RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12576/blasphemy-laws-pakistan

Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.

Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government’s failure to safeguard minority rights, as well as the government’s persistent discrimination against religious minorities.

Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

On May 6, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan’s Minister of the Interior, was shot during a rally in his own constituency, in the province of Punjab. Fortunately, he survived the attack, but the bullet in his abdomen could not be removed. “The bullet lodged in my body… will keep reminding me of the impending need to remove the seeds of hatred sowed in the country,” Iqbal said.

An initial report suggested that the main suspect, Abid Hussain, 21, had carefully planned the attack; recently, Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Court issued an 8-day judicial remand of four possible accomplices.

According to other reports, Hussain is linked to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) — also known as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (“Movement of the Prophet’s Followers”). TLP is a new Sunni extremist party known for aggressively calling for enforcing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which can carry the death penalty, and for opposing any relaxation of these laws.

Many fear that this assault is not an isolated incident and that other members of the cabinet are on the TLP’s hit list. This apprehension, however, does not mean that the government is against sharia or blasphemy laws, or is even thinking of reforming them. Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/let-german-voters-try-again-1530573865

The main lesson from the troubles in Angela Merkel’s German government is that administrations need to be about something other than survival. By our deadline Monday evening it appeared she had survived the latest challenge to her chancellorship. But she’ll limp through the remaining three years of her term if she can’t fill the ideas void at the center of her government.

Mrs. Merkel stared down a rebellion from the center-right Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Horst Seehofer, Mrs. Merkel’s Interior Minister and CSU leader, had threatened to resign (or force Mrs. Merkel to fire him) if she didn’t emerge from last week’s European summit with a plan to stem the entry of asylum-seekers into Germany.

She did, and despite Monday’s theatrics Mrs. Merkel’s deal with Mr. Seehofer mostly builds on that EU pact. She promised the CSU stricter enforcement along the Germany-Austria border to bar asylum-seekers whose claims are being processed elsewhere in the EU from entering Germany, in line with the EU plan.

Maybe that will give Mr. Seehofer the political boost he wants from stirring up this feud. Bavaria, in Germany’s south, was traversed by a large share of the Middle Eastern migrants who entered after Mrs. Merkel’s open-door offer of refuge in 2015. The CSU now faces an electoral threat from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which could deprive Mr. Seehofer’s party of its absolute majority in the state parliament in local elections in October. But the CSU’s slipping poll numbers suggest Mr. Seehofer’s stunt may have backfired.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/02/angela-merkel-melts-under-pressure-to-tighten-europes-borders/

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition is hanging on by a thread. Last-ditch talks are underway between Merkel and interior minister Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union (CSU) over Germany’s migration policy. Seehofer wants migrants turned away at the border if they have sought asylum elsewhere in Europe, while Merkel wants an EU-wide deal. This standoff has caused Merkel to recant on her long-held beliefs and policies about migration.

How did this happen? Disagreements over migration policy between Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and junior coalition partner CSU almost prevented Merkel from forming a government last year. Then, last month, Seehofer proposed tighter restrictions of Germany’s borders, threatening to defy Merkel and enact the restrictions with or without Merkel’s approval, daring her to remove him from his post, which would have led to a breakdown of the coalition between their two parties.

This sent Merkel on a frantic diplomatic tour of Europe in an effort to get EU members to agree on a new policy that would radically reduce the number of migrants and refugees who would be able to come to Europe, in the hopes of assuaging Seehofer and the CSU. Merkel has caved, reversing her previous position of absolute open borders and moving to toughen the entire continent’s migrant policy.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/time-leave-question-jews-britain-europe/
These are alarming times for Jews in Britain and Europe.

The British Labour Party is convulsed over the realization that it is riddled with antisemitism. Jeremy Corbyn, its leader and a friend to Hamas, has been exposed as belonging to Facebook groups hosting claims that the Jews were behind ISIS and 9/11, that the Rothschilds controlled the world’s finances, and other such paranoid theories. The backwash from the exposure of these groups revealed a tsunami of anti-Jewish insults, smears, and libels by Labour supporters. Corbyn’s responses, often truculent and insulting to the Jewish community, have only deepened the crisis.

