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Ruth King

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Flight and Fancy by Mark Steyn

By on August 2nd, 2017

RussiaRussiaRussiaRussiaRealbitofnewsRussia
RussiaRussiaRussia…

Wait a minute, what was that?

On Monday night Imran Awan, the principal IT aide to former DNC honcho Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was arrested at Dulles Airport attempting to flee the country. “IT” means information technology, as in computers, as in hacking, as in what the Democrats insist happened to the election.

Mr Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi, has already flown the coop. In March, she pulled their three kids out of school and skipped back to Lahore, with (according to the FBI) “numerous pieces of luggage” and over $12,000 in cash.

Monday’s airport arrest follows the seizure of broken hard drives from the garage of the Awans’ former home. The hard drives had been smashed with a hammer. Whether it was the same ceremonial DNC hammer used to smash Hillary’s Blackberries has not yet been determined.

What we have here, for the benefit of American reporters who may be unfamiliar with the concept, is an actual news story – an unusual event that’s happened in recent times. It thus stands in contrast to, say, speculative fancies about whether or not money-no-object special counsel Robert Mueller is expanding his “Russia investigation” to set the many Hillary donors on his payroll into investigating Trump’s sale of some property in Florida in 2008.

What connects the “fake news” and the real news is the DNC. The Russia “story” exists because the election wasn’t hacked but the DNC was. Wikileaks released the Democrats’ embarrassing emails to the world, although, helpfully, the US media mostly declined to report on them, and, in fact, CNN’s Chris Cuomo lectured America that it’s totally illegal for you mere citizens even to glance at these leaked emails. As it happens, the world’s most inevitable presidential victor somehow managed to lose the election, and casting around for a reason the Dems decided that blaming it on a stiff tired unlikeable legacy candidate with no message and a minimal campaign schedule was too implausible. So instead they decided to blame it on Russian “hacking”.

Julian Assange of Wikileaks says the Russians had nothing to do with the DNC email leaks. Take that with as many grains of salt as you want: he is, of course, a fugitive from justice, just like the DNC chair’s IT aide and his wife and various relatives of theirs.

The Awan story has many interesting elements: The Pakistani-born Imran Awan, his wife, his brothers Abid and Jamal, and Abid’s wife Natalia have provided IT services to Debbie Wasserman Schultz and dozens of lesser Democrat congressmen since about 2004. The family salaries totaled some $5 million, because supplying computer services to prominent Democrats is so vital and specialized a skill that it requires a rare and exceptional skill.The Awans’ services were so critical that in March last year eight Democrat members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued a letter demanding that these staffers be granted access to Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI).

Yet at the same time the Awans ran a full-time Virginia car dealership amusingly called Cars International A – or “CIA” – and were almost continually short of cash, requiring loans from all kinds of people including – Collusion Alert! – the Iraqi politician Ali al-Attar.

For inept broke car-dealers, the Awans somehow made themselves indispensable to powerful Democrats, among them those on sensitive committees such as Intelligence and Foreign Affairs including Andre Carson, Joaquín Castro, Lois Frankel, Robin Kelly, Ted Lieu and Jackie Speier. That’s a lot of Democrat computers to wind up in the hands of one family of Pakistani immigrant car dealers. And it wasn’t the full extent of the Awans’ connections: that’s Imran up above with putative First Gentleman Bill Clinton.

But who cares? It’s not like Trump’s son or son-in-law or vaguely connected former campaign advisor being in a room for 20 minutes with a Russian lawyer.

Meanwhile, Mr Awan’s counsel says his client has been arrested for “working while Muslim”. That line’s so desperate it’s bound to take off big-time.

Five months ago, as the coppers began closing the net on the family, other Democrats began distancing themselves from the Awan clan, notwithstanding their peerless IT skills. Representative Gregory Meeks of New York fired Mrs Awan on February 28th. Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio fired Mr Awan on March 1st. But Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not fire Awan until yesterday – after his arrest at the airport. Indeed, she has spent five months digging in with the guy. You want powerful politicians interfering with federal investigations? Forget about Trump hinting to Comey that he’s really hoping for some loyalty, and consider a powerful member of a House sub-committee threatening the head of the Capitol Police that “you should expect that there will be consequences” for refusing to return one of her laptops set up and controlled by Awan:

Why did Debbie Wasserman Schultz not do as her fellow congressmen did and dump the Awan clan as no longer politically convenient?

