RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan,” said Algerian writer Kamel Daoud. Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan.

The West used to be proud of being the land of the free. European museums, instead, are rapidly submitting to Islamic correctness. The exhibition “Passion for Freedom” at the Mall Gallery in London censored the light box tableaux of a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley.

“The Louvre will be dedicating a new section to the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians”, then President Nicholas Sarkozy announced in 2010. But the project was scrapped by the museum’s new management, with the approval of President Hollande’s culture ministry. So today, the Louvre has a section dedicated to Islamic art, but nothing on Eastern Christianity.

Maastricht, in the Netherlands, is the picturesque city that gave its name to the famous treaty signed in 1992 by the twelve nations of the European Community at the time, and which paved the way for the foundation of today’s European Union and the single currency, the euro.

Maastricht, however, is also the home of “Tefaf”, the most important art and antiques fair in the world. The art work “Persepolis” by the Italian artist Luca Pignatelli was already scheduled when the commission ordered it removed. The work, built in 2016, combined a Persian Islamic rug and a female head. “We are all humbled and speechless”, Pignatelli declared, pointing out that his work had initially aroused the enthusiasm of the commission. The fair’s explanation was that Pignatelli’s work was “provocative”.

The officials of fair presumably did not want to offend Islam and possible Muslim buyers with Pignatelli’s combination of the mat (used by Muslims for prayer) with the woman’s face. “We are shocked, this is the first time this has happened and I think it is legitimate to talk about it”, Pignatelli said. “If in Rome it can happen that you decide to veil art works to avoid offending foreign visitors, well, I do not agree”. The reference is at the Italian government decision to veil the antique Roman statues to avoid offending Iran’s visiting President Hassan Rouhani.

If Europe wants a future, it should be less ideological about Maastricht’s treaty and more against Maastricht’s capitulation to fear. The brave Algerian writer Kamel Daoud said:

“Those (migrants) who come to seek freedom in France must participate in freedom. Migrants did not come to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, but in Germany. Why? For security, freedom and prosperity. So they must not come to create a new Afghanistan”.

Right. But it is the European mainstream that is letting them turn our cultural landscape into another Afghanistan. The Taliban have killed artists and destroyed art works. The West used to be proud of being the land of the free.

Part 1 can be found here – click.

Part 2 can be found here – click.

The outstretched hand

The hagadah that is read during the pesach [Passover] seder is an intensely concentrated treatise on the subject of freedom. Something similar is happening in France today. The issues are dramatized by reality, realities that were deliberately kept out of sight have suddenly burst into the discourse and cannot be ignored. An intense concentrate of the issues that have been playing out since the end of September 2000* will reach a conclusion on the night of 23-24 April 2017 when the votes are counted and we will know what French citizens have decided to do about jihad conquest. The future of Europe, of the free world hangs in the balance. [* see my latest release, Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century]

Back then, deaf to the alarms of anti-Jewish violence triggered by the al Dura blood libel, French society stumbled from willful blindness to cozy antizionism until the rude awakening of the Charlie Hebdo executions, followed by the November 13th 2015 mass jihad murders. Again, today, the murder of a 67 year-old Jewish woman thrown out the window like a piece of garbage by her Muslim neighbor did not move the media or intrude on a presidential campaign that keeps veering away from the crucial issue of survival.

And now, 18 April, a thunderbolt strikes: Mahiedine Merabet and Clément Baur are arrested in Marseille, suspected of preparing an imminent jihad attack on “the campaign.” They had the full kit: ski masks,koranic verses, a go-pro camera, explosives, nuts and bolts, loaded assault weapons, and a hunting knife for good measure. British intelligence detected their allegiance to Daesh video and informed French authorities. François Fillon is the designated target, “talion law” is spelled out in bullets, and photos of Muslim children killed in bombings are displayed as justification. Mujahidin do not attack civilians…except in retaliation for crimes committed against Muslims.

Four days before the close of the campaign, Islamic totalitarianism pounces on us like a man-eating tiger on a forest path. Doesn’t that change everything? The danger to our democracy is not the employment of family members as parliamentary assistants! Two men of French nationality, one born into Islam, the other a convert, two lowlifes of no particular dimension, two flagged security risks like thousands of others, could have assassinated one of the four leading candidates and an untold number of supporters. Two common ordinary men loyal to the caliphate could have derailed the democratic process. A little monkey wrench thrown into the mechanism brings it to a halt.

