RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUpfwBY5gPI

Is the new Syrian leader, al-Jolani, truly transformed from a terrorist into a pragmatic statesman? Or, is he employing Taqiyya—disguise and deception—to lure Western nations into a trap? Explore the shifting tactics, underlying motives, and what it means for international relations.
US policy should condition the lifting of sanctions and the resumption of diplomatic ties on ending hate education, halting inciting sermons, stopping hateful official media, and publicly disavowing the vision of establishing a global Islamic society governed solely by Islam.

https://www.nysun.com/article/macrons-hidden-game-turn-against-israel-animated-by-rising-political-clout-of-french-muslims

According to the latest Elabe/Les Echos polling, only 21 percent of the French — one citizen out of five — say they trust President Emmanuel Macron, writ large, and 73 percent say they don’t. More remarkably, only 41 percent of the French who voted for him in the 2022 presidential election say they still trust him, and 54 percent say they don’t any longer. 

Likewise, 62 percent of the French — according to an even more recent CSA poll — don’t trust the president either when it comes to stemming a rising tide of antisemitism, despite his protestations to the contrary. 

Monsieur Macron was indignant when both the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the American ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, publicly questioned his stand in this matter a few days ago.

It looks like more than six French citizens out of ten side with Israel’s premier and America’s envoy rather than with their own president on this issue. “Trust” is a key word here. The French are not so absurdly down to earth as to expect their president to succeed in all his endeavors. Yet the record of the present administration — now in its eighth year — keeps getting worse. 

In 2024, France ranks 24th globally in gross domestic product per capita, according to the International Monetary Fund. That is down from 11th place in the 1990s and 19th in 2017, the year Monsieur Macron was first elected. Public debt has soared to around 113 percent of the GDP in 2024, placing France third in the European Union behind Greece and Italy. Insecurity is rampant: Serious assaults rose to 628.3 per 100,000 in 2023 from 396.5 per 100,000 reported in 2017, according to United Nations statistics.

Immigration has slipped out of control, leading 61 percent of the French to believe that a “great replacement” by non-European immigrants is underway. The political scene has been thrown into chaos after the reckless dissolution of 2024 and the election of a new, hung National Assembly. A centrist, François Bayrou, Macron’s fourth prime minister in less than two years, might not survive a vote of no-confidence next week.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21877/france-silent-dictatorship

On March 31, 2025, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced Marine Le Pen to five years of electoral “ineligibility” with immediate effect…. This sentence, described by the defendant as a “witch hunt”, bars the frontrunner in the polls from standing in the 2027 French presidential election.

The aim of this maneuver is clear: to remove the opposition leader from competing for the highest office in the land.

These court rulings form an impenetrable wall: an elected majority can vote, but the “wise” guardians of the left ensure that nothing passes that offends egalitarianism, environmentalism or the dogma of open borders.

In France, sadly, democracy, has become nothing more than an illusion: the people vote, but the bureaucracy blocks the will of the voters.

The new dictatorship appears based on a single ideology and the gradual suppression of freedoms and subverting the constitutional order in favor of a supposedly superior caste, whose contours, methods and appetites are reminiscent of what our American friends call the “deep state” – self-appointed bureaucrats running your life behind the scenes, where there is no transparency, accountability or readily available means to remove them.

In a cruel twist of history, France, the self-proclaimed cradle of the Enlightenment and freedom, has turned into a regime where democracy is nothing more than a mask, concealing a dictatorship that is still in its infancy but nonetheless unflinching. It is not a dictatorship of boots and uniforms; it is a hushed tyranny, judicial and institutional, crushing any hint of real change under the weight of its legal trappings.

I. France, a formal dictatorship: the judicial elimination of opponents

In a democracy, elections are the inviolable sanctuary of the popular will. In the France of 2025, justice, like a partisan guillotine, falls on opposition figures with surgical precision, rendering them supposedly too disqualified to compete. Examples reveal a damning pattern: searches (National Rally party), convictions (François Fillon, Marine Le Pen, Nicolas Sarkozy), smear campaigns (Éric Zemmour).

