RUTHFULLY YOURS

Tharwa Boulifi, aged 15, lives in Tunisia.

The thing that struck me most is that they had no beards. Terrorism seems to be changing tactics. It no longer shows up as beards, revolvers, religious clothing… But it has started to take over our daily lives: in buses, subways, streets, supermarkets, maybe mostly in the slums. Every day, there, terrorists are being snapped up by ISIS.

“Religion” for me now just means “violence” and “kill.”

The thing is, Muslims generally do not have great arguments, so they just insult us. The subject of religion seems taboo for them: seeing other people — especially those who do not share their same beliefs — criticizing or asking questions about it is considered a humiliation. Discussing Islam means questioning its credibility, and so humiliating it.

Discussing Islam also seems a threat to their psychological safety: having the same beliefs and the same God is a sort of a reassurance and protection. To cast doubt on their religion means breaking into their “comfort zone” — and possibly even raising doubts.

For many, religious tolerance has become a business currency — a way to promote tourism, improve relations with other countries, elevate Tunisia’s image and benefit from the aid of rich countries. But that only makes tolerance a mask worn for personal gain.

The subway is something I do not go on a lot anymore, said the boy. On the subway, said the boy, people still gave me the evil eye; probably the long hair. Last time, a friend phoned; I spoke to him in Arabic. Soon after, a group of young men came up.

One said, “Are you Tunisian?”

“Yes,” I said.

Then, one of them saw the cross.

“Are you a Muslim?” he said.

“The cross is a gift,” I said. Then I told them the truth. “I am atheist,” I said.

I tried to ignore them, but one of them grabbed me by the shoulder.

“Oh really?” he said. “Then where do you think you are going after your death? Who created the universe if it was not Allah? If you do not revere Allah, you must revere Satan.”

By Western standards, military rule is shunned as an oppressive form of government, but in the Islamic world it is the only buffer of protection from the tyranny of total sharia law that must be enforced by Islamic theocracies, such as those of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The days of sacrificing the safety and security of citizens of the West for the sake of multiculturalism, are over. In order for multiculturalism to work, it must be a two-way street between people that share common values of respect of each other’s culture. Unfortunately, the West did not get that from Islam.

It really does not matter what is “true Islam”. That is something the Muslim world needs to deal with internally; it does not serve us in the West to try to evaluate what is “true Islam” and what is not.

Your religious leaders, whose salaries are paid by Islamic governments, stand before your media cameras and call on Muslims to stab, slam trucks, kill, rape and humiliate the kafir [non-Muslim] Jews, Christians and Pagans.

Islamic governments and terror groups are two peas in a pod, working together for the same goal: enforcing Allah’s law, sharia, on the world. It is no secret that a Muslim head of state must rule by sharia and must conduct jihad against non-Muslims. Sharia law commands Muslim citizens to remove, by rebellion or assassination, any Muslim leader who does not abide by sharia and support jihadists.

As of today, the West must hold Islamic governments responsible for jihadist actions of their own terrorist citizens. Nothing happens in Muslim countries without the knowledge of their governments. If a Muslim government has no control of its citizens, it should be considered a rogue nation.

Bringing in unvetted refugees from Syria and Iraq is not an act of compassion, but gross negligence. Western governments have failed their citizens for too long in that respect and that will end today.

After all, why should cultures that loathe the West seek to live in the West? As President-elect Trump said, why should America — or any country — not allow in only immigrants who love us and who respect our laws and way of life?

TAIPEI, Taiwan—Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen played down the significance of a planned U.S. stopover in January en route to Central America amid warnings from Beijing and speculation that she might meet with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team.

Speaking to reporters Saturday, the president of the self-ruled island said she wouldn’t be on an official visit to the U.S. and would make routine transit stops. “A transit stop is just a transit stop,” she said.

While Ms. Tsai and her predecessors made similar stopovers in the past, her plan to transit through Houston and San Francisco follows a groundbreaking telephone conversation with Mr. Trump in early December. That call set aside nearly 40 years of protocol that has left contacts between the two sides to lower-level officials at the insistence of Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its territory.

