RUTHFULLY YOURS

They’re not willing to sacrifice their Jewish identity in exchange for their security as individuals.

By coincidence, on the same day “The Twilight of French Jewry, the Twilight of France” was published in Mosaic, I came upon some highly pertinent remarks by Christine Angot in Le Monde’s weekly literary supplement. Angot, a staunch liberal now in her mid-fifties, is a prize-winning playwright and novelist whose plotlines are largely drawn from her own life as the product of a dysfunctional family. (The French term for this is autofiction.) The subject of her remarks was a television program in which she had participated for Arte, the quality French-German channel, about Chateauroux, the town in central France where she was brought up.

Some Americans may remember Chateauroux as the locale of a U.S. army base in the 1950s and early 60s. Until recently, it could be described as quintessentially “deep France”: a sleepy local capital, surrounded by dark woods and rivers. Things are changing, however, as Angot realized with a start on her filmed visit there. Muslim immigrants are taking over many parts of the town, including her former neighborhood of public housing, and turning them into semi-independent enclaves, what the French police refer to as “no-go zones.” As she put it in Le Monde:

When we arrived—all of us, the TV crew complete with their cameras and sound booms, and the writer who grew up there—we had to account for ourselves, to show our identity cards, to prove who we were, to state exactly where I had lived. . . . And then, the director’s first name—David, his full name being David Teboul—supplied material for unsavory jokes…. Some of the locals tried to intimidate us, saying that television was a cartel of the Jews… All this was uttered in a very menacing tone.… We shot a few scenes under a running fire of jibes and jeering, and as we left we were told to pay our compliments to the Talmud…. I swear we felt most uncomfortable.

One of America’s allies in the fight against ISIS is dropping out. On Monday Canada elected the left-wing Liberal Party after ten years of Conservative rule. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Designate Justin Trudeau announced that he had spoken to President Barack Obama about his commitment to pull Canada’s fighter jets and ground troops home.

“Canada has a role to play in the fight against ISIL but he understands the commitments I’ve made around ending the combat mission,” Trudeau told reporters of his phone call with Obama.

Canada’s air commitment is small, just six CF-18 fighter jets, but those jets have been involved in thousands of bombing missions.

In addition to the fighter jets Canada has sent special forces troops to help train Kurdish fighters and “paint targets” for incoming air strikes.

Trudeau has said Canada will engage in other ways such providing increased humanitarian assistance. During the election campaign Trudeau pledged to quickly bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees.

With all the problems both nations face…this is what is most important???rsk
“Recognizing the challenge climate change poses to the security and livelihoods of all, the United States and Australia reiterated their resolve to work toward an ambitious climate agreement at the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change in Paris later in 2015.”

Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, Minister for Defence Marise Payne, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter met on October 13 in Boston for the Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) consultations.
Seventy five years after the United States and Australia established diplomatic relations, more than 60 years into our alliance, and a decade into our free trade agreement, our common values and shared history form the foundation of a lasting partnership that remains crucial to addressing a range of regional and global challenges.
The United States and Australia reaffirmed the strong state of bilateral defense and security cooperation under the Alliance, bolstered by more than a decade of operations together in Afghanistan and Iraq and more recently through our work together as part of the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Angela Merkel’s remarkable offer to find room in Germany for legions of asylum seekers is not playing well in her own country. In Hungary and Europe’s other doormat states, the consequences of her charity are fences, riots, wild scenes. Chaos has become the norm
Under EU rules, those seeking political asylum must apply in the first European country that they enter. Since the beginning of the year that is what has been expected of the growing numbers of migrants, mostly, but not exclusively from Syria, who have entered Hungary across the 108-mile border with Serbia. None of the arrivals has wanted to settle in Hungary itself—wages here are low, there are few available jobs, and the Hungarian government has made it emphatically clear that it does not want them. However, many migrants have been reluctant to apply because the rules require that if the country of their choice subsequently refuses to accept them they would be returned to Hungary. Some have therefore destroyed their papers in an attempt to frustrate the registration process, or have simply disappeared from the increasingly crowded reception camps in which they were placed by the Hungarian authorities.

