RUTHFULLY YOURS

Within a week, Britain’s Labour party leadership was forced to suspend one of its newest MPs and one of its oldest grandees — and both for the same reason.

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone both say that they condemn anti-Semitism. They always tend to add that they also condemn “Islamophobia and all other forms of racism,” a disclaimer that always seems a deliberate attempt to hide a hatred of Jews under the skirts of any and all criticism of Islam. What is most fascinating is that all the while they are saying this, they stoke the very thing they claim to condemn.

They pretend that the Jewish state does such things for no reason. There is no mention of the thousands of rockets that Hamas and other Islamist groups rain down on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The comment turns a highly-targeted set of retaliatory strikes by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip into a “brutal” attack “on the Palestinians” as a whole. While mentioning those death-tolls, Livingstone has no interest in explaining that the State of Israel builds bunkers for its citizens to shelter in, while Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields and useful dead bodies for the television cameras, to help Hamas appear as an aggrieved “victim.”

It is the narrative of the “left” on Israel that is causing the resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is not coming from nowhere. It is coming from them. If the left wants to deal with it, they first have to deal with themselves.

Every time anyone thinks Britain’s Labour party has reached a new low of anti-Semitism, entirely new depths seems to open. In September, I wrote here about how the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour party constituted a “mainstreaming” of racism in the UK. Although Mr. Corbyn claims he does not have any tolerance for any hatred of anyone, he is a man who has spent his political life cosying up to anti-Semites and terrorist groups that express genocidal intent against the Jewish people. He has worked closely with Holocaust deniers, praised anti-Semitic extremists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends.

“Why are your bishops silent on a threat that is yours today as well? Because the bishops are, like you, raised in political correctness. But Jesus was never politically correct, he was politically just! The responsibility of a bishop is to teach, to use his influence to transmit truth.” — Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Syria.

Federal authorities arrested Khalil Abu-Rayyan of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, an ISIS supporter who had planned to carry out an attack on a 6,000-member Detroit church. Abu-Rayyan allegedly had guns and a large knife, and told an undercover FBI agent that he “tried to shoot up a church one day … If I can’t do jihad in the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here. … It is my dream to behead someone.”

In Pakistan, a disabled Christian man sentenced to death for blasphemy said that he was forced into admitting to the charges in order to stop his wife from being tortured… Emmanuel and his wife were found guilty of insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in text messages to a local imam in 2013, and sentenced to death. The conviction came despite the fact that the poor Christian couple are illiterate.

As opposed to their Western counterparts, Christian leaders who live in the Middle East continued expressing their frustration at the West’s indifference and worse. Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, during an interview, asked “Why are your bishops silent on a threat that is yours today as well? Because the bishops are, like you, raised in political correctness. But Jesus was never politically correct, he was politically just! The responsibility of a bishop is to teach, to use his influence to transmit truth. Why are your bishops afraid of speaking? Of course they would be criticized, but that would give them a chance to defend themselves, and to defend this truth. You must remember that silence often means consent.”

The archbishop also criticized the migration policies of Western countries: “The egoism and the interests slavishly defended by your governments will in the end kill you as well. Open your eyes, didn’t you see what happened recently in Paris?”

The first opinion-poll results on President Obama’s intervention in the Brexit debate since he left London for Germany and the EU summit have now been published. They show two things of interest: a small movement toward the Leave campaign, and a clear majority of voters who disapproved of the president’s intervention.

Of four polls, all four shifted toward Leave, by between one and four percentage points. That still left Remain ahead in two polls, and Leave in the other two (but by smaller numbers, in or close to the margin of error). Probably the fairest interpretation is that Remain is slightly ahead but Leave is closing a small gap and that Obama helped to close it further.

Disapproval of Obama’s intervention is far clearer, however. Majorities of 55 and 60 percent were critical. This popular response was expressed in a cartoon of Obama seated opposite the Queen at a Palace dining table, saying airily, “She’ll have the fish” — as the Queen winces and the butler staggers back in horror.

But Obama is popular in Britain, and this reaction was not very harsh. It seems to have focused on his arrogance in telling the Brits that if they left the EU and wanted a separate U.S.-U.K. trade deal, they would have to go to the back of “the queue.” That word is a Britishism that commentators immediately cited as evidence that the speech had been written in Downing Street. It wasn’t personal arrogance so much as calculated pressure from both governments.

That episode illustrates one of the oddest elements in this referendum campaign. Though it’s quite common in modern politics (see Trump, passim) for outsiders and dissidents to denounce the overwhelming influence of “elites” or “establishments,” this is a rare occasion when the elites and establishments boast about it themselves.

ISIS released a new video today reminiscent of the “nasheed” song threats preceding and succeeding the Paris and Brussels attacks.

The new twist this time? Children — aka ISIS “cubs,” as the terror group calls them — doing the singing, making threats in French translated into English.

The video features more images of President Obama than the one or two that are usually dropped into most ISIS videos and publications. With a backdrop of a child in ISIS garb wandering through a bombed neighborhood, superimposed images show Obama speaking at the United Nations, Obama shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a bilateral meeting, Obama and Putin as well as Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at last November’s G20 summit in Turkey, and Obama again at the UN in two different scenes.

Secretary of State John Kerry is shown exchanging pleasantries with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Putin is also shown shaking hands with French President Francois Hollande.

A new poll of British Muslims found that a majority hold views with which most British people would disagree. For instance, 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. An earlier poll found that 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year.

Whenever opinion poll results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders” try to prove that the poll is a fraud.

If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed. But when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never any hint of introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack.

If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them.