Occam’s razor: Because she was head of the DNC and thus Awan knew too much for her to cut him loose.

Until yesterday. After his capture at the airport, while fleeing back to Pakistan.

The enterprsing lad is said to have been trusted by Debbie with her iPad password and other access codes. So in other words – unlike speculation about Putin’s FSB being in DNC computers – we know this guy was in them.

Are the “Russia investigation” and the Awan story comparable? Well, they’re both about hacking, and both about DNC computers. One of them has actual arrests, on-camera political interference, destroyed evidence, and a proven money trail from foreign politicians. The other has no arrests, and a meeting with a minor Russian lawyer arranged by an Azerbaijani pop star’s publicist.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Professor coins term ‘white priority,’ says white people think they’re better than others (University of North Carolina-Charlotte)

By on August 2nd, 2017

A philosophy professor argues that white people enjoy a “sense” of importance, calling it “white priority,” a term the scholar coined to summarize her claim that people with white skin feel superior to others. https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/35063/

“White priority concerns a white person’s felt conviction about herself (however egregious or misplaced, and often unconscious) that no matter the quantifiable, statistical details of her life, she is not on the very bottom run of society’s ladder,” writes Professor Shannon Sullivan.

Sullivan, department chair of the philosophy department at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, made the comments in a recent scholarly article in “Critical Philosophy of Race.”

The piece takes issue with the term “white privilege,” with Sullivan writing that it doesn’t quite hit the mark in describing the “advantages of whiteness.” But “white priority” describes a white person’s “sense of coming before someone else,” noted Sullivan, who is white.

“As a poor, struggling white person, I might not be financially privileged or very high up in social circles and many people might disparage me, but at least I’m not the lowest of the low. I come before someone else: people of color and black people in particular,” Sullivan wrote.

The article, headlined “White Priority,” was published in a special issue of “Critical Philosophy of Race” dedicated to “Race after Obama.” A listing of Sullivan’s academic papers shows she’s written on whiteness multiple times throughout her career.

Sullivan did not respond to The College Fix’s request for comment. An automatic reply said she’ll have “irregular access” to her email account until Aug. 10.

In “White Priority,” Sullivan argued that the word privilege suggests one’s lived an easy life and it doesn’t quite fit for white people who’ve faced hardships. White privilege is “the right term to describe middle-class and affluent white people’s particular racial advantages,” but she argued that white priority applies to all white people no matter their financial standing.

This nuance is important, she wrote, because “life after Obama is a time for greater nimbleness and dexterity as we think about race and its intersections with class.” She argued there was a “white backlash” against President Barack Obama during his tenure in the Oval Office, an alleged backlash that stemmed from what individuals saw as his “extremism.” This extremism wasn’t based on Obama’s policies but rather that a black man was president, Sullivan wrote.

“It is as if a black intruder broke in and was allowed to stay, and we could say this almost literally given the white imaginary understanding of blackness as inherently criminal,” Sullivan stated.

As for proof that white priority exists, Sullivan stated she does not exactly have any, noting “white priority is not something that can be empirically verified or disproven.”

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The One Reason the UN Climate Change Panel Cannot Be Trusted By Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris

By on August 2nd, 2017

It is time for governments to wake up to this scandal, and withdraw funding to UN organizations that promote the climate scare.

Comment period for the next UN climate report has begun.

As of July 31, climate experts from around the world are providing comments to the authors of a new special report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Entitled “Global Warming of 1.5°C”, the report will address:

… the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.

The IPCC claims that:

The purpose of this expert review is to help ensure that the report provides a balanced and comprehensive assessment of the latest scientific findings.

In reality, the report will almost certainly be highly biased, and will ignore scientific findings that do not conform with the UN’s man-made climate change disaster scenario.

There are a number of reasons to expect such an outcome from any IPCC process.

First, consider the panel’s mandate. Most people think that the IPCC studies all climate change, and indeed, in response to the direction of UN General Assembly Resolution 43/53 of December 6, 1988, that was the original purpose of the panel. But the IPCC itself admits that that is no longer the case.

