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Paris Attack and Revelations About Gunman Jolt French Election Candidates in Sunday presidential vote seize on Champs-Élysées shooting and finding that attacker Cheurfi had been investigatedBy Stacy Meichtry, William Horobin and Joshua Robinson

PARIS—Two months before Karim Cheurfi stepped onto the Champs-Élysées with an automatic rifle French investigators questioned him on suspicion he was plotting an attack on police officers, according to law-enforcement officials.

The revelation Friday that authorities missed this opportunity to stop the 39-year-old Frenchman before he fired on police the previous day amplified the impact of the shooting. In killing a police officer, Cheurfi sent shock waves through France’s closely fought presidential election.

“Fundamentally, the target is our democracy, our cohesion,” said Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former investment banker who is in the running as a staunch defender of Europe.

With no clear front-runners in place, candidates scrapped their scheduled public appearances and took to the airwaves Friday, seizing on the Champs-Élysées attack as a moment that could tip the scales of an election with the future of Europe hanging in the balance.

The French will elect a president in two rounds of voting on April 23 and May 7; the result could reshape the European Union. WSJ’s Niki Blasina discusses the top candidates. Photo: Getty Images.

Conservative François Fillon vowed to fight terror with an “iron fist” by hiring more police and prison officers and stripping French terrorists of their citizenship. Marine Le Pen —the far-right National Front candidate who wants to withdraw France from the European Union, its common currency and NATO—called for an immediate lockdown of France’s borders and pledged, if elected, to detain or deport people on the country’s terror watch lists.

“Wars are won only with consistency and coherency. The ruthless war we must wage against Islamism doesn’t escape this principle,” Ms. Le Pen said.

Before the attack, the election was already on a knife’s edge with a crowded field of mainstream and antiestablishment candidates jockeying for position as voters prepared to cast ballots on Sunday. The top two finishers will head to a runoff on May 7, unless any candidate garners more than 50% of Sunday’s vote.

Turkey and Trump’s unpredictability : Caroline Glick

According to Michael Anton, one of President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy aides, the chief characteristic of Trump’s foreign policy is unpredictability.

On the surface, unpredictability is a great advantage.

Keeping US enemies guessing, at least to some degree, about how the US will respond to hostile acts expands Washington’s maneuver room.

But one of the consequences of Trump’s desire not to be locked into one pattern of behavior is that it is unclear how he thinks about the world, and the many threats facing the US and its allies. As a result, it is difficult to know whether he can be trusted to take the actions necessary to protect American interests and to stand by America’s allies.

Take for instance the administration’s actions this week in relation to the nuclear deal with Iran. On the one hand, on Tuesday the State Department notified Congress that Iran is in compliance with its obligations under the nuclear deal.

On the other hand, on Wednesday Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stood before the cameras and read Iran the riot act. Tillerson set out in detail all of the ways that Iran threatens the US and its allies and many of the reasons that the nuclear deal is a disaster.

He announced that the Trump administration was revisiting US policy on Iran and pledged that Trump will not leave the Iranian threat to his successors.

It is almost impossible to square this circle.

So what is the administration’s policy? Can it be trusted to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons when it certifies that Iran is complying with an agreement it is manifestly breaching, by among other things, blocking inspections of its key nuclear sites and storing uranium in quantities that exceed those permitted under the deal?

Then there is Turkey.

After 15 years in power, on Sunday Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan destroyed Turkey’s democracy once and for all. On April 16, 51.4% of Turkish voters voted to accord Erdogan all but absolute power.

Given that this means that Turkey is now effectively indistinguishable from Erdogan, the central question that people should answer before determining whether they are pleased or displeased by the results of Sunday’s referendum is who is Erdogan and what does he want.

David Flint: Vive Madame Le Pen

Of all the candidates jostling to become the next president of France, The National Front leader is the only one who does not belong to the established political class which has wrought so much damage. She is not perfect, that’s true, but she does offer the hope of much-needed change.

The exceptional candidate in the French presidential election is clearly Marine Le Pen. The many French residents who have had to leave France to find work in countries, some as far away as Australia, may well come to the conclusion that she will be more likely to offer solutions for France’s malaise than the usual run of politician. This could influence not only the way many will vote but also the opinions they give to those who remain at home. Many of them must have surely lost confidence in the French political class who have delivered massive youth unemployment, record and increasing debt and government spending almost twice as much of the GDP, 60%, as even Australia’s governments.

Worse, through the European Union, they have completely mishandled immigration, importing into France an unassimilable, even dangerous, minority. This, of course, is not to describe all, or even most Muslims as unassimilable or dangerous. It is to lament the fact that in France and elsewhere it is next to impossible for moderate Muslims to attempt to achieve a reformation without risking their safety, even their lives and certainly their fortunes, as well as their families. Only Marine Le Pen makes an issue of this and offers a serious, if harsh, solution. This has forced lesser politicians to make noises unconvincingly suggesting that they, too, will take some vague and unknown action to deal with the problem.

