RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/a-hollow-holocaust-remembrance-day/?_se=

Those who support a ceasefire to allow a genocidal antisemitic movement like Hamas to commit more slaughters of Jews shouldn’t pretend to mourn the Six Million.

It’s an important date on the international community’s calendar. Every year, the United Nations and many other institutions and organizations hold ceremonies on Jan. 27 commemorating the Holocaust. It’s long been clear that much of the world did so without actually thinking seriously about what allowed the Nazis’ campaign of extermination of European Jewry to succeed as well as it did. Nor do most of those going through the motions of mourning the systematic murder of 6 million Jews or making empty promises about “never again” think much about how a supposedly civilized people like the Germans, with the help of various collaborators from other nations, convinced themselves that it was not only acceptable to kill that many people but justified to do so.

But this year, perhaps they shouldn’t bother to pretend to care about the subject. After the Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 and, even more importantly, the reaction of much of the civilized world to what happened, the meaninglessness of most of what passes for the commemoration of the Shoah by the international community and the West has become painfully obvious.

It goes beyond hypocrisy

To describe those who are indifferent to the mass slaughter of Jews today but still prepared to mouth words of indignation about those killed by the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s as merely hypocritical is insufficient.

The willingness of the world, including many of the educated elites in the West to dismiss the importance of the crimes perpetrated in southern Israel three months ago, to be effectively neutral about the murders, rapes, torture and kidnapping committed by Hamas and the Palestinians—or actually to take the side of the murderers, rapists, torturers and kidnappers—isn’t just shocking. It’s a seminal moment in modern history that not only illustrates the moral bankruptcy of a significant segment of contemporary opinion but also provides an explanation for how the Holocaust happened. As hard as it may be for us to accept, this demonstrates that Holocaust commemorations or even education programs about the destruction of European Jewry in the mid-20th century either don’t make people less likely to support more Holocausts; even worse, all this might be counterproductive.

The surge in antisemitism throughout the West in the aftermath of Oct. 7—with mobs marching in the streets of major cities and on college campuses proclaiming their support for the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet (“from the river to the sea”) and for terrorism against Jews in Israel and everywhere else (“globalize the intifada”)—and the support such positions have received in much of the corporate media was surprising to those Jews who thought such sentiments were only held by marginal extremists. Nor can they be explained as an understandable reaction to a supposedly disproportionate Israeli response to terrorism or as sympathy for Palestinians caught up in a war that Hamas started.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/davos-2024-agenda-revealed-and-now-in-crosshairs-of-u-s-congress/

“Rebuilding Trust” was the theme of the 2024 five-day meeting at Davos of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which just adjourned on January 19. No doubt Klaus Schwab, the founder and chairman of WEF, produced that theme as a good faith attempt to appease a growing number of regular Davos attendees who can no longer support WEF’s incredulous agenda. That agenda is all about draconian control over people’s lives and replacing individual nation-states with some kind of unwieldy and unaccountable new world order.

Part of the genius of Davos has been cultivating the elite with a myriad of private receptions, glitzy parties, and boundless opportunities for wheeling and dealing, which provide a smokescreen of legitimacy for the radical global agenda of WEF. Attendees are certainly disinclined to speak ill of such a lavish host and his swanky resort venue that makes bringing together the rich and famous possible. And Klaus appears beyond reproach with his disarming, cute, contrived, broken English accent.

But for those paying attention to the specifics of the Davos pronouncements and agenda, there is more reason than ever to distrust the WEF. Schwab stated the quiet part aloud—openly dissing common citizens and dismissing the need for elections. He said such choices should not be left to the people but rather to elites and their artificial intelligence (AI). “You do not even need to have elections anymore,” said Schwab, “because you can already predict… because we know the results.” Thus, Schwab, speaking for Davos 2024, justified the subversion and cancellation of the U.S. election in November.