Today, the IPCC’s role is defined differently in “Principles Governing IPCC Work”:

[T]o assess … the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. (emphasis added)

With this narrow focus, if human-induced climate change is found to be trivial, then there would be no reason for the IPCC to exist. The IPCC will therefore always support the climate scare, no matter what their examination of the science reveals.

The IPCC’s mandate change is apparently the result of the definition of “climate change” given by the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Convention asserted:

Climate Change means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.

Since the IPCC “Principles” state that the panel “shall concentrate its activities … on actions in support of the UNFCCC process,” then clearly the IPCC had to adopt this unduly restricted definition — and this means that policymakers, not scientists, lead the process.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Richard Lindzen was not exaggerating when he said that the supposed scientific consensus was reached before the research had even begun. Indeed, this was clear from the very start. The 1990 IPCC First Assessment Report stated:

[I]t is not possible at this time to attribute all, or even a large part, of the observed global-mean warming to the enhanced greenhouse effect on the basis of the observational data currently available.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Competitive Victimhood’ Among Racial Minorities Backfires, Study Finds By Toni Airaksinen

By on August 2nd, 2017

Racial minorities engage in “competitive victimhood” in a quest for recognition of past sufferings such as slavery and colonialism, according to a new research study published by Belgian professors.

Laura De Guissmé and Laurent Licata, professors at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, made the claim in a recent article in the European Journal of Social Psychology, further finding that the struggle for victimhood can “foster intergroup conflict” such as a desire for revenge, increased hostility, and racism against other minorities.

Consequences of competitive victimhood are especially dangerous, the professors note, because they can contribute to the escalation of conflict (for example, with regards to the Israel/Palestine conflict), reduce trust and empathy, and impede the resolution of conflicts by peaceful means (heightening the threat of violence).

While the need for recognition is part of human nature, the desire for recognition of “past sufferings” can be especially problematic. This is because past sufferings often involve feuds between different tribal, ethnic, or racial groups — feuds which oftentimes have persisted to the present (past slavery of African Americans is one example), and thus have present-day consequences.

Recognition of victimhood status is especially important because it can be weaponized for the benefit of the minority group in question, Guissmé and Licata write:

The victim status is highly coveted because it tends to empower victimized groups, which are perceived as morally superior, entitled to sympathy, consideration, and protection against criticism.

Conversely, the lack of victimhood status poses a problem to minorities, since it reduces their ability to garner attention, protection, and even financial rewards (reparations, for example). This explains why the denial of victimhood status can be so troubling: denial of victimhood recognition can lend credence to a denial of help and assistance.

While much of the literature on minorities’ desire to claim victimhood status is largely theoretical, Guissmé and Licata conducted three studies at their university to learn more about the negative consequences of victimhood.

For one study, they surveyed 133 Belgian Muslims on their sense of victimhood and their levels of anti-Semitism. The sense of victimhood among Muslims was gauged by how much respondents agreed with statements such as “Muslims have a huge past of sufferings” and “The suffering Muslims have been through was undeserved and unfair.”

Then, the Muslims were asked questions designed to gauge if they held anti-Semitic viewpoints, such as “Jews should stop constantly complaining about what happened to them in Nazi Germany” and “The Jews exploit the remembrance of the Holocaust for their own benefit.”

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IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Maryland city to allow non-citizens to vote…again By Robert Knight

By on August 2nd, 2017

If you want to know where the progressive left wants to take U.S. elections, a trip through Maryland’s Washington, D.C.-area suburban counties is instructive.

The City of College Park in Prince George’s County is on the verge of becoming the ninth city in Maryland to allow non-citizens – including illegal aliens – to vote in municipal elections.

In a revealing 20-minute video of a June 7 council meeting, city officials discussed how best to get rid of the citizenship requirement so that virtually anyone of legal age living in the city can vote. A council vote is slated for August 8.

One councilwoman noted that in the hippie community of Takoma Park (modifier added), where 16-year-olds can vote, “they do not ask and do not care if the resident is in their city legally or not,” a policy she indicated should be adopted by College Park.

One lone College Park council member opined that immigration status should be a factor and that the council could serve all residents without letting unqualified residents vote.

Because elections loom in November, the council discussed creating a separate deadline for citizens and non-citizens to register before the election. Citizens must register 28 days ahead of an election. But non-citizens can register up to 14 days before the election if the city charter amendment is approved.

