RUTHFULLY YOURS

Haifa (TPS) – Hundreds of international researchers and healthcare
professionals gathered at the Rambam Hospital in Haifa this week for a
conference dubbed “State of the Heart.”

The conference addressed global challenges in cardiovascular treatment
and highlighted innovative changes in the field as a result of
cutting-edge technology. The Rambam Health Care Campus is a 1,000-bed
academic hospital serving over two million residents of northern
Israel.

The conference culminated with the Rambam Award ceremony, which
“recognizes remarkable individuals for their contributions to
medicine, science, and technology as well as their passion and special
generosity to the State of Israel.”
Awards and honorable recognition were given this year to Professor
Eric Topol of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, Sandor
Frankel of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, and to
Professor William Brody, the former president of the Salk Institute.

Brody was recognized for innovations in the treatment of
cardiovascular disease. He specializes as a physician and engineer in
imaging technologies—an aspect of cardiovascular treatment that has
come a long way with MRI and CT scan capabilities.

France’s Socialist Party government has unveiled a new legislative program designed to decrease the likelihood of further Islamic atrocities, largely it seems that would have ensured the success of the jihadist attacks committed so far.

In the measures revealed, proactively combatting criminals appears to have taken a back seat to placating the communities from which they are drawn.

Whereas protests by French people against Islamization or government policy, have been rigorously curtailed by the authorities, migrant gangs have still felt able to terrorize French towns, stampede French motorways, or conduct mass armed brawls in Paris, with little fear of intervention from either security services or the law.

In 2014, an ICM poll discovered that 27% of French citizens aged 18-24 supported ISIS.

Last year Muslim jihadists murdered more people in France, than were killed by terrorism in the country during the entire 20th century.

In response, the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, has announced a range of innovative legal measures, introduced in response to the terrorist outrages which struck France in 2015.

On January 7, of that year, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi stormed the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, massacring twelve and injuring eleven others.

It is hard to root for a nation whose popular President was a Nazi criminal Kurt Waldheim the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria from 1986 to 1992.

As the column states: “Austria is a country where the “greatcoat of silence” was draped over the past for far too long, as author Karl-Markus Gauss once wrote. One of the founding myths of postwar Austria is that the country was not first-and-foremost an accomplice of Nazi Germany, but rather that it was the first victim of Hitler’s aggression.” rsk

Rise of the Populists: Protecting the Homeland from Islam .

Suntinger, a member of the FPÖ, proudly claims to have once stood atop the Grossglockner, Austria’s highest peak, together with the late FPÖ leader Jörg Haider, who died in late night car crash in 2008. He tells the story as though it were a religious experience.

Suntinger is a farmer, a mountaineer and the father of two. In the last municipal elections in 2015, he was elected with around 80 percent of the vote. There was no other candidate.
His lecture on the state of the world begins. “Essential to the Koran is that the woman is a subject — and that in the 21st century,” he says, before reading out suras pertaining to sexuality and identifying women as a “place of sowing of seed.”

“The Koran sees only dead Christians as good Christians,” he says. Europe only makes sense, he goes on, “if it focuses on preventing the Islamization.”

He then presses his index finger onto the identification photo of one of the Syrian women. He says: “That is supposed to be the mother.” Impossible, he says, the children are much too old.

“The West is colliding with the East!” Suntinger calls out. “The people have to wake up!”

By that point, his presentation was only 10 minutes old.

The economy of the Möll Valley was long dependent on mining and agriculture, but is now trying to attract tourists — foreigners with money — as well. As part of that effort, Suntinger has overseen the several-million-euro construction of a new recreation park, complete with a hall where you can shoot at virtual deer. “It’s a big hit,” says Suntinger. “Because of the overpopulation of foreigners, many more people have weapons here.”

When Suntinger says foreigner overpopulation, he means migrants — and he would like to keep them away. Because as the FPÖ says: “Protect the homeland from Islam.”

This talk we hear of inter-faith amity and understanding, how does Islam meld with that kumbaya narrative? Not well, or so it strikes me. As Mohammed denied Christ’s divinity, the Trinity and Resurrection, what common ground is it possible to find?
Francis Kalifat, the newly elected president of France’s Jewish communities, said this: “The fight against anti-Semitism is our main cause because French Jews are in the most difficult situation they have experienced since World War II.” I wonder why? My goodness, don’t we need to build religious harmony!

Who could possibly object to building harmony? Well, unless I am mistaken, harmony is what appeasers have sought down the ages. So count me as one of those who retains a healthy degree of scepticism about pursuing harmony. Don’t misunderstand me. I am all for harmony between those of goodwill. It’s harmony with the bad guys and the perpetually precious that worries me.