Indeed, when one surveys WEF goals for 2024, there is more reason than ever for alarm. Americans face many dangers, including the flood of illegal migrants—now approaching ten million; domestic terrorist attacks from fifth column cadre among that massive number of migrants; elite capture and corruption; breakdown of law and order and civil unrest; demoralization of the American military; economic recession; and accelerating growth of national debt. Another reason for pause and distrust of WEF is its close collaboration with the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) and its director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/womens-rights-in-iran/

The Iranian regime’s approach towards women’s rights is an appalling testament to their deeply entrenched misogyny and disregard for human dignity. Through systematic repression and abuse, the regime has created a society where women are subject to discrimination, restriction, and the denial of basic human rights. For far too long, the international community has opted for appeasement when dealing with the Iranian regime, pursuing a futile policy of ‘constructive engagement’. This approach of compromise and negotiation has only emboldened the mullahs, allowing them to pursue their destructive and repressive agenda unchallenged. It is time to break free from the shackles of appeasement and acknowledge the necessity of regime change as the only viable solution for lasting peace in the region.

The Iranian regime’s systemic oppression of women has long been a cornerstone of their rule. From forcing women to adhere to strict dress codes to limiting their access to employment, and political participation, the regime acts as an enforcer of patriarchal oppression. Such practices not only violate the principles of equality and freedom, but also undermine progress and opportunity for women in Iran. Perhaps one of the regime’s most odious acts is the constant denial of women’s basic human rights. Women in Iran are subjected to domestic violence, sexual discrimination, and arbitrary arrests without due process. Add to this the grossly unfair legal system, where women face unequal treatment, harsh punishments, and a lack of legal recourse, and it becomes painfully evident that change is long overdue.

In January, a young woman, Roya Heshmati, 33, was sentenced to the vicious punishment of 74 lashes, on the fictitious charge of improper veiling. She was accused of encouraging permissiveness by refusing to cover her hair. Showing incredible courage, Ms. Heshmati continued to defy the strict dress code even as she was taken to be whipped in Tehran, refusing to wear the veil. This cruel and degrading punishment was simply the latest manifestation of the repressive treatment of women by the theocratic regime. The brutal murder in custody of the young Kurdish girl, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, by the so-called ‘morality police’ in September 2022, again for the alleged offence of not properly covering her hair, ignited a nationwide uprising that raged for almost nine months. 

https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/18/opinion-the-left-finds-a-new-terrorist-group-to-enthusiastically-support-shoshana-bryen/

“From the River to the Sea” is the chant of left-wing activists who have joined with “pro-Palestinian” (actually pro-Hamas) demonstrators in the US and Western Europe. Which river? Which sea? The few times protestors have actually been asked the question, their lack of familiarity with the issues – and the geography – have been clear. It is stupefying to see “Queers for Palestine” on placards.

Now there is a new meme.

Extolling Iranian-armed and trained Houthi terrorists who were firing on American and other shipping, kidnapping crewmen from the ships, and firing missiles at southern Israel, and have now fired on American warships, the minions in the West wave signs proclaiming, “I stand with Yemen.” And “Hands off Yemen.”

Amazon helps.

One protester told The New York Post, “The Yemeni people and the Palestinian people are the only free people because we resist by any means necessary…  As long as there is resistance in Palestine and Yemen, as long as there is a blockade on Yemen and Gaza, we will stand up to resist it.”

Really? The Houthis ARE NOT YEMEN. And the only people attacking Yemen ARE THE HOUTHIS, who were listed as a sponsor of terror by the Trump administration after an attack on a Yemeni civilian airport.

Yes, the Republic of Yemen is at war with the Houthis.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/hamas-howl-in-amsterdam/

For a while there it looked as though my semi-annual long weekend in Amsterdam would come to naught. Several days of massive snowfall made travel impossible in our part of Norway and closed down Oslo Airport for most of a day. Thanks to the snow, the usually reliable bus to Oslo pulled into the station a couple of hours behind schedule; and the airport express trains, which are never so much as a minute late, were delayed by an hour or so.

There was one surprise on the express train. In every car, they have these big video screens on which they give you a couple of the latest headlines, current temperatures in major European cities, stock market news, and flight departure times. Somewhere in there, there’s always an ad – invariably innocuous, instantly forgettable. Not this time. The ad – big blood-red letters on black backgrounds – was placed by Doctors without Borders, and it demanded an end to the “genocide” in Gaza.

