RUTHFULLY YOURS

Over the past year and a half France has been hit by a wave of terror attacks. The worst have been the January 2015 attacks at the Charlie Hebdo office and the Hyper Cacher market in Paris, which killed 20, and the concerted November 14-15, 2015, attacks in Paris that killed 130.

And on May 19, 2016, EgyptAir Flight 804 left Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and ended up crashing into the Mediterranean, killing 66, in what is seen as a terror attack.

Meanwhile France has been suffering record unemployment and severe domestic unrest.

Amid these grave problems, however, on Friday, June 3, France saw fit to convene a conference of 29 foreign ministers (including Secretary of State John Kerry) in Paris to deal with that old, invincible focus of attention: Israeli-Palestinian peace, or the lack of it.

This gathering came only a week after a governmental shakeup in Israel that saw Avigdor Lieberman replace Moshe Yaalon as defense minister. With Lieberman’s five-man faction joining the governing coalition, it now numbers a more workable 66 Knesset members instead of the previous paper-thin 61.

The Washington Post, in an editorial that came out before the Paris conference, used this sequence of events to do some vintage Israel-bashing.

The Post called Lieberman “a hard-line nationalist with an abysmal international reputation,” blamed Netanyahu for failing to add the left-of-center Labor Party to his coalition instead of Lieberman’s right-of-center faction, and called on Netanyahu to prove his peace credentials by implementing a “partial settlement freeze.”

From the June 13, 2016, issue of NR
For at least a quarter of a century, there was no greater bore in British politics than the Eurobore, who warned against Britain’s loss of sovereignty to Brussels. From the moment the House of Commons narrowly passed the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s, turning the European Economic Community into the European Union, the species could be sighted around Westminster. But its natural habitat became sparsely populated meetings of the already converted. Occasionally an overreach by Brussels would find the Eurobore staring into the bright lights of the nation’s broadcast media, there to answer a few hostile questions while demonstrating an unappetizing combination of monomania and over-fondness for detail. But for at least a generation, people said to be “banging on about Europe” suffered from the political equivalent of halitosis.

And then things began to change. Of course, nobody wanted to credit the fact, but over the course of recent years the wilderness dwellers began to assume the mantle of prophets. The backbenchers in Westminster and the MEP (Members of the European Parliament) flotsam in Brussels who had kept a flame of British independence alive became politically palatable again. Their knowledge of the minutiae of EU laws and regulations proved useful. Soon bigger political beasts found the courage once again to join this renegade band. Today, with a vote on Britain’s remaining in or leaving the EU taking place on June 23, Britain’s Euroskeptics are not just back in the mainstream but at the helm of the most important decision facing the country in decades. Indeed, they may soon be running the country. With the polls currently showing “Remain” and “Leave” tied, an entire political establishment is now angrily trying to work out why Leave is doing so well. Why has wheeling out every other expert and authority in the land not browbeat the British people into overwhelmingly voting Remain? Why, indeed, does it seem to be pushing them the other way? Sad to say, the explanation is the facts — and two very large facts in particular, both of which have long been visible from Britain, even if not from Brussels.

The first is the legacy of the endless euro-zone crises. For years, British Euroskeptics argued that currency union, or the euro, could not possibly work unless the countries that participated in it gave up all remaining sovereignty. How, they asked, could Greece and Germany share a currency if they did not share fiscal habits and constraints? How the Europhiles scoffed at this! From different political sides, the former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine and the über-Blairite Peter Mandelson pooh-poohed all such complaints. Indeed, these grandees insisted that Britain would regret not joining the euro zone. Such men may still pretend to sail on as though nothing ever ruffled this core argument, but for seven years the nightly news has torn it to shreds.

The euro-zone crises that have battered the Continent since 2009 vindicated every British Euroskeptic fear. As one southern European country after another found itself unable to refinance its debts, the euro zone became a raft of the Medusa. In an effort to impose fiscal restraint on the southern European countries, northern European countries, especially Germany, not only imposed further financial rules on their neighbors but ousted their elected leaders, imposing bureaucrats to run things on Brussels’s behalf. Even now, youth unemployment in these countries sits between 25 and 50 percent, blighting an entire generation.

The National Front party has accused Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo of putting the concerns of migrants ahead of those of French citizens. In a statement, the party said that the number of homeless people in Paris had increased by 84% between 2002 and 2012, but that Hidalgo has shown little interest in alleviating the problem.

