RUTHFULLY YOURS

These barbarians are now called “Islamic State Militants” instead of terrorists?……rsk

BAGHDAD—Islamic State fighters fled their last bastion in the center of the city of Ramadi on Sunday, putting Iraqi forces and their allies within reach of their third major victory in as many months against the extremist group.
Though the Iraqi forces have built up momentum against the militants, Islamic State still controls major cities and vast territory in both Iraq and Syria and has carried out or inspired recent terror attacks from Paris to California.
State television beamed images of young men cheering, dancing and singing in streets across Iraq while greeting passing soldiers, even though the army hadn’t yet declared Ramadi completely under its control.
Security forces have encircled a former government compound that was the last area of the city held by Islamic State and prepared a final push to clear out any remaining fighters and explosives, Iraqi officials said. A number of Iraqi leaders said they were confident the city would fall imminently, once the army cleared hundreds of land mines and other explosives.
“Our forces reached the government compound and surrounded it,” said Capt. Rami Emad, a military spokesman. “We don’t think the forces will enter the compound tonight since it has become dark and they are clearing the surrounding roads and buildings of improvised explosive devices.”

The great struggle against radical Islam is being complicated in the West by a phobia of Islamophobia.
Of course, prejudice against Muslims should be condemned. But the accusation of Islamophobia confuses prejudice with legitimate criticism of Islam and concerns about Islamic extremism.
An example of this has surfaced in Britain with the publication by an organization called Hope not Hate (HnH), titled, “The Counter-Jihad Movement: Anti-Muslim Hatred from the Margins to the Mainstream.”
This document profiles 920 organizations and individuals in 22 countries. It says that they make no distinction between moderate Muslims and extremists, that they are “mainstreaming” anti-Muslim hatred, and that their “anti-Muslim rhetoric poisons the political discourse sometimes with deadly effect.”
Outrageously, the document links neo-Nazi and fascist groups with Middle East scholars such as Dr. Daniel Pipes and even with courageous Muslim reformers such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and stellar counter- jihadists such as the Somalian campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
A number of these counter-jihadists already live under a permanent Islamist threat to their lives. Yet, astoundingly, HnH accuses them of spreading anti-Muslim hatred.
I, too, am included in this grotesque list, even though I have repeatedly acknowledged the many millions of Muslims who are neither extreme nor violent and emphasized that the Islamist perspective is merely one interpretation of Islam. Moreover, I am described as a “supporter of Israel” – as if it is axiomatic that Israel supporters will be Muslim-bashers.
Like several other victims of this document’s smears, I have placed this matter in the hands of my lawyers. But there is a yet more disturbing aspect to this calumny. For HnH is supported and backed by mainstream UK Jewish organizations.

Other than the need to discredit her party’s former leader and push what might be termed the Turnbull Doctrine of warm-and-cuddly relativism, what in the name of Heaven could have possessed the Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs to present Islamic dogma as incontrovertible fact?
It is entirely appropriate for Australians to hold Muslims accountable for the statements and actions of their religious leaders. Writing in The Australian, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has attempted to throw light on the challenge of Islamic radicalism. She offers a ‘reality check’ by injecting what she asserts are ‘basic facts’ into the public debate. However she only succeeds in promoting misinformation and multiplying confusion.

Why must the Australian assistant minister for multicultural affairs present Islamic dogma as incontrovertible fact? Fierravanti-Wells astonishingly declares the Koran to be ‘a collection of revelations from God to the Prophet Mohammed.’ Does she really accept it as a ‘basic fact’ – for the purpose of public debate – that Mohammed was God’s prophet, or that the Koran is a genuine revelation from God? Surely only a believing Muslim could make such a declaration and mean it?

Why can Fierravanti-Wells not show more sensitivity to disbelievers in Islam – the majority of her audience – by adopting an objective stance, for example by saying ‘Muslims believe the Koran to be a collection of revelations from God,’ or ‘Muslims believe Mohammed to be a prophet’?