Having allowed plenty of time because of the chaos, I got to the airport several hours early. I killed part of the time watching a couple of new YouTube videos in which the U.K. podcaster Konstantin Kisin interviewed participants in a pro-Palestinian rally in London. It wasn’t a particularly dense crowd, and it consisted mostly of young English people. They carried signs, distributed by the Socialist Workers Party, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and demanding that Palestine be free “from the river to the sea.”

A brief, polite questioning by Kisin established that they didn’t know what that meant, and that none of them really knew much of anything, for that matter, about Islam or Israel or the history of the Middle East. They’d spent four years learning that white is bad, darker shades good. They had yet to discover that there was more in heaven and earth than was dreamt of in the lyrics to “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20322/persecution-of-christians-december

“About 37 [Christian] individuals, primarily women, children and the disabled, were burned to death in their homes…. ” — christianpost.com, December 30, 2023, Nigeria.

“Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in the Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam….” — morningstarnews.org, December 26, 2023, Nigeria.

“[I]t is also the existence of disbelief itself that is a ‘grievance’,” — Aymenn Jawad al Tamimi, December , 2023, Philippines.

[I]n Austria, on Dec. 9, Heiligenkreuz Abbey received a bomb threat by phone. Police later confirmed that it had an “Islamist overtone”. The caller had said “Convert to Islam, or I’ll bomb you away!”…. Father John Paul commented: “[I]t encourages us even more to pray and work for peace, healing and reconciliation.” — puls24.at, December 11, 2023.

“Reports include statements like, ‘We have to kill those who preach Christianity, and these Christians have no place in Mauritania.'” — persecution.org, December 13, 2023.

Two Christian evangelists, Joseph and Isaac, after Muslims beat them for quoting the Koran, spent Christmas Day in jail for “blasphemy.” The report does not indicate which verses were deemed so objectionable, or why. — morningstarnews.org, December 22, 2023, Uganda.

According to a January 2 report: “Three migrants who allegedly planned an attack on Cologne Cathedral are free again. A judge let them go after just one night in custody.” Pictured: Police conduct security checks on visitors at Cologne Cathedral on December 24, 2023 in Cologne, Germany, after indications of an Islamist terror threat. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of December 2023.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/20/the-myth-of-the-muslim-world/

This week, the idea of ‘the Muslim world’ took one hell of a beating. The notion of an ummah has been left in tatters. The fantasy of a global people with shared interests and experiences – almost an Islamic class – is now surely kaput. For while woke activists in the West might still speak of Muslims as a bloc, if not a blob, elsewhere in the world Muslims are at war. Two of the most powerful Muslim-majority nations, Iran and Pakistan, got dangerously close to all-out conflict this week. Tell me: who should the ‘Muslim community’ in Britain or the US or Canada support in this violent border skirmish?

For years, there’s been a gaping disconnect between the way Western observers speak about Muslims and the actual Muslim experience. Between our elites’ reduction of Muslims here in the West to a single entity, a throng that believes the same things and feels the same pain, and the growing Balkanisation of the Muslim-majority world. The West’s guardians of opinion often slam celebs for treating Africa as a single country, and yet they’re equally guilty of flattening out the religious, cultural and territorial complexities of the Muslim experience. Their rush to fashion a new oppressed class, a people they might marshal as part of their indictment of the wickedness of the West, has ironically denuded Muslims of their diversity, and even their humanity.

This disconnect has really come to life in recent weeks. All the talk in right-thinking circles in the West has been of Muslim unity. Both ‘the Muslim community’ over here and ‘the Muslim world’ more broadly are as one in their rage with Israel and love for Palestine, we’re told. Reuters used the sweeping term ‘Muslim animosity’ to describe the vibe in both the West and the East. Media outlets in the US and Europe frantically report that ‘Muslim voters’ might ditch Joe Biden over his support for Israel and turn against Labour in the UK, on the basis that Keir Starmer has been insufficiently pro-Palestine. That term, ‘Muslim voter’, conjures up an image of a samey, single-issue citizen, faithfully traipsing to the polling booth to register the uniform ‘animosity’ his kind feel.