On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German
troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving
inhabitants. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and
left the ghetto area in ruins. Surviving ghetto residents were
deported to concentration camps or killing centers.

Background

Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, the German authorities
deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. SS and
police units deported 265,000 Jews to the Treblinka killing center and
11,580 to forced-labor camps. The Germans and their auxiliaries
murdered more than 10,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the
deportation operations. The German authorities granted only 35,000
Jews permission to remain in the ghetto, while more than 20,000 Jews
remained in the ghetto in hiding. For the at least 55,000-60,000 Jews
remaining in the Warsaw ghetto, deportationseemed inevitable.

In response to the deportations, on July 28, 1942, several Jewish
underground organizations created an armed self-defense unit known as
the Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB).
Rough estimates put the size of the ZOB at its formation at around 200
members. The Revisionist Party (right-wing Zionists known as the
Betar) formed another resistance organization, the Jewish Military
Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy; ZZW). Although initially there was
tension between the ZOB and the ZZW, both groups decided to work
together to oppose German attempts to destroy the ghetto. At the time
of the uprising, the ZOB had about 500 fighters in its ranks and the
ZZW had about 250.

Najia Karimi is executive director of the Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan, a partner of the global women’s group Donor Direct Action.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — I was born in Kabul, raised in Pakistan and returned home after the fall of the Taliban to work in what is now the most dangerous country in the world to be female.

My parents’ generation had much more freedom than I and the other girls in my family did, and the downward trend continues. Young girls today are even more limited in their choices than I was. In Afghanistan, 60% of us are forcibly married by age 16. Only 15% of our girls are educated, and fatwas have been issued in some regions banning girls from going to school at all. Women and girls are punished for any “immoral act” that “brings shame” to the family, including elopement or perceived sexual misconduct. Acid attacks, stoning, rape and murder are all deemed acceptable punishments when a man’s “honor” has been threatened.

Invasions by Russia and the United States, alongside the ever-present threat of the Taliban and other groups, has meant that Afghan girls and women are in danger both inside and outside our homes. And the situation is only getting worse. Women who try to change the system by entering politics are particularly at risk of being targeted with violence. There is almost nowhere safe for us to go, and when we try to make things better, we put our lives at risk.
There is almost nowhere safe for us to go, and when we try to make things better, we put our lives at risk.

Since unlike so many others I’ve had the benefit of an education, I’ve put my privilege to use by working for an Afghan women’s group that runs an emergency women’s shelter in Kabul. We provide a refuge for women and girls fleeing sexual or domestic violence.

Zarmina is one of the many girls who have sought our assistance. Now 14, she was only 2 years old when her mother sold her off to a 22-year-old Taliban member. Four years ago, he forced her to move in with him. Between then and last September, when she came to the shelter, Zarmina was given food only once a day and was raped on a regular basis. When we met her, she was ill and deeply traumatized.

We helped her get urgent medical treatment and support in the shelter. She soon went back to school, but with nobody else to support her, Zarmina is dependent on us. If she returns to her village, the Taliban will stone her to death.

Another girl, Mah Jabin, was 10 years old when she was handed over to a man who beat and raped her over the course of three years. In despair, she poured a gallon of gasoline over herself and lit a match. Her mother found her just in time and put the flames out. She spent a month in the hospital with life-threatening burns and lived with us for a year under continuous medical treatment. We helped her get a divorce and a warrant was issued for her husband’s arrest. She is now also back at school.

These are just two of the roughly 200 cases that we take on every single year.

When French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month, the conversation turned to a question bedeviling Europe’s political establishment. How could they halt the rising tide of nationalism across the Continent?

Mr. Macron, who is fighting right-wing euroskeptic Marine Le Pen for the lead in Sunday’s election for France’s top office, had an answer. He said the European Union needed more integration, not less.

For years, mainstream leaders, faced with a rising populist movement, relied on a strategy of containment. That involved ignoring its rhetoric, dismissing demands to dismantle the EU as a recipe for turmoil, and at times mimicking its language. The limits of that approach have been laid bare by Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Ms. Le Pen’s rise in France, and recently the surge of a euroskeptic French candidate on the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

With elections in France this weekend and in Germany later this year, pro-EU forces are adopting a new approach: a full-throated defense of the economic bloc and its place in their countries’ future.

The shift is embodied by Mr. Macron, who has defined himself in opposition to Ms. Le Pen, figuratively wrapping himself in the blue and gold-starred EU flag she would remove from government buildings.

“Our fight for fraternity will be our fight for Europe,” Mr. Macron told a February rally in Lyon organized across town from where Ms. Le Pen was declaring her candidacy. “Europe! Europe!” the crowd of thousands chanted.

Where Ms. Le Pen wants to reinforce France’s national borders, Mr. Macron says the solution to its terrorism fears is to bolster the frontiers of the EU. She wants a more independent defense policy for France; he wants tighter military coordination across the bloc.

And where Ms. Le Pen sees the euro as the root of France’s economic woes, Mr. Macron touts the EU’s single market as the key to French prosperity. CONTINUE AT SITE

Europe continues its rousing election year on Sunday with a first round of the French presidential contest that will decide if the center can hold or a blood-and-soil nationalist will square off against a throwback socialist. What could go wrong?

For months the smart money thought the first round would set up a final match pitting Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front against a reform-minded centrist. That could still happen if the other leading finisher is François Fillon, the nominee of the center-right Republicans who touts a free-market platform; or center-left, independent Emmanuel Macron, who doesn’t go as far as Mr. Fillon but still promises to reform labor and tax laws. Either would be favored against Ms. Le Pen in a runoff.

But suddenly the two reformers might be surpassed by far-left independent Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is telling the French they can grow richer by working less and spend more by earning less. He’d cut the work week to 32 hours from 35, cut the retirement age to 60 from 66, prevent companies that have laid off workers from paying dividends, and ignore European Union limits on fiscal deficits. On foreign policy he is anti-American, anti-NATO and pro-Vladimir Putin, and he has written a book subtitled “The German Poison,” which should make for pleasant summits in Berlin.

Ms. Le Pen is hoping to vindicate her long-running effort to transform her father’s National Front into a respectable party. Her views on Europe, America, Russia and the state role in the French economy are distinguishable from Mr. Mélenchon’s only by nuances.

The National Front’s toxic history of anti-Semitism and its hostility to minorities and immigrants has traditionally put a ceiling on Ms. Le Pen’s vote, especially on the left. But that might not hold if Mr. Mélenchon doesn’t make it to the final round and his supporters must choose between Ms. Le Pen and one of the centrists.

Mr. Fillon’s agenda comes closest to what France needs to revive its stagnant economy, notwithstanding his affinity for Mr. Putin’s Russia. He promises to balance the budget within five years, cut €100 billion ($106.72 billion) in spending, slash the corporate-tax rate to 25% from nearly 35%, end the 35-hour work week and liberalize labor laws to encourage hiring. All of this is a hard sell in France at any time, but Mr. Fillon’s credibility has been compromised by news that he put family members on the public payroll.

Mr. Macron’s reforms don’t go as far as Mr. Fillon’s, but he’d also cut the corporate-tax rate to 25%, reform the work week and reduce labor-related taxes for entrepreneurs. But the 39-year-old has never held elected office and failed to sell this program to the National Assembly when current Socialist President François Hollande made him economy minister.

All four major candidates are polling at around 20%, but Mr. Mélenchon has momentum and the highest personal favorability. A Le Pen-Mélenchon finale would be a political shock to markets and perhaps to the future of the EU and eurozone. The best result would be for one or both centrists to make it through, but the fact that both could lose to the radicals is an indictment of the main political parties.

By a razor-thin margin, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has won the referendum to expand exponentially the powers of his office. The results have been challenged for voting irregularities, but they’re unlikely to change the outcome. Given Erdoğan’s record-setting jailing of reporters, his mass arrests after an aborted coup, and his frankly expressed ambitions to Islamize Turkey, these changes will result in a much more authoritarian and Islamic government incompatible with the West.

No one should be surprised, as Erdoğan has always been up-front about his ambitions. At the beginning of his political career in the mid-nineties he said, “Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the Sharia.” A decade later he said, “Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.” In 2007, Erdogan said of the term “moderate Islam,” “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” And last May, referring to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, he proclaimed in a television address, “For us, these phrases have absolutely no value any longer.”