When someone asked whether legal residents who missed the 28-day mark could have a grace period up to 14 days, the idea was quickly dismissed. Welcome to the new America, where actual citizens are intentionally disadvantaged.

The eight other Maryland cities that already allow non-citizens to vote include Hyattsville, which is also in Prince George’s County and is a “sanctuary city,” and Mount Rainier, also in Prince George’s, which amended its charter in January. The others are Takoma Park, Barnesville, Glen Echo, Garrett Park, Martin’s Additions, and Somerset, all of which are in tony Montgomery County.

The radical nature of this voting scheme reflects the progressive view that borders are merely artificial inconveniences and that citizenship is a leftover concept from slave-holding days that should give way to global consciousness.

Apparently, no documentation will be needed at all for non-citizens, green card holders, undocumented fence-jumpers, or over-stays on visas. The council did informally agree to “retain the other qualifications” that Maryland law stipulates, barring felons and mentally incapacitated people – presumably Republicans.

At the July 11 council meeting, along with immigrants’ rights groups promoting the policy, some residents voiced opposition, including U.S. Army veteran Larry Provost.

According to the Diamondback, the University of Maryland newspaper, “Provost stood firmly opposed to the amendment. He said he and his wife try to teach their child, whom they adopted from overseas, about what it means to be a citizen.

“‘Voting is a right, but it is also a privilege,’ Provost said. ‘There are standards for voting. It is no mistake that the 14th Amendment gave citizenship and the 15th Amendment gave the right to vote. I would urge the council to look elsewhere to integrate our non-citizens.'”

Here is a voice of reason that should be heeded.

Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Time to Shut Down Iran Regime Mouthpieces in the USA By Walton K. Martin and Reza Parchizadeh

By on August 2nd, 2017

n early June, a group of concerned Americans of Iranian origin as well as other Americans held a meeting at the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. to set the stage for regime change in Iran. They assembled at the House Visitors’ Center and discussed practical ideas for bringing about regime change in Iran. The impression the meeting made among those concerned with the situation in Iran and the Middle East was so positive that the event immediately made headlines around the world.

A number of prominent figures followed up on that event. A few days later, the former crown prince of Iran in exile, Reza Pahlavi, visited a number of House and Senate members, allegedly discussing very much the same possibilities. On June 14, 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the United States policy toward Iran is based on the support of Iranian forces who can bring about peaceful regime change – to which the Iranian dissidents warmly responded by an open letter. On July 10, 2017, the Daily Caller broke the news of Secretary of Defense Mattis’s stance toward Iran to the effect that “Iran needs regime change for relations to improve with the U.S.”

On the other hand, the Iran regime’s lobby in America, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), immediately attacked the “June 8 Coalition” meeting in the press and on their blogs, as well as directly confronting the participants on social media with their Iran regime supporters’ echo chamber, which was set up by Trita Parsi and bragged about in the New York Times by former Obama White House staffer Ben Rhodes.

Here is where we say, “Hold the presses!” The Iran lobby has run circles around Obama, Clinton, Kerry, the State Department, and Congress for more than a decade. If you don’t believe us, ask anyone at the National Endowment for Democracy. Or ask former U.S. Republican senator Mark Kirk, who blasted the lobby on the U.S. Senate floor. Or ask Democrat senator Bob Menendez, who also opposed the “Iran deal.”

Before we can contemplate regime change in Iran, we must set policy standards and implement a decisive plan of action to clean our own house and take down the Iranian regime-supporters in America. We should start by investigating and auditing all Iran lobby groups and their financial resources, the misuse of their 501(c)(3)s, and the possible misuse of their 501(c)(4)s, one of which should have never been approved, after a U.S. court sanctioned Trita Parsi and the NIAC and forced them to pay a $172,000 settlement to Hassan Daioleslam, who had exposed the illegal lobbying activities on behalf of the Iranian regime by Trita Parsi at the NIAC.

To improve the situation, President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson should immediately consider John Bolton’s appointment to a now understaffed State Department. As Reza Parchizadeh has written before, former U.N. ambassador Bolton is perhaps the most experienced character in American politics when it comes to the Iranian regime and the Middle East. Bolton will bring his much needed experience and a coherent Iran policy, as well as order to State’s Middle East section.

