Europe Debates the Burkini by Soeren Kern

“We will colonize you with your democratic laws.” — Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Egyptian Islamic cleric and chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

“Beaches, like any public space, must be protected from religious claims. The burkini is an anti-social political project aimed in particular at subjugating women… It is not compatible with the values ​​of France and the Republic. Faced with such provocations, the Republic must defend itself.” — French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

According to the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet, the high court’s ruling against burkini bans, “far from appeasing [Muslims], will instead increase passions and tensions.”

“Beaches are equated with streets, where the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols is also rejected by two-thirds of the French.” — Jérôme Fourquet, director of the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop).

The French city of Nice has lifted a controversial ban on Muslim burkinis after a court ruled such prohibitions illegal. Bans on the full-body swimsuits have also been annulled in Cannes, Fréjus, Roquebrune and Villeneuve-Loubet, but they remain in place in at least 25 other French coastal towns.

The row over burkinis — a neologism blending burka and bikini — has reignited a long-running debate over Islamic dress codes in France and other secular European states (see Appendix below).

On August 26, the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, ruled that municipal authorities in Villeneuve-Loubet, a seaside town on the French Riviera, did not have the right to ban burkinis. The court found that the ban — which was issued after the jihadist attack in Nice on July 14, in which 86 people were killed — was “a serious and manifestly illegal attack on fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of movement and the freedom of conscience.” The judges ruled that local authorities could only restrict individual liberties if there was a “demonstrated risk” to public order. There was, they said, no evidence of such a risk.

Although the ruling applied only to the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet, observers said the ruling would set a legal precedent for the 30 other cities and towns which have also implemented bans on burkinis.

The high court decision overturned a lower court ruling, issued August 22, which said the burkini ban was “necessary, appropriate, and proportionate” to ensure public order.

The case was brought by the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) and the Human Rights League (LDH). The two groups have vowed to file lawsuits against any municipality with a burkini ban, which they say violates the religious freedom of Muslims in France.

Patrice Spinosi, a lawyer for the LDH, said that in the absence of a demonstrated threat to public order, the high court “has ruled and has shown that mayors do not have the right to set limits on wearing religious signs in public spaces. It is contrary to the freedom of religion, which is a fundamental freedom.”

Church Attacks: Love Alone Will Not Save Us by George Igler

The fate of the Middle East’s remaining Christians appears little these days in mainstream media news stories, which presently focus on terrorist outrages in Europe instead. Given the recent targeting of churches in several European nations, the omission is unfortunate.

Rather than candidly facing up to the religious roots which motivate terrorist outrages, politicians and the press in Europe often pick up on outpourings of grief and express the need for “unity” as a means of dealing with such violence.

The Australian academic, Dr. Mark Durie, has noted that this perspective contains a grave error: it is often used “as a pretext to censor those who ask the hard questions.”

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah … those who have been given the Book [Jews and Christians] until they pay the tax [jizya tribute] … and they are in a state of subjection.” – Koran, 9:29, (Shakir translation)

In the north-eastern Syrian city of Al-Qamishli, nestled on the border with Turkey, Islamic fundamentalists bombed St. Charnel Church, an ancient site of worship for the Assyrian Orthodox Christians.

On July 18, reported ARA News, gunmen detonated explosives inside the church. Activists point the finger of responsibility at ISIS. “We saw a huge fire and security forces arrived and extinguished the fire. But the church was completely destroyed, you can see only ashes here,” remarked one eyewitness to the attack.

The fate of the Middle East’s remaining Christians — often open to abuse and attack at any moment — appears little these days in mainstream media news stories, which presently focus on terrorist outrages in Europe instead. Reporting has likewise been dominated, since 2015, by coverage of the continuing Muslim migration from Africa and Asia into Europe.

Given the recent targeting of churches in several European nations, the omission is unfortunate.

