RUTHFULLY YOURS

Since 2006, when Bruce Bawer wrote his illuminating book entitled While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, the situation has worsened tenfold. Not surprisingly, when his book was first published, Bawer was accused of Islamophobia. Yet as early as 1998, Bawer noted the widening divisions between the liberal and democratic policies of the Netherlands and the fact that “Dutch Muslims kept that society at arm’s length, despising its freedoms[.]”

In the late 1990s, Bawer and his male partner decided to live in Amsterdam because it seemed to him to be “the one place [he’d] ever been where homophobia really seemed to have disappeared.” He felt that the Netherlands had moved from the “foolishness of [American] fundamentalism,” and although he loved America “not because of its wealth or power, but because of its culture and values,” he wanted to really know what it meant to be an American by living elsewhere as a means of contrast.

Once in the Netherlands, Bawer began to appreciate “American virtues” that he’d always taken for granted – most importantly a “belief in the future.” He found that while he enjoyed the culture of Europe, he also saw that much of Western Europe was “bound up with a stifling conformity, a discomfort with excellence and an overt disapproval of those who strove too visibly to better their lot” – in short, “mediocrity.” He saw that France and Germany were “plagued by low growth and rising unemployment, a direct consequence of welfare state policies.” He also realized that Europeans “had been fed a zero-sum understanding of economics.”

In addition, he perceived that “fundamentalist Muslims were on the march and their numbers and power were large and growing rapidly – and the ultimate objective was far more than a ban on abortion or gay marriage.” A sea change was overtaking Europe that involved female genital mutilation, viewing women as property, and subsidies from the Dutch state as well as from Islamic governments that taught hatred of Jews, Israel, America, and the West. The very countries that these Muslims were living in were to be scorned, since they were meant to be replaced by a Muslim caliphate governed according to sharia law.

But surely, Bawer believed, this could not be permitted. He naively presumed that such contempt for pluralism, open-mindedness, democracy, and sexual equality would not be tolerated. Instead, political correctness, spineless leaders, and Islamic intimidation worked their magic so that in 1998, “Europeans were clueless” as to what was occurring under their very noses.

European Council President Donald Tusk appealed to economic migrants to stop coming to Europe, saying they shouldn’t try to risk their lives at the hands of smugglers as the path into the European Union constricts.

He was meeting on Thursday with leaders in Greece and Turkey, two countries that are playing a key role in the bloc’s efforts to stem the tide of migrants.

“I want to appeal to all potential illegal economic migrants wherever you are from: Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money,” Mr. Tusk said after meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens. “It is all for nothing. Greece or any other European country will no longer be a transit country.”

Balkan countries and Austria are restricting their borders, moves that have left huge numbers stuck at the Greece-Macedonia border. In the Greek town of Idomeni, more than 10,000 people are stranded at a camp built for 1,500 and more than 30,000 are stuck throughout the country.

Mr. Tsipras said his country would continue to try to help migrants, just not at any cost.

“Greece will not leave anyone helpless,” he said. Greece would “create centers for temporary hospitality,” but the country won’t become “a warehouse of souls.”

Greek authorities are trying to reduce the crush at the border with Macedonia and prepare new camps further south with the aim to distribute those stranded all over Greece. But many migrants say they fear they may be detained indefinitely in the new camps. CONTINUE AT SITE

Gheula Canarutto Nemni is a professor and novelist living in Milan, Italy. Her most recent novel ‘(Non) si può avere tutto’ Mondadori 2015 tells the story of an Italian Orthodox Jewish girl and her challenges in the professional world in Milan.

Her name is Faiza. She works for a major private hospital in Israel.We met a week ago, while I was there assisting a relative of mine.

Faiza is at the head of the intensive care unit, she runs from one patient to the other offering always a sweet smile together with very professional care.

Faiza lives in Shuafat, an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem where there are frequent disturbances.She comes from a family of eleven, most of them graduates of Israeli universities. Between one patient and another, we share our visions about life.

“I love my life. I love living in Israel. I thank Allah every day for having given me the opportunity to grow up here,” she says. “I know that if it was not for this country, I would never be what I am.”

“Here you can choose,” she says while she is finishing her coffee during her break. She turns her head toward the Arab doctors and nurses. “Israel gives you the opportunity to express your human potential,” she adds.

I find out that in all Israeli universities and job sites, there are guaranteed places for Arab Israeli citizens.

There is something special in her eyes. You can feel her love for humanity.

