RUTHFULLY YOURS

BERLIN—Asylum seekers in Germany received nearly €5.3 billion ($5.91 billion) in welfare benefits last year, more than double the cost in 2014, statistics showed Monday, highlighting the scale of the country’s refugee challenge.

Some 975,000 asylum seekers received benefits last year, more than double the number in 2014, the Federal Statistical Office said. In total, Germany paid asylum seekers €5.27 billion in support, ranging from lodging to food and medical treatments, up from €2.4 billion in 2014.

This is just part of the total amount the German state spent on helping migrants last year since the statistics only include asylum seekers–including rejected applicants who cannot be deported–and not recognized refugees, most of whom are eligible for income support. Only a minute fraction of the roughly 1 million migrants who entered Germany last year have found work.

The statistics are a stark reminder of the financial burden Germany has taken on when it opened its borders to refugees from the Middle-East, Asia and Africa last year. Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended the country’s liberal refugee policy in the face of mounting discontent, particularly among conservative backers of her Christian Democratic Union.

On Sunday, the upstart anti-immigrant party beat Ms. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats for the first time in the latest sign of public disapproval of the chancellor’s refugee policy.

The majority of asylum seekers receiving benefits last year were from Asia, with 308,021 from Syria and 114,543 from Afghanistan, the data showed. Some 67% were men with an average age of 25 years, the statistics show. Some 30% of those receiving aid were minors. CONTINUE AT SITE

With Europe being overrun today with Muslim refugees, and therape of European women by the male migrants becoming a widespread phenomenon, the Glazov Gang is running it special episode joined by Ingrid Carlqvist, the Editor-in-Chief of Dispatch-International.com.

Ingrid discussed Islam’s Rape of Sweden, unveiling the Muslim terror that is maiming her country:http://jamieglazov.com/2016/09/05/islams-rape-of-sweden-on-the-glazov-gang-2/

Since the signing of the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015—now, it turns out, with major secret exemptions for Iran—Iran’s brazenness has only grown. The Obama administration, in its ongoing efforts to coddle and appease, has gone so far as to offer to buy Iran’s heavy water and sell Iran Boeings.

But the reason appeasement doesn’t work is that Iran harbors an intense enmity toward the West and particularly its (still) reigning superpower, America, which it wants to destroy. Anyone still not convinced of that should watch this propaganda video of young Iranians sinking American aircraft carriers.

Lately, with the lame-duck President Obama headed for the finish line as he tightly clutches his “legacy”—the nuclear deal—Iran has further stepped up the brazenness. It has harassed U.S. ships in international waters of the Persian Gulf, forcing one of them to fire warning shots. It has deployed the Russian-made S-300 missile-defense system—one of the most advanced in the world—at its Fordo uranium-enrichment site. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an address to Defense Ministry staff in Tehran, has said Iran must continue its offensive military buildup and “avoid negotiating with the U.S., [as] experience has proven that instead of understanding, the Americans are seeking to impose their will in negotiations.”

The Obama administration, for which the nuclear deal plays a role like the speed of light in Einsteinian relativity—an absolute, immutable principle—reacts to all this solely by expressing “concern.”

A major exposé in the Daily Mail now reveals that, for years, Iran’s military involvement in Syria has been much more extensive and dangerous than many believed.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled opposition group, has passed information to MailOnline that was apparently leaked by senior figures in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Among other things, the activists say Iran now commands about 60,000 Shiite troops in Syria—vastly more than the 16,000 that Western analysts had estimated.

The NCRI, which in 2002 exposed Iran’s then-secret nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak, also says Iran operates a major headquarters near Damascus airport, nicknamed the Glasshouse. About a thousand people work there including Iran’s feared intelligence agencies, and there is also a basement for holding millions of dollars in cash.

The NCRI claims that the total amount Iran has spent on the Syrian war comes to an astounding $100 billion, much of it during years when Tehran was complaining loudly about the ravages of economic sanctions. Western analysts had gauged the sum at only $15 billion.

Instead of referring to the female candidates by name and publishing their pictures, the electoral lists are using the terms “the wife of” or “sister.”

“It is disgraceful for any Islamic, national or independent list to scrap the names of the women. If they are not willing to recognize the woman’s name, how will they accept the role of the women woman’s name, how will they accept the role of the women after they are elected? … I’m against the participation of women in this manner. Let men participate in the election alone.” — Nahed Abu Taima, Media Development Center at Bir Zeit University.

Dr. Walid Al-Qatati, a writer and analyst specializing in Islamic affairs, said that the move reminded him of wedding invitations that are sent out without naming the brides.

When Palestinian women carry out attacks against Israelis, Palestinian society glorifies them as heroes. Then the names and photos of these women are plastered across billboards. Yet it appears that when the women wish to work for life rather than for death, their identities are not fit for public consumption.

In a move that has outraged Palestinian women and various Palestinian factions, a number of Palestinian lists contesting the upcoming local elections, scheduled to take place on October 8, have decided to omit the names and photos of female candidates.