Of all the candidates, she is the one most likely to restore France as a sovereign state with sound and secure borders, as free of the tutelage of the Brussels Eurocrats as the United Kingdom will be with Brexit. Australians will recall that the central feature of national sovereignty was famously and succinctly described by their great statesman, John Howard, as the power to decide who comes into the country and the circumstances in which they come. Without that, a country is not sovereign. It is no more than a mere province, a protectorate or a satrapy.

There is one important aspect of Marine Le Pen’s leadership of the National Front which must be mentioned. From the time she succeeded her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, she has softened the awful anti-Semitic image he gave to the party. This is not opportunistic, it is from the heart — and unlike many such expressions from politicians, it is practical. Those of us from Anglophone countries will usually not appreciate how ingrained this virus has been in France and how brutal its practice was, even without Nazi pressure, during the Second World War. Marine Le Pen has finally reversed the way this had tainted her party by presenting the National Front not just as reformed but as the most effective protector, rather than the persecutor, of the Jews. In an interview in 2014 she said that in comparison with other political parties, the National Front “is without a doubt the best shield to protect you against the one true enemy, Islamic fundamentalism.”

The Australian‘s economics correspondent Adam Creighton recently revealed, courageously for a journalist, that if he were French he would vote for Le Pen. I agree. Although we both studied law at the Sorbonne Law School in Paris (Université Panthéon-Assas at, obviously, different times) I have never met Marine Le Pen, but she is impressive. Not to vote for her, Adam Creighton writes, would be to endorse the French political and economic elites that have sapped the life out of industry, put the Fifth Republic on track for bankruptcy, forced taxpayers to bail out parasitic banks, and left the country exposed to Islamist terrorism. I agree entirely with this reasoning.

France is ready, indeed over-ready, for a Le Pen administration. If this does not come, the French are unlikely to accept for long the absence of at least a serious attempt at the top to solve the problems imposed on them by the elites. France does not have a peaceful and calm history in matters political. In the time that Australia evolved, in relative tranquillity, from a penal colony into a collection of self-governing communities which peacefully united into a nation, France has lived through a violent revolution and a reign of terror, followed by a bewildering range of constitutional models. These have included not one but five republics, not one but two constitutional monarchies, not one but two empires and, fortunately, only one fascist regime, but with the serious threat of at least two others.

Al-Qaeda Mocks Arabs for Submitting to Haley’s ‘Kick in High Heels’ By Bridget Johnson

Al-Qaeda mocked Arab rulers for being at the mercy of “the kicks of the high heels” of Ambassador Nikki Haley after her warning that things are going to change at the United Nations.

“I wear heels. It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick them every single time,” Haley said in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference last month in Washington.

“So how are we kicking? We’re kicking by, No. 1, putting everybody on notice, saying that if you have our back, we’re going to have the backs of our friends. But our friends need to have our backs, too,” she continued. “If you challenge us, be prepared for what for what you are challenging us for because we will respond.”

In the most recent issue of al-Qaeda’s al-Nafir Bulletin, published in several language and distributed online by the Global Islamic Media Front, the terror group said “the representative of the bearer of the Cross America” — Haley — “sent a message to the apostate Arab rulers filled with sarcasm and mockery.”

The bulletin added that America was “the Hubal of the era to its worshippers the Arab rulers,” referring to a moon god worshipped at Mecca before Islam.

“You will not go beyond your worth, and you will receive a kick in high heels as punishment for any statement… that criticizes the Zionists,” they summarized Haley’s message to Arab rulers after quoting her directly.

“American and its Crusader allies will never allow anyone to stand before their support of the Zionists and the apostates of the Arabs and foreigners from the Muslim rulers, and they will not accept to end their robbery of the fortunes and resources of the Ummah [Muslim community], and that any Islamic project that seeks to establish the Shariah, and spread justice, and distribute fairly the fortunes of the Ummah, will face bombs and guided rockets, with the supporter of the apostate rulers who are ready to receive the kicks of the high heels from the Zionist Haley in case they go beyond the allowed limit, and gave wrong criticisms of the nation of the sons of Zion,” the bulletin stated.

Al-Qaeda added that the only “salvation” for Muslims “out of this delusion in the sea of weakness” was “targeting the real enemy.”

“O youth of Islam, attack global infidelity headed by America, and show Allah what is required of you,” the terror group told followers. “Shake their thrones, and bring down their interests, and target their great criminals.”

