RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/authors/shoshana-bryen/

Europe is straddling a line between what it wants to say and what it actually wants. The former is about opposing Israel, opposing the Trump administration, not alienating its own restive Arab populations, and not completely severing its relations with Iran and its jihadist proxies. The latter involves hoping Israel won’t pay too much attention to the former.

While U.S. President Donald Trump called both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rotation partner and Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, to congratulate them, French President Emmanuel Macron, welcomed the new government with his view that Jerusalem should “make it possible to decisively revive the Middle East peace process and to achieve a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, in accordance with internationally agreed parameters.”

The European Union also issued a statement, though not a unanimous statement (thank you, Austria and Hungary): “The two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the future capital for both States, is the only way to ensure sustainable peace and stability in the region … we note with grave concern the provision—to be submitted for approval by the Israeli cabinet—on the annexation of parts of occupied Palestinian territories. … We strongly urge Israel to refrain from any unilateral decision that would lead to the annexation of any occupied Palestinian territory and would be, as such, contrary to International Law.”

https://patriotpost.us/articles/71024-video-whos-sneaky-ties-to-chinas-most-powerful-communists-2020-06-01

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/06/the-slow-strangulation-of-hong-kong/

“The stifling by China of democratic development didn’t prevent Hong Kong making one of the few successful transitions from Third World poverty to prosperity and modernisation, not only in Asia, but anywhere. On present trends, it looks set to make the journey in reverse.”

The Chinese Communist Party has no peer when it comes to strategic thinking, even if the thinking is wrong or repellent. Anyone else, anywhere else, would have thought that if the Hong Kong chief executive couldn’t cope, the sensible thing to do would be to replace her with someone who could. But no. The party’s answer is to replace its representative in the territory, someone most people wouldn’t have known existed. It’s the right answer, too, for that’s where the real power lies. The new man, Luo Huining, is one who unlike his predecessor isn’t encumbered with any experience of Hong Kong matters. Luo is a party loyalist long familiar with imposing party discipline and organisation in troublesome regions.

It’s an honest answer, too. Chief executive Carrie Lam can continue to twist ineffectively in the breeze, a fit demonstration of the powerlessness of old colonial mechanisms, while the new order gets on with the real task. And the real task is not to address mass protests or their causes, as one might think. Rather, the party’s new representative has announced that his task will be the further integration of Hong Kong into the surrounding provinces of China, especially Guangdong. That means the people of Hong Kong can just get used to the fact that Beijing is not going to take any notice of their demands for democracy and openness; they can start getting used to the inevitability of being more like the rest of China.

Luo has also asserted the right of Beijing to supervise affairs in Hong Kong. The territory’s autonomy is beginning to resemble the autonomy the party promised Tibet when it took over there.

https://jonathanspyer.com/2020/06/01/a-new-alliance/ 

Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and Qatar form emergent power nexus in the Islamic World

The name of fugitive Indian Salafi Islamist preacher Zakir Naik is little known in the west. Naik, founder of the Mumbai-based Islamic Research foundation,  is currently being pursued by the Indian authorities on charges of money laundering and hate speech.  Naik is a popular Islamist preacher in his native country.  He has been referred to as ‘perhaps the most influential Salafi ideologue in India,’ and ‘the world’s leading Salafi evangelist.’  Naik’s views on such subjects as homosexuality, apostasy and the Jews are as might be expected (the first two deserve the death penalty, the third ‘control America.’)  The Indian authorities note evidence that two of the seven terrorists who carried out a deadly attack at a café in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 1, 2016, claimed inspiration from his teachings.

In himself, the fugitive preacher is of only passing interest.  Zakir Naik’s activities are worthy of further note, however, because the list of his supporters and their activities on his behalf cast light on an emergent nexus in the Islamic world deserving of greater attention.   This crystallising alliance looks set to be of considerable consequence in the period opening up, not least for Israel and some of its partners in the region and beyond.

Zakir Naik, fleeing from the Indian authorities, has been the lucky recipient of permanent resident status in Malaysia.  There, his case has become something of a cause celebre. The Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which has four ministers in the current government, is vociferously opposed to acceding to Indian calls for his extradition.

Reports in a number of Indian media outlets claim that the (unusual) granting of permanent residency to the fugitive preacher came as a result of a request from  the government of Pakistan. The reports further suggest that ‘Pakistan is also using its relations with…Turkey and Qatar to provide funding to Zakir Naik.’