Things are more complicated. They always are. Guardianistas might get a kick from reporting on the anti-Israel, anti-West fury of ‘the Muslim world’, but they’re rather more coy on the brazen failure of that world to offer assistance to civilians in Gaza. Egypt, for instance, which borders Gaza, is flat-out refusing to take refugees from the Israel-Hamas War. They’d pose a security threat, apparently. Countless lives could have been saved had Egypt permitted the construction of refugee camps in the Sinai. We hear little of Egypt’s complicity in Gazans’ suffering, however, because our activist class prefers the moral thrill of cheering on ‘Muslim animosity’ towards Israel and the West to the hard task of analysing Arab states’ fatal betrayal of the Palestinian people.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20318/pakistan-christian-death-sentence

“The superintendent of police stated in his report that neither he nor the eyewitness found any blasphemy in Shahzad’s conversation. His investigation also found that Shahzad was a minor, illiterate and did not have clear knowledge of any religion and only repeated words at the direction of Ishtiak Jalali.” — CeCe Heil, Senior Counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, July 11, 2023.

“Based on this investigation the police literally said he was not guilty. He had not committed any blasphemy.” — CeCe Heil, July 11, 2023.

“[A]s a juvenile, Shahzad was entitled to be immediately released on bail and the judge obviously was not going to follow the law…. A much bigger plan seemed to be in place with the mob controlling the outcome….. This happens because Muslim fanatics pack courtrooms to intimidate the judges.” — CeCe Heil, July 11, 2023.

According to the organization Open Doors, the persecution of Christians in Pakistan is “extreme”…

It would be advisable for the US government to suspend all aid to Pakistan until its government takes concrete steps to free the many victims of its deadly blasphemy laws; persuade Pakistan to discontinue enforcing them altogether; improve minority rights, and, most importantly, stop enabling Islamist terrorism.

Shahzad Masih, a Pakistani Christian, was 16 years old and working in a hospital as a janitor in 2017, when Muslims falsely accused him of blasphemy. Since then, has spent more than five years in prison, and has been sentenced to death by hanging for statements he did not even make.

In 2017, authorities arrested Masih after a Muslim coworker and another man linked with the Islamic terrorist group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Islami Pakistan (TTIP), accused him of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. In 2022, a court sentenced Masih to death.

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/iran-and-pakistan-cross-fire-puts-the-world-on-edge/

On the menu today: We glance up from the Republican presidential-primary season’s coverage to notice that two heavily armed Muslim countries are now launching military strikes in each other’s territory. Taiwan has a new incoming president, and for that country to deter a Chinese invasion, promised U.S. arms sales must get delivered a lot faster. And one new poll shows a reason for Nikki Haley fans to feel optimistic about New Hampshire, while two other polls show Trump winning the Granite State primary comfortably.

Oh, Hey, No Big Deal, Just Iran and Pakistan Shooting at Each Other

On a regular basis, news comes across the wires that seems like it ought to make us sit up and take notice — like Iran, one of America’s preeminent foes and a country knocking on the door of developing a nuclear weapon, launching military strikes against targets within the territory of Pakistan, which is a complicated U.S. semi-ally that has an estimated 170 nuclear warheads.

Baluchistan is a region where the Iranian, Pakistani, and Afghan borders meet, stretching from the southernmost chunk of Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea, and encompassing the southwestern chunk of Pakistan and a southeastern chunk of Iran. Among the Baluchis are plenty of militant groups who want independence or just plain hate the Iranian or Pakistani government.

On Tuesday, the Iranian military launched missile and drone attacks against what it contended were targets in Pakistan associated with Jaish ul-Adl, a Sunni Muslim Baluch separatist organization. The Pakistani government contended the strikes killed two children and wounded three others and called them an “unprovoked violation” of its airspace. Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Iran and has blocked Tehran’s envoy from returning — less than ideal for the prospects of talking down either side from escalating the conflict further, or minimizing any confusion or misunderstanding. Sure, Iran thinks it’s only striking at Baluch separatists, but does the Pakistani military know that? How does the Pakistani military know that Iran isn’t directly attacking it?