swedish cities such as Malmö have become known as places where Jews are threatened, anti-Semitism in Sweden has attracted international attention. Does Sweden, however, really deserve this bad reputation or is there some misunderstanding?

In December 2017, when US President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, demonstrations broke out in Malmö. Protesters, often people with an Arab background, shouted, “We want our freedom back and we’re going to shoot the Jews”, and a chapel at the Jewish cemetery was attacked with firebombs. In Gothenburg, the city’s synagogue was also attacked with firebombs.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12817/turkish-hypocrisy

According to a 2015 news report, there were only 1,244 Greeks left in Istanbul at that time. In addition, even those tiny minorities are reportedly leaving Turkey in increasing numbers, to escape the instability and aggression they suffer in the country.

Many Muslim Turks who are on the receiving end of Erdogan’s human-rights abuses, seem shocked by the current undemocratic events in Turkey. They should not be; such abuses have been going on in the country for decades. The Turks are likely to continue living under the oppression that they themselves have created.

Erdogan needs to be reminded that it is not Israel — a vibrant and flourishing democracy with equal rights for all its citizens — whose behavior is reminiscent of dark chapters in history. It is Turkey.

During a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel the “most Zionist, fascist, and racist state in the world.” Referring to the recent passage by Israel’s Knesset of the “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People,” Erdogan attacked the Israeli government’s view as “no different from Hitler’s obsession with the Aryan race.”

In fact, there is nothing “fascist” or “racist” in Israel’s new law. On the contrary, as David Hazony noted in the Forward:

“This law has been in the works at least since the early 2000s, a time when two major forces arose that threatened the Zionist project as it was historically understood. The first was the rise of ‘post-Zionism,’ a small but passionate intellectual-political movement that explicitly repudiated the idea of a ‘Jewish state’ and sought to transform the country into a “state of all its citizens” by stripping it of any connection to Jewish history, peoplehood, or symbolism.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12816/turkey-child-trafficking-slavery

Yazidis are still being enslaved and sold by ISIS, with Turkish involvement, while the life of the journalist who exposed the crime is threatened.

Reuniting the kidnapped Yazidis with their families and bringing the perpetrators to justice should be a priority of civilized governments worldwide, not only to help stop the persecution and enslavement of Yazidis, but also to defeat jihad.

The question is: Should Turkey, with the path it is on, even remain a member of NATO?

August 3 marked the fourth anniversary of the ISIS invasion of Sinjar, Iraq and the start of the Yazidi genocide. Since that date in 2014, approximately 3,100 Yazidis either have been executed or died of dehydration and starvation, according to the organization Yazda. At least 6,800 women and children were kidnapped by ISIS terrorists and subjected to sexual and physical abuse, captives were forced to convert to Islam, and young boys were separated from their families and forced to become child soldiers, according to a report entitled “Working Against the Clock: Documenting Mass Graves of Yazidis Killed by the Islamic State.” Moreover, 3,000 Yazidi women and girls are believed to remain in ISIS captivity, but their whereabouts are unknown.

One Yazidi child recently sold in Ankara, Turkey, and then freed through the mediation efforts of Yazidi and humanitarian-aid organizations, according to a report by Hale Gönültaş, a journalist with the Turkish news website Gazete Duvar. On July 30, three days after Gönültaş’s article appeared, she received a death threat on her mobile phone from a Turkish-speaking man, who told her that he knew her home address, and then shouted, “Jihad will come to this land. Watch your step!”

This is not the first time that Gönültaş has been threatened for writing about ISIS atrocities. In May 2017, she received similar telephone threats after posting two articles: “200,000 children in ISIS camps,” and “ISIS holds 600 children from Turkey.”

In addition, a video of Turkish-speaking children receiving military training from ISIS was sent to her email address. In the video, in which one of them is seen cutting off someone’s head with a knife, the children are saying, “We are here for jihad.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12815/iran-sanctions-european-union

“Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States.” — US President Donald J. Trump.

“The EU is demanding that its largest corporations risk the entire cake for a few more crumbs.” — Samuel Jackisch, Brussels correspondent for German public broadcaster ARD.

“The fines are in the multibillions these days so it’s just not worth the risk for a small piece of business and maybe pleasing a European government.” — Investment banker quoted by Reuters.

The European Union has announced a new regulation aimed at shielding European companies from the impact of US sanctions on Iran. The measure, which has been greeted with skepticism by the European business media, is unlikely to succeed: it expects European companies to risk their business interests in the US market for interests in the much smaller Iranian market.

The so-called “Blocking Statute” entered into effect on August 7, the same day that the first round of US sanctions on Iran officially snapped back into place. Those sanctions target Iran’s purchases of US dollars — the main currency for international financial transactions and oil purchases — as well as the auto, civil aviation, coal, industrial software and metals sectors. A second, much stronger round of sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports, takes effect on November 5.