RUTHFULLY YOURS

The single terrorist survivor of the horrible 2015 ISIS attack in Paris that killed 130 people refused to answer any questions when he appeared in court today in Brussels, Belgium.

The 28-year-old mass murderer Salah Abdeslam even refused to confirm his own identity. During the proceedings, he made clear that his silence will continue throughout.

Abdeslam wore a white jacket and appeared with his thick beard in court. When one of the judges asked him “are you Salah Abdeslam,” the terrorist refused to respond. Instead of answering, he simply stared at the floor. This attitude is undoubtedly the result of his hatred for everything not radically Islamic. Extremists like Abdeslam refuses to accept the authority of secular institutions. So no, he’s not going to answer this question — or any other question for that matter. He considers himself well above the judgments of “unbelievers.”

Although the trial is important, this particular trial in Belgium isn’t about the Paris terror attack, but about his shoot-out with police in March 2016 when they came to arrest him. He’s accused of possession of (banned) weapons and of attempted murder in a terrorist context.

Belgian and French prosecutors and intelligence officers were hoping that Abdeslam would give them some insight into the inner workings of ISIS and similar terror organizations. That is, clearly, not going to happen.

Poland’s nationalist government is in the process of enacting legislation to criminalize speech that “claims, publicly and contrary to the facts, that the Polish Nation or the Republic of Poland is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich.” The proposal would exempt “artistic or academic activity” but would prohibit ordinary citizens and politicians from accusing Poland of complicity in the murder of three million Polish Jews. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments have denounced the proposal, which restricts free speech and falsifies history.

True, the Germans built Auschwitz and other death camps on Polish soil. But the Germans could not have murdered the Polish Jews, and millions of other Europeans imported to death camps in Poland, without the active assistance of many Poles in identifying and rounding up victims. This complicity was incited by generations of anti-Semitic church sermons. Poles also murdered Jews during and after the German occupation—including in the Jedwabne pogrom in July 1941 and in Kielce in July 1946.

On the positive side, there were Polish Catholics, including priests and nuns, who risked their lives protecting Jews. There were many other righteous Polish individuals as well. Jan Karski risked his life by dressing as a death-camp guard so he could document the horrors, and the Ulma family was murdered for harboring Jews.

Poland’s role in the Holocaust is a mixed picture of complicity, heroism, complacency and willful blindness. It is up to historians to sort out the specifics and moralists to apportion blame. But it is not the role of law to stifle debate and to threaten those who question the current self-serving Polish government narrative.

Muslim-majority areas typically consist of poor, unattractive housing projects, remote from the city center, which long ago were abandoned by their original indigenous, working-class populations. They often feature men sitting around cafes and women cooped up at home. They suffer from a range of social pathologies, including unemployment, criminal gangs, and drug-trafficking.

In some instances, store names are only in Arabic.

The Muslim presence is implicit in the intense, pervasive, and depressing security measures installed against jihadi threats of violence. These range from signs urging “Run, Hide, Tell” to bollards, barriers, and gates.

To understand the development of Islam in Western countries, I make a habit of visiting Muslim-majority areas such as Lakemba in Australia, Lodi in California, and Lunel in France. But London, England, is unique in the extent of its Islamic impress.

Muslim-majority areas typically consist of poor, unattractive housing projects, remote from the city center, which long ago were abandoned by their original indigenous, working-class populations. They often feature men sitting around cafes and women cooped up at home. They suffer from a range of social pathologies, including unemployment, criminal gangs, and drug-trafficking.

London too has such areas, and they are very large; but what makes the English capital unique is the intense Muslim presence in the very most central and expensive parts of the city, where Muslims do not constitute a majority. This presence takes two main forms.

On January 12, President Trump set a deadline for Congress — and the five nations that joined President Obama in signing his nuclear weapons deal with Iran — to make major changes to the deal. He said it was the last chance to either fix the deal’s disastrous flaws, or the United States would withdraw from it.

Nine days later Iran’s foreign minister Mohammed Zarif, in an op-ed in the Financial Times, one of Europe’s most highly-regarded newspapers, presented his European counterparts with arguments for “security cooperation” in a new “post-Western global order” artfully stated in the terms of the European leaders’ most fervently-held globalist beliefs.

It was an elegant attempt at diplomatic seduction, aiming to increase European — and Iranian — strong opposition to any changes in the agreement. Mr. Zarif appealed to Germany, France and Britain for their appeasement of Iran stated in the diplomatic terms those nations’ leaders use most often.

