RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15192/norway-thought-police

[A]s commentator Nina Hjerpset-Østlie put it, it is now illegal “to burn your own books”. Which, she added, means that although Norway’s longstanding blasphemy law was taken off the books four years ago, Bjørnland has, in effect, reinstated it.

Jon Wessel-Aas, a prominent lawyer… called Bjørnland’s one-woman revision of the racism clause “at best prior restraint of an illegal utterance,” and at worst “prior restraint of a legal utterance.” Both forms of restraint, he noted, are unconstitutional.

In defense of Bjørnland’s novel interpretation of criminal law, Martin Bernsen, a senior official of the PST, the agency in charge of Norway’s national security, argued that burning copies of the Koran can trigger acts of violence. Under this kind of logic, of course – the so-called heckler’s veto – any statement or action whatsoever that just might antagonize violence-prone Muslims should presumably be treated as illegal, whereas burning, say, any number of copies of the Talmud or Bible is no problem, since Jews and Christians aren’t in the habit of responding to such actions with mass acts of savage bloodshed.

Americans whose memory of public events goes back more than a news cycle or two may recall Terry Jones, a previously obscure Gainesville, Florida, preacher whose announcement in 2010 of a plan to burn copies of the Koran drew public condemnations from then President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. Secretary of State Robert Gates phoned Jones personally and asked him not to go ahead with the burning.

In the end, Jones put off his planned 2010 action, burning one Koran in 2011, another in 2012, and hundreds on September 11, 2014.

Jones did not escape legal consequences for these actions. In 2011 he was jailed for a few hours in Dearborn, Michigan, by authorities worried about the possible consequences of his planned participation in an anti-Islam rally, but the ACLU took his side and a county court ruling upheld his First Amendment rights. He was fined $271 in 2012 for violating Gainesville’s fire safety rules. A planned mass burning of Korans on September 11, 2013, resulted in an arrest for transporting fuel, but this verdict was overturned by a circuit court judge. In short, although high-ranking federal officials from the president on down were concerned about Jones’s activities, and although some local officials overreached in their efforts to squelch his plans, the courts ultimately protected his rights.

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2019/11/adl-2019-data-extreme-antisemitism-among-western-european-muslims-almost-three-times-national-rates/
Yesterday, November 21, 2019, the ADL released its 2019 survey data on the prevalence (occurrence) of extreme Antisemitism (defined, below) within 18 countries assessed between April 15 and June 3, 2019. Six of these countries—Belgium, The United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy—included a Muslim over-sample, allowing for a direct comparison of Muslims vs. Christians, those professing no religion, and the overall populations. 

As ADL’s own press release stated:

“Muslim acceptance of anti-Semitic stereotypes was substantially higher than among the national populations—on average almost three times as high—in the six countries tested: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy”

In sadly typical fashion, however, the ADL downplayed these findings in its press release, effectively concealing them as the last of six bullet points, i.e., # 6 of 6.

The ADL also failed to expressly note how compared to Western European Christians, specifically, Muslims were also ~3-times more likely to harbor extreme Antisemitic attitudes as gauged by abiding at least 6 of 11 Antisemitic stereotypes queried. (see tabulated data)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2019/11/21/prince-andrew-fiasco-has-exposed-palace-power-struggle-heirs/

There has been an almighty power struggle going on all week and it has got nothing to do with the general election.

As Boris Johnson and his rivals have been relegated to the inside pages with the Duke of York sex scandal continuing to dominate the headlines, the brutal world of Westminster appears to have nothing on the internal politics of the Royal Family.

As the driving force behind her second, and some say ‘favourite’ son stepping back from public duties for the “foreseeable future”, the Queen’s decisive action in a face-to-face meeting at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday serves as a salient reminder that the royals will stop at nothing to preserve the institution of monarchy – even at the expense of those in it.

Alarm bells were said to be raised behind palace gates when the question of whether the House of Windsor was still fit for purpose came up during Tuesday night’s ITV debate. 

The problem was not Jeremy Corbyn’s “in need of improvement” response or even the lacklustre reaction to Mr Johnson’s claim that the institution of monarchy was “beyond reproach” – but rather that the topic was even up for discussion in the first place. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/21/us-china-conflict-reaches-fever-pitch-trump-prepares-sign-hong/

Congress passes bill that will remove special status if ‘one nation, two systems’ model is overthrown

The US diplomatic gun is locked and loaded. Both houses of Congress have passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act by a veto-proof majority. 

The bill sets in motion a legal process that would – if later triggered – lead to Hong Kong losing its special status under US law and its recognition as an independent member of the World Trade Organisation.