Not for the first time the government of Germany is acting as if it owned Europe. On two occasions in the 20th century it sought to occupy most of Europe; this time, with almost equal arrogance, it is trying to bully the rest of Europe into not resisting the ongoing Muslim occupation. The consequences of its actions today, if not checked, are likely to be as tragic as those of its predecessors had been in 1914 and 1939.
For reasons that have never been rationally explained, German Chancellor Angela Merkel continues to pursue a two-track policy:
She wants to keep Germany’s borders open to migrants. In defiance of the demands by her Bavarian CSU coalition partners and others, she rejects any set limit on the number of newcomers. To their detailed warnings that her approach is untenable she responds by saying that letting millions of people into the country is good for Germany’s reputation (“we can stand by our values”);
At the same time she wants to redistribute migrants arriving in Germany throughout the EU through a system of Brussels-imposed compulsory quotas on all 28 member-countries (“I am fighting for this approach”), while admitting that there is no “Plan B”: she is not prepared even to consider any alternatives, such as cutting immigrant inflows.
Angela Merkel effectively wants to present the rest of Europe with two faits accomplis: that Germany will accept unlimited numbers of migrants, and that Germany will use her overwhelming influence in Brussels to force the rest of Europe to share the resulting cost and burden of improving “Germany’s reputation”—all in the name of maintaining “European unity.” Her calls for a “joint European solution” are nothing but demands for the rest of Europe to be obedient, sayJawohl! and facilitate the creation of Sharia-based no-go areas in Krakow, Bratislava and Budapest.

“If a woman gets raped walking in public alone, then she, herself, is at fault. She is only seducing men by her presence. She should have stayed home like a Muslim woman.”
– Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan, Professor of Islamic Law, Saudi Arabia.

Many Germans welcomed with open arms the million, mostly male and Muslim, migrants Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel invited into Germany last September. At train stations, they handed out water bottles to the newcomers, while holding signs stating: “Willkommen!” At first, everything was, as the Germans say, “Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen” (“peace, joy and happiness”).

But the good feeling these greeters created, especially among themselves, has somewhat dissipated, primarily due to the increasing number of reported sexual assaults by migrants against women and children. The best known incident was the sexual molestation of hundreds of women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve by about 1,000, mostly North African men that included migrants.

The latest such multicultural enriching incident to create similar outrage occurred last Thursday in Kiel, a northern German city in Schleswig-Holstein, a state bordering Denmark. Three teenage girls, aged 15, 16 and 17, were visiting a central shopping mall, the Sophienhof, in “broad daylight” when two young Afghan asylum seekers, aged 19 and 26, began to follow and film them with their cell phones.

“Evidently, the criminals then posted these films on their social networks with the result that more and more men came to a restaurant area of the Sophienhof in order to persecute, sneer at them and to frighten them,” reported the newspaper, Die Welt.

Like the women in Cologne and those participating in the anti-Morsi demonstrations on Tahrir Square in Egypt in 2013, the three Kiel teenagers were at first probably unaware they were being hunted, and that a pack of hyenas was slowly surrounding them.

During these weeks across the UK, universities are holding ‘Israeli apartheid week’. I have sat and viewed with revulsion as images have emerged of students on campus being fed raw radical Islamic propaganda. It has turned into a show, with each of the universities trying to outdo each other. This year Cambridge received praise for placing a military checkpoint in the centre of the Sidgwick lecture site at the University. Did I just call it raw Islamic propaganda? Yes, I did, but more on that later.

Just last night (24th Feb) I was at SOAS to hear yet another incessant and libellous attack against Israel. The usual tales were told, replete with examples of how Israel is randomly shooting at people in the street. The evening started with the host boasting about being able to recognise Zionists in the crowd and deliberately not letting them have the microphone when questions are tabled. They actually took photos at one event on Monday of a person they identified as ‘Zionist’ who had his hand up constantly. What they did is take pictures of him and Photoshopped different things into his hand and shared it amongst themselves. What type of university believes this is acceptable? SOAS does, we know Kings does too. In Oxford we have seen claims of rabid antisemitism. In Cambridge they simply want to intimidate the Jewish presence into submission first. In Westminster and others across the land, I’ve spoken to Jews, Zionists and Israelis who hide their identity whilst in University. This is the ‘safe space’ that has been created on UK campuses in 2016; safe to intimidate, safe to scare, safe to shout down, safe to silence, safe to lie and safe to hate.

Israeli Apartheid week is a recruiting tool for BDS on campus. It aims to flatten the complex situation in the Middle East into the binary black/white issue of Apartheid. If Israel can successfully be labelled an apartheid state, then the reservoir of the anti-Apartheid sentiment across the globe can be reawakened and directed towards Israel. Ironically, it is in universities, the very places that simple issues are meant to be opened up and investigated, one of the most complex and multi-faceted conflicts on the planet is reduced to propaganda rhetoric and blatantly false, one sided accusations of absolute guilt.
Apartheid

Let me firstly deal with this ridiculous and slanderous notion.

Take two brothers, both Arabs living in the British mandate in 1946. How they got there, how long their families were there is not relevant. According to the UN definition of the Palestinian refugee, even if the family had come looking for work in 1945 from Syria, they count as Palestinian. So do their children and grandchildren, even if they themselves were all born and lived all their days back on Syria or Lebanese soil. So be it. These are just elements that contribute to the absurdity of the conflict, and have to be accepted as factual without adhering to any ethical, moral or logical position.

