RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-coalition-of-the-dwindling-11559594595

Germans are said to love political stability, but apparently not too much. After delivering shock results in recent elections for the European Parliament and a state government in Bremen, Germans can now watch traditional parties decline before their eyes.

The crisis is most acute for the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), whose leader Andrea Nahles resigned Sunday. The SPD suffered a drubbing in the European vote last month, placing third with 16% compared to 2014’s close second-place finish of 27%. On the same day the party also lost control in Bremen for the first time since the war.

It’s the latest sign of the center-left identity crisis that’s set in during repeated stints in a left-right governing coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats (the CDU and Bavarian CSU). Those coalitions prevent the SPD from acting as a true opposition party, leaving that task to others. The winners have been the Greens who increasingly capture urban, more prosperous former SPD voters, and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) that appeals to parts of the SPD’s former blue-collar base.

Ms. Nahles is taking the fall for these poor showings, although it isn’t clear who could do better. The party is split on issues ranging from migration to labor reform. Many grass-roots members are still uneasy about the decision to form another “GroKo” (German shorthand for a grand coalition) after the party performed poorly in the 2017 national election. Yet those vying to replace her, such as Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, are conspicuously quiet about what they’d do differently on policy or politics.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/malmo-2020-world-leaders-against-anti-semitism/
Malmö 2020: World leaders against anti-Semitism
The first potential danger of the 2020 conference is that it will allow a city linked to assaults against Jews to clean up its image without cleaning up its act.

In October 2020, Sweden will host an international summit to combat anti-Semitism. When Stefan Löfven, the Swedish prime minister, announced the parley last Friday, he didn’t disclose any further details, but the Swedish press depicted the event as a forum that would be attended by government leaders and heads of state.

So it’s worth thinking about. Before anything else, there’s the planned location: the southern city of Malmö. Over the last 10 years, Malmö has become a potent symbol of Europe’s rising anti-Semitism and especially of its spread beyond the far right to the ranks of the left, as well as extremist elements within the city’s large Muslim community. The most immediate effect of this has been to shrink what was already a small Jewish population of 3,000 in 2009 by around 50 percent a decade later.

Indeed, Löfven’s presence in Malmö to make the announcement was partly caused by an anti-Semitic scandal involving the local branch of his Social Democratic Party’s youth wing. On May 1, the party’s young activists were caught chanting the slogan “Long Live Palestine, Crush Zionism!” at an international workers’ day rally. Given that Malmö was the scene of violent anti-Israel demonstrations when the Israeli tennis team competed in the 2009 Davis Cup tournament in that city, one could perhaps regard these thundering denunciations of the Jewish state as an established local tradition. Here, then, is the first potential danger of the 2020 conference: that it will allow Malmö to clean up its image as a center of anti-Semitism without cleaning up its act.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/egypts-president-sisi-remarks-on-muslim-treatment-of-christians/

Yesterday Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi delivered a speech during a ceremony in Cairo for Laylat al-Qadr, which is one of the odd-numbered nights during the last ten days of Ramadan. Since before the Egyptian revolution in 2011 propelled the country into chaos and till this year, Egypt’s Coptic Christian population has been facing a wave of persecution that some Copts describe as the worst in 700 years. President Sisi’s remarks, however, may be a sign of his efforts imploring peaceful coexistence in Egypt between Muslims and Christians, of which between the two there is tension. From Egypt Today:

Strong religion could be weakened by its believers’ behaviors,” said Sisi, adding that Muslims should represent Islam in a good way through their practices.

“When we wish our Christian brothers a happy feast or [congratulate them] on building new churches, we represent our religion,” he said, noting that such gestures are not meant to show off. “There is a big difference between practicing and understanding the religion,” he added.

President Sisi added that Egypt’s main goal is to preserve the essence of religion, to raise the moderate religious awareness and combat the extremist threats among the youth, adding that the enlightened religious discourse is the best way to fight extremist ideology. 

