RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Palestinians seem to be marching towards establishing a regime that is remarkably reminiscent of the despotic and corrupt Arab and Islamic governments.

By failing — or, more accurately, refusing — to hold the PA accountable for its crackdown on public freedoms, American and European taxpayers actively contribute to the emergence of another Arab dictatorship in the Middle East.

Palestinian professor Abdel Sattar Qassem, who teaches political science at An-Najah University in Nablus, is facing trial for “extending his tongue” against PA President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials.

Many Palestinians used to say that their dream is that one day they would have a free media and democracy like their neighbors in Israel. But thanks to the apathy of the international community, Palestinians have come to learn that if and when they ever have their own state, its role model will not be Israel or any Western democracy, but the regimes of repression that control the Arab and Muslim world.

A novelist, a journalist and a university professor walk into a bar. Sounds like a joke, but it stops being funny when these three figures are the latest victims of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) crackdown on public freedoms, above all, freedom of expression.

The crackdown is yet more proof of the violent intolerance that the Western-funded PA has long shown its critics.

It is also a sad reminder that more than two decades after the foundation of the PA, Palestinians are as far from democracy as ever. In fact, the Palestinians seem to be marching in the opposite direction — towards establishing a regime that is remarkably reminiscent of the despotic and corrupt Arab and Islamic governments.

PA officials like to boast that Palestinians living under their rule in the West Bank enjoy a great deal of freedom of expression, especially compared to the situation under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, a good look at the actions of the PA and its various security branches shows that they are not much different than those enforced by Hamas.

Sometimes it even seems as if the PA and Hamas are competing to see which one of them can most successfully silence critics and cracks down on journalists. This is the sad reality in which Palestinians living under the rule of these two parties have found themselves.

While it is understandable why an extremist Islamic movement like Hamas would seek to muzzle its critics, there is no reason why a PA government funded by Americans and Europeans should not be held accountable for persecuting dissidents and throwing objectors into prison.

By failing — or, more accurately, refusing — to hold the PA accountable for its crackdown on public freedoms, American and European taxpayers actively contribute to the emergence of another Arab dictatorship in the Middle East.

Hundreds of Western-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), operating in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, pay scant attention to the real problems facing Palestinians as a result of the actions of their PA and Hamas governments. The same applies to Western mainstream media and human rights organizations and advocates.

This willful neglect by the West encourages the Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to continue repressing their own people. There are times, however, when the international community pays attention to the plight of Palestinians: when the complaints concern Israel.

The PA government bans a Palestinian novel and confiscates copies from bookstores. Where is the outcry? There is none to be heard from the international community – because Israel was not behind the incident.

This is what happened last week when the PA Prosecutor-General issued an order banning the novel “Crime in Ramallah” by the author Abbad Yahya under the pretext that it contained “indecent texts and terms that threaten morality and public decency, which could affect the public, in particular minors.”

Yahya said he was summoned for questioning and his editor, Fuad Al-Aklik, was detained for 24 hours. PA policemen raided several bookshops in a number of Palestinian cities and confiscated all copies. The author, who is on a visit to Qatar, has since received multiple death threats and is afraid to return home.

The decision to ban the novel prompted 99 Palestinian writers, academics and researchers to sign a petition criticizing the PA authorities and calling for rescinding the ban. The petition called on the PA to cancel its punitive measures, which “cause harm to the Palestinians and their struggle for freedom from oppression, dictatorship and censorship.” The petition warned that the ban was a “grave breach of freedom of expression and creativity” and creates a situation where authors are forced to practice self-censorship.

The petition signed by the prominent Palestinians does not seem to have left an impression on the PA leadership in Ramallah.

Undeterred, PA security forces arrested journalist Sami Al-Sai, from the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, for allegedly posting critical comments on Facebook. The PA has accused Al-Sai, who works as a correspondent for a private television station, of “fomenting sectarian strife.”

This is an accusation that is often leveled against journalists or authors who dare to criticize the PA leadership. A PA court has ordered Al-Sai remanded into custody for 15 days. Protests by some Palestinian journalists against the arrest of their colleague have thus far fallen on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Palestinian professor Abdel Sattar Qassem, who teaches political science at An-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, is facing trial for “extending his tongue” against PA President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials. He is also charged with spreading “fake news” and “fomenting sectarian strife.” The decision to prosecute Qassem came following a TV interview where he strongly criticized Abbas and commanders of the PA security forces. Qassem has long been a vocal critic of the PA leadership and as a result he has been arrested on a number of occasions; shots have been fired at his home.