One often hears about the “moderate Muslim majority.” ‘After any terrorist attack, politicians tell us that, “The moderate majority of Muslims utterly condemn this.” After any outrage, commentators and pundits spring up to say, “Of course the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.” But is it true? Are the vast majority of Muslims really “moderate”?

A number of factors suggest perhaps not — most obviously the problem repeatedly revealed by opinion polls. Time and again, the results of opinion polls in the Western world, never mind in the Middle East or North Africa, show a quite different picture from the “moderate majority” aquatint.

True, such polls can often show that, for instance, only 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year. True, that is only between a quarter and a third of British Muslims sympathizing with the blasphemy enforcement squad. On other occasions, such as recently in Britain with a new ICM poll commissioned by Channel 4, they find that a majority of Muslims hold views with which most British people would disagree. So for instance, the recent ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. That’s a striking figure. Not 52% of British Muslims saying homosexuality is “not their cup of tea” or that they are “not entirely on board with gay marriage,” but 52% of British Muslims thinking that homosexuality should be made a crime under the law.

On April 18 Abd al-Hamid Abu Spour, a 19 year old Palestinian Arab, destroyed two public transportation buses in Jerusalem. There were numerous injuries, two of whom remain hospitalized, one with severe burns. This was the first bus attack during the 7+ month long intifada being waged against Israelis, which has resulted in at least 34 deaths to date.

The one person killed in the attack was the perpetrator himself. All Palestinian factions welcomed the attack. In the eyes of many Muslims, dying while committing a terror attack means Abu Spour is a “shahid,” or martyr for Allah.

His family has lashed out saying he acted in “self-defense,” and “only you Israelis are guilty.” Such inflammatory rhetoric while disturbing, is not unusual from many Arab Muslims. However in this case reaction to the attack has gone beyond the family. It has taken on an official flavor.

On Monday, a week after the attack, a gathering took place at the UNRWA refugee camp in Aida, near Bethlehem. The location has a huge monument of a lock and key, symbolizing the defiant goal that the Palestinian Arabs will one day root out the Jews and take over the land they believe belongs to them.

The “festivities of the martyrs” event took place under the aegis of UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency). To think the official body representing the world’s community of nations is celebrating terrorism is bad enough. However, that is not the worst of it. The number 1 financial donor to UNRWA is the US, by far. The EU and UK are #2 and #3 in financial support. Their combined total represents over 50% of UNRWA’s donor support.

Virtually no media coverage

US and UK citizens should ask themselves how they feel about having their hard earned taxes paying for events that honor terrorists.

Aside from this there is another troubling element to the UNRWA sponsored event.

One might think a public event honoring terrorism sponsored by a branch of the United Nations would be widely covered by the media. Yet, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict most of the world’s media seems to come under a spell of double standard. The abnormal becomes normal, the unacceptable turns into acceptable, and the victim is often seen as the bully.

Palestinian political analysts said that the Hamas victory is an indication of what would happen if general elections were held these days in the West Bank.

The 3,481 students who voted in favor of the Hamas-affiliated list want to see the destruction of Israel.

Both Hamas and the PFLP are strongly opposed to any peace process with Israel. They continue to call for terror attacks against Israelis. The results of the election mean that most of the students at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, not Gaza, support groups that have chosen terrorism over peace.

The Hamas victory at Bir Zeit University also shows that it does not matter how much money you pour on Fatah’s campus supporter; a majority of students would still prefer to vote for terror groups that do not believe in Israel’s right to exist.

The main charge against Fatah is that it has failed to reform and pave the way for the emergence of new and younger leaders.

“Fatah needs an internal shake-up before it faces more defeats.” –Sufyan Abu Zayda, a senior Fatah official from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas leaders also called for holding long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories. They said they had no doubt that their movement would easily defeat Fatah.

Under such circumstances, it is not a good idea to promote the idea of free and democratic elections in the Palestinian territories. Worse, the talk about a renewed peace process and a two-state solution has become a tasteless joke.

The threat from terrorism is worse than at any time since 9/11, even as the West has limited its capacity for self-defense. One example of the latter is the way the Obama Administration has abandoned former CIA agent Sabrina De Sousa.

Ms. De Sousa was one of 26 U.S. officials convicted by Italy in 2009 for their role in the rendition of a radical Egyptian cleric. A Portuguese-American dual national who currently resides in Portugal, she received a seven-year sentence from an Italian court (later reduced to four years). Last week Portugal’s highest court cleared the way for her extradition to Italy under a European arrest warrant.

CIA agents working with their Italian counterparts in 2003 captured the cleric, known as Abu Omar, who was suspected of recruiting fighters for Islamists in Iraq, among other things, and transferred him from Milan to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. Egyptian authorities eventually released Abu Omar without charge, though Italy later convicted him in absentia on terror charges.

Among the anti-antiterror left, his case became emblematic of the evils of rendition. Italian prosecutors in 2004 launched an investigation and Italian courts eventually convicted, in absentia, the CIA agents, including Ms. De Sousa, and a U.S. Air Force colonel for their alleged participation in the affair. All of the convicted Americans had left Italy by the time the court case was under way.

Ms. De Sousa was acting in her official capacity and following U.S. policy during the 2003 rendition. Yet the U.S. government never asserted diplomatic immunity in her case, although it asserted a similar immunity on behalf of at least one other American involved in the affair.

When Ms. De Sousa sued the CIA, State and the Justice Department for failing to invoke immunity on her behalf, Justice argued that immunity is asserted for the benefit of the government, not of an individual employee. That’s a sound principle and is exactly why the government should act to protect Ms. De Sousa. Failing to do so sends a terrible signal to other U.S. operatives in the field. CONTINUE AT SITE