RUTHFULLY YOURS

A 70-year-old Christian woman was stripped naked, savagely beaten, and paraded in the streets of Egypt to jeers, whistles, and yells of “Allahu Akbar” after a mob of some 300 Muslim men descended on her house.

Her crime? Her son is falsely accused of having a romantic relationship with a Muslim woman, which is banned by Islamic law, or sharia – the same body of teachings that prescribes the collective punishment of non-Muslim “infidels.” Seven other Christian homes were also torched by the mob.

The attacks occurred in Minya, Upper Egypt, on May 20, a Friday – the one day of the week when Muslims congregate in mosques and listen to sermons, and the one day of the week when most Muslim mob attacks on Christians occur.

While on the ground being kicked, cursed, and spat upon, Sa’d Thabet, the Christian grandmother, managed to slide herself underneath a wagon. While hidden there, an unidentified woman slipped her some garments, and the traumatized woman eventually managed to escape.

“I never saw the woman who covered me and don’t know how I survived,” she said during a closed meeting with some clergymen of the Coptic Christian Orthodox Church. They testified that her body was covered with wounds, adding that “though she is strong, it is sometimes hard for her to speak; she’s always fighting back tears and sometimes breaks down.”

Prior to the attack on Thabet, her household had been receiving threats for some time. On the morning of the assault, some of the home’s property was stolen and vandalized. She and her husband went to local police, who responded by threatening them and kicking them out of the station. A few hours later, around 8 pm, the attack occurred. It took the same local police over two hours to appear, by which time the “avenged” Muslim mob had dispersed.

When asked why she reported the incident four days after it happened, Thabet said: “I tried to hide and suppress what happened, but I could only take the feelings of humiliation and oppression for four days, at which point I decided to return to the local police station and testify about what happened to me before those who had refused to hear me.”

Europe is rife with anti-Semitism, sometimes disguised as “dissent” on Israel- but increasingly unsheathed as primitive atavistic hatred of Jews….rsk

“As a Catholic, as an Englishman, as a civilised human being, I feel a profound sense of responsibility towards the Jewish people as a whole, but towards my Jewish compatriots in particular. Preserving the Jewish presence in our midst is as much a solemn duty for our generation as it was for our parents and grandparents, who fought to defeat the Nazis. As the last survivors of the Holocaust and the last exiles and émigrés pass away, we must take over their role as witnesses to the truth and guardians of that moral obligation. Never again should Jews have to live in fear among us. Never again should Jews feel that their loyalty is distrusted. Never again should they lack a state that is theirs, living in peace and security within recognised borders. Britain’s commitment to defend Israel’s right, not merely to exist, but to flourish, should be especially strong: it was, after all, the Balfour Declaration that brought the Jewish homeland back to life. Britain did not cover itself with glory during the Mandate period, but we do have a chance to redeem ourselves today by standing up for Israel at the UN and other international bodies, as our Anglophone cousins in Canada, Australia and the United States generally do. When Israel responded to attacks from Gaza last year by destroying the ability of Hamas to launch missiles and use tunnels to infiltrate Israel, the Prime Minister refused to join in the chorus of condemnation. Like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, David Cameron has proved himself a friend of Israel. If only the rest of Europe could say the same.”
“Anti-Semitism is a very ancient and a thoroughly modern phenomenon: it was as common among ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans as it is among their present-day successor states. It constantly mutates: Christian anti-Judaism became right-wing anti-Semitism and now left-wing anti-Zionism. Those who wish to resist and if possible destroy its roots must also adapt to the moving target.

Take, for example, the case of Karel De Gucht. He is a leading Belgian liberal politician, who served as foreign minister and then as a European Union commissioner from 2009 to 2014, responsible for aid and trade. Two of the Belgian prime ministers under whom he served, Guy Verhofstadt and Herman Van Rompuy, also became high EU officials and it is fair to assume that De Gucht’s outlook is typical of the European political elite.

Yet in 2010, this supposedly liberal representative of this supposedly liberal union of supposedly liberal nations told Belgian radio: “Don’t underestimate the opinion . . . of the average Jew outside Israel. There is indeed a belief — it’s difficult to describe it otherwise — among most Jews that they are right. And a belief is something that’s difficult to counter with rational arguments. And it’s not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East.” Washington was controlled by Jews, De Gucht declared, even in the Obama era: “Do not underestimate the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill. That is the best organised lobby, you shouldn’t underestimate the grip it has on American politics — no matter whether it’s Republicans or Democrats.”

It is not a secret that democracy can be used to abolish democracy.

It may have finally begun to dawn on the people that Swedish Sweden will soon be lost forever, and in many areas replaced by a Middle Eastern state of affairs, where different immigrant groups (mainly Muslims) make war on each other as well as on the Swedes.

According to Dr. Peter Hammond, in his book Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat, the goal of Islam is not to convert the whole world, but rather, to establish sharia law all over the world.

There is no country where Islam is dominant that can be considered a democracy with freedom of speech and equal justice under law.