Although the EU-Turkey migrant deal has temporarily stemmed the flow of illegal migration to Greece through Turkey, hundreds of thousands of migrants are still making their way into Europe.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 204,000 migrants arrived in Europe (mostly Greece and Italy) during the first five months of 2016, more than twice as many as arrived during the same period in 2015.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has announced plans to build a “humanitarian camp” next to one of the busiest train stations in the city, so that thousands of illegal migrants bound for Britain can “live with dignity.”

Hidalgo, who has often sparred with French President François Hollande for his refusal to accept more migrants, says her plan to help illegal migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is a “duty of humanism.”

Critics counter that Hidalgo’s plan is a cynical ploy aimed at positioning herself to the left of the current president, as part of a political strategy to wrest leadership of the Socialist Party from Hollande, whose approval ratings are at record lows.

At a press conference on May 31, Hidalgo said the camp would be built in northern Paris “near the arrival points for migrants.” She was referring to Gare du Nord — one of the busiest railway stations in Europe — from where high-speed Eurostar trains travel to and arrive from London.

In 2014, one Yeni Akit columnist wrote that a “Gaza fund contribution tax” should apply to Turkish Jews, as well as foreign Jews doing business in Turkey, Turkish nationals with commercial ties to Israel, and any business that maintains a partnership with a Turkish Jew. The penalty for failing to pay the tax should be the revocation of the Jew’s business license and the seizure of his property.

It was not even considered shocking when the Turkish man who shot at the journalist Can Dundar outside a courthouse said in his testimony, “I was deeply annoyed by his news reporting … I knew he had been to Britain for a while… I thought he was a British spy…”

The Western euphemism for Turkey’s supposedly mild, “post-modern” Islamists, who came to power in 2002, was problematic from the beginning. The past five years has seen the Turkish “post-modern” Islamist’s sad funeral — sad because they, in reality, never lived in this universe. They were the brainchild of the optimists sipping their coffee at a Washington café, or a London pub or a Berlin beer house. Now there is just the official funeral service with an empty coffin: there was, in fact, no such a thing as “post-modern” Islamism.

Political Islam, when it wins popular support, tends to adopt direction of the majority rather than the pluralistic route [see Turkey and Egypt]; and when mixed with cultural and religious nationalism in the Orient, it often adopts not just the direction of the majority but also a few militant turns [see Hamas].

It was not even considered shocking when the Turkish man who shot at the journalist Can Dundar outside a courthouse said in his testimony, “I was deeply annoyed by his [Dundar’s] news reporting … I knew he had been to Britain for a while… I thought he was a British spy… I planned this [shooting] in order to teach him a lesson.”

Why did the man think that a Turkish journalist, declared an undesirable by the country’s president, was a British spy? Was it actually because Dundar had been to Britain, like thousands of other Turks do every year? Hardly. It was because the president of the country had loudly labelled him a spy, a traitor, a terrorist — even without a court verdict. Dundar was eventually acquitted of the charges.

Terror tyrant Abu Muhammad al Adnani last month told the West to get ready for a “month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers”.

And this week US terror brainboxes say lone-wolf extremists could respond to the “call to martyrdom” during and after the holy period.

“Sacrifice during Ramadan can be considered more valuable than that made at other times, so a call to martyrdom during the month may hold a special allure,” said the report, by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC).

“Calls for Ramadan attacks by ISIS may inspire unaffiliated lone wolves who generally require less time for planning.

“While Ramadan could be an added impetus for terrorists to carry out attacks against perceived enemies in Europe, the threats are unlikely to stop when the month comes to a close.”

An audio recording released on May 21 heard Daesh doughnut Adnani saying: “Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad.”

He urged jihadists to conduct lone-wolf attacks for a “great reward of martyrdom” and said ISIS wanted to “punish the crusaders day and night”.

England Euro 2016 fans dressed as crusaders have been warned they could be ISIS targets and a Whitehall insider said ISIS are planning a chemical weapons blitz on English footie supporters.

The OSAC report said the recent threat could be credible because ISIS carried out the “Black Friday” catastrophes three days after Adnani’s Ramadan call to arms last year.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/somalia-forces-end-extremist-siege-hotel-15-killed-39549381
Somalia Forces End Extremist Siege of Hotel; 15 Killed
2016.06.05 (Afghanistan)
Islamic hardliners with suicide vests storm a courthouse and murder seven workers. 2016.06.05 (Kazakhstan)
Islamic radicals murder six people in two separate attacks. 2016.06.03 (Yemen)
Ten women and a girl are among seventeen shredded by Shiite shrapnel at a market. 2016.06.03 (Niger)
Thirty-two defenders are slain during a massive Boko Haram assault on a small town. 2016.06.01 (Afghanistan)
Fundamentalists storm a court building in a suicide attack that leaves five civilians and one police officer dead. 2016.06.01 (Somalia)
Islamists stage a suicide assault on a hotel, killing at least sixteen guests.