Why Was Iran Given Secret Exemptions from Key Nuclear-Deal Requirements? Yet more signs that the agreement was a fraud. By Fred Fleitz

In an important report issued yesterday, the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington, D.C. arms-control think tank, revealed that Iran was secretly granted exemptions to the July 2015 nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) so it could meet compliance requirements for what the agreement calls “Implementation Day” — when Iran was to receive an estimated $150 billion in sanctions relief.

Not coincidentally, the same day Implementation Day was announced (January 18), U.S. officials also announced a swap of 18 Iranian prisoners held by the United States for five U.S. citizens who had been illegally held by Iran. An additional 14 Iranians were removed from an INTERPOL wanted list.

The Institute report cites an unnamed official who said that without these exemptions, some of Iran’s nuclear facilities would not have been in compliance with the JCPOA by Implementation Day.

The exemptions were granted by the JCPOA’s “Joint Commission,” composed of the parties to the agreement: Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, and Russia. Some of the exemptions were significant and allowed Iran to not report activities with nuclear weapons-related applications. These exemptions were:

Allowing Iran to violate a cap of 300 kg for its enriched-uranium stockpile under certain circumstances. The Commission gave Iran an exemption for reactor-grade enriched UF6 (uranium hexafluoride, the feed material for enrichment centrifuges) in the form of low-level and sludge waste. This may have been a minor violation although the report said the amount of this material is unknown.

Ignoring “lab contaminant” UF6 enriched to 20 percent uranium-235 judged as “unrecoverable.” Although this may also be a minor violation, the report says the amount of this material and how it was judged unrecoverable is not known.

Exemption for large “hot cells.” The JCPOA allows Iran to operate or build hot cells (shielded chambers used to handle radioactive substances), but to ensure they are used for peaceful purposes such as producing medical radionuclides, Iran agreed that for 15 years these cells will be limited to no more than six cubic meters. The Commission gave Iran an exemption to operate 22 larger hot cells. According to the Institute report, these larger cells could be secretly misused for plutonium-separation experiments. The Institute also raised concerns that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not adequately monitoring Iran’s hot cells and that Iran is exploiting this exemption to win approval to operate more hot cells with volumes greater than six cubic meters. This is a potentially serious exemption because plutonium-separation experiments have only one purpose: developing the capability to produce plutonium nuclear-weapons fuel.

The report also noted two other secret decisions by the Joint Commission.

Obama’s Iran Deal Is a Fraud on the American People He and Kerry worked with Tehran to excuse and ‘exempt’ its flouting of its commitments. By Andrew C. McCarthy

Iran “has fully implemented its required commitments.” That was the representation Obama secretary of state John Kerry made to the American people in announcing on January 16 — “Implementation Day” of President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal (aka, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) — that international economic sanctions were consequently being lifted against Iran.

Secretary Kerry added that “Iran has undertaken significant steps that many, and I do mean many, people doubted would ever come to pass.” Still, Kerry promised, the Obama administration would continue watching the mullahs like a hawk, thus “assuring continued full compliance” with the regime’s JCPOA commitments.

The same day, President Obama signed an executive order lifting a number of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. We now know he also set in motion a furtive $400 million cash transfer to the regime as a ransom (which the administration calls “leverage”) for the release of four American hostages — the first installment of a carefully structured $1.7 billion side payment to Iran (ostensibly in settlement of a failed 1970s arms deal), details about which the administration continues to withhold from Congress and the public.

All of this was based on this purported “full implementation” of Iran’s “required commitments” under the JCPOA touted by Obama and Kerry. And all of it was a deliberate, audacious, elaborately plotted lie.

The Institute for Science and International Security (hereafter, the Institute) reported on Thursday that Iran was not in full compliance with its JCPOA commitments on Implementation Day, as was required — we were led to believe — before Iran was to get sanctions relief. What’s more, the Obama administration not only well knew that Iran was not in compliance; it also colluded with Iran, through the secretive JCPOA device known as the “Joint Commission,” in order to exempt Iran’s multiple violations from compliance requirements.