Interfaith dialogue is about harmony. One description of the process is Christians kowtowing to discordant Muslims. What else is it about? Without Muslims, interfaith dialogue these days would be a movement with a substantive cause. Here are just a few of the many examples of Christian overtures:

Established in 2003 by the National Council of [Christian] Churches in Australia, the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims and Jews provides “opportunity for the national bodies of each faith to come together to build understanding and harmony in the Australian context.”

In 2014 Pope Francis called for interfaith dialogue to help end fundamentalism and terrorism during his first visit to Turkey. And only with considerable distaste is it possible to bring to mind Pope John Paul II kissing the Koran in 1999 at the Vatican. No doubt this was observed with satisfaction by his Muslim visitors.

Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the European Union’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the EU itself.

Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours — as “Orwellian.”

“By deciding that ‘xenophobic’ comment in reaction to the crisis is also ‘racist,’ Facebook has made the view of the majority of the European people… into ‘racist’ views, and so is condemning the majority of Europeans as ‘racist.'” — Douglas Murray.

In January 2013, Facebook suspended the account of Khaled Abu Toameh after he wrote about corruption in the Palestinian Authority. The account was reopened 24 hours later, but with the two posts deleted and no explanation.

The European Union (EU), in partnership with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, has unveiled a “code of conduct” to combat the spread of “illegal hate speech” online in Europe.

Proponents of the initiative argue that in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, a crackdown on “hate speech” is necessary to counter jihadist propaganda online.

Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the EU’s definition of “hate speech” and “incitement to violence” is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the European Union itself.

Some Members of the European Parliament have characterized the EU’s code of online conduct — which requires “offensive” material to be removed from the Internet within 24 hours, and replaced with “counter-narratives” — as “Orwellian.”

The “code of conduct” was announced on May 31 in a statement by the European Commission, the unelected administrative arm of the European Union. A summary of the initiative follows:

“By signing this code of conduct, the IT companies commit to continuing their efforts to tackle illegal hate speech online. This will include the continued development of internal procedures and staff training to guarantee that they review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.

“The IT companies will also endeavor to strengthen their ongoing partnerships with civil society organisations who will help flag content that promotes incitement to violence and hateful conduct. The IT companies and the European Commission also aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting independent counter-narratives [emphasis added], new ideas and initiatives, and supporting educational programs that encourage critical thinking.”

Excerpts of the “code of conduct” include:

“The IT Companies share the European Commission’s and EU Member States’ commitment to tackle illegal hate speech online. Illegal hate speech, as defined by the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law and national laws transposing it, means all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin….

Early this week it was reported that after a two-year hiatus, Iran is restoring its financial support for Islamic Jihad.
Strategic thinking has always been Israel’s Achilles’ heel. As a small state bereft of regional ambitions, so long as regional realities remained more or less static, Israel had little reason to be concerned about the great game of the Middle East.

But the ground is shifting in the lands around us. The Arab state system, which ensured the strategic status quo for decades, has collapsed.

So for the first time in four generations, strategy is again the dominant force shaping events that will impact Israel for generations to come.

To understand why, consider two events of the past week.

Early this week it was reported that after a two-year hiatus, Iran is restoring its financial support for Islamic Jihad. Iran will give the group, which is largely a creation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, $70 million.

On Wednesday Iranian media were the first to report on the arrest of a “reporter” for Iran’s Al-Alam news service. Bassam Safadi was arrested by Israel police in his home in Majdal Shams, the Druse village closest to the border with Syria on the Golan Heights. Safadi is suspected of inciting terrorism.

When standing today at Hadrian’s Wall on the border between Scotland and northern England, everything appears indistinguishably affluent and serene on both sides.

It was not nearly as calm some 1,900 years ago. In A.D. 122, the exasperated Roman emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of an 80-mile, 20-foot-high wall to protect Roman civilization in Britain from the Scottish tribes to the north.

We moderns often laugh at walls and fortified boundaries, dismissing them as hopelessly retrograde, ineffective, or unnecessary. Yet they still seem to fulfill their mission on the Israeli border, the 38th parallel in Korea, and the Saudi-Iraqi boundary: separating disparate states.

On the Roman side of Hadrian’s Wall there were codes of law, habeas corpus, aqueducts, and the literature of Cicero, Virgil, and Tacitus — and on the opposite side a violent, less sophisticated tribalism.

Hadrian assumed that there was a paradox about walls innate to the human condition. Scottish tribes hated Roman colonial interlopers and wanted them off the island of Britain. But for some reason the Scots did not welcome the wall that also stopped the Romans from entering Scotland.

