RUTHFULLY YOURS

OXFORD–As it has for over 500 years, the Magdalene College Choir sang the Hymnus Eucharisticus from a tower high above this university town on the first day of May, followed incongruously by a dirty Elizabethan ditty about nymphs in Spring. An Anglican vicar blessed the bedraggled revellers crowding the surrounding streets. Most of them had tippled through the night.

Undergraduates for centuries celebrated May Morning by jumping off Magdalene Bridge into the shallow and frigid River Cherwell, but this year police barriers made the stream inacessible. Risk aversion has trumped tradition even in Oxford, once the last redoubt of British bloodymindedness. Whether one thinks the British Empire organized rapacity (mostly) or a civilizing influence (occasionally) or both (mainly), the men who made it evinced a madcap daring. The once-adventurous British no longer wish to leap into the unknown, except perhaps in the fantasy world of Harry Potter. For the same reason, Britain will vote to remain in the European Union on June 23. The annoyance of remaining in Europe is not too onerous to bear, and the risk of something going pear-shaped during a British exit (“Brexit”) is incalculable. Besides, Europe is gradually falling apart on its own, which means that the British have no urgent need to exit at the moment.

Stick around long enough, alas, and you turn into a theme park: the Oxford faculty recalls the last Spartan hoplites oiling their hair, playing their flutes and drilling in phalanx for Roman tourists at the end of the first century. Oxford is the world’s prettiest university town and a tourist destination par excellence, with dons and students substituting for the cartoon characters who greet the guests at Disney World.

Oxford today is all overpaying foreign students and bewildered Britons with middle-class accents. The accents are the giveaway: absorbing the clipped consonants and plummy vowels of the academic dialect was half the reason to go down to Oxford, the hallmark of acculturation into the British elite. Oxford itself is divided quaintly into thirty colleges, which range in order of poshness from Balliol to Ruskin and in braininess from Merton to Pembroke. Students meet weekly with a tutor and otherwise are left to their own devices. That is the mode of learning most easily replaced by Internet communication and the digitization of libraries, but such is Oxford’s residual cachet that inertia will carry it forward for another century.

The barbarians have not conquered it so much as infiltrated, as in the late Roman Empire. Oxford’s faculty still speak the King’s English and strike grand poses, but their grandeur is redolent of caricature. The end of empire spelled the end of the British elite, that is, the Mandarin caste of civil servants and military men who played Great Games and fought Britain’s wars. Almost nothing is left of the British merchant banks who once dominated world finance. As the victors in two World Wars, Britons are the only Western Europeans still ready to fight, as they did effectively in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Britain’s military and political role is too withered to support an elite caste.

Islamic scholarship divides the world in two: the House of Islam (dar al-Islam, nations ruled by Sharia law) and the House of War (dar al-harb, nations in rebellion against Allah). It is incumbent on dar al-Islam to make war upon dar al-harb until all nations submit to the will of Allah and accept Sharia law. “He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” — Koran 61:9. Jihad is the force that gives Islam meaning.

In his book, Lights Out: Free Speech, Islam and the Twilight of the West, Mark Steyn wrote: “These are the books we will never read, the plays we will never see, the movies that will never be made… The lamps are going out all over the world – one distributor, one publisher, one silenced novelist, one cartoonist in hiding, one sued radio host, one murdered film director at a time.” This may be called World Jihad. Preventing free speech is Jihad, with the Jewish people as Islam’s perpetual target.

In the 7th century, the prophet Mohammad struck the infamous ten-year hudna, with the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, who rejected his claim of prophethood. He broke the agreement over a minor infraction, conquered Mecca, and extirpated the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina, the Qurayza, because they rebuffed his faith. Preferring bloodshed to mercy, Mohammad’s 3,000 Muslims set the paradigm of merciless inhumanity for future generations. The brutal annihilation of entire communities is Jihad, and modern-day Israel remains in the spotlight of Islam and her many accomplices.

Allah endorses Islam in battle, celebrates slaughter and enslavement (Sura 33:25-27), and sanctions the capture and beheading of Jews and plundering their property. Jewish experience has shown that Land for Peace has brought nothing but violence and bloodshed from their Muslim neighbors. The concept cannot succeed because land is not returned when the peace agreement fails and becomes a base of operations against Israel. Truces and treaties with Islamic regimes is another opportunity for Jihad.

