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February 2018

Europe Brussels Neighborhood Struggles to Break Ties to Terrorism Molenbeek confronts legacy as caldron of Paris and Brussels attacks with policing and job trainingBy Valentina Pop

BRUSSELS—This week’s trial of the only surviving assailant from the November 2015 Paris attacks has refocused attention on the Brussels district of Molenbeek where he grew up and was captured.

Salah Abdeslam’s trial for attempted murder is a painful reminder for the neighborhood of its role as the breeding ground of the terror cell that killed 130 people in those attacks and another 32 in Brussels in suicide bombings on March 22, 2016.Molenbeek Mayor Françoise Schepmans, who has lived in the neighborhood for over 50 years, keeps the memory of those attacks alive, among other things with a monument to Brussels victims installed in front of the district’s opulent 19th-century town hall. “This is part of our history,” she said. “Molenbeek was a fertile ground for terrorism.”

Now she says her office is working to make it less so, both by stepping up policing and by promoting efforts to improve cultural and economic opportunities for Molenbeek’s residents.

Under the authority of zoning regulations, district authorities have launched periodic checks to ensure Molenbeek’s mosques aren’t fostering militant versions of Islam. Five of the neighborhood’s 25 mosques and Quranic schools have been shut down on those grounds over the past two years.

Law-enforcement efforts have also increased since 2016, with a doubling of surveillance cameras and a beefed-up police force. Molenbeek now has three rather than just one security official charged with keeping tabs on two-dozen families suspected of radicalism.

Belgian prosecutors on Thursday asked that Mr. Abdeslam be given 20 years in prison for his involvement in a shoot-out with police officers in Brussels days before the Brussels attacks. Mr. Abdeslam’s lawyer on Thursday demanded his acquittal on procedural grounds and said there was no evidence his client opened fire. The trial will resume on March 29.Molenbeek, once home to Mr. Abdeslam and many of the dead men alleged to have been his co-conspirators, faces daunting economic challenges. Located just west of central Brussels, it is among the poorest of Belgium’s 589 districts, and its 27% unemployment rate in 2016—the latest year with available data—was more than triple the 7.8% national level. Youth unemployment was 38%, compared with 20% nationally, and youth workers say a third of local students are two or more years behind in school. CONTINUE AT SITE

Israel Strikes Syrian Targets After Intercepting Iranian Drone Jet crashes in Israeli territory, but military says it wasn’t shot down By Rory Jones

Israel’s military said it carried out extensive airstrikes on Syrian targets Saturday after it intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria that had infiltrated its airspace, intensifying tensions between the two neighbors.

The Israeli jets came under fire from Syrian antiaircraft missiles and one crashed in Israeli territory, the military said. The F-16 aircraft wasn’t shot down and the pilots ejected, with one evacuated to the hospital in a serious condition, it added.

Syrian state media called the strikes a “new Israeli aggression.” The shots set off warning sirens in northern Israel of an imminent rocket attack, the Israeli military said.

While Israel and Syria have exchanged volleys frequently in recent months and the Israeli military has intercepted enemy drones, the incident Saturday was unusual in that Israel for the first time claimed it involved an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle.

It was also the first time Israel has lost a jet during a strike in Syria, despite dozens of airstrikes in recent years.

The Zionist answer to Arab and Muslim Terror Victor Sharpe

Facts on the ground. Let the likes of Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah and Hamas goons see before their very own eyes how their encouragement of Muslim terror results in new Jewish communities.

The two wonderful women, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover, founders of Women in Green and leaders of the Sovereignty Movement, call for the application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

They do so in a Press Release in which they condemn the latest Muslim Arab atrocity against a Jewish Israeli civilian, 29 year old Itamar Ben Gal Hy”d (may G-d avenge his blood) who was struck down near the entrance to Ariel in Samaria.