Under Washington’s agreement to open full diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, the U.S. downgraded its relations with Taiwan. The two, however, maintain close political, economic and military ties on an “unofficial” basis. Beijing, while tolerating the arrangement, is wary that Washington’s support may stiffen Taiwan’s resistance to China’s goal of reunification.

The phone call between Mr. Trump and Ms. Tsai irked Beijing. The anger was amplified after Mr. Trump questioned the usefulness of the “one China” policy under which the U.S. keeps its ties with Taiwan unofficial.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman this week called on the U.S. to prevent a stopover by Taiwan’s president and avoid sending the “wrong signals” to elements on the island pushing for formal independence.

The phone call may have also played a role in the recent announcement by the small African nation of São Tomé and Príncipe that it was dropping its formal recognition of Taiwan in favor of China. In past years, China and Taiwan have engaged in a bidding war as they competed diplomatic allies. They reached a truce under President Tsai’s predecessor, who adopted a more pro-engagement policy with Beijing. Taiwan has accused China of using “dollar diplomacy” to lure away São Tomé.

Ms. Tsai’s visit to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador from Jan. 7 to 15 was arranged previously but has taken on new significance as the island seeks to shore up support among its remaining diplomatic partners. Taiwan now has official ties with only 21 countries, most of them small Central American and Caribbean countries as well as Pacific islands. CONTINUE AT SITE

BEIRUT—Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for a deadly New Year’s attack in Istanbul that killed at least 39 people and wounded dozens more, claiming the operation had targeted Turkey in retaliation for its military operations against the group in Syria.

The statement was distributed by Nashir News, a channel that publishes Islamic State propaganda, and which had called for followers of the extremist group to target holiday celebrations days before the attack.

Two demagogues have inserted their countries into a monstrous civilisational war between millennialist Shia fundamentalists and apocalyptic Sunni fundamentalists. There were always going to be consequences for such folly – the assassination of Ambassador Karlov is but one.

All of this was clarified yet again with the slaying of Andrey Karlov, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, by Mevlut Mert Altintas, a twenty-two-year-old policeman. To begin with all we knew – and almost all we needed to know – was that (a) Altintas served in security details protecting none other President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in recent months and (b) the assailant, after dispatching Karlov, repeatedly shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria! Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria!”

Much of what Putin and Erdoğan say about the public murder of a prime symbol of Russian intervention on the side of Damascus-Iran-Hezbollah in Syria is likely to be propaganda. Turkey’s Ministry of Truth, for instance, was quick off the mark to insist American-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen had a role in Karlov’s death. Altintas, according to this conspiracy theory, was a member of FETÖ, the term invented by Ankara to demonise the Gulen movement as a shadowy, underground terrorist entity determined to subvert the Turkish Republic. Under the headline “Great Sabotage”, the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper explained it this way: “The pro-FETÖ assassins of the CIA have been mobilised.”

So far, at least, Russia’s version of the Ministry of Truth has been more circumspect about blaming Western intelligence agencies, and yet a smattering of Putin’s allies in the Duma made some like-minded rumblings. Frantz Klintsevich, a significant figure in the Russian parliament, speculated on the “highly likely” possibility that “foreign NATO secret services” were behind the assassination. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, another ally of Putin’s in the Duma, spoke of a “false flag operation by the West.”

The grain of truth in such dissembling is that Mevlut Mert Altintas took the action he did to protest the nascent rapprochement between Putin’s Russia and Erdoğan’s Turkey. That said, Altintas seems an unlikely agent of FETÖ or the CIA. The dramatic footage of him murdering Karlov and then denouncing the fall of eastern Aleppo makes that abundantly clear: “Only death will remove me from here. Everyone who has taken part in the oppression will one by one pay for it one by one.” A spokesman for Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) later confirmed Altintas’ Salafi-jihadist sympathies. The slaying of Andrey Karlov, in other words, was retribution for Russia’s part in the Shia alliance’s recent victory in Aleppo.