Got it? As Obama and Kerry were telling you that Iran had “fully implemented its required commitments,” and that the administration would continue working energetically to ensure future continued “full compliance” with those commitments, Obama and Kerry were working with Iran to excuse its flouting of its commitments — and, it turns out, to lay the groundwork for future “exemptions” from compliance.

FBI Documents Show Hillary Clinton Used Many Email Devices Colin Powell warned former secretary of state her work-related messages could become subject to public release By Byron Tau

Hillary Clinton used more than a dozen email devices during her time as secretary of state, and a technician took steps to delete an archive of her emails after House lawmakers demanded they be saved, according to documents released Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The newly public information also shows that Mrs. Clinton was warned at the outset of her tenure by former Secretary of State Colin Powell that her work-related email messages could become subject to public release. And in an interview with FBI agents in July, the Democratic presidential candidate offered a defense of her handling of sensitive drone-strike conversations.

The new disclosures were contained in two documents released by the FBI on Friday—a report summarizing the bureau’s investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement, which concluded with a recommendation that she not be prosecuted, and a summary of her interview. The FBI said it was releasing the material in the interests of transparency.
On Friday, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said, “We are pleased that the FBI has released the materials from Hillary Clinton’s interview, as we had requested.” He added, “While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the Justice Department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case.”

The documents disclosed few dramatic new facts, but they painted a picture of Mrs. Clinton as inattentive to computer security and unsophisticated about the classification system. They also confirmed a Wall Street Journal report in June that the FBI was especially concerned about email exchanges including Mrs. Clinton that concerned possible drone strikes.

Much in the documents is redacted, with information removed for security, privacy or other reasons, leaving significant gaps in the FBI’s information and conclusions.

The report contains the descriptions of an email exchange between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Powell, secretary of state under President George W. Bush, in which Mr. Powell warned her two days after she became secretary that if her use of a BlackBerry became “public,” her emails could become part of the “official record and subject to the law.”

“Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data,” said Mr. Powell. A spokeswoman for Mr. Powell didn’t respond to a request for comment. CONTINUE AT SITE

Turkey: Child Rape Widespread, Media Blackout by Robert Jones

The journalist who reported the rape for the newspaper Birgun, said that that he and the newspaper received countless death threats on social media for reporting the case.

Turkey’s constitutional court in July annulled a criminal code provision punishing all sexual acts involving children under the age of 15 as “sexual abuse”, giving a six-month period for parliament to draw up a new law.

The facts on the ground indicate that the sexual abuse of children in Turkey is extremely widespread and the Turkish state authorities are not acting responsibly.

When Syrian babies and other children, as well as women, are being raped and treated horribly in Turkey, and their abusers go free; when journalists covering these abuses are threatened; when publication bans are imposed on the crimes committed against Syrians, and when criminals are given “good conduct abatement” by courts, Turkey seems to be one of the last countries on earth to have the moral right to demand visa-free travel in Europe or anywhere else.

Turkey has once again threatened to tear up a controversial migrant deal and send hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers to Europe if its citizens are not granted visa-free travel to the European Union within months.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, demanded the EU drop visa requirements for Turkish citizens by October.

Meanwhile, Syrian children are being raped and abused inside and outside of refugee camps in Turkey.

The Clinton Foundation: Cashing in on the Theater of Charity Without the Actual Results By Andrew C. McCarthy

The Left wins many arguments by setting the framework of the debate, often by indignant brushback pitches establishing that certain topics are strictly out of bounds – on pain of banishment from polite media society. Generally, those topics are the ones they know can hurt them. As Nathan J. Robinson illustrates in a striking profile of the Clinton Foundation in Current Affairs, Camp Clinton is striving to set a firm rule for discussions of the “charity” now at center stage in the presidential campaign: Don’t you dare question the good work done by the Foundation. Robinson notes, for example, James Carville’s admonition that “somebody is going to hell” for questioning the Foundation’s fundraising practices in light of all the wonderful things we are to believe it does.

As has reliably been the case over the years, establishment Republicans and other Clinton critics feel compelled to salute Bill and Hill’s heroic dedication to “public service” – their unimpeachable intentions and sincere efforts – before zeroing in on the shenanigans by which the pair has managed to cash in to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Recall the praise heaped on the Clintons by the Bush family and Senator John McCain.

