Khadija Khan : Islamism in Europe

Islamism in Europe

by Khadija Khan
December 17, 2016 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9566/islamism-europe

• Ironically, those who dare to speak out against extremists either face severe consequences, such as death threats, or are called anti-Muslim bigots. This kind of response often discourages progressive voices from speaking out, and understates the progress of counter-extremism even within the Muslim community. Opposition voices still might be there -- more than ever. They just go underground.
• Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens across Europe have been living in constant fear. They seem to be sick and tired of the Muslim extremists; children might be in danger on their way to school, and shopping takes place under the protection of soldiers.
• With Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and Italy's referendum, there seems to be a snowball effect. The growing influence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the National Front in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party Austria and the Five Star Movement in Italy all appear to be byproducts of the same rhetoric.
• The dull reaction of a vast number of European Muslims to the rising wave of terror and violence has also contributed to this shift. Increasing numbers of native-born Europeans seem angry and distrustful of their fellow Muslim citizens, especially when everyone else has come out loud and clear in denouncing terrorist crimes.

German authorities and those across Europe seem finally to be strengthening their campaign against the militant far-right, including Muslim extremists, during the past few weeks.
This awakening, however, seems to be coming after a major price that Europe had to pay in terms of death and chaos unleashed by terrorists in Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, and so on.


Governments across Europe seem to be switching into panic mode to prevent the rise of European radicalism through the rise of the far-right, racism and nationalism throughout the entire continent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sounds as if she is backing down a bit from championing the influx of migrants and her slogan of "We can do it!" in developing a multicultural society. She not only vowed to Germans in an address last week that the migrant crisis must never be repeated; she also called for an all-out ban on the full-face veil covering in Germany.

Following Merkel's lead, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière also proposed a partial ban on veils, and pronounced them contrary to assimilation.
The dramatic shift in policy might be a consequence of the planned and perpetrated acts of terrorism by extremist Muslims, many of whom are the migrants on whom Merkel placed her hopes. It might also be the result of the resultant rise of European neo-Nazis. More likely, it would appear to come from an eye to re-election.

Merkel was declared by many the only defender of the free world after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Perhaps, after the surprising victory of Donald Trump, she realized that it might be a good idea finally to address the grievances of her fellow countrymen.

The brutal rape and murder of a 19-year-old German woman, Maria Ladenburger, apparently by Afghan migrant who claims to be 17 years old, seems to have been the last nail in the coffin of Merkel's open-door migrant policy, which she had promised to not to let go even after extreme opposition from within her own party's leadership.
Ladenburger had been a medical student volunteering at a migrant housing facility. Her murderer had reportedly seen her in the shelter. The incident set off shockwaves not only in the Germany but also across Europe, especially after promises by Germany's interior ministry to deport as many Afghan citizens as possible after failing to confirm any credible claims for asylum.

In the meanwhile, authorities in Berlin last weekend announced the arrest of an Afghan citizen who was actively involved in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, while living part-time in Germany.
German police a few weeks back also launched an operation against a Salafist group in the country, whose members were brainwashing Muslim youths, mostly in Germany, to get jihadist training and join the Islamic State's battle against the world in Syria and Iraq.
The Salafist organization had registered itself as a social work entity under the cover of distributing the Quran in markets and public places, and claiming to be bridging the gap between the West and Islam.
One suspect was arrested in Aschaffenburg and another was detained in Mannheim, on the allegation of plotting an Islamically motivated attack on a public place.
This recent shift in strategy is also a lesson that the West has learnt a bit too late, despite having experienced similar assaults not that long ago by the Nazis, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin as well as terror organizations such as Baader Meinhof, al-Shebaab, ETA, the Red Brigades, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, to name just a few.
Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens across the Europe have been living in constant fear. They seem to be sick and tired of the Muslim extremists; children might be in danger on their way to school, and shopping takes place under the protection of soldiers.

Since the unprecedented terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany, citizens have been living in constant fear. In France, soldiers are deployed in the streets. Pictured: A soldier on guard at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. (Image source: Kirsteen/Flickr)

With Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and Italy's referendum, there seems to be a snowball effect. The growing influence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the National Front in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party Austria and the Five Star Movement in Italy all appear to be byproducts of the same rhetoric.

The dull reaction of a vast number of European Muslims to the rising wave of terror and violence has also contributed to this shift. Increasing numbers of native-born Europeans seem angry and distrustful of their fellow Muslim citizens, especially when everyone else has come out loud and clear in denouncing terrorist crimes.
Ironically, those who dare to speak out against extremists either face severe consequences, such as death threats, or are called anti-Muslim bigots. This kind of response often discourages progressive voices from speaking out, and understates the progress of counter-extremism even within the Muslim community. Opposition voices still might be there -- more than ever. They just go underground.
The majority of Muslims in the West seem oblivious to the fact that they would be the greatest victims of empowered lunatic extremists such as ISIS or neo-Nazis, because both would try to punish progressive Muslims either for remaining silent about terrorist attacks or for not joining the bandwagon for ISIS.