Copts face daily discrimination; their churches often face attacks from mobs, or they are not permitted to participate in government or even soccer teams due to their conspicuously Christian names. On Saturday, Copts celebrated the first World Coptic Day, which President Donald Trump and Melania Trump wrote a letter to the community in support of. “Enlightened religious discourse,” as Sisi said, could be exactly what Egypt could use today to combat the threats that the minority Christians face and to demonstrate to the international community, and especially to the U.S., that Egyptians are moving in a direction of religious liberty.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/jeremy-corbyn-to-speak-at-protest-donald-trumps-state-visit-to-u-k/

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn will address a major demonstration against President Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom on Tuesday.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected at the London rally, which will march down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square, past Downing Street, where the American president will speak with outgoing prime minister Theresa May.

“Jeremy Corbyn will attend and speak at the demonstration tomorrow against President Donald Trump’s state visit,” a Labour spokesperson told The Mirror.

Corbyn, a self-described socialist plans to boycott the state dinner Queen Elizabeth II will have Monday for the president, First Lady Melania Trump, and about 170 guests.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14299/corbyn-pro-terrorist-prime-minister

Sadly, ever since Corbyn’s unexpected election as leader in 2015 and the rapid growth in the numbers of far-left members who adulate him, antisemitism has become the core identifying characteristic of the Labour Party.

The evidence for massive antisemitism and anti-Zionism (in breach of some clauses in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of Antisemitism, recognized after a long struggle by the Labour Party) within Labour ranks has been building for over two years.

“The dossier details 100,000 emails, including tens of thousands showing how Labour ignored complaints that supporters promoted anti-Semitism, the former staffers told Private Eye…. The protection of anti-Semites was on a scale and at a level that the public does not begin to understand.” – Claire Ellicott, Daily Mail, May 16, 2019.

It is hard not to notice that the political system in the United Kingdom has been left badly broken over the past few months. Not a day goes by without fresh news about the worsening division between one half of the country that demands we leave the European Union and the other half that is campaigning for us to remain. Prime Minister Theresa May, before announcing her resignation on June 7th, has been stubborn almost to the point of lunacy. Attempts to reach a compromise deal on Brexit with the country’s opposition, the Labour Party, broke down entirely after a few weeks.

In local elections on May 3, the ruling Conservatives lost 1,334 council seats, with Labour (whose members had hoped to gain) losing 82. The Remain- supporting centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, did best, adding 703 seats.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14331/understanding-european-elections

The election results reflect a generational shift and suggest that European politics increasingly will be dominated by ideological clashes over two competing mega-issues: the fight against climate change championed by the pro-EU globalists; and the opposition to mass migration and multiculturalism led by the anti-EU national populists.

“Of the five individual political parties with the biggest representation in the new European Parliament, four are anti-European Union.” — Ivan Krastev, Bulgarian analyst, The New York Times.

“The social institutions have long been dominated by sympathizers of the Greens — especially the media and education, but also the churches. That 37% of first-time voters now vote for the Greens is also a consequence of the fact that in schools green creeds are propagated as certainties of modern education…. The awareness of what market economy/capitalism is and should be has almost completely disappeared in Germany.” — Rainer Zitelmann, German historian, The European.

Mainstream center-left and center-right parties — especially in Britain, France and Germany — performed poorly in European parliamentary elections held between May 23-26. The traditional centrist duopoly lost its majority in the next European Parliament, which opens on July 2 and will sit for five years, until 2024.

Most of the political vacuum left by the so-called legacy parties was filled by Greens and pro-European Union liberals. Pro-EU parties will control around 75% of the seats in the 751-seat European Parliament.

Anti-EU nationalist parties made important gains — especially in Belgium, Britain, France, Hungary, Italy and Poland — but fell short of expectations. Euroskeptic parties will hold around 25% of the seats in the next European Parliament.

The election results reflect a generational shift and suggest that European politics increasingly will be dominated by ideological clashes over two competing mega-issues: the fight against climate change championed by the pro-EU globalists; and the opposition to mass migration and multiculturalism led by the anti-EU national populists.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273899/islamic-terror-defender-sadiq-khan-says-welcoming-daniel-greenfield

If you believe London city boss Sadiq Khan, he’s more British than the Queen for opposing Trump.

In an unhinged Guardian post, Sadiq Khan, a former lawyer for the Nation of Islam and defender of assorted Islamic terrorists, compares Trump to Putin, Kim Jong-Un, and “a growing global threat”.

“It’s so un-British to be rolling out the red carpet this week for a formal state visit for a president whose divisive behaviour flies in the face of the ideals America was founded upon – equality, liberty and religious freedom,” Khan whines.