On March 31, 2025, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced Marine Le Pen to five years of electoral “ineligibility” with immediate effect, in the so-called European parliamentary assistants case. This sentence, described by the defendant as a “witch hunt”, bars the frontrunner in the polls from standing in the 2027 French presidential election.

The aim of this maneuver is clear: to remove the opposition leader from competing for the highest office in the land. The judges justified their decision on the grounds of misappropriation of European funds for the party’s national activities. Money it seems, intended for the party’s operations at European level was instead used by the national party in France. That is the whole story. It is a far cry from a violent crime or personal enrichment. No personal enrichment on the part of Le Pen was ever found. The timing of this ruling and the provisional exorbitant enforcement, betray the manipulation of the justice system by her opponents.

This is not an isolated case. The legal persecution of Le Pen’s National Rally is far from over.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/28/europe-in-the-balance/

Almost weekly in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, a sensational assault committed by an illegal migrant—often enjoying some sort of state support or with prior arrests for the same crime—surfaces.

Until recently, European politicians and the media sought to either ignore such news or accuse those who clamored for tighter borders, more police protection, and stiffer penalties of being “racists” or “xenophobes.”

Until recently, that is.

Mass protests are now common in Britain against the Labour Party’s open borders policies and generous welfare entitlements for immigrants who arrive illegally and without authentic “political refugee” status.

Greek officials, also swamped by illegal immigration, now cite President Trump’s secure border policies as new models for their own.

The majority of European immigrants now come from majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet many arrivals seem angrier at their newfound liberal hosts than at the dictatorships they fled back home.

Europe’s immigration policies will not work in a multiethnic democracy.

Too many immigrants are arriving too quickly, without sufficient diversity, language fluency, skills, or familiarity with the customs and culture of their host nations. They often enter with separatist religious and cultural values antithetical to the very place they seek refuge.

Yet, there is no European plan of civic education to assimilate immigrants and teach them the rules, laws, and culture of their hosts.

It is then no surprise that what follows is ghettoization, resentment, and loud attacks on the very nation in which they seek sanctuary, denouncing it as decadent and godless.

In the past, Europe’s anemic military budgets, reliance on borrowed money, socialism, and a once-strong economy papered over these existential challenges of illegal immigration.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21855/persecution-of-christians-july

Muslim extremists now forbid Christians from farming, and punish defiance with shootings, kidnappings, and threats against families. Thousands remain displaced, living in overcrowded shelters with no food or medical care….. Despite military presence, extremist Muslim militias continue to terrorize rural Christian communities with near total impunity. — persecution.org, July 1, 2025 — Nigeria.

Entire families were found burned alive in their homes. “They came from all sides, shooting and setting houses on fire. Anyone who ran was shot.”…. “The fact that this community… reported the imminent attack to the STF military officers at that military checkpoint makes it more worrisome, suspicious and raises many questions.” — Farmer Ezekiel Dung, persecution.org, July 22, 2025 — Nigeria.

“[K]illings, kidnappings and robberies persist without real measures being implemented to curb them,” highlighting the Syrian government’s failure to protect Christian and other non-Muslim communities. — syriacpress.com, July 10, 2025 — Syria.

The situation in Syria’s Christian Valley remains dire. Locals who once defended their communities now face persecution despite promises that Christians would be spared. One resident… explained that his home was “destroyed” and “looted,” and that authorities had “placed an arrest on his piece of land so he could not sell it.” Similar measures were taken against his colleague…. [T]hose who resisted the jihadist forces are now being targeted. — dzen.ru, July 6, 2025 — Syria.

According to a July 6 report, the situation in Syria’s Christian Valley remains dire. Locals who once defended their communities now face persecution despite promises that Christians would be spared. One resident, Zhoryk, former head of a self-defense unit in the valley, explained that his home was “destroyed” and “looted,” and that authorities had “placed an arrest on his piece of land so he could not sell it.” Similar measures were taken against his colleague… [T]hose who resisted the jihadist forces are now being targeted….. The report illustrates the systematic targeting of Christians who defended their communities: despite prior promises of protection, those who opposed Muslim militants are being punished under the new regime, their homes and property seized, and their leadership removed. — dzen.ru, July 6, 2025 — Syria.