Between January 1 and May 31, 50,000 migrants tried to cross the border—an 880 per cent increase on the same period in 2014, which meant that Hungary received more asylum seekers per capita during this period than any other country. Some were refugees fleeing war or persecution, others were clearly economic migrants. Struggling to expand the facilities at reception centres, the Hungarian government sought sympathy and financial aid in Brussels, but complained that its concerns were disregarded. Nevertheless, the average time spent in Hungary by migrants as they headed for the border with Austria by road or rail was a mere thirty-six hours and most ordinary Hungarians were unaware that their country had become an increasingly important conduit for those fleeing from war and persecution or simply seeking a better life. Then in late summer the numbers crossing the border from Serbian suddenly soared—despite the construction of a four-metre-high wire fence and the repeated warnings of the Hungarian government that immigrants would not be welcome.

The Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action, or JCPOA) reached an important milestone on October 18, a day designated by the agreement as “Adoption Day.” Under the JCPOA, this date was when all parties to the nuclear deal were to signify they are prepared to implement the agreement (including lifting most sanctions against Iran) on “Implementation Day” — a future date when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will certify Iran’s compliance with requirements to cut back its nuclear program. Iranian officials believe Implementation Day will occur by the end of the year. Obama officials have said it will be in about six months.

Although Adoption Day was intended to be an indication that the Iran deal is progressing, it has been overshadowed by growing signs that Iran intends to ignore important aspects of the deal and that the Obama administration is planning to look the other way.

President Obama refused to follow the Constitution and allow the Senate to ratify the JCPOA as a treaty. This was not the case for Iran’s parliament. Although the agreement only required the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) to ratify the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (an agreement that in theory will give IAEA inspectors greater access to Iranian nuclear sites), Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave parliament the opportunity to ratify the entire JCPOA. According to Obama officials and most press reports, the Iranian parliament passed a bill endorsing the nuclear deal on October 13.

The Syrian government sells passports and birth certificates at affordable prices. Many migrants have no passport, no ID, and refuse to give fingerprints.

Because Islam is the heart of the culture of people formerly colonized, Europeans rejected criticism of Islam, saying it would blend smoothly into a multicultural Europe. They did not demand the assimilation of the Muslims who came to live in Europe. Much of the time, Muslims are not assimilated — and often show signs of not wanting to assimilate.

Any criticism of Islam in Europe is treated as a form of racism, and “Islamophobia” is considered a crime or a sign of mental illness.

European people still have the right to vote, but are deprived of most of their power: all important political decisions in Europe are made behind closed doors by technocrats and professional politicians in Brussels or Strasbourg.

Europe has renounced force, so to many, it appears weak, vulnerable and easily able to be overpowered.

The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands more Muslims most likely prompts Europeans to think that the nightmare will get worse; they see, powerlessly, that their leaders speak and act as if they have no awareness of what is happening.

Central European leaders and people, who have already lived under authoritarian rule, seem to be thinking that entering the European Union was a huge mistake. They came to what was then called the “free world.” They do not seem willing to be subjected again to coercive decisions made by outsiders.

Illegal Muslim migrants will live on social benefits until the bankruptcy of welfare states.

In all 28 countries of the European Union, birth rates are low and the population is aging. People under thirty account for only 16% of the population, or 80 million people. In the 22 Arab countries, plus Turkey and Iran, people under thirty account for 70% of the population, or 350 million people.

“What I’m going through can face all journalists out there. They can use laws to put you in prison just for mentioning the word ‘PKK’ in your news story. They take this as ‘praising the terrorist organization.'” — Ocak Isik Yurtcu, former editor of Ozgur Gudem. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

“We expose their war crimes; and they respond by blocking us.” — Ramazan Pekgoz, editor, Dicle News Agency.

