RUTHFULLY YOURS

The news out of Iran these days travels exclusively in one direction: from bad to worse. The latest abomination from the Islamic Republic involves the seizure and arrest of members of an Iranian heavy metal band, Confess, on such charges as “blasphemy,” writing “satanic” lyrics and meeting with forbidden foreign radio stations.

Two of the band’s leaders, Nikan Siyanor Khosravi, 23 and Khosravi Arash Ilkhani, 21 were arrested by the intelligence wing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard on November 10, 2015 and were held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison in solitary confinement until their release on February 5. They are currently free on $30,000 bond, a fortune in Iran and face the prospect of execution if convicted of the most serious offense.

The seizure of the duo comes on the heels of a major crack down by government goons acting on orders of Iran’s religious authorities. At least 170 people were arrested by regime forces in November. A leading member of an Iranian human rights group described the arrests as “abductions” because the Iranian judiciary has stated that they know nothing of the arrests.

Arrests were made without warrants and those arrested were transferred to unknown locations without ever seeing a judge. That is the norm in the Islamic Republic where human rights are trounced upon with banal regularity and due process is virtually non-existent.

The depravity of Iran’s mullahs knows no bounds. On January 27, Iran executed Hashem Shaabani, a poet whose only weapon was his pen. The Iranians murdered him with the approval of President Hassan Rouhani for “waging war on God.” Rouhani is the same sordid character that some myopic Western lackeys often describe as a “moderate” and a “reformer.”

This “intifada” is simply a further phase in a larger plan to destroy Israel. When the plan began officially, with the establishment of the PLO in 1964, there were no “settlements” — not until after the June 1967 War — so what exactly were the Palestinians planning to “liberate”?

The current conflict is not about “defending” any mosque from being contaminated by the “filthy feet” of Jews: it is about seeing Israel forced to its knees. Abbas and others seek to reap delicious political fruits from this “intifada.”

Here is a novel idea: Kerry could put pressure on the Palestinian and Jordanian leadership to cease anti-Israeli incitement and indoctrination. Now that would be pressure well applied.

Abbas is expected to become a partner in the fight against ISIS and radical Islamist groups. All well and good. Why then is he not expected to stop cheering on and glorifying young Palestinians who attack Jewish Israelis?

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is back in town. This time he is meeting with Jordanian and Palestinian leaders about “ongoing security issues in the region and continued tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.”

“The destruction of Israel is non-negotiable.” — Mohammad Neza Naghdi, Commander of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force.

Sanctions relief will mainly benefit Ayatollah Khamenei and members of the Revolutionary Guards: they control up to one-third of Iran’s economy.

Part of the Iranian regime’s grand strategy is to inflict “death to America” and replace it with its own radical version of Islamic governance. Ayatollah Khamenei himself called for America’s destruction amid nuclear negotiations.

Officials also believe Iran is indirectly funding the Islamic State (IS) in the Sinai. “Suitcases of cash” are sent directly to Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip; part of the money is then transferred to IS.

Iran now poses an even greater threat. If democracies today continue their present policies towards Iran, it will only embolden Iran’s regime to continue its quest to obtain nuclear weapons as well as its terrorism and human rights violations.

Humanity seldom seems to learn its lessons. The governments of the world’s leading democracies appear to be suffering from this predicament in their nuclear dealings with the Islamic Republic of Iran. To avoid catastrophe, democracies need quickly to correct their course.

In 2006, the Sunday Times columnist India Knight wrote a piece arguing that Muslims are “the new Jews”, in which she attacked Jack Straw for asking female Muslim constituents consulting him at his Blackburn surgery to consider uncovering their noses and mouths in order to allow better communication. (I use the word “attacked” loosely; if, as Denis Healey said, being dissed by Geoffrey Howe was like “being savaged by a dead sheep” then being attacked by Knight is akin to being traduced by a twice-used tea-bag.)

A decade later, so many sad souls have clambered aboard this ship of fools that it’s a wonder it stays afloat, so extreme is the level of dysentery masquerading as discourse which issues from it. Most recently, Holocaust Memorial Day was used by Islamists and their grisly groupies as the opening steps to a danse macabre of what-aboutery, comparing the Kindertransport to the current influx of refugees from the Muslim world and implying that if we do not welcome them all to our shores with open arms, we are as bad as the Nazis.

But those who make such hysterical comparisons are, in my view, the silly led by the sinister, as the Sainted Hitchens once dismissed the Not In My Name mob.

How are Muslims not the New Jews? Let me count the ways.

For a start, there seems to be no sign of any sort of Kindertransport in action – rather, the modus operandi would appear to be “women and children last” judging by the huge groups of able-bodied young men who have found their way to the West. And this of course leads to the sort of trouble we saw in Cologne. Though no one could accuse Jewish men of not being interested in sex, I don’t recall any accounts of marauding bands of Jewish youths mob-handedly molesting gentile women on the streets of countries which gave them refuge.

Splendidly Chinese girls from poor homes are now the highest achieving group of school children in Britain

Western women are now being told by the governors of some European cities that they should do their best not to inflame men, many of whom are coming from countries where child-marriage is legal, where scholars say it’s fine to sexually assault non-believers and where it is allowable to attack young women out on their own, singly or in groups. The Muslim Brotherhood was behind the gangs of men attacking young women who dared leave their homes unescorted in Egypt from the 1960s onwards.

The deadline for a ceasefire in Syria by 19 February has passed with no indication that it will be achieved at any time in the foreseeable future. Hopes for that ceasefire were high after the UN Security Council had unanimously passed Resolution 2254 on 18 December 2015 requesting:

“the Secretary-General to lead the effort, through the office of his Special Envoy and in consultation with relevant parties, to determine the modalities and requirements of a ceasefire as well as continue planning for the support of ceasefire implementation, and urges Member States, in particular members of the ISSG, to support and accelerate all efforts to achieve a ceasefire, including through pressing all relevant parties to agree and adhere to such a ceasefire”

The ISSG mentioned in the Resolution is the International Syria Support Group – comprising the Arab League, China, Egypt, the EU, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the United States.

ISSG has proved totally ineffective in ending the five year conflict in Syria that has seen more than 300000 deaths and seven million Syrians internally displaced or fleeing to neighbouring States and swamping Europe to escape the horrific carnage unleashed in Syria during that time.

Islamic State was spawned in Syria and Iraq in July 2014 and now occupies more land than the area of Great Britain. Together with Al Nusra Front – a Syria-based Sunni extremist group that adheres to the global jihadist ideology of al-Qa’ida – both have been declared terrorist organisations by the UN Security Council. Meeting in Munich on 12 and 13 February the ISSG members agreed that:

“The UN shall serve as the secretariat of the ceasefire task force. The cessation of hostilities will commence in one week, after confirmation by the Syrian government and opposition, following appropriate consultations in Syria.”