The murderous knife attack was perpetrated by a Muslim Arab with Israeli citizenship calling himself a Palestinian. His vile act, as with all other atrocities,was encouraged by the grisly terrorist, Mahmoud Abbas, whose so-called Palestinian Authority reeks of hatred against any and allmembers of the Jewish faith and people – including myopic liberal and left wing Jews.

The PA’s territory occupies large swathes of the Jewish ancestral and Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria – territory which too many nation states and hostile organizations still prefer to call by the Jordanian Arab name: West Bank.

MY SAY: ANTI-SEMANTIC IN POLAND?

The brouhaha regarding Poland’s new law is misunderstood. Poland’s defenders explain that it is all a matter of semantics. What are referred to as the “Polish death camps” were really German/Nazi camps. The correction is fair enough. But correcting a phrase leads so many Polish defenders to air-brush the complicity of Polish anti-Semites in aiding the Nazis. Oh yes…of course there were exceptions…noble people hid and helped Jews at great risk to their lives. But the majority did not and the word “Żyd”- Polish for Jew was an invective and curse.

My parents were Polish, and I speak Polish but I prefer to focus on present antisemitism hounding the Jews throughout Europe and in the entire Arab world, but to call the Polish history of brutal anti-Semitism “revisionist history, plagiarism and slander” is outrageous. My parents left Poland in 1930 because of the anti-Semitism that flourished long before the Nazi invasion. Of my family that remained- grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – all were herded into the ghetto, and killed along with millions of “Zyds” with the undeniable indifference or outright collusion of the Poles. As usual it is blamed on economics:

Exhibit A: Today on Frontpage it is explained thus:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269267/polands-new-law-criminalizing-speech-about-danusha-v-goska

“It’s undeniable that in interwar Poland, that is, between the end of WW I in 1918 and the onset of WW II in 1939, anti-Semitism flourished. The interwar period, for complicated historical reasons, saw one of the worst outbreaks of anti-Semitism in Poland’s history. Interwar anti-Semitism was largely predicated on economic grievances. Jews had occupied the middleman minority caste. Most Poles were impoverished peasants. They wanted to own shops and study to become doctors and lawyers. For some, not all Poles, these honorable ambitions veered into the dark, twisted path of anti-Semitism.”

What a pathetic explanation and excuse. rsk

Germany: Merkel Pays High Price for Fourth Term “This will not be long.” by Soeren Kern

“Merkel will govern…but her government will be under the heading ‘this will not be long.’ This refers to Merkel, and also to the fact that in many parts of the country there is the feeling that ‘this’ should not continue.” — Kurt Kister, Editor-in-Chief, Süddeutsche Zeitung.

“The CDU retains control of the beautiful-sounding, but in fact powerless, Ministry of Economy, the unpopular Ministry of Health, the crisis-prone Ministry of Defense and the shadowy existence of ministerial posts in the Chancellery, for education and agriculture. That is little for the strongest faction in the Bundestag.” — Editorial, Münchner Merkur.

“The CDU was transformed into Merkel’s own personal political party. On the way, though, the competition of political ideas—the policy conflicts that are the lifeblood of democracy and which provide voters with direction—was lost.” — René Pfister, head of the Berlin bureau, Der Spiegel.

Negotiators from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), their Bavarian partners, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) have agreed in principle on a deal for a new “grand coalition” government—one that, in fact, is the same as the one that governed prior to the last election in September 2017.

The deal, if formally ratified by the SPD’s rank and file members at a special party congress on March 4, would ensure that Germany has a new government by Easter—and that Merkel, already in power for 12 years, will remain in office for a fourth tenure as chancellor, albeit in a much-weakened position.

Unusually, the 177-page agreement, reached on February 7, is subject to review in two years, when the parties will reassess the coalition. Analysts have speculated that it may be an opportunity for Merkel finally to step down.

To ensure the deal, the three parties made concessions to each other, all in an effort to prevent fresh elections, in which the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), riding high in the polls, would almost strengthen its position in the German parliament, where it already is the main opposition party.

