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“They Hate Israel Because They Hate Themselves”

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

lIt isn’t the Israelis who are paranoid – it’s anti-Israel Europeans. They’re the ones who madly look upon one nation, one people, as toxic, destabilising, destructive, out to get us all and do over world peace. Such swirling paranoia often means that anti-Zionism crosses the lines into antisemitism.

Some Israelis I spoke to [recently] seemed more upset about the turn against Europe in Israel than they were about the more immediate threat posed by Islamists in the Middle East.

It wasn’t hard to work out why. As one said, “We considered Europe a friend”; “We thought Europe and Israel had a lot in common, being Western and democratic.”

This cuts to the heart of the Euro-elites’ paranoia about Israel, their turn against it; it is really European values, the ideals of modernity and democracy that they’ve given up on.

The thing that riles them most about Israel is that it reminds them of what they used to be like, of the values they once espoused, before they lost the moral plot and sank into the cesspit of relativism and post-Enlightenment self-loathing.

Plucky, keen to protect its sovereignty, considering itself an outpost of liberalism … Israel is a painful reminder to today’s anchorless European thinkers and agitators of what their nations once were.

They hate Israel because they hate themselves.

Israel has become the whipping boy of guilt-ridden Western liberals who’ve given up on the very idea of the West.” [Emphasis added]

So wrote the Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked Online, in an admirably perceptive article in the London Jewish News late last year that was picked up by the Australian Jewish News.

This video, in which the Canadian writer/commentator Mark Steyn (how wonderful it used to be to read his regular columns in the UK Daily Telegraph back in the days when Conrad Black owned that newspaper) declares Multiculturalism as “the slipperiest of all isms,” illuminates the loss of direction and purpose that’s befallen and bedevils the West.

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Sweden’s Afghan “Rapefugees” by Ingrid Carlqvist

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

Some 90 young men — “mostly Afghan refugee kids,” according to police — were apprehended in connection with the mass sexual assaults at the concert.
A recurring theme in recent articles by prominent feminists is the assertion that ethnic Swedish men act exactly the same as migrant gang-rapists.
One can draw only one conclusion: Feminists would rather protect Muslim men from criticism than protect Swedish women from sexual assaults.
None of the women’s shelters would admit that the mass sexual abuse of Swedish women might have anything to do with the perpetrators’ ethnicity or religion. They did not wish to “generalize,” they said — then hung up.
What Swedish politicians intend to do about the “Rapefugees” that are now in the country is anyone’s guess.

On New Year’s Eve, the same kind of mass sexual assaults that happened to women in Cologne — in Arabic called the “Taharrush” game — also took place in Sweden, but the police and the media have chosen to bury the information. The men, it turned out, were mainly Afghan, and claiming to be “unaccompanied refugee children.”

In reality, many of them are much older than 18, and are now commonly referred to with the recently coined name, “Rapefugees,” rather than “refugee children.”

It recently emerged that the Immigration Service urged its administrators to accept as a “child” everyone who looked under the age of 40 — apparently without any thought as to how inappropriate it is to place grown men in elementary and secondary schools with teenage girls. As Sweden — until December — kept its doors wide open to the migrants of the world, the country has accepted vastly more asylum seekers than its Nordic neighbors. Statistics for 2012-2015 are available via Eurostat, and provide the following statistics on the number of migrant arrivals:

Sweden: 342,635
Norway: 63,370
Denmark: 41,290
Finland: 40,470
Iceland: 675

Many who seek asylum in Sweden come from war-torn Syria: 51,338 in 2015. Afghanistan comes in at second place with 41,564 for the last year — an increase of a staggering 1,239% compared to 2014. Most of the Afghans seeking asylum claim to be children, and are therefore fast-tracked to being admitted within six months of the asylum application.

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Of Course Sarah Palin Is Endorsing Donald Trump By Charles C. W. Cooke

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

Where there are open flames, there will always be curious moths. Tonight, at a little after six o’clock, Sarah Palin will succumb at last to overwhelming temptation and sign up for Donald Trump’s ever-glistering light show. And in that remarkable moment, the mask will fall off completely.