Instead of referring to the female candidates by name and publishing their pictures, the electoral lists are using the terms “the wife of” or “sister.”

Critics have denounced the move as a “sign of retardation, extremism and bigotry.” Other Palestinians have gone so far as comparing the removal of the female candidates’ names and photos from the lists to the cruel pre-Islamic practice of infanticide (wa’d).

Iran’s Supreme Leader and the senior cadre of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been vocally critical of the nuclear deal. They fear further diplomatic and political rapprochement between the US and Iran, now that they have already achieved their objectives of the lifting of the four major rounds of the UN Security Council’s sanctions.

After the nuclear deal was implemented, polls showed that 63% of Iranians expected to see improvements in the economy and living standards within a year. But currently, in a new poll, 74% of Iranians said there had been no economic improvements in the past year.

Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying he wants to “redefine revolutionary ideals” set up by the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, appears to be launching a campaign to run in the upcoming Iranian presidential elections, in February, 2017.

Ahmadinejad was well-known for his incendiary and provocative speeches, which included denying the Holocaust. At the end of his presidential term, from 2005 to 2013, his approval rating was extremely low, and he managed to drive away most constituents across political spectrum, including the topmost hardline leaders. He also became the first Iranian president since 1979 to be summoned by the parliament (Majlis) to answer questions regarding his activities and policies.

After all of this, the common conception among politicians, scholars and policy analysts was that Ahmadinejad would never return to politics. It seemed that his retirement plan focused on founding a university and teaching, but his plan to open a university failed.

Despite his low popularity among people, however, the “principalists” (ultra-conservatives) were still on his side, due to his fierce anti-US, anti-Western and anti-Israel policies and rhetoric, as well as the fact that he remains a major figure in the coalition of several conservative groups, the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran.

After Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed him to the Expediency Council, Iran’s highest political arbitration body, which arbitrates between the Guardian Council (the supervisory body over the parliament and elections) and the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament). The Expediency Council is predominantly made up of Iran’s hardline clerics, and functions as an advisory institution to the Supreme Leader.

President Obama took office in 2009 promising that his brand of engagement would yield global respect for the United States. We’ve since had more than seven years of leading from behind, standing “shoulder to shoulder” with the “international community,” snubbing of allies, appeasing of enemies and cutting America down to size. As Obama makes what will likely be his final official visit to China, how’s it going?

Well, China, as host of the current G-20 summit, rolled out the red carpet — or at least the red-carpeted airplane stairs — for the arriving leaders of such countries as Britain, Australia, Germany and Russia.

For President Obama, arriving yesterday on Air Force One, there was no such dignified reception. Instead, there was a shoving match with the press and a confrontation with National Security Adviser Susan Rice, in which a Chinese official shouted “This is our country. This is our airport.” For lack of any portable stairs rolled to the front door of the presidential plane, Obama was left to jog down the aircraft’s own stairs at the back.

Obama downplayed the insult, telling reporters “not to over-crank the significance.”

Maybe that makes sense in the bubble-world of the Ben-Rhodes-foreign-policy narrative, where the tide of war is forever receding, the arc of history bends toward justice, the oceans rise and fall at the command of Obama’s pen and phone, and the echo chamber, on cue, applauds.

But China’s reception was an insult, pure and simple. No one need study the tea leaves to understand that this was a gesture of gross disrespect, seen around the world, putting the American president in his place — especially as compared with the warm reception for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

“We will colonize you with your democratic laws.” — Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Egyptian Islamic cleric and chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

“Beaches, like any public space, must be protected from religious claims. The burkini is an anti-social political project aimed in particular at subjugating women… It is not compatible with the values ​​of France and the Republic. Faced with such provocations, the Republic must defend itself.” — French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

According to the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet, the high court’s ruling against burkini bans, “far from appeasing [Muslims], will instead increase passions and tensions.”

“Beaches are equated with streets, where the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols is also rejected by two-thirds of the French.” — Jérôme Fourquet, director of the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop).

The French city of Nice has lifted a controversial ban on Muslim burkinis after a court ruled such prohibitions illegal. Bans on the full-body swimsuits have also been annulled in Cannes, Fréjus, Roquebrune and Villeneuve-Loubet, but they remain in place in at least 25 other French coastal towns.

The row over burkinis — a neologism blending burka and bikini — has reignited a long-running debate over Islamic dress codes in France and other secular European states (see Appendix below).

On August 26, the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, ruled that municipal authorities in Villeneuve-Loubet, a seaside town on the French Riviera, did not have the right to ban burkinis. The court found that the ban — which was issued after the jihadist attack in Nice on July 14, in which 86 people were killed — was “a serious and manifestly illegal attack on fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of movement and the freedom of conscience.” The judges ruled that local authorities could only restrict individual liberties if there was a “demonstrated risk” to public order. There was, they said, no evidence of such a risk.

Although the ruling applied only to the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet, observers said the ruling would set a legal precedent for the 30 other cities and towns which have also implemented bans on burkinis.

