Najat AlSaied: The Axis of Moderation vs. the Axis of Resistance in the Middle East

The Axis of Moderation vs. the Axis of Resistance in the Middle East

by Najat AlSaied
December 1, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11471/axis-moderation-resistance

• "We are just returning to the Islam we are used to... The moderate Islam". — Saudi Crown Prince, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on October 26, 2017.
• Saudi Arabia's complaints against Iran's interference and spreading extremism cannot sound credible if extremism is being practiced inside Saudi Arabia.
• There urgently needs to be a unified American position to confront the Axis of Resistance. Iran continues to be the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, empowering these armed militias and extremist groups -- the basis of terrorism both in the region and across the world. It makes death threats, cooperates with a nuclearized North Korea, and all the while races toward nuclear weapons capability itself.

The dispute between the Arab states, often known as the Axis of Moderation, and the officially designated terrorist regime in Iran often known as the Axis of Resistance, is no longer just a political disagreement but a threat to the national security of Arab countries.

While the Arab states seem pro-statehood and work with other states, Iran and the Axis of resistance seems not to. Even though Iran calls itself Republic, it has a militia mentality and rarely deals with states. In general, rather than dealing with governments, it instead establishes militias, as it has in Lebanon and Yemen. Even in Iraq, where the government is considered its ally, Iran has established more than 15 militias. Qatar, by supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Syria under the Assad regime, seem to have the same mentality as Iran. If you trace the Axis of Resistance, all of them appear to have adopted the concept of supporting militias and extremist groups under the slogan of "resistance."

The Iranian regime's long history has now culminated in Saudi Arabia being targeted by Iranian missiles located in Yemen. They are coordinated in Lebanon by the Hezbollah militia, who train the Houthis in Yemen. It is important to understand that these violations and proxy wars carried out by the Iranian regime not only threaten the Arab Gulf states but also pose a threat to a regional and international security.

The Axis of Resistance is led by Iran, and includes Syria, Qatar, Hezbollah, Hamas, Arab Shiites loyal to Wilayat al-Faqih ("The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist") in Iran and Arab nationalists. Its slogans consist of fighting imperialism, empowering the (supposedly) vulnerable -- mainly Muslim Shiites -- and furthering "Arab nationalism," which usually manifests itself in support for Palestinians against Israelis.

The expansionist objectives of the Axis of Resistance -- in its drive to build a "Shiite Crescent" from Iran to the Mediterranean, are clear, compared to the objectives of the Axis of Moderation, which have not announced any specific aims, except to denounce Iran's interference in the Arab countries' affairs.

The Axis of Moderation comprises Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Arab Gulf countries, except for Qatar. The great mistake that the Axis of Moderation has made in confronting the Iranian regime -- to try to curb its export of the its "Revolution" -- has been to fall into the trap of propagating sectarianism. While Iran portrayed itself as the defender of all the Shiites in the world, Saudi Arabia, as a result, acted as the defender of all the Sunnis in the Muslim world -- accordingly, sectarianism was propagated. 
This polarization, however, has only furthered the interests of the Iranian regime, whose chief objective seems to be to continue igniting this division in an apparent policy of divide and conquer. 
 Instead of the members of the Axis of Moderation confronting Iran politically or militarily, they challenged it on religious and sectarian grounds, such as publishing countless books against Shiites that describe them as the enemies of Islam and labelling all Shiites as subordinate to Iran, as if all Shiites were Iran's puppets, which not all of them are.

U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, and the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in the inaugural opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, May 21, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

This divisiveness has brought extremism and terrorism to the region, and has only harmed everyone.

Now the Axis of Moderation has become shrewder in its confrontation with the Iran and has employed a greater number of experts in Iranian affairs. The Axis of Moderation, especially Saudi Arabia, has realized that it cannot face down the threat of Iran without radical internal reforms. Saudi Arabia's complaints against Iran's interference and spreading extremism cannot sound credible if extremism is being practiced inside Saudi Arabia. These internal reforms, and liberalizing the society, are important internally: they will boost the economy by creating an attractive investment environment, especially for foreign investors. As importantly, reforms will stop any adversary from saying that Saudi Arabia is a state supporter of terrorism or a land that exports terrorists.

SAUDI ARABIA
The most obvious changes are Saudi Arabia's internal reforms that cover "social openness" in the form of concerts and festivals, coordinated by an entertainment body, and the country's attempts to undermine clerical control, both by arresting extremists and establishing a committee at the Islamic University in Medina to codify the interpretation of Quranic verses that call for extremism, especially against other religions.