Progressive Muslims should realize that their voices matter at this sensitive time if they do not want to end up being losers between those two extremes.
The failed political policies of the global powers have started to translate into a dreadful future for humanity where a clone of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Anders Breivik or a Neville Chamberlain clone might be calling the shots, and the civilized world would become a hell for those caught in the middle, the rest of us.

Khadija Khan is a Pakistan-based journalist and commentator.

=================

Vijeta Uniyal : Merkel Government Still in Denial

Merkel Government Still in Denial

by Vijeta Uniyal
December 20, 2016 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9608/merkel-germany-denial

• Islamic State took responsibility for the December 19 Berlin truck-ramming attack that killed 12 people, similar to the July 14 attack in the French city of Nice, and countless car-rammings in Israel. Now Europeans feel what Israelis live with every day.
• This month, the police union in the German state of Thuringia issued an open letter to the state's Interior Minister, describing the crumbling law-and-order situation amid the rising migrant crime: "[You] are abandoning us completely helpless to a superior force... But what changes? Nothing. One instead gets a sense of uninterest."
• Meanwhile, representatives of Arab community were reported telling the police in Ruhr, "The police will not win a war with us because we are too many."
• Chancellor Merkel, Germany's ruling elites and the media can continue putting a happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim lands, or suppress news reporting on rising migrant crime, but they cannot wish away the country's deteriorating law and order situation.
• It should be evident to even a casual observer that her government still does not care about the victims of its own failed "refugee" policy.

Monday's terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market killed at least 12 people and injured 50 others. Islamic State took responsibility for the truck-ramming attack, as recommend by the al-Qaeda magazine, Inspire, and similar to the July 14 attack in the French city of Nice, and countless car-rammings in Israel. Now Europeans feel what Israelis live with every day.

Police confer at the site of the December 19 car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in Berlin. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

Earlier this year, Germany was hit by a series of ISIS-inspired attacks and failed terror plots. Despite that almost all the perpetrators were recent Syrian or Afghan migrants, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in the middle of a re-election bid, has stuck to her claim that there is "no connection" between terror attacks in the country and uncontrolled mass migration from Arab and Muslim lands.
Ahead of an election year, Merkel and her coalition partners also want to avoid another mass sexual attack -- in Cologne.

Adding insult to injury, the Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, is planning to put on a big show this coming New Year's Eve in the city's main square. After an elaborate year-long cover up, the city will be lighting up the crime scene as part of a multi-media show. "The City of Cologne has announced plans for a spectacular multi-media show in the area immediately surrounding the famous Gothic cathedral, close to the main train station," state-run broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.

"Cologne will send good images to the world," says the city's mayor. The taxpayer-funded spectacle has been named "Time Drifts Cologne." The "light artist" running the show, Philipp Geist, considers last year's crime scene "a fantastic place for an art installation."

Of an estimated two thousand exclusively Muslim men who raped, assaulted and robbed more than 1200 women, almost all the attackers have managed to walk free. Ralf Jäger, Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, admitted recently that "most of the cases will remain unsolved."

An estimated 1,800 police officers will be on duty in Cologne on New Year's Eve, compared to just 140 last year. Barricades have been erected in the city center to check the flow of the crowd. The city's historic cathedral and adjoining area have been placed under a crush barrier. Police will man observation posts and fly helicopters to monitor the crowd, and deploy mounted police and six armoured vehicles for riot-control. "No expense will be spared," assured the mayor. In an important election year, the government wants to defend the city to the last taxpayer dime.

Even before it can face any real onslaught, however, Merkel's fortification is showing some serious cracks.
Just days ahead of the News Year's Eve, the police union in the eastern German state of Thuringia has issued an open letter describing the crumbling law-and-order situation amid the rising migrant crime. "[You] are abandoning us completely helpless to a superior force," says the desperate note addressed to the Interior Minister of Thuringia. The union claims that politicians have been repeatedly briefed on the deteriorating conditions under which police have been working. "But what changes? Nothing. One instead gets a sense of uninterest."
Unwilling to acknowledge the breakdown of law and order in face of the rising migrant crime wave, the German media and politicians are going after the messenger.

Their latest target is the head of German Police Union, Rainer Wendt. Wendt's crime, after a series of rape crimes this December, was to speak the obvious truth. "The criminals are using open borders," he said.
Ralf Stegner, deputy leader of Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a fervent supporter of Merkel's "Refugees Welcome" policy, denounced Wendt's statement as "politically disgusting and stupid as one can get."
Wendt has also been attacked for questioning the customary kid-glove treatment given to violent and criminal "refugees" by German courts. Sven Rebehn, Chairman of the German Association of Judges, called Wendt, "the Donald Trump of domestic politics" -- apparently the biggest insult a German liberal can come up with these days.

The Merkel government can turn the center of Cologne into an impenetrable fortress for a day or two, but the threat is not going away. The problem lies in the Ruhr region that encircles Cologne. "Have foreign clans turned Ruhr region into a No-Go-Area?" asks the leading German newspaper, Die Welt, just days ahead of News Year's Eve.