Last year, according to the Community Security Trust, saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents in Britain since the CST started recording such data in 1984. In the past, surges in these incidents had occurred in response to the reporting of Israeli military action. That’s disturbing enough. But what was more disturbing here was that this record surge had occurred in the absence of any such Israeli activity.

Worse is happening in mainland Europe. In Paris, an 85-year-old survivor of the Shoah, Mireille Knoll, was stabbed to death and her body burned by a young Muslim. Last year, a man shouting “Allahu akbar” beat up Jewish schoolteacher Sarah Halimi and threw her to her death out of her Paris apartment window. In January, a teenage girl in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles wearing the uniform of her Jewish school was slashed in the face with a knife. Later that month, an eight-year-old boy was beaten in the same area because he was wearing a kippah. In February, two Jewish men in Paris were attacked with a hacksaw amid a volley of Jew-hating abuse.

In Amsterdam, a kosher restaurant long targeted for attack had its windows smashed in March by a man holding a Palestinian flag and shouting “Allahu akbar.” Holland’s chief rabbi says that, on the street, curses or taunts of “dirty Jew” are now quite normal. At the beginning of Chanukah last year, two Syrians and a Palestinian firebombed a synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden. A few days later, a Jewish cemetery in Malmö was attacked. In Germany, the Israeli flag has been burned and Jewish pupils bullied by Arab schoolmates. And so on and on.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-left-turn-in-mexico-1530496717

Mexico entered a brave old world on Sunday by electing former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador to a six-year term as president. The 64-year-old left-wing populist has lost twice, in 2006 and 2012, but this time he won against two weak candidates while promising more moderate policies.

The official vote count wasn’t available late Sunday evening, but exit polls gave Mr. López Obrador a large enough margin to call him the winner. Ricardo Anaya of the National Action Party (PAN) is expected to finish a distant second with Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate José Antonio Meade in third. Early indications suggest the president-elect’s coattails will make his Morena front, which includes smaller parties, the largest coalition in both legislative chambers.

The campaign was marred by violence at the local level. But kudos to Mexico’s National Electoral Institute, which handled 157,000 polling stations and some nine million more registered voters than in 2012. The largely peaceful vote is another milestone in Mexico’s progress as a democracy since the days when Mr. López Obrador worked for the PRI that ran the country as a one-party state.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12619/europe-islamic-state

“The growing religiousness is not an expression of marginalization. We are talking about people who are well-integrated, but who want to be religious”. — Professor Viggo Mortensen.

“The vision is an Islamic state — Islamic society… Muslims will prefer sharia rule. But the vision for twenty years from now is for sharia law to be part of Germany, that sharia will be institutionalized in the state itself”. — “Yusuf”, in a documentary series, False Identity.

“I will pick them one by one — I will start with people around me… If every Muslim would do the same in his surroundings, it can happen with no problem… you don’t confront him [the German] with force; you do it slowly… There will be clashes, but slowly the clashes will subside, as people will accept reality.” — “Yusuf”, in a documentary series, False Identity.

Europe will still exist but, as with the great Christian Byzantine Empire that is now Turkey, will it still embody Judeo-Christian civilization?

A Dutch government report published in June showed that Muslims in the Netherlands are becoming more religious. The report, based on information from 2006-2015, is a study of more than 7,249 Dutch nationals with Moroccan and Turkish roots. Two thirds of the Muslims in the Netherlands are from Turkey or Morocco.

According to the report, 78% of Moroccan Muslims pray five times a day, as do 33% of Turkish Muslims. Approximately 40% of both groups visit a mosque at least once a week. More young Moroccan women wear a headscarf (up from 64% in 2006 to 78% in 2015) and large majorities of both groups eat halal (93% of Moroccan Muslims and 80% of Turkish Muslims). 96% of Moroccan Muslims say that faith is a very important part of their lives, whereas the number is 89% for Turkish Muslims. The number of Dutch Moroccan Muslims who can be described as strictly adhering to Islam has increased from 77% in 2006, to 84% in 2015. For Turkish Muslims, the numbers have increased from 37% to 45%. There are few secular Muslims — 7% among Turkish Muslims, 2% among Moroccan Muslims.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12620/turkey-nato-double-game

Why would Turkey first order a Russian defense system and then turn around and make a cooperation agreement with Europe for the same purpose?

This goes back to America’s apprehension that if Turkey uses the S-400s along with the U.S. F-35s, Russia could gain access to information about the aircraft’s sensitive technology.

If Turkey is playing a double game with NATO, let us hope that the United States does not fall prey to it.

In January, 2018 Turkey reportedly awarded an 18-month contract for a study on the development and production of a long-range air- and missile-defense system to France and Italy, showing — ostensibly — Turkey’s ongoing commitment to NATO. The study, contracted between the EUROSAM consortium and Turkey’s Aselsan and Roketsan companies, was agreed upon in Paris, on the sidelines of a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The contract for the study came on the heels of a deal between Ankara and Moscow, according to which Turkey would purchase the S-400 missile defense system — one of the most sophisticated on the global market — from Russia. The question is: Why would Turkey first order a Russian defense system and then turn around and make a cooperation agreement with Europe for the same purpose?

The answer is likely that Ankara is trying to pretend that it is still loyal to NATO, at a time when its strategic inclinations seem to indicate otherwise.

As Turkey is a member of NATO, its decision to opt for the S-400, a non-NATO missile-defense system, has been the subject of speculation and controversy. NATO has adopted the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA), according to which the United States plans to deploy its missile-defense systems in various parts of Europe, to protect its forces and those of other NATO members from Iranian missile attacks. Turkey’s move appears to run counter to the EPAA.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12628/turkey-iran-islamism

Khomeini’s support came from Tehran and a few other big cities, notably Isfahan, while Erdogan’s support base is in rural areas and small and medium cities.

While at least 40,000 people have been executed under Khomeini and his successors, Erdogan refuses to bring back the death penalty in Turkey.

Right now, according to Islamic Chief Justice Ayatollah Amoli Larijani, there are 15000 Iranians under death sentence in prison, waiting to be executed.

Is Turkey going to be another Iran? With President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest electoral victory the question is making the rounds in Western political circles. Despite the fact that Sunday’s election gives Erdogan immense new powers, my short answer to the question is a firm: no!

In analyzing the nature of political power in any form the first question to ask concerns the provenance of that power. For where does power comes from determines where it may go.

In Iran in 1979 power was like a box of jewels thrown in the street, ready for anyone to pick up. The Shah had left the country and most members of the Council of Monarchy he had appointed were in the French Riviera, while the army Top Brass had declared “neutrality” which meant the military wouldn’t stop anyone from picking up the box of jewels in the street.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12616/iran-bazaar-revolt

The Grand Bazaar is not just a mega shopping mall; it is the core of a whole way of life. It contains six mosques, 30 hotels, more than 20 banks, six libraries, 9 religious seminaries,13 primary and secondary schools, and is the source of direct or indirect employment for more than 600,000 people.

Since 1979, the Grand Bazaar’s enthusiasm for the Khomeinist regime has cooled somewhat without turning into open hostility. Thus, the current events must be regarded either as a fleeting aberration or as a serious sign that the Khomeinist regime may be losing one of its major bases of support.

One thing is certain: The Grand Bazaar has well-established and tested mechanisms for popular mobilization and a show of force in the streets. If it is angry, it can show its anger. And when it does, it would be foolish for anyone not to take notice.

Last week, Tehran’s Grand Bazaar was shut, with its example imitated in the capital’s other business districts such as Maqsud-Shah, Qaysarieh, Khayyam, Sayyed Vali and Pachenar, among others. At the same time, bazaars in several other cities, notably Isfahan, Mash’had, Bandar Abbas, Kerman and Tabriz also organized token strikes in sympathy with Tehrani merchants.