Next, Congress needs to come down hard on senators and congressman who fundraise for Iran lobbies, which in turn benefits the Iranian regime that has openly declared the United States and her allies Israel and Saudi Arabia as the regime’s number-one enemies. The House members’ assisting the enemy, in any form, is unconscionable and must stop.

We must also remove the regime-supporters from the U.S. taxpayer-funded entities Voice of America Persian and Radio Farda and get back on a pro-democracy, pro-liberty, and pro-human rights mission. According to BBG Watch, during an address on Capitol Hill – as part of an event about regime change in Iran, coordinated with the office of Congressman Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) – Reza Parchizadeh said:

The old media, including the state media directed towards Iran, must be completely overhauled and restructured. In that regard, Voice of America and Radio Farda stand at the forefront, as they have been stuffed with regime sympathizers. So biased has been their broadcast in favor of the Iranian regime that the people of Iran and the dissidents derogatorily call Voice of America the “Voice of Ayatollahs” and Radio Farda “Radio Khatami.”

Removing pro-regime agents and sympathizers from VOA and Radio Farda must be made a State Department priority, to be accomplished by November 30, 2017.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

A Lesson from Cambridge University: ‘All White People Are Racist’ By Paul Austin Murphy

By on August 2nd, 2017

A black student at Cambridge University has just said that “all white people are racist”. (This was in response to Saturday’s riots in Dalston, east London.) His name is Jason Osamede Okundaye. He’s also the President of the Black and Minority Ethnic society at the University.

Okundaye wrote:

The other fantastically ironic thing is that he also claimed that “middle-class white people” have “colonised” Dalston. In full:

Of course, if white people had claimed that Dalston was formerly colonised by black people, they’d have been classed as racist by anti-racists. Though since blacks can’t be racist (they don’t “have the power”), then this statement can’t be racist either. Nothing a black person says or does can be racist. This is according to the standards of the many and various anti-racist theorists and academics who exist today; some of whom will teach at Okundaye’s Cambridge University.

Predictably, once the news spread outside of the Students’ Union and the University itself, a spokesperson from the University said: “The College is looking into this matter and will respond appropriately.”

However, if blacks can be racist, then what can Cambridge University do about this? Jason Osamede Okundaye has done nothing wrong. That is, according to many theorists and academics at Cambridge University, he’s done nothing wrong. He’s black and therefore he can’t be a racist. He’s only a victim. Not a suspect or even a free agent. He’s a black man. A man infantilised by anti-racist theory and anti-racist activists.

According to Trinity College [Cambridge] Students’ Union website:

“BME, Black and Minority Ethnic, is a term used in the UK to describe people of non-white descent.”

Thus, the Black and Minority Ethnic society seems to think that all people who aren’t white have something in common. That’s from middle-class African blacks (like Jason Osamede Okundaye?) to deprived Indians who’ve been given a scholarship. So this institution is racist for the simple reason that it places an absolute emphasis on race and colour. What better definition of racism can there be? After all, racism can be both positive and negative. Presumably, the BME sees itself as practicing and promoting positive racism; though it won’t use the word “racism” about itself.

For example, at Cambridge University there are academic courses which teach that “all white people are racist”. They won’t, of course, use the same inflammatory “discourse” which Jason Osamede Okundaye uses. Nonetheless, he’s the logical/political conclusion of such theoretical and academic anti-white racism.

There have also been a series of seminars on Critical Race Theory in July this year at Cambridge University. The University also featured “research” under the headline: ‘Racism in the US runs far deeper than Trump’s white supremacist fanbase’. (It was written by Nicholas Guyatt, a Cambridge University lecturer.) More relevantly, the University of Cambridge published a piece which states that it’s wrong to single out or “demonize” the “white working class for racism”; when, as a matter of fact, all white people are racist. (This, I presume, is class prejudice.)

So I wonder if Jason Osamede Okundaye will win one of the “award categories” which Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU) has just announced as part of its “anti-racism campaign.” After all, what better way is there of being anti-racist than being racist against all whites?