If you are surprised by this development, you shouldn’t be. Ours is an age in which politics and entertainment are melted together without opposition or disfavor; a silly, self-indulgent, shallow age in which Kanye West thinks he can be the president of the United States and the president of the United States thinks he can be Kanye West. That Palin and Trump are together at last is no accident of ideology or timing; rather, it is the inevitable and rational confluence of two ghastly cults of personality — a fat-cutting, cash-saving merger that will serve to increase overall market share. Under their own steam, both figures have convinced a significant portion of the American population that their personal advancement is the key to the country’s success. Together, just think how great America can be!

Talk to a Palin fan and you will be told in a matter of moments that to oppose her is to oppose “real America.” Talk to a Trump fan, and you will be told that to knock him is to knock “We the people” — of which, it is made abundantly clear, you are no longer a valued part. All told, this symmetry makes sense, for the pair have of late become mirror images. Sarah Palin started in politics and moved seamlessly into television and entrepreneurship; Donald Trump started in business and, after a quick foray onto the small screen, readied himself for the ballot box. Now their most effective cudgels can be wielded as one: You’re not so effete that you’re against the both of them, are you?

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Tony Thomas Trigger Warning: A Story Not Quite True

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

You might have seen reports that Sweden is instructing Muslim refugees in the fine art of sniping, and you might further have wondered what officials could be thinking. Well, rest easy. Marksmanship is being taught, but the designated targets are bullseyes, not infidels.
So the Swedish government is arranging courses on sniping for its young Islamic arrivals, to help them mingle on the range with locals and boost their Swedish language skills. This is the story doing the rounds on the blogophere. True? False? Crazy nonsense? You be the judge. Please remember Quadrant Online always provides nuanced coverage and does not regurgitate internet hoaxes.

The original story about the sniper-training is a nicely-illustrated spread in the Swedish newspaper Allehanda. This is a real newspaper, circulation around 70,000. It previously gained some éclat in the West for publishing a cartoon of Mohammad as a “roundabout dog”, a form of public art which Swedes seem to enjoy. This caused much Islamic offence and the standard reaction of Religion of Peace adherents: protests, threats, bombings, attempted assassination of the artist etc.

sniper storyThe Allehanda story (right) about the “sniper training” for happy-go-lucky Islamic teens is dated June 2, 2013. It’s an oddity that it laid doggo (no pun) all this time. The headline is “Laddade för prickskytte”, the first word google-translating as “charged (up)” and the third word, “sniping”. It is more precise than the word for “shooting” (skytte) or “target practice” (tävlingsskytt).

But because of the recent fuss, the Allehanda news editor has now issued this clarification:

“Because of the recent international citations of the 2013 Allehanda article ‘Laddad för prickskytte’, I as News Editor feel that a few clarifications are in order. Several websites refers to the immigration project in Sollefteå as ‘sniper training’. This is not a correct description. The word sniper training implies military combat education which is something completely different from this.

Although the refugees in the pictures can be seen holding what looks like sniper rifles, it is in fact biathlon sports equipment. Biathlon is since the 1960s recognised as an Olympic discipline, and the Sollefteå Ski High School runs an international upper secondary school programme for elite competitors. This is where the refugees were invited to try rifle shooting, the only element of biathlon possible in the summer. It was done by the authorities as part of their work with local immigration. I hope this clarifies the circumstances surrounding this article.”

So really, the Swedish government has only been training young Muslims to aim well at inanimate targets and miss as few times as possible. This is not the same as actually training them to be military-grade snipers a la Chris Kyle of American Sniper fame.

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Kent State Professor Under Investigation for Allegedly Recruiting Students to ISIS By Paula Bolyard

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

A tenured associate professor of history at Kent State University in Ohio is under investigation for potential ties to ISIS. From KentWired:

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are investigating Julio Pino, a Kent State associate history professor, for alleged involvement with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIl.