A similar spirit now infects the nations. The Jews have been a presence in the Golan Heights since Biblical times. After many attacks by Syria, Israel won and, in 1979, Syria signed a disengagement agreement; Israel then democratized the Golan Heights. Although Syria continues supporting terrorism, the Golan is flourishing under Israeli civilian law – with infrastructure, electrical and water services, agricultural improvements and job training, and health clinics for 46,000 Jewish and Druze residents. Israel’s protection has brought welfare and social security programs, schools, freedom of worship, industry and tourism. Yet now, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Syria and the UN are calling for the return of the Golan to Syria. While thousands of people are being massacred in Syria, the UN Security Council together with Israel’s enemies are focused on Israel. Intimidation and coercion for land is Jihad.

According to France’s Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, 800,000 migrants are currently in Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean.

The multitude of very costly social problems that Muslim migration into Europe has caused thus far, do not exist in this whitewashed European Union report, where the “research” indicates that migrants are always a boon. Similarly, any mention of the very real security costs necessitated by the Islamization occurring in Europe, and the need for monitoring of potential jihadists, simply goes unmentioned.

Several European states have a less optimistic picture of the prospect of another three million migrants arriving on Europe’s borders than either the Pope or the European Commission do.

Pope Francis, on his recent visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, said that Europe must respond to the migrant crisis with solutions that are “worthy of humanity.” He also decried “that dense pall of indifference that clouds hearts and minds.” The Pope then proceeded to demonstrate what he believes is a response “worthy of humanity” by bringing 12 Syrian Muslims with him on his plane to Italy. “It’s a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same,” the Pope mused.

The Pope’s speech did not contain a single reference to the harsh consequences of Muslim migration into the European continent for Europeans. Instead, the speech was laced with reflections such as “…barriers create divisions instead of promoting the true progress of peoples, and divisions sooner or later lead to confrontations” and “…our willingness to continue to cooperate so that the challenges we face today will not lead to conflict, but rather to the growth of the civilization of love.”

The Pope went back to his practically migrant-free Vatican City — those 12 Syrian Muslims will be hosted by Italy, not the Vatican, although the Holy See will be supporting them — leaving it to ordinary Europeans to cope with the consequences of “the growth of the civilization of love.”

There is nothing quite as free in this world as not practicing what you preach, and what the Pope is preaching is the acceptance of more migration into Europe, and more migration — much more — is indeed what is in the cards for Europe.

At the UN’s Geneva conference on Syrian refugees on March 30, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, put the total number of asylum seekers into Italy in the first three months of 2016 at 18,234. This is already 80% higher than in the same period in 2015.

According to Paolo Serra, military adviser to Martin Kobler, the UN’s Libya envoy, migrants currently in Libya will head for Italy in large numbers if the country is not stabilized. “If we do not intervene, there could be 250,000 arrivals [in Italy] by the end of 2016,” he said. According to France’s Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the number is much higher: 800,000 migrants are currently in Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean.

The real question is: does Moridi represent the Canadian-Iranian community in Canada, or was he just collecting their votes to represent the Iranian and the Azerbaijani governments to Canada?

Although Moridi has ridden to his present position on the Iranian votes in Canada, he has changed faces and seems to be representing the interests of several other governments and institutions — including the Iranian regime; the Islamic Revolutionary Guards business empire and its links in Iran and Canada, and the Azerbaijani government; he is not representing the cultural and political interests of Canada or the Iranian-Canadians who gave him a seat in the Ontario government.

In Iran’s political establishment, as in others, there are often opportunistic figures who change their colors and views, apparently based on what they might gain politically and economically.

A current example is Reza Moridi, a Canadian citizen originally from Iran, who is currently a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario and the provincial government’s Minister of Research and Innovation.

Originally, to benefit from the votes of Iranian-Canadian constituents, Moridi strongly opposed human rights abuses committed by the Iranian regime and rejected the idea of rapprochement with Iran, currently the world leader per capita in executing people.

Previously, he had written a letter to Canada’s then prime minister, Stephen Harper, urging “the Government of Canada to continue speaking out against the restrictions on free speech and democracy in Iran” and arguing that “The Iranian people must have the opportunity to voice their opinions freely and without fear of harm.”