Jason Osamede Okundaye is digging his own grave anyway; even if he is a student at Cambridge University. If “all white people are racist”, then that must be some kind of racial fact. A fact about white DNA, perhaps. And if that’s the case, there’s nothing white people can do about it. Therefore, condemning white racism is pointless. It’s racial. It’s genetic. It’s a given. So why the political and moral outrage? Changing white racism would be like changing the colour of one’s skin or how many fingers one has.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The State Department’s Report on Terrorism Should Be Discredited by A. Z. Mohamed

By on August 2nd, 2017

At the top of the list of supposed “continued drivers of violence” in the Palestinian Authority (PA) is an assertion even more fabricated: “a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood…”

It is not “lack of hope” that drives Palestinian violence. On the contrary, it is precisely the propping up of hope — that intimidation and terrorism work and deliver concessions, such as UNESCO’s fraudulent rulings that try to strip the Jews of their history, or Israel’s recent removal of metal detectors and cameras from the Temple Mount — that keeps the Palestinians on the offensive.

The report’s allegations are perceptibly false. The PA has absolute control over the content of school books, print and broadcast media pieces, and sermons in mosques, all of which are rife with blatant anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism and terrorists. This means that the incitement to spill Jewish blood is approved by the PA leadership, when not directly planted by it.

A newly-released report on terrorism by the US State Department so completely distorts the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Authority — the areas it refers to as “the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem” — that one can assume the rest of its findings are equally inaccurate.

To set the stage for its unfounded and biased claim that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been engaged in a serious effort to combat terrorism, the report equates “extremist” Palestinians, who “continued to conduct acts of violence and terrorism in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” with “[e]xtremist Israelis, including settlers, [who] continued to conduct acts of violence as well as ‘price tag’ attacks (property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed anti-settlement) in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”

At the top of the list of supposed “continued drivers of violence” in the Palestinian Authority is an assertion even more fabricated:

“a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount, and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive.”

It is not “lack of hope” that drives Palestinian violence. On the contrary, it is precisely the propping up of hope — that intimidation and terrorism work and deliver concessions, such as UNESCO’s fraudulent rulings that try to strip the Jews of their history, or Israel’s recent removal of metal detectors and cameras from the Temple Mount — that keeps the Palestinians on the offensive.

The metal detectors and cameras had been put there by the Israelis to provide security for the Muslims who worship there, as well as to prevent weapons being brought in with which to attack Jews, or so that the al-Aqsa mosque can be destroyed and the blame then falsely placed on Israel.

To arrive at this conclusion, which essentially holds Israel accountable for Palestinian violence, the report falsely describes Mahmoud Abbas as a leader who has been committed to counter-terrorism efforts and works tirelessly to thwart the “lone-wolf” stabbing attacks that were rampant from the end of 2015 and throughout 2016.

The report states:

“The PA has taken significant steps during President Abbas’ tenure (2005 to date) to ensure that official institutions in the West Bank under its control do not create or disseminate content that incites violence. While some PA leaders have made provocative and inflammatory comments, the PA has made progress in reducing official rhetoric that could be considered incitement to violence. Explicit calls for violence against Israelis, direct exhortations against Jews, and categorical denials by the PA of the possibility of peace with Israel are rare and the leadership does not generally tolerate it.”

This is perceptibly false. The Palestinian Authority has absolute control over the content of school books, print and broadcast media pieces, and sermons in mosques, all of which are rife with blatant anti-Semitism and glorification of terrorism and terrorists. This means that the bombardment of incitement to spill Jewish blood is approved by the PA leadership, when not directly planted by it.

The only terrorism that Abbas actively tries to prevent is that committed by members of Hamas against the Fatah faction, which he heads. It is solely this security cooperation with Israel that Abbas seeks, participates in and boasts about before the international community — although he repeatedly threatens to put a stop to it, as he did recently over the placement of metal detectors on the Temple Mount.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkey: Erdogan’s New Morality Police by Burak Bekdil

By on August 2nd, 2017

In 2016, the Alperen group threatened violence against an annual gay pride march in Istanbul. In December 2016, a group of Alperen youths celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Turkey by holding a man dressed as Santa Claus at gunpoint.

Eren Keskin, a human rights lawyer and activist, said that none of the Alperen members has been prosecuted for preventing prayers at the synagogue or for acts of violence in front of it.

Muslims may worship at the al-Aqsa mosque, but there should be safety precautions to protect both them and the mosque. It was the Muslims, not the Jews, who were telling Muslims not to enter the Temple Mount.