Good for a Laugh

Why are Christians mocked with a vitriol that would be “hate speech” if directed at any other group? Opposition by some of Christ’s followers to elements of the liberal-progressive agenda must surely be one reason. Another might be that our brave artists target only those who turn the other cheek
Picture this: on the side of a van in a busy street, a larger-than-life representation of the holy Prophet himself, stepping out on a journey, perhaps en route to Medina during the Hegira. He is carrying a heavy burden. Between him and a bystander, who seems rather taken aback by this apparition, a bubble contains the words, “How much to Ballarat?”

The van belongs to an “art courier” called Artist Moving Artists, and you can see the image on its website (www.artistmovingartists.com.au). But just before you check, of course the image doesn’t represent Mohammed. As if it would and the van still be driving freely around. Someone would have complained by now or sued under Section 18C citing Islamophobia. In some places—perhaps even here soon—the van would be torched or the driver decapitated.

No, the image represents Christ and He is carrying His cross, and for all the apparent ease with which He is depicted shouldering this burden, He is on His way to be crucified. The crucifixion of Christ, as Quadrant readers will not need to be reminded, but a lot of other people these days evidently do, is at the heart of the Christian religion. It and the scourging and the long trek up the hill to Calvary which preceded it are not only sacred redemptive events for Christians but in human terms a horrifying sequence of brutality and suffering. So of course to a certain mind they are a perfect topic to make fun of, a golden opportunity for satirising a bruised and bleeding man on his way to a cruel death.

The Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are no different from their brothers in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Libya, who face a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing at the hands Islamist groups. Yet Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders want the world to blame only Israel for the predicament of Christians.

The PA’s decision to cancel Christmas celebrations had nothing to do with Israel or the “intifada.” It came after threats by Muslim extremists to target Christians and their holy sites.

On Christmas Day, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car taking the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land to Bethlehem. It would not surprise anyone if next year the PA decides to cancel Christmas celebrations for “security reasons.”

If, in the media and the international community, this strategy of turning a blind eye to the Muslim persecution of Christians continues, next year’s Christmas in Bethlehem is sure to be an even less happy one.

This was not a happy Christmas for our Palestinian brothers in the West Bank who happen to be Christian. The Palestinian Christians have now become a tiny minority in Bethlehem. This year, they were just lucky that Christmas passed without a major terrorist attack or serious outbreaks of violence.

On Christmas day, Muslim Palestinians hurled stones at the car taking the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, to Bethlehem. Twal, head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, was fortunately not hurt in the attack. The stone-throwers, local residents said, were from a refugee camp near Bethlehem. They had apparently said they were opposed to holding any form of celebrations in Bethlehem — on the pretext that there is no reason to celebrate while Palestinians are being killed by Israelis — who, by the way, have merely been trying to stop Palestinians from killing them.

Butchering innocents is standard operating procedure for Arab/Moslem barbarians….remember this atrocity? ” …..an attack on a Jewish family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdered in their beds. The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant. The infant was decapitated. rsk

“People are even killed inside the camps, and the refugees are afraid to say if they saw somebody get killed. … they’re buying and selling ladies and even girls.”— Former ISIS operative.

“We will not stop hunting Christians and burning churches. Christians are Allah’s enemies!” — Extremist Islamic leaders, Indonesia.

“My family members and I have been marked for death, and everyone in the community denied ever knowing my family or me…” — A convert to Christianity, Nigeria.

“In Bangladesh, Christians are a weak minority and this is why Muslims are attacking us.” — Nirmal Rozario, general secretary of the Bangladesh Christian Association.

Teams of trained killers disguised as refugees were sent by the Islamic State (IS) into U.N. refugee camps to kill Christians, including “in their beds,” and to kidnap young girls to sell or use as slaves. This was revealed on October 24, according to a report, soon after an IS operative “got cold feet and renounced jihad after witnessing Christians helping out other refugees within the camp. He then revealed that he had been sent with an Islamist hit squad to eliminate Christians as part of the hate group’s ideological drive to wipe the religion off the map.” The report also quoted an aid worker saying:

They’re like a mafia. People are even killed inside the camps, and the refugees are afraid to say if they saw somebody get killed. If you ask them, they’ll say, “I don’t know, I was asleep.”… The camps are dangerous because they have IS, Iraqi militias and Syrian militias. It’s another place for gangs…. They’re killing inside the camps, and they’re buying and selling ladies and even girls.