How come, then, that John Bercow did not think it advisable to oppose the Emir of Kuwait’s visit due to its “sexism” and “immigration ban”? No, Bercow granted the Emir a speech in the Queen’s Robing Room.

It is evidently acceptable to be a representative of some of the world’s most repressive dictatorships, with policies far worse than President Trump’s, and yet visit Parliament, but a democratically-elected leader in the free world and a key ally, who may hold some views with which Bercow disagrees, makes him unacceptable.

What is it that the people trying to keep Trump from speaking are afraid others might hear?

When Theresa May announced, to the gathered press at the White House, an invitation for Donald Trump to make an official state visit to the United Kingdom, there were some in Britain who apparently oppose his views — and, in a democratic and free society, express their opposition. There also were, however, concerns that these critics may have been acting hypocritically, as well as without considering due process.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House, January 27, 2017. (Image source: UK Prime Minister’s Office)

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow declared that he would not invite Trump to make a speech before Parliament due to the president’s alleged “sexism” and “racism,” and the British Parliament’s opposition to those stances, as well as, further, due to Trump’s temporary restrictions on immigration until better procedures for vetting applicants can be put in place .

Bercow, however, never adhered to due process: he should first have consulted the Speaker of the House of Lords or the Lord Chamberlain.

If Bercow thought that a ban from addressing Parliament would stop Trump from addressing the British people, he seems to have been wrong. Press reports suggest that Trump is planning massive stadium events. Perhaps that is the repeated failure of Trump’s opposition: to see his appeal to the masses.

Furthermore, where was Bercow when Emir of Kuwait visited? Kuwait has a poor record on women’s rights, and refuses entry to those with Israeli passports. Kuwait Airways and even dropped its flights between New York and London not to “break the law” by possibly carrying Israeli passengers.

How come, then, that Bercow did not think it advisable to oppose the Emir of Kuwait’s visit due to its “sexism” and “immigration ban”? No, Bercow granted the Emir a speech in the Queen’s Robing Room.

The screaming match between Jacqui Lambie and Yassmin Abdel-Magied on Q&A was great television, but the same could be said of train-wreck footage. Its real value came later, when 49 Muslim organisations and sympathisers spelled out a presumptive right not merely to respect but deference.
Multicultural amity was in short supply on Monday night’s Q&A, which saw Tasmania’s Senator Jacqui Lambie doing the one thing at which she always excels, making herself deeply unpleasant. For starters there’s that voice, which rises at times to the guttural shriek of the last water going down an old bathtub’s plughole. When it drops an octave, there is the needless belligerence of a public bar blowhard. In terms of general comportment, you wouldn’t have her at your daughter’s wedding, not if it could be helped.

Sometimes, though, even the most wretched amongst us serve the cause of the common good, and such was the case when this small and loud explosive device detonated in the face of fellow guest Yassmin Abdel-Magied. For once Senator Lambie was being rude to the right person in the right place and for the right reason.

Briefly, Ms Abdel-Magied, who already has her own ABC cable show and was sent off on a recent taxpayer-funded junket to hijabber in some of the world’s worst despotisms about the joy of being Muslim in Australia, spent much of Q&A talking loudly and to little point about any number of topics about which she either knows nothing or chooses not to acquaint herself. From baseload power to the tenets of her religion and, of course, the imminence of catastrophic climate change, Ms Abdel-Magied streamed random cliches and pseudo-factoids rooted only in her imagination. When she suggested sharia law implied nothing more than praying five times a day and, further, that women are happy as Larry under Islam, what little in the way of good manners Senator Lambie had embraced on the night were flung aside. The exchange is segmented and analysed here by video blogger Progressing Backwards, whose clip would have been embedded for display on this page but for the narrator’s vulgarity in punctuating his thoughts with the procreative verb.