Clint Eastwood’s Newest American Heroes Eastwood cast the three real-life heroes in his film 15:17 to Paris. By Kyle Smith

At 87, Clint Eastwood is not only trying new things, he’s trying daring new things, and his new film 15:17 to Paris represents one of the most audacious gambits of his career. To dramatize the tale of three Americans who tackled and subdued a heavily armed Islamist terrorist on a train out of Amsterdam in 2015, Eastwood cast the young men, none of whom had professional acting experience, as themselves. It’s a decision with little precedent in the entire history of motion pictures.

The reason why few directors have ever taken this tack is acutely evident, though: The three childhood friends, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler, don’t have much to offer in the way of facial expressions or vocal intonations. In short, they’re not actors, and Eastwood should have hired professionals.

A worse failing of the movie, though, is a flat, dull script by Dorothy Blyskal that frames the story in terms of the young men’s backgrounds. 15:17 to Paris is in essence a single gripping scene of about ten minutes puffed out to feature length. Though the movie is, at 94 minutes, the shortest of the 36 features Eastwood has directed, a large chunk of it is filler in which we watch the guys amble around tourist attractions in Rome, Venice, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Absolutely nothing of interest happens in any of these scenes — for instance, Stone and Skarlatos meet a girl in Venice, have pizza with her, and then she disappears and is forgotten — except Stone muses that he’s heading for something important in his life. That sense of purpose is tied in with his faith — all three of the principal characters are practicing Christians — and these days it is unusual for a mainstream Hollywood film to take an unabashed pro-Christian stance.

The Idolatry of Journalism The Newseum is a monument of absurd self-praise. By Kyle Smith

Gaze upon the colossal edifice at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue in the national capital and you might get the impression that something really important is happening, or at least being recreated, inside. Pass through the Newseum’s doors, however, and your excitement may quickly be doused: It’s essentially a building full of stories you could easily find on the Internet, dull games, and large corporate displays of self-celebration. There’s a Bancroft Family Ethics Center (“kiosks allow you to tackle real-life reporting dilemmas and see how journalists and other visitors responded”), an NBC News Interactive Newsroom (“gives visitors a chance to play the role of a reporter or photographer”), and a New York Times Great Hall (“a continuous flow of news and free speech. Instant, breaking, historic news that is uncensored, diverse and free”). The privilege of strolling amid such gimmickry will cost you dearly — $25, in a city heaving with museums that cost nothing. The ticket price is higher than the Baseball Hall of Fame ($23) and the same as the (suggested) entry fee of America’s foremost repository of great painting and sculpture, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Attractions such as these, and the slippers once worn by Wonkette (I couldn’t remember her name either; upon investigation, it’s Ana Marie Cox) haven’t exactly delivered the throngs. The Newseum is mainly an event space, colorful background for canape-chewers and champagne-sippers whose custom earned the place twice as much ($18 million) last year as did admissions ($7.8 million). Overall, it lost more than $8 million last year and won’t last much longer. Its proprietors are looking for a way to sell off the building and move its contents to environs more suited to their importance — say, a fruit stand out in Gaithersburg.

Saudi Graduate of Al Qaeda Terror Training Camp Arrested In Oklahoma Alleged classmate of 9/11 hijackers attended US flight school in 2016. Michael Cutler

On February 6, The New York Times published a chilling report on the arrest in Oklahoma of a foreign national who had attended an al Qaeda training camp. The defendant in this case is Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj, a 34-year-old citizen of Saudi Arabia who has been residing in the U.S. since 2011. Allegedly he attended a terror training camp in Afghanistan in 2000 when four of the 9/11 hijacker/terrorists also attended training sessions at that very same camp.