But his position soon changed dramatically. Suddenly, the Iranian regime’s human rights violations, oppression, and interventions in other countries became less of an issue. He recently met with Canada’s External Affairs Minister, Stephane Dion, to discuss further rapprochement with Iran’s regime, and is currently calling on the Canadian government to re-open its embassy in Tehran.

Father Joseph (Yusuf) Akbulut is one brave man. He is a soft spoken, highly intelligent, Syrian Orthodox Priest I had the honor to meet in November 2013 at his parish, the 1700 year old Church of the Virgin Mary in the Sur district of Diyarbakir, Syria. The Church, and the rectory in which Father Joseph, his wife and six children lived, were in the crossfire of the 10-month war between Kurdish fighters and the Turkish military.

In January they were in the Church with bombs exploding all around. A rocket-propelled grenade destroyed a portion of the wall surrounding the Church. Initially, Father Joseph refused to leave the Church he has overseen for 23 years, fearing it would be leveled if left empty. Unfortunately, he did have to leave – it became too dangerous. Now, the state has seized it along with all the other Christian Churches in Sur, including one of the largest Armenian Churches in the Middle East, Surp (Saint) Giragos.

Father Joseph Akbulut pointing out the “holy spirit” door knocker once so prevalent in the Sur district. Photo by Fran Fawcett Peterson

World Watch Monitor reports;

“We wouldn’t have left the church. But when we looked [on the street] and saw that land mines and rockets were exploding non-stop, we knew that we couldn’t stay,” he told World Watch Monitor. “Our house was shaking and we thought it would collapse.”

The power, electricity, and water were cut off. It was time to flee. They stepped out on the street cautiously, with Fr. Akbulut waving a white flag. Nobody was there.

“It was like a war zone,” he said.

Fr. Akbulut and his family are staying in a hotel for the foreseeable future. Ongoing clashes in the church’s neighborhood prevent their return.*
But controversy has followed him. He has fended off reports from the Turkish media that his church had indirect involvement with the PKK.

Germany is now headed down the road to civil war.

In a remarkable interview with the BBC Newshour program on Sunday night, the spokesman for the Islamic Council of Germany (ISC) called for an outright ban on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party after comparing the AfD to the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP) of the 1930s:

BBC: But in a democratic system, if people are voting for them, what can you do?

ICG: We have to teach the people that we have made some experiences from the history, which are very similar and close to the what the AFD is now doing. They are excluding one religious group from the social life. Therefore, they have to be banned from the political system because you cannot deal with the enemies of the democracy by means of the democracy, so the democratic people have to exclude them from all the democratic platform.

BBC: So you want them banned. A party which has won seats in half of regional elections, which has — as you say — between 10 and 15 percent of the vote in opinion polls at the moment — you’d like to see them banned completely, would you?

ICG: Yes.

The call by the ICG to employ German state powers to ban the AfD came after the AfD adopted policy platforms at its conference stating that Islam is “not part of Germany.”

Germany is increasingly falling under the stranglehold of Islamification pressure by Muslims in the country who seek to bring sharia law into full force.

Back in January, a Muslim group called for the banning of alcohol in Germany, and now the ICG is seeking to ban political parties that hold a negative view of Islam. So-called “sharia zones” have already been declared by Muslims in western Germany, with “sharia police” patrolling the streets under the support of the German court system. A growing number of legal cases are also being decided by sharia law.

One side will ultimately need to give in on its own initiative, or the path towards civil war on German soil is now set in stone.

The nightmare scenario of an America sent back centuries in time before electricity, refrigeration, and smart phones has grown unnervingly closer with the presence of two North Korean satellites with orbits over a blissfully unaware American populace and an Obama administration indifferent to the apocalyptic threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

On Feb. 7, North Korea launched a second satellite, the KMS-4, to join their KMS-3 satellite launched in December of 2012. In an article in the Washington Times on April 24, R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Peter Vincent Fry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security as well as director of the Nuclear Strategy Forum, both congressional advisory boards, warned of the dangers of an apocalyptic EMP attack that these and similar satellites pose:

Both satellites now are in south polar orbits, evading many U.S. missile defense radars and flying over the United States from the south, where our defenses are limited. Both satellites — if nuclear armed — could make an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that could blackout the U.S. electric grid for months or years, thereby killing millions.

Technologically, such an EMP attack is easy — since the weapon detonates at high-altitude, in space, no shock absorbers, heat shield, or vehicle for atmospheric re-entry is necessary. Since the radius of the EMP is enormous, thousands of kilometers, accuracy matters little. Almost any nuclear weapon will do.