Things are no different when it comes to the Clinton Foundation: Public etiquette requires genuflection to the Clintons’ selflessness before one may marvel at how they grab with all four hands.

It is a good strategy. The Clintons’ grubbiness is surely extraordinary, but only by degree – albeit big degree. Putting the State Department or the White House up for sale is huge, but it is not different in principle from what other shady pols do on the smaller scale available to them. Since the public tends to think of politics as an inherently shady business, the Clintons are apt to be given immunity, even for their monumental corruption, if it is stipulated from the start that it is all for the greater good of charity on a grand global scale.

But of course, it’s not. Indeed, it is not charity at all. As acknowledged (in Robinson’s piece) by longtime Clinton confidant Ira Magaziner, head of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, “the whole thing is bankable…. It’s a commercial proposition. This is not charity.” Robinson continues:

Instead of aid, the Clinton Foundation spends much of its effort “creating new markets,” finding lucrative investment opportunities in the developing world for Western private capital. These have included everything from “using business methods to streamline fertilizer markets in Africa” to “working with credit card companies to expand the volume of low-cost loans offered to poor inner city residents.” (Note that typically, enticing poor people into taking on large amounts of credit card debt is not among the activities of a charitable foundation.) Bill Clinton is open about the fact that in this work, he is trying to help corporations profit from the developing world. He attempts to “reinvent philanthropy” as a lucrative enterprise for his partners because, in his words, “I think it’s wrong to ask anyone to lose money.”

It’s hard to keep track of all the “commercial propositions” the Foundation is engaged in, because it operates in a highly unusual fashion. Ordinarily, charitable foundations make grants to outside organizations. But only 15% of the Clinton Foundation’s spending is on charitable grants. Instead, it spends most of its money on its in-house programs, whose efficacy can be far more difficult to track. The task is made even more difficult thanks to the Foundation’s ongoing allergy to transparency.

Partly because of that, Charity Navigator, a watchdog group, at one point added the Clinton Foundation to its watch list of problematic charities, and still does not rate the organization because its “atypical business model. . . doesn’t meet our criteria.” The Clinton Health Access Initiative has refused to allow the charity evaluation organization GiveWell to analyze its outcomes, and the Better Business Bureau has listed the Clinton Foundation as failing to meet the basic standards for reporting the effectiveness of its programs. Bill Allison of the pro-transparency Sunlight Foundation has gone much further, and said that the organization operates as a “slush fund for the Clintons.”

Hillary Clinton’s Mind-Boggling FBI Interview – What Was Cheryl Mills Doing There? Andrew McCarthy

The FBI-302 report of the interview of Hillary Clinton, along with the other notes of investigation released today, make for mind boggling reading. Most bracing is the fact that Mrs. Clinton had her server wiped clean sometime between March 25 and 31, 2015, only three weeks after the New York Times on March 3 broke the story of the server system’s existence. David notes that, at the same time the Democrats’ Janus-faced presidential nominee was outwardly taking the position that she “want[ed] the public to see my email,” she was having her minions frantically purge her emails behind the scenes. I’d add that this was five months before she feigned ignorance when Fox News’s Ed Henry pressed her on whether she’d “tried to wipe the entire server … so there could be no email – no personal, no official.” Henry finally asked, “Did you wipe the server?”

Famously, Clinton scoffed, “Like with a cloth or something?” But we now know, as the FBI notes recount, she had the server purged with a sophisticated software program, BleachBit, which eventually made it extraordinarily difficult for the FBI to recover her emails, several thousand of which were successfully destroyed. And remember: We’ve just learned that 30 emails related to Benghazi were on the server Clinton purged – emails that she never turned over to the State Department despite claiming repeatedly that she’d surrendered all of her government-related emails. I would thus note that the March 2015 purge right after public revelation of the server’s existence occurred long after Mrs. Clinton was well aware of several official government investigations of the Benghazi massacre – one by the State Department, several by Congress, and a judicial proceeding involving the one defendant who has been indicted for the terrorist attack.

There were also, quite obviously, several relevant Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigations. From what I’ve been able to glean so far, it is not clear from the FBI’s notes (and it was certainly not clear from Director James Comey’s press conference and House testimony) whether any consideration was given to indicting Mrs. Clinton for obstruction of justice and of government investigations – and if not, why not. Among the most eye-popping claims Clinton made to the FBI was that she was unfamiliar with the markings on classified documents. Yes, you read that correctly: one of the highest ranking national security officials in the United States government – an official whose day-to-day responsibilities extensively involved classified information; who had secure facilities installed in her two homes (in addition to her office) so she could review classified information in them; and who acknowledged to the FBI that, as secretary of state, she was designated by the president as “an Original Classification Authority,” meaning she had the power to determine what information should be classified and at what level – had the audacity to tell the interviewing agents that she did not know what the different classification symbols in classified documents signified. For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol “(C)” – meaning “confidential,” a designation ubiquitous in classified documents – Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, “could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.”

Israeli football teams ready to take on the world — part 2 :Steve Leibowitz

After arriving in Marco Polo Airport in Venice, Italy, Yonah Mishaan and I went to get our rented 9-seater Fiat van, which the coach calls our Mercava tank. We proceeded to drive to the host city of Lignano Sabbiadoro, located about an hour’s drive away. Thanks to the Israeli-invented Waze GPS, our journey was easy. Before arriving at our hotel, I spotted a soccer stadium and we soon realized that this was “Stadio G. Teghil” where our football games would be played in the coming days. Italian football officials were on the field, placing all the markings for the gridiron. We were greeted warmly by our Italian friends who we had gotten to know at previous football events organized by the International Federation of American football. They graciously showed us the Israeli team locker room that had already been inspected by our Israeli security personnel.

Upon reaching Hotel Falcon, Yonah and I met the Israeli cooks who arrived a day earlier to prepare kosher food for our team. Feeding 45 football players and 18 support staff is a daunting task, when all of the food is kosher. Only about a third of our team are observant, but our entire team, including non-Jewish players and coaches, will eat kosher in Italy. We have many observant players and the Israel American Football Federation is the only sports federation in the country that will not play on Shabbat, and observes Jewish dietary laws.

In the evening, Yonah and I visited the beautiful coastal town of Lignano Sabbiadoro, which is not usually on the tourist agenda of most Israeli visitors.

Thursday morning, we headed to meet the rest of the team, back at the Venice airport, where a bus was waiting to bring the full contingent to the hotel. Loading up the players, each carrying their football gear, reminded me of mobilizing a reserve IDF platoon. Each player carried a duffle bag, with his helmet, shoulder pads, cleats and uniform. They looked grim and determined for the battle ahead.

CAROLINE GLICK ON OBAMA AND IRAN DEAL

On August 4, during the course of a press conference, Obama gave his interim assessment of his nuclear agreement with Iran. “It worked,” he insisted.The time for complaining about President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran has passed. The time has come to overcome the damage enormous damage his signature foreign policy accomplishment has caused.

To understand why this is the case, it is important to understand the breadth and depth of Obama’s failure.

A year after the deal was signed, Obama argued, events have proven that he was right and the deal’s critics were wrong.

“You’ll recall that there were all these horror stories about how Iran was going to cheat and this wasn’t going to work and Iran was going to get $150 billion to finance terrorism and all these kinds of scenarios, and none of them have come to pass,” he proclaimed.

Obama then snidely swiped at the deal’s opponents saying that it would be “impressive” if the people who criticized the deal would own up to their mistakes and admit that it worked.

As it works out, everything that Obama said about the deal with Iran during his press conference was a lie.

Some of his lies became apparent within hours.

For instance, Obama falsely claimed that Israel now “acknowledges this has been a game changer and Iran has abided by the deal and they no longer have the sort of short-term breakout capacity that would allow them to develop nuclear weapons.”