A joint terrorism task force has been investigating Pino for the last year and a half, said an FBI special agent who did not wish to be named for safety reasons…

…The agent said they interviewed several faculty members and more than 20 of Pino’s students Tuesday about his alleged involvement. He is also being investigated for allegedly recruiting students to join ISIS.

The agent said there is “no direct threat” to the university.

Pino, who is teaching two classes this semester at Kent, told KentWired on Tuesday that he has not been notified of an investigation by either the FBI or Homeland Security, nor has he been contacted by them.

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WEINER: THE MOVIE

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

Are you ready for the return of Anthony Weiner?By Joseph Smith
Hillary Clinton’s campaign vice chair and confidante, Huma Abedin, is at the center of a new documentary on her husband Anthony Weiner’s failed New York City mayoral campaign, potentially adding to the woes of the beleaguered Clinton presidential run.

As reported by the New York Times and highlighted on The Drudge Report, the movie Weiner will premier at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend, in theaters in May and on television in October, at the height of the campaign season. As The Times observes, “‘Weiner’ has become a source of heightened anxiety for Ms. Abedin and the Clinton campaign.”

The movie project was originally intended to document Mr. Weiner’s “spectacular political comeback,” but as the New York Times columnist dryly notes, “[t]hings did not go quite according to plan.”

The film instead focuses on “the implosion of Mr. Weiner’s mayoral campaign and a wrenching inside account of the couple’s interactions in the aftermath of his second explicit texting scandal.”

Benghazi, Hillary’s emails, and Bill’s behavior, not to mention Hillary’s robotic campaign personality, would be enough to sink many ordinary campaigns. As the Times continues:

But none of those controversies are as deeply personal or as potentially distracting to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign as the visceral film.

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Israel to Zuckerberg: Stop Killing Jews By Karin McQuillan

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

It takes a global village to kill a Israelis. The recipe is well known. Begin with the lie that Islam is the religion of peace. Take U.N. (that is, U.S.) money and hire jihadis to teach small children Jews should all be killed. (First taught to the Moslem Brotherhood by Eichmann himself, sent by Hitler to launch the modern jihadi movement — read here, and here). Take Saudi money and staff every mosque with Wahhabi imams. Use oil wealth to brainwash vulnerable teenagers with Islamic supremacist idealism and promise endless sex in heaven if they kill a Jew. Flood the P.A. territories with billions of dollars in international aid, turning the entire place into one giant welfare state of entitlement and rage.

And then give the jihadis Facebook, to spread the message: go out and kill a Jew today. With detailed instructions on how to do it.

The wave of stabbings in Israel are a Facebook-fueled intifada. And once it is tested in Israel, it will be coming to an American street near you.

Israelis are fed up. They can’t stop the U.N. from supporting jihad. They can’t stop the Saudis. They can’t stop Europe and America from sucking up to the Arab world by throwing money at the Palestinians with no strings attached (like: drop the anti-Semitic BS or no cash).

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Islam and Rape: Joined at the Hip By Eileen F. Toplansky

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

Pamphlets being issued in Germany to Muslim male refugees that they are not to grope or fondle European women reveal the rank stupidity, ignorance, and sheer indifference of European leaders as they continue down a suicidal trajectory.

Of course these men were going to engage in rape jihad, since sexual abuse is ingrained in their religion and culture. As psychologist Nicolai Sennels explains, “Mohammed, the prime example for Muslims, married Aisha when she was six and had intercourse with her when she was nine. Besides, according to the Quran (4:24), Muslims are allowed to have sex with female slaves[.]” In addition, “uncovered women are in many Muslim cultures seen as a kind of prostitute, and if a man is aroused by such a female, then – partly due to the corrupted logic of responsibility within Muslim psychology – the female is blamed for being raped (and will therefore often face execution).”