The exasperated Romans had built the barrier to stop the Scots from entering Roman Britain, whether to raid, trade, emigrate, or fight.

Refugees welcome.

All the complainants said they were “surrounded” by their tormentors before being “touched and fondled” improperly at the annual free Schlossgrabenfestes music festival.

The three arrested men are aged between 28 and 31 and are Pakistanis seeking asylum in Germany. All have been charged with sexual crimes as the hunt continues for their accomplices.

Media reports said that at least 15 more women are expected to come forward to file criminal complaints after they were groped at the festival on Sunday where around 100,000 people were in the crowds over the four-day event.

Officers say the victims are receiving counselling while authorities try to cool rising tensions between migrants in the area.

The tensions aren’t between migrants. The tensions are caused by migrants.

The Pakistanis will face deportation to their homeland if found guilty when brought before the courts.

Last Wednesday, just two years and a day after the deadly terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, and barely more than two months after the twin attacks on the Brussels airport and metro, Belgian police arrested a group of Muslim youth planning yet another attack, this time in Antwerp. Aiming “to kill as many kufar,” or non-Muslims, as possible, the group is believed to have been planning to bomb Antwerp’s Central Station. The group also is believed to have made previous plans to assassinate right-wing politician Filip Dewinter, the leader of the Vlaams Belang party. Those plans were put on hold, however, in favor of a larger-scale attack.

The suspects were members of a group of radicalized Muslim teens believed to have kept contact with Antwerp native Hicham Chaib, who is now a high-ranking leader of the Islamic State. It was Chaib who informed the public that the March 22 attacks on Belgium’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station “were just a taste of what’s to come.” And it is Chaib, the former second-in-command of Shariah4Belgium who left Antwerp for Syria in 2012, who now actively recruits other Antwerp-based youth to join ISIS or to execute terrorist attacks in their homeland.

The four arrests followed a series of raids by Antwerp police into the homes of several suspects in the Borgerhout district. Two suspects have been released, but other members of the group, some arrested previously, remain in custody. All suspects are said to be between the ages of 16 and 19, confirming earlier Dutch reports that European Muslims under the age of 20 are increasingly becoming involved in Islamic State activities and jihadist plots.

According to some accounts, the Antwerp group is comprised of nine youths, at least five of whom are minors. At least two members tried to join the Islamic State in Raqqa in March, but were stopped by officials en route and sent back to Belgium.

With security and counter-terror investigations heightened in Brussels after the March 22 attacks there, it is unsurprising that jihadists might be moving their activities and focus to nearby Antwerp. The city has a long history of Muslim unrest, with riots as early as 2002 and the founding, by Hizballah-linked Lebanese immigrant Dyab Abou Jahjah, of the Arab European League (AEL) in 2000. An organization with pan-Arab aspirations, the AEL aimed to create what Jahjah called a “sharocracy” – a kind of combination of democracy and sharia – that would eventually become European law.

There is bound to be tension in any political party with the contradictory name “Progressive Conservative,” but it appears that in Ontario – Canada’s largest province and home of nearly 14 million people having a largely undefended border with the United States – there is little evidence of the “conservative” wing.

Party leader Patrick Brown is actively campaigning against the proposed cuts to socialized medicine by the governing Liberal Party, led by Kathleen Wynne. The party that is supposed to be to the political right of the radical left-wing Liberals is now working with health care unions to oppose a reduction in public health care spending. Under Brown’s leadership, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is also a keen supporter of carbon taxation.

Even more troubling is that Brown is apparently supporting a highly controversial Islamic charity. On May 30, he spoke at Islamic Relief Canada’s Ramadan Launch Event. This doesn’t appear to be Brown’s first connection to Islamic Relief Canada. According to the charity, he also participated in the 2015 Nazem Kadri Golf Classic.

In December 2014, the Financial Post removed Islamic Relief Canada from its list of recommended “Charities of the Year” because “its international arm has been banned elsewhere for allegedly funneling funds to the terrorist organization Hamas.” The issues appear unresolved, as the charity was apparently not added back into the 2015 list.

In mid-2014, Israel banned Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) because of its linkages to Hamas. According to Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, “[t]he IRW is one of the sources of Hamas’s funding and a means for raising funds from various countries in the world[.] … We do not intend to allow it to function and abet terrorist activity against Israel.”

In January of this year, banking giant HSBC revealed that it had cut ties with Islamic Relief because of “concerns that cash for aid could end up with terrorist groups abroad.”

If Brown wasn’t aware of these connections and potential problems, he should have been.