Saudi Arabia has also clamped down on corruption by arresting suspected businessmen, princes and former ministers. The kingdom has also raised the status of women by giving them more of their human rights, such as the recent lifting of the ban on women driving. In another important change, Saudi Arabia will also allow women to be clerics to confront all the patriarchal interpretations of verses in Quran related to women. Eventually, that could mean that lifting the ban requiring male guardians for women might also coming soon. The Saudi crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has also said that he will allow women to take sports classes in school, attend sporting event for women and to permit music. His wish, he has said, is to "restore Islam."

The most important matter of all was pointed out by the Saudi Crown Prince, at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on October 26, 2017: "We are just returning to the Islam we are used to... The moderate Islam." He also said, "We will not continue to be in the post-1979 era."

This is essentially a confession that the approach that Saudi Arabia followed after 1979 to try to oppose the Khomeini Revolution was not helpful, and that now it is time for real reform to face both internal and external challenges.

What Saudi Arabia is doing will eventually contribute towards clarifying the aims of the Axis of Moderation, which will be to support countries whose primary objectives are development, modernity and stability. The most important goal is to stamp out terrorism by supporting a "moderate" Islam or, more specifically, supporting the approach that Saudi Arabia took before 1979. This approach was echoed by the UAE ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, who said that the moderate countries boycotting Qatar are heading towards secularism -- in contrast to Qatar's support for Islamist militias such as Hezbollah, and radical groups in the Axis of Resistance, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

QATAR
What has complicated the situation has been an exploitation of the conflict in the United States between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party over how to fight terrorism by countries in the Axis of Resistance such as Qatar.

The double face of Qatar is revealed in many ways. Al Jazeera in English, for instance -- as mentioned the article, "Al Jazeera: Non-Arabs Should Not Be Fooled" -- is totally different from Al Jazeera in Arabic.

Ahmed Mansour, for example, one of Al Jazeera's anchors, tweeted about Hurricane "Irma" in Florida by citing a Koranic verse to say that what is happening in America is God's curse: "Twenty million Americans fled out of fear from Hurricane Irma," he wrote; then he cited a verse from Quran saying,

"And He shows you His signs. So which of the signs of Allah do you deny?" (40:81, Sahih International)

After his tweet in Arabic was read by American journalists, he apologized in a very sweet tweet in English.

Qatar also pretends to the US that it is supportive of its values, but in fact has close ties with all the enemies of the US. Sultan Saad Al-Muraikhi, Qatar's permanent envoy to the Arab League, for example, has called Iran, which the US has officially designated as a terrorist state, an "honorable state". Qatar also disagrees with designating Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and calls them, instead, "resistance movements" against Israel.

Qatar has, moreover, used that dispute for its own ends by way of an alliance with the Democratic Party's allies and supporters.

Many Qatari writers and Qatar's supporters, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, have written articles against the Trump administration, as opposed to the previous administration which clearly had a soft spot for the Muslim Brotherhood. From the beginning, the administration of US President Barack Obama overruled Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, by insisting that the Muslim Brotherhood attend Obamas speech in Cairo, thereby setting the stage for the fall of Mubarak; and also strongly supported the subsequent regime then Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood). Obama also openly counted the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, among his "best friends."
These opinion-makers in the US, evidently nostalgic for the previous administration, and known, especially during the Iran Deal, as not exactly aligned with the Axis of Moderation, seem to have been exploiting the rift between the Democrats and Republicans, apparently hoping for the impeachment of Donald Trump. As a Saudi academic and researcher, Ahmad Al-faraj, wrote in his article, "Qatar: The dream of isolating Trump!," they possibly think that a Democrat President, like Obama, would again support them.

While Qatar makes itself out to be tolerant and a supporter of democratic Americans and Westerners, anyone who watches Al Jazeera in Arabic will find nothing other than pure hatred of Western values and enormous support for armed militias such as Hezbollah and terrorist groups such as Hamas.

There urgently needs, therefore, to be a unified American position to confront the Axis of Resistance. Iran continues to be the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, empowering these armed militias and extremist groups -- the basis of terrorism both in the region and across the world. It makes death threats, cooperates with a nuclearized North Korea, and all the while races toward nuclear weapons capability itself. The United States would also do well to advocate a unified European position, and draw support from across the political spectrum. Unfortunately, European governments, for their own economic interests, have turned a blind eye to all the terrorism, extremism and sectarianism that Iran is fomenting. European countries should be warned that if they continue to put these economic interests ahead of global security, not only will the decision undermine the already-fragile national security of their own countries but also those of the region.
It is in the interest of the United States and world peace to support the pillars of an Axis of Moderation that would:

• Eliminate political Islam because it exploits religion for radical political goals in both the Sunni and Shiite sects. The Shiite version of political Islam failed in Iraq and the Sunni version of the Muslim Brotherhood failed in Egypt and Tunisia. In both versions of political Islam, violence and terrorism are exacerbated.
• Undermine Iran's influence among armed militias in the region such as the militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi in Yemen and the sectarian militias in Iraq. These should be classified as terrorist organizations. Hamas in the Gaza Strip has already been classified as such by the United States on October 31, 2001. Any country that supports Hamas or defends it, even in its media, should be classified as terrorist too.
• Prevent the existence of armed militias operating as a state within a state; they are the beginning of the collapse of states and therefore a serious threat to peace and stability.
• Consolidate the principles of secularism in internal and external dealings. Incitement to sectarian and racial hatred must be prevented as well as the use of Quranic verses to spread violence and extremism. To keep Iraq out of Iran's control, non-sectarian neighborly relations need to be maintained.
• Instill the principles of tolerance and respect for all religions and sects and guarantee the free practice of religions and the protection of minorities.

Moderate countries will not promote the rhetoric of a fight with Israel, as does the Axis of Resistance, led by Iran; instead, the Axis of Moderation is now committed to the principles of peace, which are based on the common interests of states to ensure the security and prosperity of all citizens.

The region and the world as a whole have suffered from the actions of the Iranian regime and its allies. There should be no justification for the existence of militias and extremist groups under the banner of resistance or similar pretexts. The international community needs to be firm in challenging states that allow or support such groups and should stress that states can only protect themselves with armies and armed forces, not with militias.

A unified American and European position needs to help the Axis of Moderation to prevent countries in turmoil from becoming cantons of militias and extremist groups. That seems a more constructive way to fight terrorism and build global stability.

Najat AlSaied is a Saudi American academic and the author of "Screens of Influence: Arab Satellite Television & Social Development". She is an Assistant Professor at Zayed University in the College of Communication and Media Sciences in Dubai-UAE.
This article was first published in Arabic at Al Hurra.

Amir Taheri : Progress and History in Zigzag

Progress and History in Zigzag

by Amir Taheri
December 3, 2017 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11476/progress-history

One of the key ideas promoted by the European Enlightenment or the Age of Reason of the 18th century is that of progress, according to which human history develops across a curve from a low point to higher and higher points. One may debate and dispute the exact nature of "higher" and "lower" points in that context. But most students of the Enlightenment agree that "progress" has two facets: material and cultural.
Material progress could be measured by such yardsticks and life expectancy, average health of the people, and better living conditions in tangible terms such as housing and the ability to cope with natural disasters. On a cultural level, progress includes literary and artistic creation, scientific and technological discoveries, participative politics and the rule of law.

But is it possible to question the very existence of a curve indicating linear progress? 
Isn't it possible that human history proceeds in zigzags with "lower" and "higher" points alternating according to mysterious laws?

Applied to the "Muslim World", the theory of progress hardly resists the challenge of the rival theory of historic zigzag.

At material level, progress made by virtually all Muslim-majority countries in the past 100 years is amazing.
A century ago, Muslims accounted for less than four per cent of the world population. In 2017, that has risen to almost 25 per cent. 

Muslims have also benefited from progress in life expectancy, public health and material living standards beyond their wildest dreams even a century ago.
I remember how as a young reporter in 1970, I fell into depression after a visit to what was then East Pakistan. I had not imagined so much human misery in my worst nightmares.
Half a century later, Bangladesh, the state that emerged from East Pakistan, is still poor by most standards but, when it comes to absolute poverty, is no longer the hell-hole it was in 1970; it has benefited from economic development and material progress.

On a grander scale, I remember the Trucial States, which were to become the United Arab Emirates. Outside Dubai, which had one hotel-like establishment, none had any proper facilities. In the Sultanate of Oman, we had to bivouac in private homes with no electricity and/or running water, and eat boiled goat and half-cooked rice. Now, of course, both the UAE and Oman boast some of the most luxurious tourist establishments in the world.

Similar observations could be made about almost all other Muslim countries, including my own homeland of Iran, which began to emerge from medieval poverty only in the 1960s.

In 1973, Tehran hosted a conference on "modernization", co-sponsored by a United Nations agency in charge of Asia. The consensus was that material progress will lead to cultural and, eventually, political progress.

Six years later, Iran had fallen under a clerical tyranny built around a hodgepodge of pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo and half-baked Marxist-Leninist methods. Suddenly, even classical Persian poets were censored or, in some cases, banned. Worse still, the Khomeinist sect that held power arrogated to itself the right to issue anathemas and interdicts, inventing its versions of the Inquisition and Excommunication, mechanisms that do not exist in Islam.

In 1960, when I arrived in Britain to go to school, I was surprised to find out that the Lord Chancellor had a blacklist of banned books at a time that no such abomination existed in Iran. Less than two decades later, there no longer was such a blacklist in the UK, while the Islamic Republic in Iran had worked out the longest blacklist in human history.