What to expect when the ABC teams four climateers with a talk-show hostess who believes that 11.7% of the population represents a majority? Why, The Drum Weekly, whose latest edition should prompt new Managing Director Michelle Guthrie to implement reforms. Not that it will, of course.
Under new Managing Director Michelle Guthrie, balance remains a rare commodity at Their ABC. For example, take Sunday’s episode of The Drum Weekly, which looked at climate change. In the introduction we were promised a panel of four experts. You’d think there might be room for one sceptic in any quartet of talking heads, wouldn’t you? Or at the very least, one global warming believer who does not subscribe to the view that throwing good money after bad in order to support rent-seeking peddlers of “renewable” technology is the best and only way forward. Someone like Bjorn Lomberg, perhaps?

Alas, no. What we got was Adjunct Professor Nick Rowley, former climate adviser to Tony Blair; Professor Lesley Hughes, ex-climate commissioner; science reporter and ABC in-house catastropharian Robyn Williams and, last but not least, economist Professor Ross Garnaut. If you have a spare moment, check the links attached to the names above. What do they have in common, apart from an eager willingness to proclaim that the end is nigh? Can’t guess? Let me put it this way: in terms of work, public prominence and job opportunities, the climate-change scare has bestowed handsome bounties on each and every one.

Right at the start, presenter Julia Baird made reference to a May 26 Reachtel poll that listed voters’ primary concerns as follows:

reachtel pollThe take-home message from our host on all this was that climate change ranked fourth!!! among the concerns of voters, conveniently ignoring the fact that other concerns for the environment — the spread of feral weeds in the bush, for example — does not necessarily mean subscribing to Robyn Williams’ assertion that sea levels might soon rise 100 metres. And even if every single respondent represented in that 11.7% fervently believes mankind’s influence is ruining the planet, the fact remains that it is a small segment of the population — roughly the same percentage that votes for The Greens. What a surprise!

The rise of an Islamic State affiliate in Egypt is altering the security landscape in a critical corner of the Middle East, according to Israeli and Western officials.

Militants with Sinai Province, which has pledged allegiance to the extremist group, have developed ties with the Palestinian movement Hamas that rules the neighboring Gaza Strip, the officials said—despite deep ideological differences between the two Islamist groups.

The ties include help with smuggling and medical care, they said. Officials in Israel, which has likened Hamas to Islamic State, said the cooperation has also extended to military training. Hamas officials denied any involvement with Sinai Province.

Egypt’s and Israel’s shared concern about Sinai Province’s growing threat is spurring deeper security cooperation, according to the officials. Israel, for example, has let Egypt bring more sophisticated weapons into its restive Sinai Peninsula than allowed under their 1979 peace treaty, in a bid to help counter the group, they said.

“The relationship has probably never been stronger in terms of assistance in military operations to attack ISIS in Sinai,” Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said after meetings with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and other Egyptian security officials in Cairo recently. ISIS is another name for Islamic State.

The developments show that Islamic State is able to build relationships and shape events far afield even as the group’s control over territory in Syria and Iraq is weakening, just as the recent attacks in Brussels and Paris linked to the group demonstrated its lethal reach.

Sinai Province was created by up to 1,000 jihadists with a group previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis that pledged allegiance to Islamic State in November 2014. The group, based in Sinai, has launched a number of deadly attacks in Egypt and claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian jet in October, killing 224 people.

The group is in regular contact with Islamic State’s leadership, which helps fund the local affiliate and promote it through Islamic State’s extensive social-media network, according to Israeli officials, Egyptian security officials and independent researchers. The extent to which Islamic State is involved in coordinating operations with Sinai Province is unknown.

Sinai Province and Hamas are both Sunni Muslim-led groups, but Hamas doesn’t share the same strict interpretation of Islam.

Sinai Province operates in territory on the peninsula where the entrances of smuggling tunnels that lead to Gaza are located, according to smugglers and diggers who work on tunnels. That has led to a pragmatic arrangement between Sinai Province and Hamas, according to Israeli and Western officials. Egypt’s defense and interior ministries have said the ties between the two groups have included coordination on attacks in north Sinai. Spokesmen for the ministries didn’t comment.

