RUTHFULLY YOURS

PARIS—A year bookended by terror attacks is forcing France to reconsider some of the principles that underpin its national identity.

On Wednesday, the Socialist government of President François Hollande proposed amending the constitution to allow authorities to strip some natural-born citizens of their nationality if they are convicted of terrorism.

Another amendment would shield state-of-emergency police powers, such as to conduct warrantless searches and order house arrests, from court challenges.

The changes, which parliament is expected to approve next year, are a measure of how the French state—founded on the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity—is adapting to the threat posed by Islamic State and other extremist groups.

‘We are creating two categories of citizens in our constitution.’
—French historian Patrick Weil

“People wonder at times who we are, as French people, as a nation,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in introducing the measure, which he said carries great symbolism. “I understand its implications and the debates that may ensue.”

Russia now is far weaker and much less threatening than the once daunting and frightening USSR. Besides, the present friction and clashes with the West over Ukraine and on other fronts are just a pale shadow of the once formidable Cold War.

putinismSimilarly, Russia’s present exposure in Syria and the draining of its resources in the confusing battle lines against Islamic State (IS) are but a vague reminder of the gory and massive conflict the Soviets fought in Afghanistan against IS’ forefathers, the mujahideen, that eventually bled the USSR to death. Then Moscow was caught in the trap of falling oil prices (cutting its main revenue) and growing military expenditures because of costs in Afghanistan and the new arms race with the U.S.

Now, the ongoing fall in oil prices (again cutting Russian income at a time of dire need), Russia’s growing perception as a neo-dictatorship, its military commitment in Ukraine (which destabilizes Kiev and does not help Moscow, either), and its re-entry into the Middle East after some 30 years all bring back old memories.

In this situation, Walter Laqueur’s Putinism: Russia and Its Future in the West makes a compelling read. It is inspiring possibly more than anything about Moscow’s actual predicament.

The Czech Parliament’s lower House – by an overwhelming majority with all parties except the Communists supporting it – has joined fellow European Union (EU) members – Greece and Hungary – in urging the Czech Government to refuse implementing EU racist and discriminatory labelling laws for Jewish goods produced in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman said that it was:

“absolutely necessary to reject the efforts to discriminate against the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Another Czech politician Frantisek Laudat argued that the guidelines:

“may evoke awkward reminiscence of marking Jewish people during World War II”

The Czech Assembly declared the new EU guidelines were:

“motivated by a political positioning versus the State of Israel”

Israeli-German Relations Polemics Have No Place in True Friendships An Essay by Christoph Schult

“A large share of Germans — perhaps even the majority — offer their one-sided support to the Palestinians, not seldom as a way of trying to relativize Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust. “At some point we need to get over it,” is one popular refrain. Others, with clear anti-Semitic undertones, say: “The Israelis have learned nothing from history and are doing the same thing to the Palestinians that was done back then by the Nazis to the Jews.”

With dubious Holocaust comparisons, the German Israel lobby is making life difficult for supporters of the Jewish state in Germany. Polemics should have no place in the relationship.

Friendships between nations are similar to those between two people. The first rule is that they have to be tended to. The second is that the affection must be mutual. The third: A true friendship thrives on the courage to give criticism — and on the ability to accept it.

It’s hard enough to live up to this ideal in private relationships, but it’s even harder when it comes to ties between two countries. Particularly the friendship between Germany and Israel.

On the surface, it appears that relations between these two nations are better than they have ever been. This year, Germany and Israel celebrated 50 years of diplomatic relations. Young Israelis are fond of traveling to Berlin or living in the German capital. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel is more popular in Israel than United States President Barack Obama.

Germans, though, have a much tougher time defining their friendship with Israel. Two factors play a decisive role in this: the history of the Holocaust and the serious sense of guilt that Germans still carry with them today; and the current conflict in the Middle East, which has intensified as a result of Israel’s dubious occupation policies. It creates a tense relationship that no small number of Germans would rather not have to put up with. Instead they seek simplistic answers.

Former Knesset member Yinon Magal is no paragon of personal virtue. The rookie lawmaker from the Bayit Yehudi, who left a successful career in journalism to enter politics, resigned his position last month when he found himself drowning in a pool of muck of his own making.

Magal resigned last month after one after another, four women alleged that he had sexually mistreated them in various ways. The media gave the allegations saturation coverage. And Magal walked away from the Knesset and public life, quickly putting an end to the story.

While clearly no personal saint, in resigning from office, Magal acted with public virtue. He owned up to his mistakes and he took responsibility for the consequences of his behavior.

This might not seem like a big deal, but in the toxic environment that has come to characterize Israeli politics over the past 25 years, Magal’s willingness to pay a personal price for his behavior was a very big deal. It was a big deal because it signaled the beginning of the end of a very troubling era in Israeli political life.

For the past 25 years, the role of the politician in politics has become smaller and smaller. Rather than take the initiative and lead the country in the direction they pledged to the voters they would move – whether on issues of war and peace, economics, culture or health policy – for decades politicians have stood behind lawyers and waited to be given permission to make a move.

German authorities are searching for 12 refugees from Syria who entered the country using fake passports from the same source used by the Paris attackers. The passports were reportedly stolen from a passport office in Raqqa, the unofficial capital of Islamic State, in 2013 following the city’s capture.

The news comes a week after two men were arrested at a refugee center on suspicion of having links to the Paris attacks. The men entered the country at the same time as the Paris attackers and were also using false Syrian passports.

But Germany’s problems go far beyond a few potential terrorists with false passports. The German newspaper Bild is reporting that more than 250,000 of the refugees who have entered the country this year cannot be located because the system of registering refugees was so bad.

A story revealed by Reuters describes the severe damage Secretary of State Kerry has now done to U.S. human rights policy.

Here is the gist of the story:

As the United States negotiated this year’s nuclear pact with Iran, the State Department quietly agreed to spare the Gulf sultanate of Oman from an embarrassing public rebuke over its human rights record, rewarding a close Arab ally that helped broker the historic deal.

In a highly unusual intervention, the department’s hierarchy overruled its own staff’s assessments of Oman’s deteriorating record on forced labor and human trafficking and inflated its ranking in a congressionally mandated report, U.S. officials told Reuters. The move, which followed protests by Oman, suggests the Obama administration placed diplomatic priorities over human rights to pacify an important Middle East partner.

This is not really a story about Iran, or Oman. It is story of how Kerry interfered in what is supposed to be, and almost always is, a fair and conscientious process. The damage is immense, and not only to the process by which the State Department makes judgments about the human rights situation around the world–as Congress requires it do by law. The damage is not only to our country’s efforts to stop “trafficking in persons” and the terrible abuses that accompany that activity. These efforts have resulted in real achievements in many countries, and Kerry should be ashamed to interfere with them.

It would be truly embarrassing if a Turkey-Israel normalization results in new arms shipments into Gaza and rockets over Israeli skies — with the only achievement being a temporary peace with Turkey’s Islamists, who never hide their ideological kinship with Hamas.

The future Turkish and Israeli ambassadors would always have to keep their bags packed, ready to return to their own capitals at the first dispute – which could be caused by Israeli retaliation against Arab terrorism or anything that may make Erdogan roar in front of cameras.

How do you shake hands with a man whom you know ideologically hates you and wishes to mess up things at his earliest convenience?

None of this happened half a century ago; the timeline here covers only a span of a year and a half: A Turkish-Kurdish pop star wrote on her Twitter account, “May God bless Hitler. He did far less [than he should have done to Jews].” The mayor of Ankara replied: “I applaud you!” Hundreds of angry Turks, hurling rocks, tried to break into the Israeli diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul. The mayor of Ankara said: “We will conquer the consulate of the despicable murderers.” He blamed the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on Israel’s Mossad. Islamist columnists close to the government suggested imposing a “wealth tax” on Turkish Jews (who are full citizens). A governor threatened to suspend restoration work at a synagogue. And a credible research group at the Kadir Has University in Istanbul found in a poll that Turks view Israel as the top threat to Turkey.

Samir Kuntar murdered four Israelis. One of his victims was a four-year-old girl, Einat Haran. Kuntar smashed her skull. Kuntar was killed this week in Syria while helping President Bashar Assad commit war crimes against his own citizens.

Senior Palestinian official Sultan Abu Al-Einein evidently believes that murdering Jews is not a “despicable crime,” but killing an arch-terrorist such as Kuntar is a “despicable crime.”

When the Western-backed Palestinian Authority openly endorses terrorists and names streets, squares and schools after them, Palestinian leaders are sending a message to their people that murdering Jews is a noble and dignified act. This show of solidarity with a baby-killer is the direct result of ongoing incitement against Israel and Jews in mosques, the press and social media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In this sick, twisted society that the Europeans have bought and paid for, anyone who murders Jews is considered a role model. Anyone who supports peace with Israel is denounced as a “traitor.”