Moreover, North Korea probably has nuclear weapons specially designed, not to make a big explosion, but to emit lots of gamma rays to generate high-frequency EMP. Senior Russian generals warned EMP Commissioners in 2004 that their EMP nuclear warhead design leaked “accidentally” to North Korea, and unemployed Russian scientists found work in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Woolsey and Pry, along with former Reagan science adviser William R. Graham, chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission, Ambassador Henry Cooper, director of the Strategic Defense Initiative and chief negotiator at the Defense and Space Talks with the USSR; and Fritz Ermarth, chairman of the National Intelligence Council; warned of the North Korean EMP threat an article in the February 12 issue of National Review:

Naïve reliance on their transparent disavowals could end up costing millions of American lives.

Hamas needs cannons and cannon-fodders to attack Israel. Hamas cannons came from a variety of sources, some as contributions from other Islamist regimes, such as Iran and Sudan. Smuggled weapons come through the Sinai and are sometimes hidden in containers of goods allowed into Gaza. Hamas has also taken advantage of building materials delivered for the endless reconstruction of Gaza and has been developing its own rockets and tunnels into Israel.

The local talent needed to produce the rockets is found in the Hamas-controlled Gaza school system. So is the fodder for Hamas attacks against Israel, Gaza’s school children, who receive growingly violent indoctrination and detailed instructions on how to attack and murder Israelis.

The Western media has been shocked shocked by ISIS videos showing how it trains children wearing the terrorist group’s black uniforms to sever heads of infidels. But, Hamas training of Gaza’s children wearing Hamas uniforms to slit the throats of Israelis, did not lead to the condemnation of Hamas.

Last month’s celebrations of the annual Palestine Festival for Childhood and Education in Gaza, offer a good example.

The Festival was celebrated throughout the Gaza school system, most of which are operated and funded by UNRWA, and most of the teachers are members of the Hamas Teachers’ Union. The events included young veiled girls and boys wearing military uniforms simulating stabbing attacks on Israelis, killing IDF soldiers and releasing Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails.

Sponsors of these events included the Ramallah-based Bank of Palestine, the Hamas-controlled University College of Applied Sciences in Gaza, whose funders include the World Bank and the European Commission, sponsored the events, as has the London-based, Interpal Fund, which has been designated as terrorist by Israel and US, but not in Britain.

“The displays put on by the children during the Annual Palestine Festival for Childhood and Education show that the sponsorship and support Interpal allegedly provides for worthy causes, is in reality also used to increase hatred for Israel and to indoctrinate violence (in both the formal and informal educational systems in the Gaza Strip). Moreover, funds donated by countries and various groups in Western Europe to further formal educational are also exploited to encourage hatred and terrorism.”

Within a week, Britain’s Labour party leadership was forced to suspend one of its newest MPs and one of its oldest grandees — and both for the same reason.

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone both say that they condemn anti-Semitism. They always tend to add that they also condemn “Islamophobia and all other forms of racism,” a disclaimer that always seems a deliberate attempt to hide a hatred of Jews under the skirts of any and all criticism of Islam. What is most fascinating is that all the while they are saying this, they stoke the very thing they claim to condemn.

They pretend that the Jewish state does such things for no reason. There is no mention of the thousands of rockets that Hamas and other Islamist groups rain down on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The comment turns a highly-targeted set of retaliatory strikes by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip into a “brutal” attack “on the Palestinians” as a whole. While mentioning those death-tolls, Livingstone has no interest in explaining that the State of Israel builds bunkers for its citizens to shelter in, while Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields and useful dead bodies for the television cameras, to help Hamas appear as an aggrieved “victim.”

It is the narrative of the “left” on Israel that is causing the resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is not coming from nowhere. It is coming from them. If the left wants to deal with it, they first have to deal with themselves.

Every time anyone thinks Britain’s Labour party has reached a new low of anti-Semitism, entirely new depths seems to open. In September, I wrote here about how the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour party constituted a “mainstreaming” of racism in the UK. Although Mr. Corbyn claims he does not have any tolerance for any hatred of anyone, he is a man who has spent his political life cosying up to anti-Semites and terrorist groups that express genocidal intent against the Jewish people. He has worked closely with Holocaust deniers, praised anti-Semitic extremists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends.