RUTHFULLY YOURS

A few days after the Finnish elections, Hussein Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook… For four of these years, Al-Taee served as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), a state-run conflict-resolution firm… currently headed by former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb.

Although Stubb publicly condemned Al-Taee’s hate-filled social media comments… he has not been asked why a pro-Iranian regime advocate was working for CMI in the first place.

In other words, Al-Taee was expressing “embarrassment” about his “prejudices, thoughts and language” — and lying about them — but did not disavow the sentiments.

Failure on the part of the “center-left” Social Democrats to oust Al-Taee would constitute hypocrisy of the highest order, or else a tacit agreement with hateful positions that the MP has not denied espousing.

A political crisis that has been brewing in Finland over the past few weeks sheds light on the ills of the so-called “center left.”

The crisis surrounds Hussein Al-Taee, a new member of parliament from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which won a narrow victory in the April 14 elections.

A few days after the Finnish elections, Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook. For four of these years, Al-Taee served as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), a state-run conflict-resolution firm founded by the former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, and currently headed by former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/french-authorities-investigate-explosion-lyon-potential-terror-attack/

French authorities are treating an explosion in the city of Lyon on Friday evening as a possible terror attack.

The explosion of what investigators believe was a parcel bomb filled with screws, nuts, and bolts injured seven people, including an eight-year-old girl, around 5:30 p.m. local time in a busy shopping area on Rue Victor Hugo. No one died in the blast. Authorities are searching for a male cyclist between 30 and 35 who was seen putting the parcel on the street outside a bakery, his face reportedly concealed by a mask and dark glasses.

French interior minister Christophe Castaner said security will be upped in public areas. President Emmanuel Macron called the disaster an “attack” and said, “As far as I can say there are no victims — there are wounded.”

“Tonight I think of the wounded in the explosion in Lyon, their families affected by the violence that has befallen their loved ones in the street, and all of Lyon. We are by your side,” Macron wrote on Twitter.

Over 250 people have died in France as a result of terrorist attacks in the last four years.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-22/modi-the-favorite-as-vote-counting-begins-in-india-s-election?srnd=premium

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has surged to a majority on his own in India’s general election, with his Bharatiya Janata Party establishing a commanding lead in vote counting.

“India wins yet again,” Modi said in a tweet. “Together we grow. Together we prosper. Together we will build a strong and inclusive India.”

BJP supporters have begun celebrating in the streets as the party extended its lead in more than 299 seats — easily ahead of the 272 seats needed to form government and more than the 282 the party won in 2014. The opposition Congress party is ahead in 51 seats, official election commission results show as of 2:46 pm local time.

After the initial euphoria over the prospects of a landslide victory, gains in Indian assets are evaporating fast. The Sensex, the benchmark equity index, is close to erasing its climb to a record.

The outcome is a validation of Modi’s hardline Hindu nationalism and populist economic policies, and a major setback for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, whose party has failed to make significant inroads following its trouncing in the polls in 2014, when it won just 44 seats.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14254/iran-kidnap-kill-americans

A leading Republican lawmaker, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), also the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has pointed out that recent intelligence obtained about Iran’s threat was extremely detailed.

These are simply preemptive measures that any rational state would take in the face of those clear threats. They were being taken to save the lives of American citizens and prevent the world’s official leading state sponsor of terrorism from destabilizing the region.

What do critics of the Trump administration expect the American government to do…? Do these critics want the Trump administration to ignore Iran and its terror groups until another terrorist act like 9/11 occurs? Or is it possible that these critics, deep-down, do not care about U.S. national security and the lives of ordinary citizens?

While plans were being concocted to harm or murder Americans, it is mind-boggling that people — even entire governments — were criticizing the Trump administration for preparing preemptive measures against multiple credible threats from the Iranian government and its forces.

While people were squabbling over the choices the Trump administration was making, the Iranian leaders, known to have mastered conducting asymmetric warfare, were giving directives to kidnap and kill American soldiers.

A leading Republican lawmaker, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), also the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has pointed out that recent intelligence obtained about Iran’s threat was extremely detailed.