Their number is just 17,000 in a population of 80 million (0.02%). They are full Turkish citizens. Most come from families living for centuries in what today is modern Turkey. They pay their taxes to the Turkish government. Their sons are conscripts in the Turkish army. Their mother tongue is Turkish. When someone asks them where they are from they say they are Turkish — because they are Turkish. Nevertheless, the Turks think of them as “Israelis” — not because they are not Turkish, but because they are Turkish Jews.

The members of Alperen Hearths — a bizarre name for a youth group — are also Turkish. They speak the same language as Turkish Jews and they carry the same passport that proudly sports the Crescent and Star. The members of this group, however, think that they are Turks but that Turkish Jews are not.

The Alperen group fuses pan-Turkic racism with Islamism, neo-Ottomanism, anti-Western and anti-Semitic ideas. It promotes an alliance spanning Central Asia to the Middle East based on “common historic [read: Turkish] values”.

In April, the Alperen group announced that it would support highly controversial constitutional amendments granting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan new sweeping powers narrowly accepted, with 51.4% of the national vote, in a referendum. They are, in a way, Erdogan’s willing army of young Ottoman soldiers.

In 2016, the Alperen threatened violence against an annual gay pride march in Istanbul. Alperen’s Istanbul chief, Kursat Mican, said:

“Degenerates will not be allowed to carry out their fantasies on this land…We’re not responsible for what will happen after this point … We do not want people to walk around half-naked with alcohol bottles in their hands in this sacred city watered by the blood of our ancestors.”

The Istanbul governor’s office later banned the march.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe’s Cities Absorb Sharia Law by Giulio Meotti

By on August 2nd, 2017

London Mayor Sadiq Khan banned advertisements that promote “unrealistic expectations of women’s body image and health”. Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as “beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions”. Tagesspiegel’s Harald Martenstein said the policy “could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto”.

The irony is that this wave of morality and “virtue” is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation. It is now a “feminist” talking point to advocate sharia policy.

To paraphrase the American writer Daniel Greenfield, the irony of women celebrating their own suppression is both heartbreaking and stupefying.

Within days after the Islamic State conquered the city of Sirte in Libya two years ago, enormous billboards appeared in the Islamist stronghold warning women they must wear baggy robes that cover their entire bodies, and no perfume. These “sharia stipulations for hijab” included wearing dense material and a robe that does not “resemble the attire of unbelievers”.

Two years later, Europe’s three most important cities — London, Paris and Berlin — are adopting the same sharia trend.

Paris has said au revoir to “sexist” ads on public billboards. The Paris city council announced its ban after the Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the move meant that Paris was “leading the way” in the fight against sexism. London Mayor Sadiq Khan also banned advertisements that promote “unrealistic expectations of women’s body image and health”. Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as “beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions”. Der Tagesspiegel’s Harald Martenstein said the policy “could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto”.

The irony is that this wave of morality and “virtue” is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation.

There is a reason for this grotesque campaign banning these images. These cities host significant Muslim populations; and politicians — the same who frantically are enacting mandatory multiculturalism — want to please “Islam”. It is now a “feminist” talking point to advocate sharia policy, as does Linda Sarsour. The result is that, today, few feminists dare to criticize Islam.

It is happening everywhere. Dutch municipalities are “advising” their employees to not wear mini-skirts. There are women-only hours at Swedish swimming pools. German schools are sending letters to parents asking children to avoid wearing “revealing clothes”.

The first to suggest calling for a ban on posters or advertisements that “reduce women or men to sexual objects” was German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a Social Democrat.

“To demand the veiling of women or taming of men,” said Free Democratic Party leader Christian Lindner, “is something known among radical Islamic religious leaders, but not from the German minister of justice.”

In 1969, Germany was overwhelmed by a debate on introducing into schools the “Sexualkundeatlas”, an “atlas” of sexual science. Now the effort is to desexualize German society. The newspaper Die Welt commented:

“Thanks to Justice Minister Heiko Maas we finally know why on New Year’s Eve, at Cologne Central Station, about a thousand women were victims of sexual violence: because of sexist advertising. Too many eroticized models, too much naked skin on our billboards, too many erotic mouths, too many miniskirts in fashion magazines, too many wiggling rear-ends and chubby breasts in television spots. It is another step in the direction of a ‘submission'”.

Instead of nipples and buttocks, Die Welt concludes, “should we urge the use of burqa or veil, as Mrs. Erdogan does?”

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