During 1948, the two brother’s lives took different paths. One, having moved to a village near Haifa that worked in friendship with the local Jewish towns, remained a passive bystander as civil war erupted in the region. The civil war erupted because the Arab population, egged on by regional Arab dictatorships, had refused to accept the UN decision on Jewish independence over any part of the land. Some people do argue that the Jewish acceptance of the deal was a ploy, and the Jewish national aspirations dictated that the area should turn violent regardless. This too is irrelevant. Factually we know the Arabs rejected the deal and turned violent, the Jews accepted the deal and responded to the violence by defending against those that openly sought to destroy them.

No, it’s not one of those kinky sex videos.

It’s an imam, and a prominent one at that (apparently), in one of those former Viking lands that seem set on committing cultural suicide and taking the rest of Europe down with them.

He’s explaining to the female of the species the mandatory punishments the Religion of Peace metes out to married women on the one hand and virgins on the other if they should have the temerity to leave said creed.

Remember, this is not a lecture in some Middle Eastern hellhole.

It is a lecture in one of the nation states of northern Europe.

This is Danelaw, but not as King Knut knew it.

As if we needed another reason to despise the Saudi Arabian terrorist, Osama bin Laden:

Osama bin Laden wrote a letter calling on the American people to help President Barack Obama fight “catastrophic” climate change and “save humanity,” in the latest evidence of his worries about environmental issues, newly released documents show.

The letter was among materials that were seized in the May 2, 2011, US raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan that killed the al Qaeda chief and which were released on Tuesday by the Obama administration. The undated, unsigned letter “to the American people,” which US intelligence officials attributed to bin Laden, appeared to have been written shortly after Obama began his first term in 2009, based on the letter’s references to events.

Bin Laden’s preoccupation with climate change also emerged as a theme in the first tranche of documents from the raid that was declassified in May 2015, as well as in an audio recording released via the al Jazeera network in January 2010.

You can’t make this stuff up. But wait — there’s more!

In the rambling letter made public Tuesday, bin Laden blamed the 2007-8 US financial crisis on corporate control of capital and corporate lobbyists, and the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He called on Americans to launch “a great revolution for freedom” to liberate the US president from those influences. That would enable Obama to make “a rational decision to save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny,” bin Laden continued.

The UN Security Council today unanimously passed a resolution penned by the United States and China to expand sanctions on North Korea.

In addition to broadening the list of people and entities subject to sanctions, the resolution stipulates that countries accepting cargo from North Korea or heading to the reclusive country will have to inspect all shipments. New banned items include luxury swag that Kim Jong-un enjoys.

Under the resolution, North Korea is not supposed to use any revenue from energy sales to fund its nuclear program. This would be nearly impossible to enforce, and Pyongyang is notorious for thumbing its nose at UNSC resolutions.

The Security Council began negotiations a few weeks ago on “measures in response to these dangerous and serious violations” of North Korea’s latest missile launch.

President Obama said in a statement that the resolution “imposes significant costs on the DPRK in response to its January 6 nuclear test and February 7 missile launch.”

“This resolution levies strong new sanctions aimed at halting Pyongyang’s efforts to advance its weapons of mass destruction programs,” Obama said. “I have consistently said that the DPRK would face consequences for its actions, and I welcome this resolution as a firm, united, and appropriate response by the international community to the DPRK’s recent provocations that flagrantly violated multiple Security Council resolutions.”

IDOMENI, Greece—A clampdown along Balkan borders has left 30,000 migrants trapped in Greece, marking a new stage in the humanitarian crisis swamping Europe.

Countries farther up the migration trail, from Macedonia to Austria, are now letting in only a few hundred a day, and sometimes no one.

Allowing migrants to be stranded in Greece is considered the EU’s last option to halt the relentless inflow of people from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. More and more EU governments have lost faith in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of stopping irregular migrants at Turkey, spreading bona fide refugees around the EU, and keeping Europe’s internal borders open.

Ms. Merkel warned this week of “chaos” in Greece, but other European Union leaders say there is no alternative to shutting down the Balkan migration route.

“The first priority is to rapidly stem the flows,” European Council President Donald Tusk said on Wednesday while visiting Croatia, a country on the now-constricted Balkan trail. Europe’s monthslong furor over migration “is testing our Union to the limit,” Mr. Tusk said.

Senior EU officials argue that a humanitarian crisis in Greece, ameliorated with EU money, would help deter further migrants from traveling to Europe. On Wednesday, the EU executive in Brussels said it could send Greece €300 million ($326 million) quickly, from a new €700 million emergency fund for the bloc.
Greece is rapidly becoming a pressure cooker. Refugees and other migrants are growing frustrated and angry. Hundreds tried to storm the border with Macedonia on Monday, only to be driven back with tear gas. The presence of riot police and military vehicles is growing daily. Authorities are hastily building a network of camps around the country, hoping to spread the trapped migrants and avoid major unrest. CONTINUE TO SITE