Al-Qaeda has previously used issues of the al-Nafir Bulletin to call for action against the United States. In February, the terror group accused the U.S. of withholding necessary medication from “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the deadly 1993 World Trade Center bombing who died behind bars that month. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Attack in France Islamic State claims responsibility three days before an election.

Three days ahead of the first round of France’s presidential election, terrorism has intervened. A gunman with an automatic rifle jumped from a car on the Champs-Élysée Thursday evening and poured bullets into a police car, killing one officer. Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

This event puts extraordinary pressure on a French electorate already trying to sort through difficult decisions about its vote on Sunday.

Conventional political wisdom would hold that the assault will benefit far-right candidate Marine Le Pen because last-minute events of this magnitude can influence voter sentiment, and Ms. Le Pen is running hard on the idea that France is under assault from Arab immigrants. In recent debates she has proposed that France suspend all legal immigration into the country.

The shooting may well tip sentiment in Ms. Le Pen’s direction, but at least two of her three opponents—conservative François Fillon and center-left Emmanuel Macron —have run on strong antiterror platforms. They have also run hard on the widespread sense of economic torpor among the French people. As we saw in the U.K.’s Brexit vote and the U.S. election last year, the sense of dimming economic opportunity is a potent political force. Polls indicate that is French voters’ number one concern.

Whatever the immediate effect of Thursday’s shooting in the heart of Paris, there is no avoiding the blunt reality at the heart of France’s momentous election, which is the general sense among the population that the nation’s elites—in politics and the French media—have become disconnected from the realities of the nation’s problems. It will be a pity if one shooting tips Sunday’s results, but it would not be a surprise.

Among Arabs, Diverging Views on Turkey’s Erdogan Amid concerns about democracy in the country, some in Middle East see strong Muslim leader By Nour Malas

ISTANBUL—Syrian merchant Bassel Fouad was once active in the opposition to his country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and sees him as a tyrant who destroyed Syria with his iron-fisted authoritarian rule.

Mr. Fouad, who now lives in southern Turkey, said he doesn’t understand intensified concerns in his host nation over the growing power of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the wake of Sunday’s constitutional referendum. He called Mr. Erdogan “a reformer who led his country forward.”

His view reflects a paradox on Turkey among its Arab neighbors: Even as Mr. Erdogan’s moves have raised concerns over the direction of Turkey’s democracy, some still see him as a fair and strong Muslim leader in a region largely ruled by dynasties and resurgent autocrats.

The results of the referendum, in which Turks voted by a slim margin to concentrate more power in the presidency, were met with supportive nods in corners of the Arab world, though the vote was marred by allegations of irregularities.

Some of the nods came from citizens of countries led by monarchs, stagnant governments or repressive regimes—a sign of how deeply split the Middle East is over ideas of reform and Islamist rule, and how relative and fluid those notions can be.

“As long as the changes came through the ballot boxes, why all this fear?” said Mohammad Diab, a Syrian refugee in northern Germany. Mr. Diab said he believed the Turkish president “will lead an Islamic awakening in Turkey and the region.”

Barakat Alshamrani, who was visiting Istanbul from Saudi Arabia, said he realized Turkey was divided over Mr. Erdogan and whether to grant the president more power, but he shrugged off the debate.

“What we know is that he is a good, fair, popular Muslim leader,” said Mr. Alshamrani. CONTINUE AT SITE

Terror Strikes Champs-Élysées Days Before French Vote One police officer killed, two wounded in attack before assailant is killed; Islamic State claims responsibility By Nick Kostov, Matthew Dalton and Joshua Robinson

PARIS—A gunman opened fire on the Champs-Élysées on Thursday, killing a police officer and wounding two others in an assault authorities said was likely a terror attack, just days before France’s presidential elections begin.

French officials said the assault began at 8:50 p.m., when a car pulled alongside a police patrol and the gunman jumped out wielding an automatic rifle. Police returned fire, killing the gunman, who was identified by an official as Karim Cheurfi, a French national.

A spokeswoman for antiterrorism prosecutors in Paris said they had opened an investigation into the assault. French President François Hollande said authorities were convinced it was a terror attack and expressed “great sadness” over the police officer’s death.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suspected terror attack, said SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the extremist group’s communications. “We can’t exclude whether there’s one or several accomplices,” Pierre-Henry Brandet, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The attack sent immediate ripples across the political landscape as the closely fought election was entering its final stretch. France 2, the state TV channel, briefly interrupted a live broadcast in which the 11 presidential candidates were outlining their platforms to broadcast footage showing the Champs-Élysées in lockdown. CONTINUE AT SITE

Europe: Making Itself into the New Afghanistan? by Giulio Meotti

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan,” said Algerian writer Kamel Daoud. Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan.

The West used to be proud of being the land of the free. European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom” at the Mall Gallery in London censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley.