In Sweden’s last census in which citizens were asked about their religious beliefs, in 1930, fifteen people said that they were Muslims. Since 1975, when Sweden started its transformation from a homogenous, Swedish country into a multicultural and multi-religious one, the number of Muslims has exploded. Now, approximately one million Muslims live here — Sunni, Shia and Ahmadiyya from all the corners of the world — and Mosques are built and planned all over the country.

No one, however, seems to have asked the crucial question upon which Sweden’s future depends: Is Islam compatible with democracy?

SÃO PAULO––A group of 150 health experts have published an open letter calling for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro to be delayed or moved to another location because of the threat posed to public health by the Zika virus.

The letter, addressed to World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, says there is still much to be learned about the effects of the virus, and that half a million foreign tourists attending the Games this August risk spreading it around the world.

“The Brazilian strain of Zika virus harms health in ways that science has not observed before,” the letter said. “It is unethical to run the risk, just for Games that could proceed anyway, if postponed and/or moved.”

The virus is contracted from mosquitoes and spread between humans through sexual transmission, and infections have increased rapidly across Brazil in recent months. According to the letter, which was signed by epidemiologist John Last, mosquito expert Donald Roberts, and former White House science adviser Philip Rubin, among others, cases of the disease in Rio de Janeiro have more than quadrupled in January through April of this year compared with the same period last year.

In most people, the virus can cause a fever, a rash, joint pain and red eyes. But researchers say it can cause a condition known as microcephaly, a condition characterized by a small head and brain abnormalities, in babies born to infected women. Doctors are now discovering that some of those babies suffer from much worse birth defects than previously associated with microcephaly.

The World Health Organization issued a statement after the publication of the letter, saying “canceling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the international spread of Zika virus,” and instead recommending that travelers follow public health advice.

The WHO recommends pregnant women not travel to areas with ongoing Zika virus transmission, that people traveling to such areas protect themselves with mosquito repellent and clothes that cover as much of the body as possible, that travelers stay in air-conditioned accommodations to further avoid mosquitoes, and that they stay away from areas with no piped water and poor sanitation. CONTINUE AT SITE

Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria caught many by surprise, but it is a return to Russian geopolitical aspirations that stretch back to the czars.

Every Russian schoolchild is taught about the violent death of Aleksandr Griboyedov in 1829. A poet and playwright whose work is enshrined in the country’s literary canon, Griboyedov had the misfortune to be Czar Nicholas I’s ambassador to Tehran in the wake of Persia’s humiliating loss of territory to Moscow’s spreading empire. A Tehran mob, furious at the czar and his infidel representatives, stormed the embassy, slaughtering the unlucky ambassador and 36 other Russian diplomatic staff.

A century and a half later, in 1979, those events were almost replayed in Iran (as Persia is now known). When five leaders of the Iranian revolutionary students gathered in Tehran to decide which foreign embassy to target, two of them advocated seizing the Soviet legation. They were persuaded instead to overrun the U.S. embassy, creating a no less historic trauma for another world power entangled in the politics of the Middle East.
Russia’s long history of involvement—and warfare—in the region is largely unknown to Westerners, but it helps to explain President Vladimir Putin’s decision last fall to intervene in Syria’s civil war. Mr. Putin’s gambit on behalf of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad caught many in the West by surprise. Critics have assailed it as a miscalculated bid to replace the U.S. as the dominant outside power in the region.

But when viewed from Moscow, Mr. Putin’s Middle Eastern adventure looks like something very different: an overdue return to geopolitical aspirations that stretch back not only to the Soviet era but to centuries of czarist rule. “The Middle East is a way to showcase that the period of Russia’s absence from the international scene as a first-rate state has ended,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow, which advises the Kremlin and other government institutions.

Last week, a mob of 300 Muslim men in southern Egypt stripped a 70-year-old Christian woman naked and paraded her through the streets.This Islamist atrocity came a few days before an EgyptAir flight from Paris exploded in the skies near Alexandria. It was the second passenger jet bombed by jihadists in Egypt in recent months.

Egypt is hanging on by a thread. Like the attack that downed a Russian passenger jet over Sinai last October, this week’s attack is likely the work of an Egyptian airport employee. It is yet more proof that nearly three years after the military deposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s jihadist government, the Brotherhood’s supporters remain seeded throughout the country and are capable of threatening the regime and the very survival of the Egyptian state.

It isn’t in the least surprising that Islamists have this power. Most Egyptians support them.

In the parliamentary elections four-and-a-half years ago, Islamists won more than 65 percent of the vote. Those were the most open elections in Egyptian history.

Given their strength, it is far from certain that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will long succeed in preventing the most powerful and populous country in the Arab world from becoming another branch of Islamic State.

From Israel’s perspective, how this battle pans out is of pivotal importance. But you wouldn’t know it from the media – or from our national security leaders.

As far as they are concerned, the gravest threat facing Israel is the Israeli Right. From their perspective, the most significant development of the year was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Avigdor Liberman to replace Moshe Ya’alon as defense minister.