The assassination of Ambassador Karlov suggests that major fault lines divide the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey; even if Tsar Vladimir and Sultan Erdoğan themselves would prefer an alliance between their two countries rather than enmity. Back in December 2014, for instance, Ishaan Tharoor, in an article titled “How Russia’s Putin and Turkey’s Erdoğan are made for each other”, captured the friendliness “between two of the most outspoken and demagogic statesmen on the planet” at the time of President Putin’s last visit to Ankara. President Erdoğan provided a welcome “with fitting pageantry: an escort of liveried cavalrymen on horseback, a full military salute and a series of discussions in the cavernous halls of Erdoğan’s vast, new presidential palace.”

Both leaders, Ishaan Tharoor contended, were “kindred spirits”. They were the opposite of “bleeding heart liberals” and pursued reactionary social agendas in their separate domains: Putin, the ardent nationalist and devotee of the Russian Orthodox Church, wary of gender equality and an enactor of legislation hostile to gays; and Erdoğan, the Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamist determined to roll back Turkey’s Kemalist legacy. Erdoğan and Putin were both despots who “squelched” any internal obstruction to their “creeping authoritarianism” and were united by a distrust of the West.

It appears that Iran literally gained nothing from the Moscow conference, meaning that its participation was merely of a ceremonial nature.

“The regime in Tehran is the source of crisis in the region and killings in Syria; it has played the greatest role in the expansion and continuation of ISIS. Peace and tranquility in the region can only be achieved by evicting this regime from the region.” — Maryam Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and a leader of the opposition to Iran’s regime.

The recent three-party conference held in Moscow with the participation of Russia, Turkey and Iran came to a significant end. With mainstream media emphasizing how the U.S. Administration was completely sidelined in talks that discussed the future of Syria, a different perspective also sheds light on how Iran was sidelined to an unprecedented degree. Considering that this session ended with a document signed by all three parties, one can take a hard look at the results.

This document emphasizes Syria’s independence and territorial integrity as a multi-racial, multi-religious, non-sectarian, democratic and secular state; underscores the necessity of reaching a political solution; welcomes joint efforts in East Aleppo to evacuate civilians and armed rebels; highlights the need to expand a ceasefire across the country and facilitate access to humanitarian aid; supports a possible agreement between the Syrian opposition and the Syrian government; and accentuates continuing joint efforts against terrorism and especially the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), differentiating their forces from those of the armed democratic opposition.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (center) holds a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (left) and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (right) in Moscow, December 20, 2016. (Image source: Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

A closer look brings us to a preliminary conclusion that most of the articles are clash Iran’s interests. For example, Iran was, and remains, fully against the safe evacuation of civilians and rebels from East Aleppo.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani went so far as saying, “Various Islamic states… are worried about the fate of terrorists and seek their safe exit from Aleppo.”

In this document, there is no mention of the Assad regime or any language discussing its remaining in power. And importantly, while Iran went to great lengths to massacre all dissidents and annihilate the entire Syrian opposition under the pretext of fighting ISIS, this document specifically differentiates and recognizes the separate nature of ISIS and the Free Syrian Army.

The Moscow conference also emphasized the role of the United Nations in resolving the Syrian crisis, highlighting the necessity to abide by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254. This resolution emphasizes the Security Council as the reference body, also enjoying support from the United States and Saudi Arabia. There is no reference to Assad’s future role; instead the resolution “expressed support for free and fair elections, pursuant to the new constitution, to be held within 18 months and administered under United Nations supervision, ‘to the highest international standards’ of transparency and accountability, with all Syrians—including members of the diaspora—eligible to participate.”

Taking these factors into consideration, it appears that Iran literally gained nothing from the Moscow conference, meaning that its participation was merely of a ceremonial nature.

The conference outcome makes it clear that Russia enjoys hegemony over Iran in Syria, and that Moscow has imposed its interests and road map to Tehran, leaving the mullahs no choice but to submit to the status quo. This setback of its hegemony seems a major reason why Iran needed to parade Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Qassem Suleimani in Aleppo: perhaps to boost an iota of morale into its dwindling social base.

Dear Prime Minister,

It was sickening to see that your government last week voted for the declaration of diplomatic war against Israel embodied in resolution 2334 passed by the UN Security Council.

Bad enough that Britain didn’t use its position as a permanent SC member to vote against this vicious resolution and thereby stop it in its tracks. Worse, far worse was that your government voted for it. In doing so, Britain signed up to propositions that repudiate law, justice and truth.

Now reports have surfaced that, yet more appallingly, Britain was actually instrumental in getting 2334 passed by helping draft the resolution and then stiffening New Zealand’s resolve in proposing it.

I don’t know whether that is correct. I suspect it may well be. I think, nevertheless, that you spoke from the heart the other week when you told the Conservative Friends of Israel of your admiration for Israel as a “remarkable country” and a “beacon of tolerance” and your warm feelings towards the Jewish people.

I also think, however, that you know little about the history of the Jews in the Middle East, the part played in that history by previous British governments or the infernal strategic aims of the people known as the “Palestinians”. I believe, therefore, you might not fully grasp the implications of supporting UNSC resolution 2334.

So let me spell out exactly what your government has done by voting in this way.

It has put itself firmly behind the attempt to exterminate the State of Israel under the cowardly cover of vacuous pieties about supporting two democratic states and opposing terrorism and incitement. It has done this by endorsing the inflammatory falsehoods and legal and historic fictions deployed by those whose purpose is to destroy the State of Israel.

It has shredded the concept of diplomatic integrity by delegitimising Israel’s legal actions in defence of its survival while legitimising the manifestly false claim to the land by those who want Israel gone.

It has put rocket fuel behind the discriminatory and bigoted BDS movement whose aim is to delegitimise Israel and bring about its destruction.

By declaring that Israel’s borders should be established on terms demanded by its mortal enemies, the British government has backed coerced surrender to aggressors bent on Israel’s extermination.

Who is Mohammed Usman Rana? He’s a 31-year-old Norwegian doctor and newspaper columnist who first appeared on my radar in 2007 when, as an undergraduate at the University of Oslo, he took part in a debate about Muslim attitudes toward gay people. Rana, who at the time was head of UiO’s Muslim Student Association, said that he personally opposed executing gays, but refused to criticize countries that punish homosexuality with death. Pressed further on the issue by his opponents, Rana pulled a slick switcheroo, charging that it was not he but they who were displaying intolerance. How dare they sit in judgment of Islamic law?

Did Rana’s failure to condemn the execution of gay people make him an outcast? Of course not – we’re talking about Scandinavia here, after all. Only a few months after the above-mentioned debate, he wrote an op-ed forAftenposten, Norway’s newspaper of record, in which he picked up where he’d left off. Norwegians, he complained in the piece, are “secular extremists” who are insufficiently respectful of orthodox Islam, who hope for an “Islamic reformation” that would in fact mutilate the religion, and who prefer to hear from secular Muslims and ex-Muslims (think Ayaan Hirsi Ali) than from genuine believers such as himself.

Rana’s essay won an award from Aftenposten – a victory that catapulted him into the top ranks of the nation’s commentariat and made him, in the words of author Ole Asbjørn Ness, “Aftenposten’s deadly serious house Islamist.” Who, by the way, chose to give Rana the award? A fellow by the name of Knut Olav Åmås, who at the time was an editor of Aftenposten and who happens to be openly gay. Yes, that’s right: a gay editor gave a major career boost to a writer who refused to criticize the death penalty for gay people. Welcome to Norway.

This year saw another milestone for Rana: his first book. It was published by one of Norway’s oldest and most distinguished houses, Aschehoug, and it was launched at a splashy event hosted by Fritt Ord, a free-speech foundation, where Rana was given an oddly jocund introduction by Fritt Ord’s CEO, none other than the aforementioned Knut Olav Åmås. Also on hand to praise Rana were Trine Skei Grande, head of the Norwegian Liberal Party (who took the opportunity to slam Fox News for its purported Islamophobia), and Hanne Skartveit, political editor of Norway’s largest newspaper, VG. (Interestingly, while Fritt Ord was given a media lashing in 2013 for supporting a book project by Islam critic Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen, aka “Fjordman,” nobody publicly criticized Fritt Ord’s support for Rana.)