The enclave would be treated like any other Chinese city, posing an existential threat to its business model as a global financial and trading hub. The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said it feared “unintended, counterproductive” consequences that could spin out on control.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign it by the end of the week. He has little choice even if this complicates his quest for a skinny ‘Phase One’ trade deal with China before Christmas.  

“I don’t think Trump wants the bill because he has never shown any interest in human rights and it is happening at a very difficult moment, but he’ll have to accept it,” said William Reinsch, ex-chief of the US National Foreign Trade Council.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15081/sweden-migration-price

“The industries have a very limited need for people without experience and education.” — Johanna Odö, municipal councilor; Aftonbladet, October 3, 2019.

Now, to save money, the Ystad municipality will no longer serve hot meals to the elderly and cleaning services will be limited to once every three weeks.

Motala municipality had said that it would lower the heat in buildings managed by the city, including old age homes, to save money. “We will take care of the elderly; they will not be freezing, they can have blankets,” the message went.

Meanwhile, in June, the Swedish parliament voted in favor of a law that is likely to increase immigration to Sweden based on family reunification.

New figures from the European Union’s statistical bureau, Eurostat, show that unemployment is rising in Sweden. According to Eurostat, unemployment there was 7.4% in August, whereas the EU average for August was 6.2 %. This leaves Sweden, on Eurostat’s unemployment ranking of countries, at number 24 out of 28. According to the daily newspaper Expressen, one of the main reasons for Sweden’s high unemployment happens to be the large number of immigrants that the country has taken in.

As late as February 2019, Sweden’s Minister of Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, mocked those who worried that migration would lead to mass unemployment: “Do you remember when the doomsayers were squawking that migration would lead to mass unemployment?,” he tweeted. “Now: unemployment continues to fall among foreign-born and young people. For domestic-born it is at a record low”.

He cannot mock anyone now. In 2013, Social Democratic leader Stefan Löfven, who has been prime minister since 2014, said he would ensure that by 2020, Sweden would have the lowest unemployment in the EU. That is evidently not about to happen.

The disproportionately large influx of people who do not have the educational or language skills to work in the Swedish economy was never likely to help bring about the lowest unemployment in the EU. As previously reported by Gatestone, the small Swedish city of Filipstad exemplifies a place where the influx of non-Western migrants, some of them illiterate, with little or no education, has meant that the unemployment rate in that group is at 80%: they depend for their livelihoods on the municipality’s social welfare program.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-natos-new-command-whose-job-stop-russian-attack-97932

Key point: NATO needs to ensure it can quickly rush forces to the poorly-defended Baltic states.

NATO has stood up a new command whose job it is to speed alliance troops and tanks around Europe in order to defend against a Russian invasion.

The new Joint Support and Enabling Command, based in Ulm, Germany, achieved initial operating capability on Sept, 17, 2019, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu announced.

The command has its work cut out for it. A recent report revealed just how vulnerable NATO’s eastern flank is to a sudden Russian assault — and how important armored forces could be in the alliance’s defensive efforts.

Russia keeps around 760 tanks in units within quick striking distance of NATO’s Baltic members. NATO countries together keep around 130 tanks in the same region — and around 90 of those are American M-1s on their temporary rotation.

In 2016 RAND war-gamed a Russian invasion of the Baltics. In RAND’s scenario, the Russian forces quickly overrun lightly-armed NATO forces. The Western alliance quickly deploys helicopters and air-mobile troops to confront the Russian advance. But NATO tanks are too slow to arrive.

“What cannot get there in time are the kinds of armored forces required to engage their Russian counterparts on equal terms, delay their advance, expose them to more-frequent and more-effective attacks from air- and land-based fires and subject them to spoiling counterattacks,” RAND explained.

Across NATO there’s no shortage of tanks and other heavy forces. But very few of NATO’s tanks are available on short notice to defend the alliance’s eastern flank. RAND counted just 129 NATO tanks that realistically could participate in a “short-notice Baltic scenario.”

https://greekcitytimes.com/2019/11/18/turkey-greek-chora-church-to-be-converted-into-a-mosque-is-hagia-sophia-the-next/

The Turkish Council of State recently approved a decision on the “Kariye Museum.” Originally a Byzantine Greek church in Constantinople (Istanbul), it was converted into a mosque by the Ottoman Turks. According to the new ruling, the former church is to be converted into a mosque again.

This decision could also pave the way for the conversion of Hagia Sophia, built as a basilica and now a museum, into a mosque, according to a report published on November 5 by the pro-government Turkish newspaper, Yeni Safak.