The high court decision overturned a lower court ruling, issued August 22, which said the burkini ban was “necessary, appropriate, and proportionate” to ensure public order.

The case was brought by the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) and the Human Rights League (LDH). The two groups have vowed to file lawsuits against any municipality with a burkini ban, which they say violates the religious freedom of Muslims in France.

Patrice Spinosi, a lawyer for the LDH, said that in the absence of a demonstrated threat to public order, the high court “has ruled and has shown that mayors do not have the right to set limits on wearing religious signs in public spaces. It is contrary to the freedom of religion, which is a fundamental freedom.”

The fate of the Middle East’s remaining Christians appears little these days in mainstream media news stories, which presently focus on terrorist outrages in Europe instead. Given the recent targeting of churches in several European nations, the omission is unfortunate.

Rather than candidly facing up to the religious roots which motivate terrorist outrages, politicians and the press in Europe often pick up on outpourings of grief and express the need for “unity” as a means of dealing with such violence.

The Australian academic, Dr. Mark Durie, has noted that this perspective contains a grave error: it is often used “as a pretext to censor those who ask the hard questions.”

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah … those who have been given the Book [Jews and Christians] until they pay the tax [jizya tribute] … and they are in a state of subjection.” – Koran, 9:29, (Shakir translation)

In the north-eastern Syrian city of Al-Qamishli, nestled on the border with Turkey, Islamic fundamentalists bombed St. Charnel Church, an ancient site of worship for the Assyrian Orthodox Christians.

On July 18, reported ARA News, gunmen detonated explosives inside the church. Activists point the finger of responsibility at ISIS. “We saw a huge fire and security forces arrived and extinguished the fire. But the church was completely destroyed, you can see only ashes here,” remarked one eyewitness to the attack.

The fate of the Middle East’s remaining Christians — often open to abuse and attack at any moment — appears little these days in mainstream media news stories, which presently focus on terrorist outrages in Europe instead. Reporting has likewise been dominated, since 2015, by coverage of the continuing Muslim migration from Africa and Asia into Europe.

Given the recent targeting of churches in several European nations, the omission is unfortunate.

The journalist who reported the rape for the newspaper Birgun, said that that he and the newspaper received countless death threats on social media for reporting the case.

Turkey’s constitutional court in July annulled a criminal code provision punishing all sexual acts involving children under the age of 15 as “sexual abuse”, giving a six-month period for parliament to draw up a new law.

The facts on the ground indicate that the sexual abuse of children in Turkey is extremely widespread and the Turkish state authorities are not acting responsibly.

When Syrian babies and other children, as well as women, are being raped and treated horribly in Turkey, and their abusers go free; when journalists covering these abuses are threatened; when publication bans are imposed on the crimes committed against Syrians, and when criminals are given “good conduct abatement” by courts, Turkey seems to be one of the last countries on earth to have the moral right to demand visa-free travel in Europe or anywhere else.

Turkey has once again threatened to tear up a controversial migrant deal and send hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers to Europe if its citizens are not granted visa-free travel to the European Union within months.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, demanded the EU drop visa requirements for Turkish citizens by October.

Meanwhile, Syrian children are being raped and abused inside and outside of refugee camps in Turkey.

Recurrent Hamas rocket attacks upon Israeli noncombatants are terrorism. Such terrorism — all terrorism, irrespective of so-called “just cause” — represents a distinct crime under international law.

When Palestinian terrorism reflects populations that enthusiastically support terror attacks, and where the terrorists can find hospitable refuge among local populations, the legal responsibility for all ensuing counterterrorist harms lies with the perpetrators.

Under international law, which also happens to be part of the law of the United States, all Palestinian terrorists are hostes humani generis: “Common enemies of humankind.”

Hamas’ lack of distinction between “Jews” and “Israelis” is intentional. For Hamas, the true enemy is identifiable by religion, not territory, and is therefore irremediable. For “the Jews,” this means that the only way to avoid Arab terror is to disappear, or submit to Islamic control — to become persecuted, second-class dhimmi citizens in their own country, just as the indigenous Christians are now in Egypt and much of the Middle East.

“The safety of the People Shall be the highest law.” — Cicero, The Laws.

It is beginning again. As Hamas terrorists are attacking Israeli civilians with indiscriminate rocket fire, most recently in the southern city of Sderot, Israeli self-defense reactions are already being labeled “excessive” and “disproportionate.” As usual, international public opinion is quickly, if bizarrely, mobilizing against Israel’s underlying supposed “occupation” of Jews living in their own Biblical land.

But what of the facts? In Gaza, since 2005 at least, when every last Jew left, there has been no “occupation.” There are no Israelis in Gaza.

Systematic Hamas misrepresentations get progressively worse.

Any such blame, however, has no basis in law. Regarding “proportionality,” the actual legal requirement of proportionality contained in international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) has nothing to do with how many unfortunate deaths there might be on either side. Proportionality has nothing to do with each side incurring an equivalent number of deaths.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, investigated allegations of war crimes during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in 2006 published an open letter containing his findings. Included was this section on proportionality:

Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur.