RUTHFULLY YOURS

If you read through a few U.S. State Department reports on living conditions in various countries, and then peruse the charter of United Nations, you’ll see that there’s a hell of a lot of horrible things going on around the world that the UN is supposed to be doing something about. Inconceivable levels of poverty, an almost total absence of human-rights protections, armed forces and police departments and courts that operate without any respect whatsoever for due process and the rule of law, primitive sanitary conditions, deadly infectious diseases that have spread widely and that go almost entirely untreated, whole regions in which everyday life is marked by the most extreme kind of tribal or gang or police violence, outright slavery, slave camps, women whose families treat them as little better than slaves, children whose families sell them into prostitution, and so on: such conditions can be found in scores of undeveloped nations.

How does a responsible UN official begin to address all these crises? Where does he start?

Why, in the United States, of course.

Yes, in every unfree or semi-free country on earth, every place where poverty is the norm and human rights unheard of, the great dream is to emigrate to the U.S. Innumerable Cubans have drowned while trying to make their way on rafts across the Florida Straits from the Castros’ island prison to the land of the free. Citizens of Mexico and points south have died of dehydration in the desert while seeking to cross into Arizona or New Mexico. Almost 46 million of America’s current inhabitants originally came from abroad, putting the U.S. at the top of the list of immigrant destinations; the #2 country on the list is Germany, where around 12 million people are foreign-born. So much of the world’s population is desperate to make it to America that the current president won election largely on the basis of his promise to build a wall on our southern border.

Yet if you believe the UN, the U.S. is a cesspit of Third World-style poverty. On December 8, the Alabama news site al.com quoted Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, as saying that he’s seen sewage conditions in that state that are “very uncommon in the First World….I’d have to say that I haven’t seen this.” Alston’s visit, reported al.com, was “part of a 15-day tour of the U.S. that Alston and his team are conducting to gather information for a report on poverty and human rights abuses in America that they expect to release in spring.” This crew have already visited California; from Alabama, they were planning to move on to Atlanta, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

Qatar’s purposeful support of the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Turkey, and radical Islamist terrorist groups led Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE to cut all ties with the Emirate last June. Indeed, it was no secret that “Qatar has a long history of harboring terrorist operatives and financing various extremist groups, including Hamas, the Taliban, al Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Nonetheless, Qatar has been protesting and arguing ever since that the “blockade” violates international law and human rights. But the Anti-Terrorist Quartet (ATQ) has put Qatar on their ‘terror finance watchlist’ and banned major Qatari charities. Among the terrorist-supporting charities named, is Qatar Charity that advertises its mission is “to participate in the preservation of Islamic culture through the construction of mosques. We spread our Islamic teachings with the world, and we invite you to be part of it in this achievement.” But the QC — that nation’s and one of the Arab World’s largest charities — has long been known to fund the very same extremists Islamists terror groups listed by the ATQ.

The ATQ designation was met with a furious reaction in Doha, where the allegations were rejected out of hand. It was stated that Qatar’s Ministry of Social Affairs evaluated all Qatar’s charities, “and monitors every penny they receive and send.” It was claimed that “Since its establishment in 1984, [it was actually founded in 1982] Qatar Charity (QC) has sponsored 213,750 young orphans into adulthood, and has built more than 621 schools worldwide.” The argument hardly countered the four-nation claim. Still, it was noted that in 2014, QC was ranked first by the United Nations for its relief efforts in the Syrian, Palestinian, and Somali crises. Of course, there was no mention of Qatar’s involvement in the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in Libya.

In a dramatic press conference held at Andrews Air Force base on Thursday, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, accused Iran of violating its commitments under UN Security Council resolution 2231, the instrument that renders official the deadly “Iran deal” known as the JCPOA.

Standing in front of a giant section of fuselage from an Iranian Qiam missile shot down by Saudi Arabia as it was hurtling toward the Riyadh international airport recently, Haley said: “Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK, or the airports in Paris, London, or Berlin. That’s what we’re talking about here. That’s what Iran is actively supporting.”