“Through a decision by the Council of Ministers on August 29, 1945, many mosques and masjids, including the Kariye Mosque, were allocated to the Ministry of National Education as museums and museum depots whose maintenance and repair expenses were to be paid from the state budget,” said the newspaper.

However, to overturn the change-of-status of Kariye Museum, the Association of Permanent Foundations and Service to Historical Artifacts and the Environment filed a lawsuit in 2005, requesting the cancellation of the decision.

According to Yeni Safak, the final verdict of the Council of State noted that;

“The Kariye mosque… is one of the public immovables belonging to the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Foundation.

“Immovables are public property established for direct charitable services such as places of worship, hospitals, and soup kitchens, and the provisions of private property cannot be applied to them. These charitable public immovables cannot be allocated to be used for a purpose other than the use specified by the [Fatih sultan Mehmet] Foundation.”

The Kariye Museum, however, was originally an Orthodox Church, namely the Chora Church. According to the official website of Princeton University:

“Described by Osterhaut as ‘second in renown only to Hagia Sophia among the Byzantine churches of Istanbul’, Kariye Camii [Mosque] attracts much attention because of its rich mosaics and frescoes. The original structure was built by the Holy Theodus in 534 in the reign of Justinian. In the 11th and 12th centuries, it was rebuilt by the Comnenus family and dedicated to Christ (thus the name, Christ in Chora). The structure suffered the great earthquake of 1296 and was later converted into a mosque in 1511 after the Turks conquered Istanbul. Since 1948, the building has been the Kariye Museum, a popular tourist attraction.”

https://www.city-journal.org/europe-and-its-enemies

n 1989, as the Soviet empire was imploding, Alexander Arbatov, a diplomatic advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, addressed a brilliant remark to Westerners: “We are going to do something terrible to you. You will no longer have an enemy.” The disappearance of Communism indeed plunged Europe and the United States into a disorienting euphoria; for the “free world,” it was a symbolic catastrophe. There was something terrible and yet reassuring in the Soviet Union’s hostility: the East/West divide separated good from evil with razor-sharp clarity.

An enemy represents a guarantee for the future, a certainty of solidarity; it mobilizes individuals who would otherwise be ready to go their own way; and it overcomes the apathy that inheres in prosperous societies. The Cold War provided a polemical ordering of memory and of knowledge—a pedagogy for the problems of the present. The obligation to follow and check the adversary’s movements made us attentive to the slightest guerrilla actions and to the most local of conflicts; humanity remained a common concern. The threat that loomed over our social life restored an unprecedented clarity to our institutions, rights, and well-being. Democracy was once again fragile and precious, like a treasure that could be stolen at any moment.

Three decades later, the Old World, which meantime has been overcome with skepticism, seems to have provoked in its uncertainty the encroachments of two enemies: radical Islamism, in the double form of terrorism and Salafism; and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Both view the West with resentment, considering it, in the first case, guilty of hostility toward the religion of the prophet and, in the second, of having brought about the fall of the Soviet Union. There, though, the resemblance ends.

Vladimir Putin sees himself as a hyperbolic Westerner, despising European decadence in the name of the true European values that he claims to incarnate. “The liberal idea,” Putin told the Financial Times in June 2019, “has become obsolete.” All the ills that Russia suffers supposedly come not from Russians themselves but from Europe’s corruption, America’s malfeasance, and a satanic NATO. What the Kremlin’s master dreads above all is democratic contagion, an importation of the spirit of Maidan—Kiev’s Independence Plaza—into Russia itself.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15184/iran-ayatollahs-hard-times

It is an irony that not even the most devoted supporters of the ayatollahs can ignore that a country such as Iran, that prides itself on being one of the world’s largest oil producers, is unable to produce enough fuel to satisfy the needs of its own population.

These are, moreover, hard times for the ayatollahs in many other respects. Not only are the leaders coming under pressure at home for their disastrous handling of the economy. They are also seeing their efforts to export Iran’s Islamic revolution to other corners of the Middle East being roundly rejected, with anti-Iran protests taking place in Iraq and Lebanon.

With the Iranian economy under such intense pressure as a result of the sanctions, however, the regime has little room for manoeuvre, so it faces a stark choice: either radically reform its conduct or continue to face the wrath of the Iranian people.

Any suggestion that the wide-ranging sanctions regime the Trump administration has imposed against Iran was not having the desired effect has been roundly refuted by the nationwide protests that have erupted in response to the regime’s decision to increase petrol prices.

Critics of American President Donald J. Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing the US from the Iran nuclear deal last year and imposing a fresh round of sanctions against Tehran have argued that the measures would fail to have the desired effect, and claimed that the ayatollahs would be able to circumvent the sanctions by trading with countries such as China, that remained committed to the nuclear deal.