Even worse, the Khomeinist sect claims that anyone who does not blindly obey the current "Supreme Guide" is an "infidel". Of course, the incumbent himself is not immune against such anathema. One day, he, too, could be hit with the "mace of takfir," as he has happened to many leading figures of the Khomeinist regime, including four of the Islamic Republic's six presidents.

We need to go back to history to see how the zigzag works.

Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Pakistan's second foreign minister, belonged to the Ahmadi minority, and even served as their Ameer (religious leader) for a while. And, yet, his religious affiliation never became an issue. Today, however, Ahmadis are hunted and murdered by neo-Islamist militants not only in Pakistan, but also in Britain. No one in Pakistan cared that the "Father of the Nation," Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular politician. Today, the label secular could get you killed.

No one in Pakistan cared that the "Father of the Nation," Muhammad Ali Jinnah (d. 1948), was a secular politician. Today, the label secular could get you killed. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

In Iran under the Shahs, building a political career did not hit sectarian hurdles, and Sunni Muslims held high offices as ministers, governors, ambassadors and military commanders. (The Minister of Justice in the last cabinet formed under the Shah was a Sunni Muslim lawyer.)

Today, however, only one Iranian Sunni Muslim holds a high post, as Ambassador to Vietnam, a country with limited relations with Iran.

In Indonesia, which has the world's largest number of Muslims after India, such reformers as Abdul-Rahman Waheed and Nucholish Madjid enjoyed wide audiences and enough freedom, even under the military dictatorship, to promote their views in the marketplace of ideas. Today, many of their works are banned and seminars on them are attacked by neo-Islamist militants who claim they can decide who is a Muslim and who is not.

In Turkey, the neo-Ottoman elite won't even allow former Islamist allies, led by Fethullah Gulen, even a tiny space for dissent.

And what about the mass murder of over 400 Egyptian adepts of Sufism at a mosque in the Sinai last week? Yes, Egypt, which throughout Islamic history was a cradle of Sufism and the birthplace of "alternative" ways of understanding and living Islam? "Egypt, where the perfume of a hundred flowers refreshes the believer's soul" said the great Persian Sufi poet Sanai.

Almost 1,000 years later, there are people in Egypt who do not tolerate even a single flower, insisting that their violent thorn should conquer the earth. Had the Enlightenment theory of progress been right, today in Egypt we would have a thousand flowers instead of a single blood-stained thorn.

Today, we are wealthier, better educated and healthier than ever in Islamic history. And yet, we are faced with more ignorance, prejudice, fanaticism and violence than ever.

Others now remember us when they are asked to take off their shoes at airports and when they see our self-styled extremists cut people's throats on television.
So, maybe we are in a zigzag mode. If so, the question is how to zig our way out of the current deadly zag?

Amir Taheri, formerly editor of Iran's premier newspaper, Kayhan, before the Iranian revolution of 1979, is a prominent author based on Europe. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
This article first appeared in Asharq Al Awsat and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

Soeren Kern: Europe's Migrant Crisis: Millions Still to Come "African exodus of biblical proportions impossible to stop"

Europe's Migrant Crisis: Millions Still to Come

"African exodus of biblical proportions impossible to stop"

by Soeren Kern
December 3, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11480/europe-migrant-crisis-exodus

• More than six million migrants are waiting in countries around the Mediterranean to cross into Europe, according to a classified German government report leaked to Bild.
• "Young people all have cellphones and they can see what's happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet." — Michael Møller, Director of the United Nations office in Geneva.
• "The biggest migration movements are still ahead: Africa's population will double in the next decades... Nigeria [will grow] to 400 million. In our digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle.... Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way." — Gerd Müller, Germany's Development Minister.

The African Union-European Union (AU-EU) summit, held in in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, on November 29-30, 2017, has ended in abject failure after the 55 African and 28 European leaders attending the event were unable to agree on even basic measures to prevent potentially tens of millions of African migrants from flooding Europe.
Despite high expectations and grand statements, the only concrete decision to come out of Abidjan was the promise to evacuate 3,800 African migrants stranded in Libya.

More than six million migrants are waiting in countries around the Mediterranean to cross into Europe, according to a classified German government report leaked to Bild. The report said that one million people are waiting in Libya; another one million are waiting in Egypt, 720,000 in Jordan, 430,000 in Algeria, 160,000 in Tunisia, and 50,000 in Morocco. More than three million others who are waiting in Turkey are currently prevented from crossing into Europe by the EU's migrant deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Migrants crossing from Libya to Europe wait to be rescued from a boat by crew members from the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) Phoenix vessel on May 18, 2017 off Lampedusa, Italy. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

The former head of the British embassy in Benghazi, Joe Walker-Cousins, warned that as many as a million migrants from countries across Africa are already on the way to Libya and Europe. The EU's efforts to train a Libyan coast guard was "too little and too late," he said. "My informants in the area tell me there are potentially one million migrants, if not more, already coming up through the pipeline from central Africa and the Horn of Africa."