In 2010, Andrew C. McCarthy, in his book entitled The Grand Jihad, described rape by Muslim immigrants as the “unspoken epidemic of Western Europe.” Six years later, it continues to expand and sweep across the continent. Ingrid Carlqvist documents how Sweden is now the rape capital of the West, and when “Michael Hess, a local politician from [the] Sweden Democrat Party, tried to warn his nation that ‘it is deeply rooted in Islam’s culture to rape and brutalize women who refuse to comply with Islamic teachings’ he was charged with ‘denigration of ethnic groups'” – a crime in Sweden.

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Why the U.S. Should Stand by the Saudis Against Iran Much about the House of Saud is detestable, but that isn’t a reason to abandon a vital ally. Bret Stephens

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

There is so much to detest about Saudi Arabia. The kingdom forbids women from driving and bars its doors to desperate Syrian refugees. For years its sybaritic leaders purchased their legitimacy by underwriting, and exporting, a bigoted and brutal version of Sunni Islam. Crude oil aside, it’s difficult to find much of value produced by the desert kingdom.

More recently, the Saudis have increased tensions with Iran by executing, over U.S. objections, a prominent radical Shiite cleric while waging a brutal war against Iran’s Shiite proxies in Yemen. So why should the U.S. feel obliged to take sides with the country that Israeli diplomat Dore Gold once called “Hatred’s Kingdom,” especially when the administration is also trying to pursue further opening with Tehran?

That’s a question that suddenly seems to be on Washington’s liberal foreign-policy minds, as if they’ve just discovered that we don’t exactly share Saudi moral values. Some on the right also seem to think that, with the U.S. leading the world in energy production, we no longer have much use for the Saudi alliance.

So let’s remind ourselves why it would be a bad—make that very bad—idea for the U.S. to abandon the House of Saud, especially when it is under increasing economic strain from falling oil prices and feels acutely threatened by a resurgent Iran. Despite fond White House hopes that the nuclear deal would moderate Iran’s behavior, Tehran hard-liners wasted no time this week disqualifying thousands of moderate candidates from running in next month’s parliamentary elections, and an Iranian-backed militia appears to be responsible for the recent kidnapping of three Americans in Iraq.

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The Petraeus Vendetta The Pentagon may strip the former general of a star. And Hillary? see note please

Posted By on January 20th, 2016

I am no fan of David Petraeus for his rules of engagement which put our soldiers at higher risk to avoid offending the sensibilities of Moslem enemies, nor, do I think the “surge” saved Iraq…. but this is pure hypocrisy….rsk

Whatever more may come in the career of David Petraeus, historians will remember him as one of America’s outstanding military men, whose “surge” strategy saved Iraq from chaos before President Obama squandered its gains. So what does it say of the Obama Administration’s priorities or sense of proportion that it may strip the retired general of one of his four stars, thereby docking his Army pension?

We’ll assume this isn’t Ashton Carter’s idea of parsimony, though the Secretary of Defense took up the case after then-Army Secretary John McHugh decided last year to take no action against the former general for sharing classified documents with his biographer and paramour Paula Broadwell. The breach was exposed in 2012 when Mr. Petraeus was CIA director. He lost his job and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for mishandling classified information and was punished with two years probation and a $100,000 fine. That and his public humiliation are punishment enough.

The Pentagon’s case against him seems to rest on an FBI claim that he shared some of his personal notebooks with Ms. Broadwell days before he retired from the Army. To our knowledge none of the information in those notebooks was publicly disclosed by Ms. Broadwell or anyone else, and what the bureau seems to think is a high crime is what most journalists would call a leak.

This suggests that what’s mainly at work here is Pentagon vindictiveness, perhaps including an effort to derail Mr. Petraeus’s prospects in the next Administration. Great strategists aren’t abundant, as this Administration proves, and it would be a shame for a future President not to use Mr. Petraeus’s talents.

Meantime, it will be instructive to see how the suddenly punctilious Administration deals with a far graver case of mishandled classified information—the one involving a certain former junior U.S. Senator from New York.