RUTHFULLY YOURS

It has from the beginning been designed to denounce Israel as an illegal state, all under the cover of supposed neutral academic inquiry.

It is not, however, in the least surprising that an Irish government would pass a motion like that so wholeheartedly. After all, links with the PLO and other terrorist groups were connived at or even encouraged by the Irish government itself.

The conference put itself in the welcoming hands of the city council, a body thoroughly in agreement with the aims of the event, to find spurious legal arguments for the delegitimization and eventual destruction of Israel.

Readers may remember a controversy reported in January. It was proposed that an international “academic” conference about the legitimacy of Israel would take place in University College Cork in the Republic of Ireland. There have been several developments in this sorry enterprise since then.

What the conference, which goes under the revealing title, “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism”, was about may be summed up in a few sentences. It has from the beginning been designed to denounce Israel as an illegal state, all under the cover of supposed neutral academic inquiry. The organizers had previously tried to hold the event at Britain’s Southampton University and, reportedly, other European universities, each time without success.

Let’s give 18C the benefit of the doubt and allow, for argument’s sake, that it was conceived with the very best of intentions. OK, that’s my concession, but I also expect any reasonable person on the other side of the argument to acknowledge it has become a handy weapon, often a lucrative one.
Ah, this evergreen topic of insult and offence. What a maze to skip through, this business of not “insulting and offending” anyone! There’s such a rich and wondrous variety of reasons why people might dislike, sometimes intensely, anything you say or do that it boggles the mind. Even if you manage to avoid contentious topics — race, religion, money, politics, immigration, abortion, drugs, Section 18C, ABC, environment, elections, Trump, Hillary, women, sex, discrimination, human rights, terrorism, victims, Aborigines, carbon footprints, homosexuality, prostitution, conscription, vaccination, coal, renewables, oppressed sharks and pot-bellied parrots — you might yet trigger a warning of some kind.

Table conversations become more and more like valedictory dinners in a minefield. Step back from the table and its thin fare of acceptable opinion and topics for discussion and one false move detonates the big kaboom! So, rather than rile the table, you wear the standard-issue solemn face as steaming servings of politically correct tripe are dished up for general consumption. Beg to differ and, well, it could be the end of a beautiful relationship. Risqué jokes? None of those, please, unless the punch line is aimed at conservatives, which is always acceptable and necessarily so. There are now so many subjects and identity groups the Left has declared off-limits, Liberals are about the only free-range prey left.

Where would we be if anyone could tell a joke about anyone and anything? Dragged before the tax-hoovers of the Human Rights Commission, like poor Bill Leak, that’s where. An appropriate deference — indeed, a secular adoration — for the paraded virtues of the Fitzroy, Brunswick and Balmain set is required to avoid a public shunning and, once Dr Tim Soutphommasane has touted for “victims” on Facebook prepared to keep him busy and in the headlines, there will be no escaping the substantial legal costs. These morally superior, specimens struggle mightily to bring us mugs into the bright, brave future they envision for all humankind, whether the rest of us like it or not! Solemn agreement, meek acquiescence and, for those who wish to get ahead, a fawning deference that would shame Uriah Heap is what they (and their taxpayer-funded legal departments) expect and demand. They are, by their own estimation, the sole custodians of human rights’ eternal flame. Place your unfettered sense of humour before the altar of PC rectitude and surrender it as an offering to what they imagine is the greater good.

Very soon there will be no permissible topics for pointed jocularity, not unless they are the sort based on Pavlovian stimulus and response. If you have been to one of those “comedy” festivals, you will know what I mean. The stand-up guy or gal says “yada yada yada … little Johnny Howard” and the audience roars with laughter because, well, that is what good groupthinkers are supposed to do — respond on cue. Like the screamers in 1984‘s Two Minute Hate, they know and enjoy the satisfaction of howling with the mob at those they love to hate, be it howling with derisive laughter or old-fashioned, flat-out contempt.

They say the personal political, so let me ask if Section 18C protect me? As a Jew, I am sensitive to anti-Semitic insults, and 18C is presented as protecting me from this scourge. As far as an open assault, whether physical or verbal, it is not a foolproof protection as far as my safety and my family’s is concerned. For example, consider the variety of organisations declaring themselves to be “anti-Zionist” that are, in effect, no more nor less than anti-Semitic. Did 18c inhibit the mobs of chanters and bullies who, week after week, invaded the Max Brenner chocolate shops? Watch the video below if you are groping for an answer.