Of the 580 issues of Ozgur Gundem, cases were opened in relation to 486 of them. Its editors-in-chief were sentenced to a total of 147 years in prison.

One cannot help asking: Why does Turkey try to destroy free speech that much? What is it that all those Turkish governments have been trying to hide?

“These bans take place because the state does not want the incidents in Kurdistan to be exposed.” — Eren Keskin, editor-in-chief and lawyer for Ozgur Gundem.

In 103 years in Turkey, 112 journalists and writers have been murdered, mostly Armenians and Kurds. — The Platform of Solidarity with Arrested Journalists (TGDP)

Western Europe’s long, slow suicide is too long and slow for Western European elites, apparently. You know, the self-loathing, Western-loathing progressive-minded sorts. Projections of Muslim supremacy in Europe by the latter part of the 21st Century means that Europe’s enlightened class won’t experience the pleasure of watching Muslims hoist guidons emblazoned with the shahada and the takbir over the Vatican. Quite a visual, won’t it be, compliments of Al Jazeera, having a muckety-muck imam emerge on the once papal balcony — a balcony festooned with a boldly oversized crescent moon and star flag — to bestow blessings on masses of believers shouting, “Allah Akbar,” as a global audience watches enthralled.

Thus the intent to hasten Europe’s demise — that is, whatever remains of degraded Christian Europe and Western Civilization there. Muslim ascendency has its satisfactions, but nothing beats witnessing the coup de grâce, the final scimitar coming down on the neck of once mighty Europe. That’s what open borders means — it’s a quickening of the suicide. It gives an outside chance for Western Europe’s elites to witness the dénouement of their crimes (perhaps they would prefer the kinder, gentler word, “designs”).

Spending billions of dollars on climate-related aid in countries that need help with tuberculosis, malaria and malnutrition.
In the run-up to the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, rich countries and development organizations are scrambling to join the fashionable ranks of “climate aid” donors. This effectively means telling the world’s worst-off people, suffering from tuberculosis, malaria or malnutrition, that what they really need isn’t medicine, mosquito nets or micronutrients, but a solar panel. It is terrible news.

On Oct. 9, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim pledged a one-third increase in the bank’s direct climate-related financing, bringing the bank’s annual total to an estimated $29 billion by 2020. In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to match President Obama’s promised $3 billion in aid to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund. Meanwhile, the U.K is diverting $8.9 billion from its overseas aid budget to climate-related aid over the next five years, and France is promising $5.6 billion annually by 2020, up from $3.4 billion today. The African Development Bank is planning to triple its climate-related investments to more than $5 billion a year by 2020, representing 40% of its total portfolio.

The image of a “French republican idyll” masks a history of repeated anti-Jewish prejudice, and worse.

At the outset of his very interesting and provocative essay, Alain El-Mouchan quotes French Prime Minister Manuel Valls: “If 100,000 [French] Jews leave [for Israel], France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.”

Will France’s Jews depart en masse for Israel? Should they? If they do, will France still be France? These are disturbing questions to which I do not have the answers, and which may be unanswerable. But I would like to offer a number of thoughts and reactions, mainly of a historical nature, and some in the form of further questions.

Let us recall that in the first half of the 20th century, one-quarter of the Jews living in France were murdered in the Holocaust, with French connivance. Was France still France after that? If so, then it is hard for me to see how the departure of one-quarter of today’s Jewish population—not for Auschwitz but for Israel—would constitute the end of France.

But El-Mouchan, like Prime Minister Valls, has something more specific in mind. For both of them, that something, in El-Mouchan’s words, is “the French republican idyll, one of the most attractive and promising chapters in the history of mankind,” and one hallmark of this idyll was France’s “exceptionally open and welcoming” posture toward the Jews. That idyll, says El-Mouchan, has now “reached the beginning of the end.”