As a consequence of the women’s encounter, gripes the Australian Islamic Mission and 49 groups and individual signatories to an online petition, multiculturalism’s gorgeous mosaic is being pulverised, not merely by Senator Lambie but — and this bit is delicious — the ABC as well! According to the petition, compere Tony Jones should have gagged the garrulous Taswegian because, well, Muslims must not face, not ever, pointed questions about their creed and its compatability with hard-won Western norms like, for instance, the equality of women. More than that, the petition’s text all but demands that Islam be treated now and forever with a conspicuous and courteous deference. The petition is reproduced in full below, but this paragraph is especially worthy of note (emphasis added):

If Q&A wants to invite Muslim individuals to its forum, it should be able to guarantee a safe environment for them based on trustworthiness and comfort to speak in a platform that is rarely afforded to them, especially on issues concerning them.

muslim theologiantasmania intellectual IIThe irony is that the ABC has been doing just that since the Prophet was a lad, leading one to suspect — and please pardon the cynicism – that Ms Abdel-Magied owed her place on the panel as much to a winning smile and the glib giddiness of her manner than any wisdom she might then or previously have poured into the wells of human insight. Opinions may differ, and the applause of the typically unbalanced Q&A audience for Abdel-Magied’s defence of sharia’s alleged innocence suggests they very much do. But the inanity of her theological pronouncements might well lead others to conclude she is no better than an airhead whose prime credential is, you know, a photogenic otherness. Were she to team up with Waleed Aly and do the Leagues Clubs, they could be the Islamic George Burns & Gracie Allen. She’s the fun face of Islam, the girl with the lampshade on her head, the life of what the ABC in its habitual celebration of tokenism imagines to be the perfect multi-culti party.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for “jihad”, in January 2015.

“The Muslim Brotherhood at all levels have repeatedly defended Hamas attacks… including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.” — UK government expert review of the Muslim Brotherhood, December 2015.

The Muslim Brotherhood not only funds one of the most virulent terrorist groups, Hamas, but there is barely any daylight between the various leaderships of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Hamas.

Most of the terrorists who later founded al Qaeda were rooted in the MB. Osama bin Laden was apparently recruited as a young man to the MB, whereas Ayman al Zawahiri joined the MB at the age of 14 and went on to found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ),”an organization that…. holds many of the same beliefs as the MB but simply refuses to renounce violence inside Egypt” — Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The Muslim Brotherhood believes today what it has always believed: that a caliphate, where sharia law will rule, must be established through jihad. Refusing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization would be a grave mistake, playing straight into the strategy of the Brotherhood and, once more, revealing to the world the extreme gullibility of the West.

The Trump administration is considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a foreign terrorist organization, and Human Rights Watch is outraged.

“Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ would wrongly equate it with violent extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and make their otherwise lawful activities illegal,” said Human Rights Watch. The press release went on to repeat the old claim that “…the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt officially renounced violence in the 1970s and sought to promote its ideas through social and political activities”.

“Nowhere has the UN’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel.” — Governor Nikki Haley, US Ambassador-designate to the United Nations.

When those handsomely remunerated within transnational institutions make their priority spiteful political issues and arguably anti-Semitic point-scoring — rather than protecting hard-won humanistic principles such as human rights — the very values that differentiate segments of the modern world from the more barbarous norms of the past — their legitimacy is eroded.

“My commitment is… to reject any oppression in the name of religion… a goal that we will reach in a peaceful and law-abiding way.” — Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger sentenced for such thoughts to 1000 lashes — in contravention of international law — followed by ten years in jail and a fine of approximately $260,000. His lawyer, Walid Abu’l-Khayr, was jailed as well. Where was the United Nations then? A royal pardon for both men should be granted immediately.

It is high time that democratic nations reasserted their sovereignty in the face of these unelected, untransparent, and unaccountable transnational institutions which so often make a mockery of the standards they are pledged to uphold.

The “rise of populism” has become an absorbing subject for political commentators in the West, yet as the Cato Institute scholar, Alberto Mingardi, helpfully observes, the term is “as slippery as it is popular.”

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this current political trend is why we are struck by it. The nations of the West are, after all, democracies: systems of government designed to translate popular concerns into legislative instruments.

An answer to this dysfunction might lie in the layers of transnational governance, which proliferated after the Second World War, superseding national, and by implication democratically-accountable, decision making.

The horrendous carnage that ripped the world apart in the middle of the last century led to a principled decision by the world’s leaders to promote the formulation, and then ratification, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today, the most senior transnational body responsible for preserving such rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), housed within the Palace of Nations in Geneva, is arguably a pathetic joke.

To say so is not an exercise in polemic; it is a product of soberly assessing the facts.

Self-abasement bigtime! In a spectacular display of the hypocritical feminism that blasts President Trump and other Western men for misogyny real and supposed, these Swedish feministas bow their hijabbed heads to the leaders of a country known for very real and hideous oppression of women.