There is a vast gulf in Arab societies between an elevated self-esteem based on an alleged superiority in religion and civilisation and, on the other hand, the constant denial of this superiority by the grim reality of curtailed liberties, intellectual atrophy and institutionalised corruption.
Islam today, specifically in the Middle East, can be described as being in a state of anomie. The history of the Arab-Islamic civilisation since the ascendancy of the Ottoman Empire has served to bring the Arabs to a state of physical and philosophical distress. Given the present state of the Middle East—the internal and murderous sectarianism now largely centred on Iraq and Syria, though necessarily affecting their neighbours; the peril and harm befalling, in different parts of the Islamic world, non-Muslim peoples; the mass murder being inflicted upon major European centres to cause random deaths and create civil panic; and the political chaos in many Islamic countries causing armies of displaced people to seek refuge in the West—clearly something is seriously amiss. As a consequence, concern in the receiving countries grows at the evident difficulties many of Islam’s refugees experience adjusting, or failing to settle in, to a Western culture which is almost ontologically opposite the faith refugees bring with them. For faithful Muslims, shrouding themselves in their faith is their only way forward; but necessarily a separate forward.

Modernity, now set firmly in the West upon the continued unfoldings of science and technology, has little place in the Muslim doctrine of the complete transcendence of God. Muslims believe “man is neither autonomous nor free and only God has the power to make decisions. God has sovereign control over humans and this control is exercised through Islamic law.” This simple but demanding liturgy describes the different historical trajectories that have been followed by the Western-Christian and the Arab-Islamic civilisations from their beginnings. Though following a similar early trail, their different histories have produced radically different human experiences.

Many events shaped the beginnings of both Christianity and Islam. Without the long and eventful life of the Roman Empire, Western Europe and the nations and peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea would have a substantially different shape today. Without Rome, Christianity might have remained as blown sands among the passions and poetry of what is now known as the Middle East. Without Christianity, with its simple liturgy and potent narrative, the peoples of Europe would have fought and died for different gods and kings among their landscapes. The beginnings of Western civilisation emerged as these three historical strands connected. Islam began and remains in the life of its founder, Mohammed (570–632).

The early evolution of both faiths overlapped in time. Following the death of Mohammed, Islam, inspired by religious fervour, the anticipation of booty and the martyrdom rewarded to a death in battle, spread by conquest to Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, North and West Africa, Armenia, Georgia, eastern Khurasan, Sind, much of Transoxiania and most of the Iberian peninsula. The Arab-Islam empire, at its height during the period 700 to 850, absorbed and was influenced by classical literature, Hellenist thought, Byzantine institutions, Roman law, Syriac scholarships and Persian art. In addition, architecture and the sciences were enriched by Muslim research and practice. But Islam in substance was selective and discriminating, excluding all ideas and materials which offended the nature and ends of Islamic society. The early intellectual promise of Islam stuttered and a long decline in Arab power commenced. In the thirteenth century the Ottomans filled this void and established what was to become one of history’s great empires.

The Western world

Imagine my surprise when I learned that many British government buildings are being subsidized by Sharia finance, and therefore come under Sharia law. The Daily Mail ran this revealing story just after the London-Westminster Bridge attack. This is an instance of abject submission to Islam.

Will the Royal Coat of Arms give

Way to the Islamic Crescent?

Admiralty House is one of two more public buildings that are revealed today to operate under Islamic law following the revelations that government properties were quietly transferred to finance an Islamic bond scheme in 2014.

In addition to two Department of Health buildings and the Department of International Development property on Whitehall, the bond scheme also covers Admiralty House and an unidentified building at 4-26 Webber Street in Southwark, south London.

It takes the total number of government buildings that were transferred to fund the £200million Islamic finance scheme to five.

But no imbibing of alcohol will be allowed, per Sharia . Doubtless down the road, criticizing Islam will not be permitted or you’ll be fined or attacked. No pork products to be sold or consumed on the “new’ premises. No British beef will be served unless it’s halal.