In other words, acts of war. Let me make that very specific: Iran has declared war on Saudi Arabia, and is engaging in that war by attacking civilian targets in the Saudi capitol, Riyadh, and by targeting civilian facilities, such as the international airport and the Yanbu oil export terminal, where another Qiam missile was shot down.

“What is most revealing about this missile is what’s not here,” Haley said. “It is the large stabilizer fins that are typically present on these kinds of missiles. The Iranian Qiam missile is the only known short range ballistic missile in the world that lacks such stabilizer fins and includes nine valves that you will see running along the length of the missile. Those valves are essentially Iranian missile fingerprints.”

Haley revealed that Iran delivered those Qiam missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen, who acted as Iranian surrogates by launching them against Saudi targets. She then invited reporters to walk around an array of parts from the Qiam missile, including pumps bearing the tell-tale stamp of Shahid Bagheri Industries, the Iranian manufacturer.

I first exposed the involvement of the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group in Iran’s ballistic missile programs in 1998 in Reader’s Digest, where I documented the active collaboration of Russia and China in Iran’s missile programs. That’s nineteen years ago. You can read that article here.

A Pentagon spokesperson, Laura Seal, provided additional detail this week to Ambassador Haley on three other Iranian weapons systems captured by the Saudis from Houthi rebels. These were an anti-tank guided missile, the Toophan; the Qasef-1 armed attack drone; and the Iranian Shark-33 boat, “an explosive-laden, unmanned boat used in an attack the Saudi Arabian frigate HMS al Madinah,” Seal said.

Despite the cries that Islam is a religion of peace, Islamic terror threat is everywhere; Muslims still teach hatred of Jews and Christians and they still preach jihad and killing the enemies of Allah. How can any sane person trust that Islam is moderate and is serious about wanting peace when the Muslim world is exploding with terror?

Only Trump could have done that at this moment — and with the help of brave Muslim leaders, a new milestone towards peace can begin.

It is not a surprise that all Arab leaders, including some of the closest Arab allies of president Trump such as president al-Sisi of Egypt, are publicly against the decision by president Trump to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. Arab leaders understand a certain bloody backlash against them if they don’t. This is because Islamic law dictates that all land once occupied by Muslims must remain Muslim forever. Under Sharia Muslims have the right to take over land from non-Muslims but the reverse is considered an attack on Islam.

That is where the problem of Jerusalem stems from and it does not matter to Muslims if Jerusalem, or its other name Zion, is mentioned in the Jewish bible 850 times but never mentioned in the Quran not even once. It does not matter if Jerusalem is the holy land of the Jewish people, if it was Israel’s capital over 3000 years ago or that Jews pray facing Jerusalem while Muslims pray facing Mecca.

The Western world would do itself and the truth a favor if they, at least for once, stand united to support Israel in its right to Jerusalem as its undivided Capital. In fact, it is time for Muslims to accept that facts about Jerusalem and right historical wrongs. Not too long ago Arabs used to tell Jews when relations did not go well between Muslims and Jews in various areas of the Middle East, to go back to their holy land Jerusalem. Now that Jews have done so, Arabs are trying to rob them again and again of their holy land.

But with the historic announcement by president Trump to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, the Arab world has a great opportunity to prove to the world that Islam is a religion of peace and co-existence as they claim. The moment of truth has come to give a historical opportunity to Muslims to write the wrongs against the Jewish people.

As the progressive publication Prospect asked, “if we are no longer a Christian country, what are we?”

Christians in the UK are on course to be in the minority by the middle of the century.

What defines Europe are its boundaries – not physical but cultural. Without its culture, Europe could not be distinguished from the rest of the world. And the pillar of this culture is based on the Judeo-Christian heritage and values.