If Erdoğan prevails in the referendum, then, Turkey is likely to move closer to the model of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and farther from the Western-style secular democracy created by Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey. Such a development will be a blow for about half the Turks, but also for the widely held thesis that the endemic tyranny and violence within the Muslim Middle East has little to do with Islam, and more to do with the autocratic and illiberal governments that have dominated the region. If Turkey fails after nearly a century of effort to create a secular democracy, then there’s little hope that any other nation can succeed in being true to both liberal democracy and the precepts of Islam.

More important, an Islamized Turkey will confirm what Erdoğan said about “no moderate or immoderate Islam.” For decades the West has indulged a pernicious fantasy that vaguely defined “extremists” unrelated to true Islam are responsible for the carnage afflicting the world. These “extremists” are products of tyrannical governments, poverty, Western historical crimes, the neo-imperialist “Zionist entity,” Israeli “settlements” in the “occupied West Bank,” Western disrespect for the “religion of peace,” and numerous other specious pretexts. Fourteen centuries of jihadist doctrine and action are ignored or rationalized, with a myopia that would have astonished our Western ancestors who fought for centuries against Muslim invaders, colonizers, occupiers, and slavers.

Examples of this delusion are legion. One of the most consequential jihadist organizations has been the Muslim Brotherhood, from which descended al Qaeda. Hassan al Bana, the Egyptian founder of the Brotherhood in 1928, expressed its clearly classic Islamic supremacist ambitions: “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations, and extend its power to the entire planet.” For al Banna, jihad remained the time-honored means of achieving this end: “Fighting unbelievers involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their idols” ––precisely what ISIS is doing with its genocidal attacks on Christians.

On Friday, the news media were so sure North Korea would conduct a nuclear test over the weekend to celebrate the 105th birthday of Kim Il-Sung that they almost started a countdown clock. The test never happened. Some experts said this was because President Trump caused North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to “blink.”

On Saturday, North Korea did attempt a celebratory ballistic-missile test, which failed seconds after launch. There has been speculation in the media that this failure was due to U.S. sabotage, possibly a cyberattack.

While I believe the above explanations of both events are unlikely, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs still pose serious and growing threats because they represent an unstable regime developing and testing increasingly advanced WMDs based on poor engineering and badly inadequate R&D. This is why a new U.S. approach to the threat from North Korea is long overdue.

I did not believe a nuclear test would occur as part of North Korea’s weekend celebration. I was not convinced by commercial-satellite imagery cited by some experts as evidence of an imminent nuclear test, since there is constant activity at North Korea’s nuclear test site that often leads to predictions of nuclear tests that do not occur. On the other hand, when North Korea actually conducts nuclear tests, these same experts are usually caught off guard.

Predicting North Korean nuclear tests is difficult, because Pyongyang is aware it is being watched by U.S. spy satellites. North Korea probably engages in subterfuge at its test site to make the world think nuclear tests are imminent when they are not, and to conceal preparations for actual tests.

North Korean nuclear tests during major celebrations like the 105th birthday of Kim Il-Sung are unlikely because, as North Korea’s nuclear program becomes more sophisticated, the chances of failed tests increase. North Korean leaders probably wanted to avoid the humiliation of a failed nuclear test on an important holiday when the eyes of the world were fixed on the Hermit Kingdom.

There also is a more likely and simpler explanation for North Korea’s April 15 missile test and its subsequent failure. North Korean officials probably decided to conduct a missile test as a demonstration of their nation’s military might that had a higher likelihood of success than a nuclear test.

While some experts are speculating the missile test failed because of U.S. sabotage or cyber warfare, the more likely explanation is that the failure was due to the poor state of North Korean science and engineering. Arms-control expert Jeffrey Lewis is “deeply skeptical” that the U.S. was responsible for the failed missile test, and he said in a recent Axios.com interview, “The failures we’ve seen are better explained by the pains of the R&D process. There is a reason that ‘rocket science’ is a metaphor for something that is hard to do.”

About 50 percent of North Korean missile tests — and 88 percent of its intermediate Musudan missile tests — have failed. This is what happens when a brutal totalitarian regime tries to pursue a complex weapons program using borrowed and stolen technology and relies on third-rate scientists.

It goes without saying that the world’s leading experts in rocketry and physics are not flocking to North Korea to work on the WMD programs of an evil totalitarian regime with a serious job-security problem — Leader Kim may have you executed if your project encounters failures or setbacks.