The President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, said that Europe is "underestimating" the scale and severity of the migration crisis and that "millions of Africans" will flood the continent in the next few years unless urgent action is taken.

In an interview with Il Messagero, Tajani said there would be an exodus "of biblical proportions that would be impossible to stop" if Europe failed to confront the problem now:

"Population growth, climate change, desertification, wars, famine in Somalia and Sudan. These are the factors that are forcing people to leave.
"When people lose hope, they risk crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean because it is worse to stay at home, where they run enormous risks. If we don't confront this soon, we will find ourselves with millions of people on our doorstep within five years.
"Today we are trying to solve a problem of a few thousand people, but we need to have a strategy for millions of people."

Just days before the AU-EU summit, Tajani called for a "Marshall Plan for Africa" — a €40 billion ($48 billion) long-term investment plan to boost education and job opportunities on the continent to dissuade people from leaving. He warned that spiraling population growth in Africa will be a demographic "bomb" that could push millions of Africans to Europe. "Without a strategy we will have terrorism, illegal immigration, instability," he said.

More than half of the global population growth between now and 2050 will occur in Africa, according to a new UN report, "World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision." Africa's population is expected to jump by 1.3 billion, from 1.2 billion in 2017 to 2.5 billion in 2050. Between 2017 and 2050, the populations of 26 African countries are projected to expand to at least double their current size.
Much of Africa's population increase will occur in Nigeria, currently the world's 7th most populous country, according to the UN. By 2050, Nigeria will surpass the United States to become the world's third-largest country by population, behind India and China (the population of India is expected to surpass that of China by 2024).

Beyond 2050, Africa is forecast to be the only region in the world still experiencing "substantial population growth" — the continent's share of the global population is forecast to increase from 17% in 2017 to 40% by 2100, according to the report.
Africa currently is the youngest continent in the world: 60% of Africa's population is under 25, compared to 32% in North America and 27% in Europe.

The EU's 28 states have a GDP of $18 trillion, nine times Africa's $2 trillion.
The director of the United Nations office in Geneva, Michael Møller, has warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In an interview with The Times, Møller, a Dane, said:

"What we have been seeing is one of the biggest human migrations in history. And it's just going to accelerate. Young people all have cellphones and they can see what's happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet."

German Development Minister Gerd Müller has echoed that warning:

"The biggest migration movements are still ahead: Africa's population will double in the next decades. A country like Egypt will grow to 100 million people, Nigeria to 400 million. In our digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle."

Müller added that only 10% of those currently on the move have reached Europe: "Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way."
Writing for the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman explained Europe's predicament:

"One possible reaction for Europe is to accept that migration from the rest of the world is inevitable—and embrace it wholeheartedly. Europe's debt-ridden economies need an injection of youth and dynamism. Who will staff their old-age homes and building sites if not immigrants from the rest of the world?
"But even those Europeans who make the case for immigration tend to argue that, of course, newcomers to the continent must all accept 'European values.' That may be unrealistic... Many immigrants from the Middle East and Africa bring much more conservative and sexist attitudes with them. It will take more than a few civics classes to change that....
"It may be possible for island nations surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, such as Japan or Australia, to maintain strict controls on immigration. It will be all but impossible for an EU that is part of a Eurasian landmass and is separated from Africa only by narrow stretches of the Mediterranean."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.

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Khadija Khan : UK: Perversions of Justice Emboldening Muslim Pedophiles, Discrediting Law Enforcers

UK: Perversions of Justice

Emboldening Muslim Pedophiles, Discrediting Law Enforcers

by Khadija Khan
December 5, 2017 at 4:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11481/uk-perversions-of-justice

• That the British government turned on the chief executive of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, Nazir Afzal -- a pioneer of the campaign to rescue under-aged girls from the drugging, torture and rape of violent criminals -- is beyond shocking.
• While the British authorities made a concerted effort to sweep the identity of the pedophiles under the carpet, the perpetrators themselves proudly shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the greatest") in the courtroom after they were convicted and sentenced.
• Boys educated by their fathers and radical clerics to view women as chattel would be likely to grow up as misogynists. Accounts from the female family members of some of the convicts in the grooming cases revealed a monstrous hatred for women in general, and non-Muslim women in particular.
• It is bad enough that women and girls in the Middle East are inferior in the eyes of their families and the law. Yet, for Britain to look the other way, if not sanction, practices that are anathema to a democracy that prides itself on human rights, is a perversion of justice to Britons of all backgrounds, including law-abiding Muslims.

The former Manchester police detective who exposed a pedophile ring in Rochdale -- and resigned in 2012 over the failure of the system to bring the perpetrators to justice -- recently broke her silence. She told the British press about the abuse to which she was subjected in her department for attempting to reveal that the perpetrators were Muslim men of Pakistani origin.

Maggie Oliver explained that the reason she decided to come forward with her story was the discovery that a former colleague, detective John Wedger, not only had experienced similar bullying at the hands of the Greater Manchester Police department, but is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his ordeal. Wedger said he was forced into early retirement in October, after more than two decades of service, due to his mental state. His shaky condition was caused, he said, by the behavior of his colleagues and superiors, who were aware that children were being sexually exploited; not only did they dismiss the fact, however, but at least one officer was providing the perpetrators with information about the investigation.

Oliver recounted that her assignment during what was dubbed "Operation Span" was to gain the confidence of the victims and encourage them to speak about their abusers. She claimed that once the children started pointing fingers at mostly Muslim men, the police department began to downplay her findings.
Oliver and Wedger were not the only secondary victims of Operation Span, however. In May 2017, a few months before their stories were made public, the chief executive of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, Nazir Afzal, was forced to resign over harsh statements he made about Islamists, following the Manchester Arena bombing.

Sadly, Afzal was shunned by certain groups of fellow Muslims for his part, as Chief Crown Prosecutor, in bringing the Rochdale "grooming gang" to justice, while openly attributing their misogyny to radical Islam. That the government, however, also turned on him -- a pioneer of the campaign to rescue under-aged girls from the drugging, torture and rape of violent criminals -- is beyond shocking. That he was ousted for putting British law and safety above any personal racial, ethnic or religious consideration conveys three dangerous messages.

Nazir Afzal was shunned by certain groups of fellow Muslims for his part, as Chief Crown Prosecutor, in bringing the Rochdale "grooming gang" to justice, while openly attributing their misogyny to radical Islam. (Image source: United States Mission Geneva)

First, it signals to members of the police that it is not in their best interest to tell the truth about Muslim criminals and terrorists. 

Second, it indicates to Muslim criminals and terrorists that they can get away with anything in the U.K., where the level of religious tolerance trumps even the law.

 Third, it serves to discourage victims (in this case, young girls) or those who are helping them -- such as Afzal, Oliver and Wedger -- from speaking out and reporting crimes, for fear of the devastating repercussions that befall anyone labeled racist or "Islamophobic."

The tragic irony is that the racists or "Islamophobes" are actually those who give Muslim criminals and terrorists a pass -- those who have lower expectations of Muslims than of anyone else.

Furthermore, willfully ignoring the link between radical Islam and certain types of violent behavior makes it impossible for law enforcement agencies to confront and eradicate that behavior. While the British authorities made a concerted effort to sweep the identity of the pedophiles under the carpet, the perpetrators themselves proudly shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is the greatest" in Arabic) in the courtroom after they were convicted and sentenced.

In August, Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, resigned from her position as shadow women and equalities minister, after she penned an op-ed in The Sun in which she said, "Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls."

Champion wrote the piece after 17 men and one woman were found guilty of committing violent crimes, including rape, against women and girls in Newcastle.
In the wake of Champion's resignation, Channel 4 News examined the statistics, published in a 2013 Child Exploitation and Online Protection report that referred to the identity and motives of perpetrators. What the data revealed is that the number of Muslims from South Asia involved in grooming gangs is three times higher than that of criminals of other backgrounds.

The situation is not coincidental. Boys educated by their fathers and radical clerics to view women as chattel would be likely to grow up as misogynists. Accounts from the female family members of some of the convicts in the grooming cases revealed a monstrous hatred for women in general, and non-Muslim women in particular.
The daughter of one of the convicts told the Daily Mail:

"My dad is in prison because he was with others raping small white girls. I hate him. He made my mum pregnant eight times even when she didn't want to do it. I heard her crying. Six babies died. He did that to her for so long. But never went to prison."

Another woman said:

"You know our girls are raped by uncles, fathers, brothers and imams. My neighbour's daughter had a baby when she was 12. It was her uncle. They blamed her. Sent her to Pakistan. We don't see the truth."

Many others also blamed the victims. White girls, one said, are "filthy. How they dress. They have no shame, no fear of Allah."

This sentiment was echoed by one of the convicts, Badrul Hussain, who -- when caught in 2014 by a female ticket inspector for not having paid for his ride on public transportation -- had shouted: "All white women are only good for one thing: for men like me to f*** and use like trash. That's all women like you are worth."

Rather than rejecting the culture in which Hussain and other sex offenders were raised, Britain enables it to flourish, as is illustrated by a well-documented book -- Women and Shari'a Law: The Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK -- published in 2016.

According to author Elham Manea, a Muslim professor and human rights champion, Islamic sharia courts in Britain are more extreme and "totalitarian" than those in some parts of Pakistan. Manea's findings, the result of a four-year study of approximately 80 Islamic councils in London and the Midlands, reveal that some of the clerics who head them support fathers having the power to annul their daughters' marriages at will.

One cleric interviewed in the book said, "A woman will be beaten in the name of religion. Beaten. And it will be legal." Another asserted, "A man should not be questioned why he hit his wife because this is something between them." Yet another, discussing property disputes, said, "We are very happy to give the woman half and the man double because I think this is a very fair way of dealing with the situation."

It is bad enough that women and girls in the Middle East are inferior in the eyes of their families and the law. Yet, for Britain to look the other way, if not sanction, practices that are anathema to a democracy that prides itself on human rights, is a perversion of justice to Britons of all backgrounds, including law-abiding Muslims.
Afzal is pessimistic about the direction that Britain is headed in this respect. "Will South Asian communities condemn these atrocities -- and take the necessary action? I'm not convinced," he wrote in the Daily Mail. "As for wider society, we must start to understand what drives this abuse if we want to stop it."

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that a mere few weeks ago, Afzal was disinvited from giving the keynote address at the annual gala for the Society of Asian Lawyers (SAL). A month before the October 28 event, he received a letter from the SAL committee, informing him, "Candidly, and regrettably, a member of our committee voiced concern over whether your article in The Mail on Sunday on grooming and your keynote speech may cause offence to guests at the ball."

Khadija Khan is a Pakistani journalist and commentator, currently based in Germany.

Yves Mamou : France: Islamism in the Heart of the State

France: Islamism in the Heart of the State

by Yves Mamou
December 5, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11423/france-state-islamism

• On all questions dedicated to immigration and Islam, France's Council of State has become an Islamo-leftist body, dedicated to encouraging Muslim immigration and protecting the expansion of Islam and Islamism in France.
• The government wanted to expel foreign workers immediately after the cancellation of their work permit. Due to the Council of State, deportation was delayed by 24 hours, enough time to allow them to escape and become permanent illegal immigrants.
• Maybe the elites are looking for "redemption" after France colonized parts of Africa. They are forgetting, however, that it was Muslims who colonized the Middle East, the Christian Byzantine Empire, North Africa, Greece, much of Eastern Europe and Asia, Northern Cyprus and Spain.

On October 25, 2017, the highest French administrative court, the Council of State (Conseil d'État), ordered the removal of a Roman Catholic cross from the top of a monument dedicated to Pope John Paul II in a public square in Ploërmel, Britanny. According to the France's highest administrative court, this cross was said to violate the secular nature of the State. Not the statue of the ex-pope John Paul II by itself; just the cross above it.

Social media, in France and abroad -- especially in Poland where John Paul II was born -- flew into an immediate uproar: How could the government of a country considered the "eldest daughter of the Catholic church" ask for the removal of a Catholic cross in a tiny village that nobody even knew about before this incident?

The Council of State is an independent legal body that has jurisdiction over disputes concerning civil liberties, administrative police, taxes, public contracts, the civil service, public health, competition rules, environmental law and secularism, to name just a few of its missions. The Council of State is also -- as its name implies -- the main advisor of every branch of government. Each time a minister or a prime minister has a difficult political decision to make, he sends the case to the Council of State. Generally, the Council of State's advice becomes the law.

The immense respect due to the Council of State seems to have caused even the keenest observers to miss the fact that, on all questions dedicated to immigration and Islam, the Council of State has become an Islamo-leftist body dedicated to encouraging Muslim immigration and protecting the expansion of Islam and Islamism in France.

On all questions dedicated to immigration and Islam, France's Council of State (Conseil d'État) has become an Islamo-leftist body, dedicated to encouraging Muslim immigration and protecting the expansion of Islam and Islamism in France. (Image source: Lino Bento/Flickr)

A few examples include:

• 1978. The right to migrate and work in France without an employment contract. The Council of State cancelled the government's decision to require an employment contract for a foreigner to migrate and work in France.
  
• 1978. The right to family reunification. Against the will of the government, which wanted to adapt migratory movements to a slower growth of the economy, the Council of State ruled that non-French immigrants have the "right to a family life", meaning that the wives and children of migrants workers are authorized to come, live and work in France as if they were French citizens. From that date, "family reunification" became an open door to migrants from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
  
• 1980. The right to polygamy. A foreign citizen is allowed to migrate in France with as many wives as he is married to in his country of origin. In 1993, a previous law had prevented second wives from obtaining visas.
  