Egypt shared intelligence with Israel last year about cooperation between Sinai Province and members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, according to a Western official. Israel was surprised to learn of the ties given previous clashes in Gaza between Hamas and Islamic State sympathizers, the official said.

Israeli officials said they learned in April of 2015 that Hamas was allowing Sinai Province fighters to be treated in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital. The hospital declined to comment.

Later last year, Hamas operatives spent a month in the Sinai region teaching the militants how to fire antitank missiles, Israeli officials said. The officials declined to provide more details. Hamas subsequently received Russian-made antitank missiles via the smuggling network Sinai Province controls, an Israeli defense official said.

Hamas officials have been meeting with Egyptian officials to improve ties and attempt to open the border crossing from Egypt in Gaza. Earlier this year, Hamas stepped up patrols along Gaza’s border with Egypt, a move the Palestinian group said was meant to assure its powerful neighbor it isn’t working with militants in Sinai. CONTINUE AT SITE

The sheer volume of polygamous marriages shows that such marriages are also entered into in Europe, in secret, through Islamic marriage ceremonies conducted by imams. In most European countries, imams are not required to report these marriages to the authorities.

Daham Al Hasan fled from Syria to Denmark, leaving behind his three wives and 20 children. Under the Danish rules of family unification, one of his wives and eight of his children have joined him in Denmark. But Al Hasan wants all his children with him, as well as all his wives. Lawyers estimate that the remaining wives will be able to join their children in Denmark. The case has caused a shock not only because of what it will cost the Danish state just in child allowance, but because Al Hassan claims that he is too ill to work or even learn Danish. “I don’t only have mental problems, but also physical problems…” He has admitted that his “mental illness” consists of missing the children he voluntarily left behind.

Even if theoretically women can go to the police or press charges, they run the risk of being beaten or possibly divorced. Women’s shelters are “full of Muslim women.”

The spokeswoman of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency said that the establishment of a central registry of Islamic marriages would be helpful for investigating claims of fraud.

A few years ago, Sweden’s Center Party, one of the four parties in the center-right governing coalition at the time, proposed legalizing polygamy. The idea caused outrage; the proposal was dropped. The party’s youth division, however, refused to let go: “We think it is important for the individual to decide how many people he or she wants to marry,” said Hanna Wagenius, head of Center Youth, predicting that polygamy would be legal in ten years, when her generation would enter parliament and make sure of it.

On June 23, UK voters will decide if they stay or turn their backs on the EU. Today, as that plebiscite approaches, Quadrant Online presents the first installment in an extended examination of the issues and factors at play — an appraisal, it should be noted, by an ardent advocate of the Leave cause.
As of June 23′s Brexit vote, 2016 could well prove to be a date of enduring and historic significance — one of those years made famous by the events they encompass. Actions of genuine significance in history, like The Great Reform Act of 1832 or The Glorious Revolution of 1688. Of course it could equally go down as an 1848, a year of possibilities unrealised; a footnote chiefly of interest to counter-factual historians who ask ‘what if?’

In the spirit of hypothesis contemplate this notion: if you were an extraterrestrial looking down dispassionately at the Earth, wondering who is your best bet for first contact, you would chose Britain. You would observe that it is the most liberal and tolerant advanced civilisation on the planet. You would notice that its language and culture have spread across the globe. That its politics, law, science, engineering and inventions had shaped the modern world. Throughout its history it had welcomed and assimilated peoples and today its capital could claim to be the most diverse, cosmopolitan metropolis anywhere. You would find that its system of government had the longest pedigree, greatest number of disciples and that its Head of State is respected wherever she goes, cordially received and gracious to all world leaders she welcomes in return. Yes, our alien would conclude, Britain might no longer be top dog, but it is our best bet at a fair hearing.

Britons are faced with a historic choice in this year, one that goes beyond membership of the European Union. They are asking a question that all mature democracies in the early 21st Century should be asking themselves. Unlike a general election there are no tactical votes to be had, no safe seats, no shades of grey. You are either In or Out or you couldn’t care less.

The Brexit referendum, in a nutshell, is a vote on Big Government. If you believe the problems the world faces can only be solved by unelected officials making decisions on your behalf, you will vote to stay in. If you believe you are better able to face the challenges of this young century by trusting a system of representative government, vote to get out.

And that’s it!

Economics, security, trade, immigration, emigration, they are all part of a long history. They were there before the EU and will be part of the future whatever the result. The debate itself, however, is another matter.