“To the extent I can discuss it, it was human intelligence,” he said, and added that, “One of the Hezbollah cells is known for its kidnapping and killing operations, and their directive was to go in and kill and kidnap American soldiers.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/brexit-party-poses-an-existential-threat-to-the-tories/

Theresa May is probably on the way out, but the European parliamentary elections suggest a bigger threat is on the horizon for the Conservative party.

Theresa May’s departure from Downing Street and the premiership has been promised so many times and not materialized once that I react to the latest version of it like the Charlie Ruggles character to a rival suitor in the great Lubitsch comedy, Trouble in Paradise: “See here. You keep saying you’re leaving and then you stay. Why don’t you say you’ll stay and then leave?”

Last week it certainly looked as if May would finally gratify the wishes of almost all Tories outside Parliament (and now, it seems, most inside Parliament too) and resign as prime minister in early June. She and Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, agreed on a statement that kind of promised she would go but also left open the delicate question of when:

The prime minister is determined to secure our departure from the European Union and is devoting her efforts to securing the second reading of the withdrawal agreement bill in the week commencing 3rd June 2019 and the passage of that bill and the consequent departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union by the summer. We have agreed that she and I will meet following the second reading of the bill to agree a timetable for the election of a new leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/islamophobia-definition-debate-united-kindgom/

A proposed definition of Islamophobia gives relatively few clues about how it would be applied.

What criticisms of Muslims can be censured, sanctioned, or prosecuted? What kind of statements will we deem Islamophobic? The debate is starting to happen in the United Kingdom, and it will surely happen soon in American universities, corporations, and perhaps our legislatures. We ought to start thinking it through.

In the United Kingdom, the All Party Parliamentary Group of Muslims proposed a working definition of Islamophobia that runs this way: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” This definition has been rapidly adopted by smaller parties in the U.K., such as the Liberal Democrats, but rejected by the Tories and the government of Theresa May. It’s also been criticized by Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), who says such a definition, if it spread, could hamper anti-terror investigations.

Would such a definition, if adopted, apply to any of the following statements?

“They seek to enslave the bodies of women.”

“[H]e prefers theocracy to democracy. He preaches a message of enduring hatred and personifies the kind of politics that is inimical to everything the Labour party stands for. ”

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/05/exclusive-interview-with-jewish-couple-in-paris-beaten-by-muslim-home-invaders

The last of the remaining Jews living in Aubervilliers were brutally beaten and robbed in their own home. A Jewish couple in Paris was assaulted and robbed in their own home in the projects earlier this month raising the concern that the attack was the latest in a series of “home invasions” targeting Jews. A Muslim gang of four saw the *mezuzah on the door and stormed in. The Jewish couple were brutally beaten and robbed. Seine-Saint-Denis is increasingly a Muslim no-go zone. Once home to a thriving Jewish community, Seine-Saint-Denis has been ethnically cleansed.

I have an exclusive interview with the couple. Photos are exclusive as well.

The doorbell rang in the small Hazan apartment in the projects of the deprived Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. Shalom Hazan was expecting his brother so he thought nothing of opening the door. Like a scene out of ‘Death Wish’, four Muslim men in their twenties stormed into his home and spent the next 30 minutes beating Mr. Hazan and his wife.

Their faces covered (like the burka), the four demanded money, “We know you have money.” That old anti-semitic trope. Hazan lives in the projects in a tiny apartment. He has a mezzuzah on the doorpost outside his home the only mezuzahs in the building because Shalom Hazan and his wife Joelle are the only Jews remaining in the building.

63 year old Hazan tried to fight them off. While three goons pummeled him, the fourth attacked his wife while shouting “show us where the money is or we will kill your husband!” They took everything —Shalom Hazan and Joelle Hazan have lived in this tiny apartment since in 1985. Back then it was a Jewish neighborhood, safe. As Muslims moved in, they Jews were forced out. The projects that the Hazans live in was at one time 90% Jewish. Now Shalom Hazan is the last Jew. He has decided he too must leave. He is terrified and so is his wife.