Those are the same ideals that Islam firmly rejects.

Khan ought to know something about that.

In 2001 he was the lawyer for the Nation of Islam in its successful High Court bid to overturn the 15-year-ban on its leader, Louis Farrakhan.

In 2005 and 2006 he visited terror-charged Babar Ahmad in Woodhill Prison. Mr. Ahmed was extradited to the U.S. in 2012, serving time in prison before being returned to the UK in 2015. Mr. Ahmed pleaded guilty to the terrorist offences of conspiracy and providing material support to the Taliban.

And Mr. Khan also campaigned for the release and repatriation of Shaker Aamer, Britain’s last Guantanamo detainee, who was returned to the UK in November.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273905/us-ambassador-germany-appears-counterprotest-anti-daniel-greenfield

“Richard Grenell, America’s ambassador to Germany in the Trump era, is infuriating Europeans by standing up to Muslim anti-Semitism.”

Obama’s European ambassadors justified Islamic anti-Semitism.

 “A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Howard Gutman, Obama’s disgraced ambassador to Belgium, had argued.

Richard Grenell, America’s ambassador to Germany in the Trump era, is infuriating Europeans by standing up to Muslim anti-Semitism.

Here he is participating in a counterprotest to the Al Quds hate rally and urging Merkel to ban the Islamic terror group, Hezbollah.

Merkel appears to be less than enthusiastic.

When asked on Wednesday by The Jerusalem Post numerous times if the German government – in response to a demand by the nearly 100,000-member Central Council of Jews – plans to ban the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organization, Merkel and Seehofer refused to answer.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14323/persecution-of-christians-march-2019

In 2018 alone, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France.

“I went to the police with eight pages full of threats…. The police advised me to delete my picture from my website…. It’s strange isn’t it: I’m not doing anything wrong, why would I need to hide? I live in a free country.” — cruxnow.com. March 14, 2019; The Netherlands.

An Iranian female asylum seeker was sarcastically informed in her rejection letter that “You affirmed in your…[Interview Record] that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed that He would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted.” — Daily Mail, March 24, 2019; United Kingdom.

When it comes to violence between Muslims and non-Muslims, March news was dominated by the Christchurch massacres in New Zealand, where, on March 15, an Australian man killed 51 Muslims in two mosques. A statistical report that did some number-crunching, however, found that “a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.” The report “— citing that “at least 4,305 Christians … were murdered by Muslims because of their faith in 2018” and that “300 million Christians, overwhelmingly in the majority-Muslim countries, were subjected to violence” — refers to the persecution of Christians by Muslims as “the most egregious example of human right violations in today’s world. The report also found other, similar disparities. In France, for example, “Frenchmen are exactly ten times more likely to be murdered by a Muslim than a Muslim being killed by a non-Muslim terrorist anywhere in the Western world.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14326/trump-visit-britain-ireland

All people who are working to ensure that the free world remains free will welcome President Donald Trump’s visit, which is presumably intended to cement even further the exceptional connection between the United Kingdom and the United States.

Given that hundreds of thousands of American troops lost their lives freeing Europe from Nazism, how is it that Ireland finds the audacity to be so contemptuous of the leader of the country of those who paid the ultimate price so that the Irish population could be free to enjoy liberal democracy?

Ireland was one of the first countries to accept the Nazi annexation of Austria during Ireland’s sorry history before, during and after the war.

This week, U.S. President Donald J. Trump will visit the United Kingdom for a state visit and be welcomed by the Queen ahead of the commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Many commentators and politicians are not only apoplectic, they are organising various forms of protests. The mainstream media, notably the BBC, are giving continuous coverage to those elements wishing to facilitate, contribute to and participate in the anti-Trump frenzy.

The repeated howls of exasperation from these protagonists all center around their perception of Trump’s values, which they describe as “racist.”

Irrespective of his record — in which Trump has reached out to China and North Korea, and initiated economic policies that resulted in record-low minority unemployment — many, predominately on the political “left,” remain critical.

Paradoxically, there were not such frenzied protests in the UK during the visits there of Xi Jinping of China, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Bashar Assad of Syria.

President Trump is coming over to commemorate the D-Day landings, when thousands of American troops were killed.