Here is an excerpt from the Justice Department’s press release on the arrest:

According to the (criminal) complaint, the FBI found 15 of Alfallaj’s fingerprints on an application to an al Qaeda training camp, known as al Farooq, which was one of al Qaeda’s key training sites in Afghanistan. The document was recovered by the U.S. military from an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. The document is also alleged to include an emergency contact number associated with Alfallaj’s father in Saudi Arabia. Alfallaj is alleged to have first entered the U.S. in late 2011 on a nonimmigrant visa based on his wife’s status as a foreign student. According to the complaint, he answered several questions on his visa application falsely, including whether he had ever supported terrorists or terrorist organizations.

The indictment returned today charges two counts of visa fraud. Count One alleges that from March 2012 to the present, Alfallaj possessed a visa obtained by fraud. Count Two alleges he used that visa in October 2016 to apply for lessons at a private flight school in Oklahoma. The third count in the indictment charges Alfallaj with making a false statement to the FBI during a terrorism investigation when he was interviewed and denied ever having associated with anyone from a foreign terrorist group.

This is a “good news/bad news” story.

It is certainly impressive that our government was able to uncover the evidence upon which this criminal case is based, however, he was lawfully admitted into the United States in 2011, more than a decade after he received terror training. He has been in the United States for about seven years and his presence in the United States only came to the attention of the FBI when he sought pilot training in October 2016.

The Fight of Our Lives A new documentary exposes the growing threats to the West. Mark Tapson

“Civilizations, empires, great powers, can fall apart very fast. Collapse can come suddenly, like a thief in the night. And we should be very wary of assuming that our civilization, the civilization of the early 21st century West, will oblige us by declining gradually.”

That warning from noted historian Niall Ferguson is the opening and the theme of the vital new documentary The Fight of Our Lives: Defeating the Ideological War Against the West from filmmaker Gloria Z. Greenfield.

Greenfield’s previous work includes Body and Soul – The State of the Jewish Nation in 2014 (which I reviewed for FrontPage Mag here), Unmasked Judeophobia in 2011, and The Case for Israel – Democracy’s Outpost in 2009. She is the president of Doc Emet Productions, the simple and powerful motto of which is “Truth in film.” Unlike, say, propagandist Michael Moore’s front-and-center, demagogic presence in his films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, director Greenfield gets out of the way and crafts her narratives about anti-Semitism, history, Judeo-Christian values, freedom, and democracy from the authoritative, articulate arguments of the many intellectuals who lend their expertise to her projects.

Such is the case with her latest documentary, which features compelling observations and insights from well-known historians, journalists, and thinkers such as Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Alan Dershowitz, Melanie Phillips, Bruce Thornton, Raymond Ibrahim, Brooke Goldstein, Ibn Warraq, Alan West, and many more respected commentators from academia, human rights organizations, and think tanks. [Full disclosure: I am included among the featured speakers, as are David Horowitz Freedom Center Fellows Thornton and Ibrahim.]

Hillary’s boys helped Steele write the dossier By J. Marsolo

Every day we learn about more corruption on the part of Hillary. Lying about Benghazi, selling 20% of our uranium to Russia, and using an unsecure email server and lying about it are only the most recent. We can look back on Whitewater, FBI Filegate, Travelgate, and attacking the female victims of her husband, Bill Clinton. There is so much corruption that we are becoming numb to more disclosures.

The latest is that Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer, friends and associates of Hillary and Bill Clinton, supplied information to Christopher Steele for his smear job referred to as a “dossier.”

Congressman Trey Gowdy confirmed on the Martha McCallum show on February 6th that Blumenthal supplied information to Steele.

The last time we heard the word ‘dossier” was from Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in A Shot in the Dark. Although a bumbler, Clouseau was funny and honest. Steele, on the other hand, was merely a highly paid lackey acting as a conduit to pass information packaged as an investigation from Hillary to the FBI for the FBI to use against Trump.

We know that the Steele dossier was paid for by Hillary and the DNC. We know that Steele supposedly relied on paid Russian informants. We know that Comey testified in Congress on June 6, 2017 that the dossier was unverified.

Now we learn that Hillary’s boys, Blumenthal and Shearer, supplied information to Steele for his dossier.

In addition to paying for the Steele dossier, Hillary helped write it.