In the process these whacky Swedish hypocrites (whose own country, now the rape capital of Europe owing to Islamic mass migration , betrays its women and girls) have betrayed Iranian women, for whom encasement in body sacks is compulsory, despite the pleas of Iranian feminists fighting the hijab whom they have blatantly ignored.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpOpZ3W9zSk)

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch has the lowdown on these wicked women. Inter alia:

‘In a statement that has gone viral on Twitter and Facebook, UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights NGO in Geneva, expressed disappointment that Sweden’s self-declared “first feminist government in the world” sacrificed its principles and betrayed the rights of Iranian women as Trade Minister Ann Linde and other female members walked before Iranian President Rouhani on Saturday wearing Hijabs, Chadors, and long coats, in deference to Iran’s oppressive and unjust modesty laws which make the Hijab compulsory — despite Stockholm’s promise to promote “a gender equality perspective” internationally, and to adopt a “feminist foreign policy” in which “equality between women and men is a fundamental aim.”

In doing so, Sweden’s female leaders ignored the recent appeal by Iranian women’s right activist Masih Alinejad who urged Europeans female politicians “to stand for their own dignity” and to refuse to kowtow to the compulsory Hijab while visiting Iran.

By Vincent van den Born

The English translation of Hungarian president Viktor Orbán’s State of the Nation Address of 10 February has been published. For highlights of his speech, see below.

“A common mistake among humanity’s rich and powerful is to believe that they can act like God and be immune from the consequences. They declare supposedly incontrovertible facts; they push utopias onto other countries and peoples; they decide what others can or cannot say, and what they can or cannot believe in; they decide on membership of elite circles and they believe their global power is unquestionable.

Money, the media, global governance and an open global society – in 2016 people in many places around the world had had enough of all this. There was Brexit, the US presidential election, the ejection of the Italian government, the Hungarian migrant referendum – and perhaps there is still more to come. Oh people, ‘you are finally beginning to be great’; but of course using the poet Petőfi as a shield will not stop the sinking liberals saying that listening to the people is an act of pure populism – which, as we all know, is a ‘bad thing’, and is in fact ‘harmful’. In Europe properly house-trained politicians must not say things like that.”

“There has been an uprising by those who are not usually asked, whose voices are not usually heard:(…) whose mouths have been gagged in the name of political correctness; (…). They demanded the return of their homelands, of their economies and social opportunities. They demanded the return of the world in which they once felt at home: the wide and diverse world of nations.”

“And we too are members of the European Union: we cannot distance ourselves from this either, and the bell also tolls for us. This is not a game, and the stakes are real – in fact they are the highest imaginable. The people of the West feel that the history of their generation and future generations could indeed be at an end. (…) Can they continue the way of life they inherited from their parents, or will something change forever without their consent – and indeed against their will? Will they have the right to their own culture? Will they be able to protect Europe’s non-material, intellectual assets? (…) And will there be security without the threat of terrorism, and will life in big cities be free of fear? Regardless of the prosperity and affluence of today, within the European Union the future is now casting a shadow on the present. That shadow is a long, dark one. And this isn’t being pointed out by envious Eastern Europeans or ludicrous old Soviet propaganda. This is different: Western Europeans are saying all this about themselves, about their own situations and their own future.”

“The issue of migration will also remain on the agenda. Despite the fact that illegal immigration raises an insoluble problem and the threat of terrorism, and despite the bloody reality and the terrible events seen throughout Europe, migrants can still move freely around Europe until their claims have been finally ruled on in the courts. The question for 2017 will be whether we should detain them and keep them in detention until there are final verdicts on their applications. And in 2017 we will also need to take up the struggle against international organisations’ increasingly strong activists. In addition, in 2018 there will be elections in several countries – including here at home. It is a problem that foreign funding is being secretly used to influence Hungarian politics. (…) We are not talking about non-governmental organisations fighting to promote an important cause, but about paid activists from international organisations and their branch offices in Hungary. Are we going to do something to at least ensure transparency, and make these issues publicly known?”

“They say that it is generally impossible to show a correlation between demographic indices and changes in the standard of living. But I believe that there is indeed a correlation between a nation’s will to live, a people’s discovery of themselves and changes in demographic indices: between whether a nation is capable of believing in itself and in the future of its offspring, and the number of children it wants to raise. It is my firm belief that there is a correlation between what over the past seven years we have been striving to achieve and the fact that the nation wants to become younger; because what individuals cannot achieve – turn their old age into youth – is possible for the nation. A people that has begun to age can still become a youthful people: it is up to its members, and it is a question of will.”