According to a July 15 report, jihadists and other terrorists loyal to the nation’s new “president,” Ahmed al-Sharaa, attacked the Church of San Michel, a Greek Orthodox church. Militants looted it before setting the church on fire. Local sources described the assault as part of the new regime’s ongoing campaign against non-Sunni populations. — greekcitytimes.com, July 15, 2025 — Syria.

Turkey announced that the Armenian Cathedral of Ani — a UNESCO-listed site and “once the crown jewel of medieval Armenian architecture” — will reopen not as a church but as a mosque…. — zartonkmeda.com, July 4, 2025 — Turkey.

World Heritage Watch called on UNESCO to place the Saint Catherine Area in Egypt on the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger due to Egypt’s continued failure to uphold its World Heritage obligations. — orthodoxtimes.com, July 7, 2025 — Egypt.

[T]he church in Arudy was desecrated with excrement (an old jihadist tactic). Feces were smeared on the inside and outside of the church, and on its altar. Parish priest Father Armand Paillé called it “deliberate and symbolic,” saying vandals sought to “reduce the church and the faithful to what they left behind.” — intoleranceagainstchristians.edu, July 13, 2025 — France.

[T]hrongs of Muslims surrounding the Helsinki Cathedral, while waving Islamic State flags and engaging in provocative behavior. — x.com, July 9, 2025 — Finland.

[H]undreds if not thousands of Muslims encircle[ed] Melbourne’s cathedral while waving Islamic flags and engaging in militant behavior. The X account of Christian Emergency Alliance adds that “These are acts of intimidation and insulting attempts at domination. Christians must not tolerate these disrespectful acts of intolerance.” — x.com, July 8, 2025 — Australia.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21850/support-the-iranian-people

How can the West, particularly European states, which never hesitate to lecture others on democracy and human rights, stay silent when one of the most oppressed peoples in the world was risking everything for those very ideals?

It is high time for an approach that does not cower behind diplomatic fears or economic loss.

To the European Union: stop delivering lectures on human rights while turning your back on those who fight and die for them.

The shift from empowering a regime to empowering its people would mark the first time in more than four decades that Western policy truly aligned with democratic values.

It is also worth asking why is it considered acceptable for Iran’s rulers to openly call for the assassination of a U.S. president and attempt to assassinate Western officials, yet somehow unacceptable for Western leaders to plainly say, “we support the Iranian people’s right to freedom”?

The choice facing the West, particularly European governments and the Trump administration, is simple. Continue down the path of quiet complicity, driven by fear and greed, or choose to be remembered as champions of freedom.

History does not remember as heroes those who stayed silent in the face of tyranny…. This is the moment to choose which side you will be on.

For more than 40 years, the people of Iran have lived under a suffocating dictatorship that has stripped them of their freedoms, denied them basic human rights, and crushed any glimmer of hope for a better future. Yet despite the unrelenting repression, the Iranian people have never stopped dreaming of liberty. They have taken to the streets again and again, often at unimaginable personal risk, demanding the right to live in dignity and determine their own future. Each time, they have been met with the full force of a ruthless regime that treats dissent as treason and humanity as an afterthought. This struggle for freedom is not a fleeting political cause — it is the very heartbeat of a nation that refuses to surrender its spirit.

Iran’s brave uprisings have united students, workers, women and ordinary citizens, demanding change. They rose up in 1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, 2022 and beyond — each time with breathtaking courage. Sadly, every one of these movements was crushed brutally. Security forces flooded the streets, firing on unarmed crowds, arresting thousands and torturing detainees. Families have been left with no answers, their loved ones disappearing into the nightmare of the regime’s prisons. Many who are arrested never return. Some who do return are permanently scarred, physically and emotionally. The message from Iran’s rulers has been consistent: dissent will be extinguished by any means necessary.