Mr. Zarif posed what he called an opportunity for nations to cooperate in a post-ISIS world in pursuit of regional strength in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. He argued that the historical modes of forming alliances have become obsolete because they assume a commonality of interests.

Instead, he proposes “security networking” that is ” Iran’s innovation to address issues that range from divergence of interests to power and size disparities.”

The British housing market is now dealing with a new special entry: former Christian churches. A former Methodist church in Surrey was recently put on sale for the first time in its 154-year history. And a few days later, a church in London and went on the market — converted into apartments.

Religious symbols are an integral part of a civilization. When old symbols vanish, new ones — with their own identities — take their place. Europe’s public imagination today is being flooded with Islamic symbols, from veils in schools, swimming pools and workplaces, to the volume and height of mosque minarets.

We impenitent secularists might be happily indifferent to the fall of the old religious symbols — but we should not be indifferent to the new religious symbols taking their place.

French writers coined the term “le grand remplacement,” meaning the demographic replacement by immigrants of native Europeans. There is, however, another replacement taking place on the old continent.

Look at the images taken by the Israeli-Hungarian photographer Bernadett Alpern. Synagogues — like silent witnesses of the fall of a fundamental branch of the European civilization — have been turned into museums, swimming pools, shopping centers, police stations and mosques.

Now it is the turn of the Stars of David and skullcaps, the two most visible Jewish symbols. A poll by the World Zionist Organization recently revealed that at least half of Jews in Europe do not feel safe wearing symbols of their faith. They are right. A few days ago, an 8-year-old Jewish boy wearing a skullcap was attacked and beaten in the street by two men in Sarcelles. Earlier in January, in the same suburb, a man slashed the face of a 15-year-old Jewish girl who was walking home while wearing the uniform of her Jewish school. It is the “new normal” for French Jews.

For years, European elites have been preaching multiculturalism and religious and cultural relativism. Now we find ourselves living through not only further assaults on the habitually besieged Jews and their faith, but a massive de-Christianization, as well.

The Berlin Wall stood for 10,315 days, from Aug. 13, 1961, until Nov. 9, 1989. On Monday, Feb. 5, it will have been down for as long as it was up.

East Germany began to seal itself off from the West long before the wall was built. In 1952 Soviet troops helped East Germany close and fortify its border with West Germany, leaving only the Berlin border open as an escape route. Some 250,000 East Germans fled to the West every year for most of the following decade. This exodus undermined East Germany’s economy and threatened the Soviet Union’s five-year plans, which depended on East German manufactured goods.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev kept urging East German leader Walter Ulbricht to reduce emigration by easing living conditions, as the Soviets were doing with their own “de-Stalinization” policies. Instead, in 1956, Ulbricht passed a law making emigration without permission—deserting the republic—punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment, as was helping others to desert.

The police combed through subways and elevated trains heading from East Berlin to West Berlin. Whoever seemed suspicious—carrying more than one suitcase could draw scrutiny—would be hauled off for interrogation.

I met Charlotte Groh at an East Berlin cafe in 1992, and she told me of her own involvement in someone’s escape. In 1960 Charlotte and her friend Erika Jahn were in their early 20s and working as schoolteachers in Mecklenburg. Charlotte visited Erika during Christmas vacation and found her in tears.

“I can’t stand living in the GDR any longer!” Erika sobbed, referring to East Germany’s official name, the German Democratic Republic. She said that she had relatives in Hamburg with whom she could stay while looking for a job. She had packed two suitcases to take with her. Charlotte volunteered to accompany Erica and take along one of the suitcases.

The Jewish community of Antwerp (Belgium) has released CCTV footage of an attempted car ramming incident on an Orthodox Jewish family Saturday morning.

A Jewish father and his son were on their way to the local synagogue when they suddenly had to jump out of harm’s way because a car was coming directly at them. (Note: the two were walking on the sidewalk.) Here’s the footage:

Police have arrested the driver. According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan News, the driver is of Muslim origin. He was tracked down through the footage of the license plate and is to be arraigned today on the charge of attempted manslaughter.

Sadly, this is one of many recent examples of increased antisemitism in Western Europe over the last few years — and especially the last few months. In September of last year, for instance, a Jewish man was assaulted in Antwerp by a “local youth” who called him every anti-Jewish slur in the dictionary. The attacker had converted to Islam recently and was arrested with the help of onlookers.