• 1985. The right to illegal immigration. The government wanted to expel foreign workers immediately after the cancellation of their work permit. Due to the Council of State, deportation was delayed by 24 hours, enough time to escape and become a permanent illegal immigrant.
  
• 1989. Islamic veil in school is not "incompatible" with secularism. Since 18th century, state public schools were a tool of the state to build an education system away from the influence of the Catholic church. In 1989, with the authorization for schoolgirls to wear the Islamic veil, the Council of State introduced the right for a religion to influence a secularist education system. After 15 years of heated controversy, a 2004 law reversed that ruling and again prohibited the Islamic veil in the public secondary-school system, but not at universities.
  
• 2004. Authorization of Al Manar, Hezbollah's virulently anti-Semitic television channel, to broadcast in France. After strong protests by leaders of the Jewish community, however, the government passed a law that made it obligatory for the Council of State to prohibit the Islamist channel.
  
• 2010. The Council of State strongly opposed the government's decision legally to ban the burqa in the public space. A law banning the burqa was eventually passed.
  
• 2011. Public money is allowed for building mosques after the Council of State bypassed the secularist law from 1905.
  
• 2013. The Council of State gives the right to veiled mothers to be part of public school trips. Before that, school trips were considered an extension of the school. Consequently, the 2004 law prohibiting Islamic veil at school was applied against veiled mothers. In 2012, however, that law was reversed; now, veiled mothers are allowed to accompany pupils on school trips.
  
• 2013. The Council of State opposed the dismissal of a veiled employee in a daycare nursery, Baby Loup. The Baby Loup veil controversy, which lasted five years, mobilized national and international media, politicians, and a large part of the judicial system. The question was: Does a female employee have the right to wear an Islamic headscarf, even if company rules prohibit it? Eventually, the employee was dismissed and Baby Loup, which was located in a Muslim suburb, moved elsewhere.
  
• 2016. The Council of State allowed burkinis, the full-covering swimsuit for women. The ruling affects seaside resorts such as Nice, and places where the burkini does not create public disorder. In August 2016, burkinis started appearing on French beaches. In Nice, the capital of the Côte d'Azur, a few weeks after an Islamist terrorist murdered 82 people on July 14, four policemen delivered a warning to a burkini-clad woman lying on a beach. Pictures in the Daily Mail of policemen surrounding "poor and isolated Muslim woman," were published throughout the world. The Council of State ruled that any municipal prohibition of the burkini was prohibited -- unless the burkini was creating public disorder.
  
• 2016. More money for "refugees". The Council of State ruled that the State had to give more money to help tens of thousands of "refugees" to find a place to sleep while their files were being examined by immigration officials, contrary to other applicants.
  
• 2017. A government-funded mega-mosque in Paris. The Council of State helped the mayor of Paris legally build a giant mosque and donate it as a gift to an Islamic association.
  
• 2017. Islamic veil in nursing schools. The Council of State authorized the Islamic veil in nurses' training institutions even if internal rules prohibited exhibiting conspicuous religious signs.
  
• 2017. Public showers and toilets for migrants. The Council of State ruled that the government has an obligation to provide illegal immigrants with public showers and public toilets in Calais, where thousands of young men from Africa and the Middle East try every day illegally to cross the Channel to England. Notably, this ruling is based on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which says this obligation is only for prisoners of war. Does the Council of State consider the French State as a jailer of migrants? There is no mention whatsoever in the ruling of considerations of public health.
  

Although the list above is not exhaustive, the rulings of the Council of State in favor of Islam, Islamism and unlimited, unvetted Muslim migration is systematic.

The question is: Why? Many French elites seem to be followers of a globalist ideology of no borders, no rules -- only the "human rights" of migrants from other nations vs. the rights of the citizens of France.

Perhaps many elites feel guilty after French State actively collaborated with Nazis, especially against Jews, during World War II, so that now they are trying, instead, to help Muslims -- whose culture and goals could hardly be farther from that of the Jews. Nevertheless, many seem to think of Muslims as "the Jews" of 21st century.
Perhaps many among the elites secretly do not like their country.

Or perhaps many elites are looking for "redemption" after France colonized parts of Africa and Northern Africa. They are forgetting, however, that it was Muslims who colonized the Middle East, the Christian Byzantine Empire, North Africa, Greece, much of Eastern Europe and Asia, Northern Cyprus and Spain.

Maybe it is a mix of all these guilts. What is certain is that after the collaboration of the French State with the Nazis, the judges of the Council of State are collaborating with yet another totalitarian ideology: political Islam.

Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde. He is finishing a book about "Collaborators and Useful Idiots of Islamism in France," to be published in 2018.

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