Under the terms of the lease, the sale of alcohol is one of the activities banned on the premises because they must conform to Sharia law.

George Osborne announced the move in June 2014 as part of an effort to make the UK a global hub for Islamic finance.

But critics said the scheme would waste money and could undermine Britain’s financial and legal systems by imposing Sharia law onto government premises.

Due to the Islamic bond scheme – known as Sukuk – the ownership of the leases on the five government buildings have been switched from British taxpayers to wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen and banks.

The money raised will be repayable from 2019. But instead of interest, bond-buyers will earn rental income from the Government offices because interest payments are banned in Sharia law…..

Submission to Islam will be painless if you’re willing to lease your property (or the British taxpayers’ property) to the government per the “generous” terms established by wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen and banks.

The money raised will be repayable from 2019. But instead of interest, bond-buyers will earn rental income from the Government offices because interest payments are banned in Sharia law.

Leave it to the British government to sell out its own citizens. And also to the Canadiangovernment to sell out its real citizens, not the “refugees” in whose name the Parliament there seems to legislate Specially targeted: “Islamphobic” speech.

Will the Maple Leaf be replaced

with the Islamic Crescent?

for, and against freedom of speech.

Politicians in Canada moved forward a motion, with a vote of 201 to 91, that gives Islam special protections under hate speech laws. (M103)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on board with the motion.

A new ISIS video shows a French jihadist raising his nine small children to follow the terrorist group, the little girls cloaked in black abayas and the young boys dressed in military garb and ISIS caps.

The video released from Raqqa — the ISIS capital in Syria slowly being besieged by tens of thousands of fighters from the multiethnic, multisectarian Syrian Democratic Forces — is titled “The Islamic State: The Trustworthy Religion” and also chides Muslims enjoying Western life.

The Syrian citizen journalist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently identified the French ISIS member, who spoke his native tongue in the video, as Abu Yaqoub al-Fransi.

The Frenchman is shown pushing some of the kids on a swing and taking the boys to school, the 14-minute video painting his life as virtuous while slamming the Middle East version of “The Voice” reality show singing competition.

ISIS also mocks the YouTube-popular Arab desert pastime of surfing atop cars balanced on two wheels as an un-Islamic amusement.

ISIS also announced the launch of a new TV network in Raqqa, Al-Bayan, and showed a sample programming lineup. The group already had its Al-Bayan radio station, which is still broadcasting in Raqqa, including in English, but has been seized by Iraqi forces in Mosul. ISIS has long confiscated satellite dishes in occupied areas to try to control the media narrative, and the new video shows the ritual stomping and ax-hacking of broken satellite dish equipment.

Another foreign fighter is shown playing with his young kids in a park before teens are seen being sent off in armored vehicles to conduct suicide bombings. A boy at the end of the video breaks down in tears after describing his allegiance and singing a nasheed. CONTINUE AT SITE

PARIS—In France as in most of the West, politics has long been dominated by a left wing and a right wing party. This year an earthquake is in the making: If current polls are borne out, neither the left-wing Socialists nor right-wing Republicans will make it past the first round of the presidential election in April.

Instead, two parties that have never held power will proceed to May’s runoff. And both agree their contest isn’t over traditional issues of right and left, such as taxes and spending. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, says it’s between “globalists and patriots” or, as supporters of Emmanuel Macron, leader of the upstart En Marche (“Forward”) put it, “open and closed.”

That makes the French election the starkest and most consequential contest yet in the world’s ideological divide between nationalism and globalism.
The nationalists who led the British vote to leave the European Union and put Donald Trump in the White House operate within established conservative parties and thus co-exist uneasily with traditional free traders. The National Front arose outside the mainstream and espouses a more uncompromising, coherent rejection of economic, geopolitical and cultural integration. Ms. Le Pen wants to take France out of the EU and the euro, which could precipitate the collapse of both.France makes a singularly appropriate battlefield over nationalism. The modern nation state can be traced to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 when France, putting national interest ahead of religion, sided with Germany’s protestant princes to contain the power of the Catholic Holy Roman Empire. Three centuries later it switched places, choosing, with Germany, to subordinate sovereignty to an ever closer European Union. CONTINUE AT SITE