“The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of President Hollande’s culture ministry. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Maastricht, in the Netherlands, is the picturesque city that gave its name to the famous treaty signed in 1992 by the twelve nations of the European Community at the time, and which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.

Maastricht, however, is also the home of “Tefaf”, the most important art and antiques fair in the world. The art work “Persepolis” by the Italian artist Luca Pignatelli was already scheduled when the commission ordered it removed. The work, built in 2016, combined a Persian Islamic rug and a female head. “We are all humbled and speechless”, Pignatelli declared, pointing out that his work had initially aroused the enthusiasm of the commission. The fair’s explanation was that Pignatelli’s work was “provocative”.

The officials of fair presumably did not want to offend Islam and possible Muslim buyers with Pignatelli’s combination of the mat (used by Muslims for prayer) with the woman’s face. “We are shocked, this is the first time this has happened and I think it is legitimate to talk about it”, Pignatelli said. “If in Rome it can happen that you decide to veil art works to avoid offending foreign visitors, well, I do not agree”. The reference is at the Italian government decision to veil the antique Roman statues to avoid offending Iran’s visiting President Hassan Rouhani.

If Europe wants a future, it should be less ideological about Maastricht’s treaty and more against Maastricht’s capitulation to fear. The brave Algerian writer Kamel Daoud said:

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan”.

Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan. The Taliban have killed artists and destroyed art works. The West used to be proud of being the land of the free.

French Presidential Campaign: Part 3 by Nidra Poller

Part 1 can be found here – click.

Part 2 can be found here – click.

The outstretched hand

The hagadah that is read during the pesach [Passover] seder is an intensely concentrated treatise on the subject of freedom. Something similar is happening in France today. The issues are dramatized by reality, realities that were deliberately kept out of sight have suddenly burst into the discourse and cannot be ignored. An intense concentrate of the issues that have been playing out since the end of September 2000* will reach a conclusion on the night of 23-24 April 2017 when the votes are counted and we will know what French citizens have decided to do about jihad conquest. The future of Europe, of the free world hangs in the balance. [* see my latest release, Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century]

Back then, deaf to the alarms of anti-Jewish violence triggered by the al Dura blood libel, French society stumbled from willful blindness to cozy antizionism until the rude awakening of the Charlie Hebdo executions, followed by the November 13th 2015 mass jihad murders. Again, today, the murder of a 67 year-old Jewish woman thrown out the window like a piece of garbage by her Muslim neighbor did not move the media or intrude on a presidential campaign that keeps veering away from the crucial issue of survival.

And now, 18 April, a thunderbolt strikes: Mahiedine Merabet and Clément Baur are arrested in Marseille, suspected of preparing an imminent jihad attack on “the campaign.” They had the full kit: ski masks,koranic verses, a go-pro camera, explosives, nuts and bolts, loaded assault weapons, and a hunting knife for good measure. British intelligence detected their allegiance to Daesh video and informed French authorities. François Fillon is the designated target, “talion law” is spelled out in bullets, and photos of Muslim children killed in bombings are displayed as justification. Mujahidin do not attack civilians…except in retaliation for crimes committed against Muslims.

Four days before the close of the campaign, Islamic totalitarianism pounces on us like a man-eating tiger on a forest path. Doesn’t that change everything? The danger to our democracy is not the employment of family members as parliamentary assistants! Two men of French nationality, one born into Islam, the other a convert, two lowlifes of no particular dimension, two flagged security risks like thousands of others, could have assassinated one of the four leading candidates and an untold number of supporters. Two common ordinary men loyal to the caliphate could have derailed the democratic process. A little monkey wrench thrown into the mechanism brings it to a halt.

APRIL 19, 1943THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German
troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving
inhabitants. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and
left the ghetto area in ruins. Surviving ghetto residents were
deported to concentration camps or killing centers.

Background

Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, the German authorities
deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. SS and
police units deported 265,000 Jews to the Treblinka killing center and
11,580 to forced-labor camps. The Germans and their auxiliaries
murdered more than 10,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the
deportation operations. The German authorities granted only 35,000
Jews permission to remain in the ghetto, while more than 20,000 Jews
remained in the ghetto in hiding. For the at least 55,000-60,000 Jews
remaining in the Warsaw ghetto, deportationseemed inevitable.

In response to the deportations, on July 28, 1942, several Jewish
underground organizations created an armed self-defense unit known as
the Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB).
Rough estimates put the size of the ZOB at its formation at around 200
members. The Revisionist Party (right-wing Zionists known as the
Betar) formed another resistance organization, the Jewish Military
Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy; ZZW). Although initially there was
tension between the ZOB and the ZZW, both groups decided to work
together to oppose German attempts to destroy the ghetto. At the time
of the uprising, the ZOB had about 500 fighters in its ranks and the
ZZW had about 250.