British Christian publications have been wondering if we are witnessing the “extinction of Christianity in Egypt”, where the Christian faithful have suffered persecution and terror attacks at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. Christian leaders also seem to be wondering if Christianity will be “extinct within a generation” in the UK, where religious people enjoy total freedom of worship and faith.

Last year, the Church of England began to formulate a religious revolution. Its canonical laws require that British churches hold their functions every Sunday. The dramatic crisis of Christianity in the UK, however, is pushing the Anglican church to rewrite those rules, in order not to officiate in empty and abandoned churches.

A quarter of the British rural parishes now have fewer than 10 regular members of the faithful on Sunday. There are no more children in 25% of the Church of England’s congregations, as new figures have just shown. On average, nine children attended each church service across all Anglican churches in 2016. Generally speaking, churchgoers have dwindled in the UK by 34,000 in just one year.

In late 1944, after the successful Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, many thought that World War 2 in Europe was almost over. On December 16th the Germany launched a final offensive intended to turn the tide for Hiter and Germany. That morning 200,000 German troops and nearly 1,000 tanks attacked and surrounded four exhausted American divisions in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium, Northern France, and Luxembourg. Lt. General George Patton Jr. deployed his Third Army unit to counter attack and thwart the Nazi advance.

American troops slogged through ice and snow in bitter conditions defending crossroads, and sabotaging Nazi gasoline depots. They restored the front and began the final march to victory.On Tuesday, May 8th, 1945 the Germans surrendered.

In that final battle of the Bulge more than 19,000 Americans soldiers died. May God bless their memory.

A coalition between the anti-immigration Austrian People’s Party and the anti-establishment Austrian Freedom Party, which will be sworn into office on December 18, is poised to catapult Austria to the vanguard of Western Europe’s resistance to mass migration from the Muslim world.

The massive demographic and religious shift underway in Austria, traditionally a Roman Catholic country, appears irreversible. Austria has also emerged as a major base for radical Islam.

“We have a lot in common [with Israel]. I always say, if one defines the Judeo-Christian West, then Israel represents a kind of border. If Israel fails, Europe fails. And if Europe fails, Israel fails.” — Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the Austrian Freedom Party.

The anti-immigration Austrian People’s Party and the anti-establishment Austrian Freedom Party have reached a deal, creating a new coalition to govern Austria for the next five years. The ground-breaking political alliance, which will be sworn into office on December 18, is poised to catapult Austria to the vanguard of Western Europe’s resistance to mass migration from the Muslim world.

Chancellor-elect Sebastian Kurz, 31, who won Austria’s national election on October 15 after campaigning on a promise to halt illegal immigration, will govern with Heinz-Christian Strache, 48, the Freedom Party leader, who has warned that mass migration is “Islamizing” Austria. Under the agreement, Strache will become the vice-chancellor; the Freedom Party will also take control of the ministries of defense, interior and foreign affairs.

Kurz has been a strong critic of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy, which has allowed more than a million mostly male migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter the country during the past two years.

During his time as foreign minister, Kurz was instrumental in garnering parliamentary approval of a groundbreaking new law that regulates the integration of immigrants. The so-called Integration Law — which bans full-face Muslim veils in public spaces and prohibits Islamic radicals from distributing the Koran — establishes clear rules and responsibilities for recognized asylum seekers and refugees granted legal residence in the country.

The new law requires immigrants from non-EU countries to sign an “integration contract” which obligates them to learn written and spoken German and to enroll in courses about the “basic values of Austria’s legal and social order.” Immigrants are also required to “acquire knowledge of the democratic order and the basic principles derived from it.”

Previously, Kurz was instrumental in reforming Austria’s century-old Islam Law (Islamgesetz), governing the status of Muslims in the country. The new law, passed in February 2015, is aimed at integrating Muslims and fighting Islamic radicalism by promoting an “Islam with an Austrian character.” It also stresses that Austrian law must take precedence over Islamic Sharia law for Muslims living in the country.