Meanwhile, representatives of Arab community were reported telling the police in Ruhr, "The police will not win a war with us because we are too many."

Chancellor Merkel, Germany's ruling elites and the media can continue putting a happy face on uncontrolled mass-migration from Arab and Muslim lands, or suppress news reporting on rising migrant crime, as much as they want, but they cannot wish away the country's deteriorating law-and-order situation.
As the desperate plea of the police union shows, the Merkel government has decided to ignore the plight of law enforcement, at least for now. It should be evident to even a casual observer that her government still does not care about the victims of its own failed "refugee" policy: Germany appears to be heading toward another rough year.

Vijeta Uniyal is an Indian current affairs analyst based in Europe.

• Follow Vijeta Uniyal on Twitter

==================

George Igler : Are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait Funding German Salafism?

Are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait Funding German Salafism?

by George Igler
December 21, 2016 at 5:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9614/germany-saudi-arabia-qatar-kuwait

• The Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad al-Thani Charitable Association and the Saudi Muslim World League are coordinating a "long-running strategy to exert influence" by Gulf States in Germany, according to a report authored by Germany's security agencies.
• "This is about war, about children being indoctrinated, they are only in primary school and already fantasize about how when they grow up, they want to join the jihad, kill infidels." — Wolfgang Trusheim, Frankfurt State Security office.
• "For quite some time we've had indications and evidence that German Salafists are getting assistance, which is approved by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, in the form of money, the sending of imams and the building of Koran schools and mosques." — Rolf Mützenich, German MP and Middle East expert.
• Declining to assimilate in the West continues with the apparent, religiously mandated, preference to have the host countries become Islamic.

Salafism -- from salaf, "ancestors" or "predecessors" in Arabic -- urges the emulation of the first three generations of the Islamic prophet Mohammad's companions, and Mohammad himself. It is often deemed the most fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
Security agencies in Germany claim that 9,200 such Islamic extremists currently call the country home. Another intelligence briefing cited by Süddeutsche Zeitung, warns that "the ideology already has 10,000 followers" and growing, in the country.
"Almost all of the German nationals who have travelled to Syria to fight for Islamic State became radicalized by Salafis, who target low-income Muslim youths in German cities," wrote the Los Angeles Times, adding that it is proving increasingly challenging for German intelligence officials, "to differentiate between those who identify intellectually with Salafism and those who espouse using violence to realize a radical version of Islam."

Both Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) "have accused Saudi Arabia and Kuwait of funding religious groups and conversion groups, as well as financing the building of mosques and backing hardline imams," according to the Daily Express.
Following raids of their offices throughout Germany the activist group Die Wahre Religion ("The True Religion") has already been banned in the country.
According to the German interior minister, Thomas de Mazière, "translations of the Quran are being distributed along with messages of hatred and unconstitutional ideologies ... Teenagers are being radicalised with conspiracy theories."
A radicalized 12-year old Muslim boy was recently arrested in the country; he was accused of planting bombs aimed at targeting shoppers in Germany's famous Christmas markets.
Police raided 190 locations nationwide, affiliated with Die Wahre Religion; authorities described the group as a "collecting pool" for jihadists, which had already sent at least 140 fighters to foreign battlefields.
850 people are thought to have journeyed, "from Germany to Syria and Iraq to join extremist groups like the Islamic State as fighters," according to the Associated Press.

In a warehouse near the western city of Cologne, authorities seized about 21,000 German-language copies of the Quran. The ban came a week after security authorities arrested five men who allegedly aided the Islamic State group in Germany by recruiting members and providing financial and logistical help.
The German interior minister stressed that the ban does not restrict the freedom of religion in Germany or the peaceful practice of Islam in any way. However, he said the group had glorified terrorism and the fight against the German constitution in videos and meetings.

Terrorism is naturally an abiding concern in Germany, yet recent comments by Wolfgang Trusheim, of Frankfurt's State Security office, point to where much of the Salafist influence is being focused, namely, the minds of the young:

This is about war, about children being indoctrinated, they are only in primary school and already fantasize about how when they grow up, they want to join the jihad, kill infidels. They refuse to play football with infidels, they say: "I'm not allowed to play football with you, but when I'm grown up, I will kill you, because you are an infidel."

As cited by a recent TV report by Hessischer Rundfunk:

There were instances of radical Salafist parents, who are willing to teach their children the hatred of believers of a different creed by any means. A father who puts his children in front of the TV, they are forced to watch the most cruel decapitation videos, and will be questioned, and just as they have learned, they reply that the human who has just been burnt alive or decapitated, deserves it because he is an infidel.

Salafists, according to the New York Times, "are known for aggressive proselytizing and their sympathies for the Islamic State." Much of the recent crackdown by German government agencies is aimed at preventing such extremists from targeting the country's swelling "refugee" population.
Germany is already experience a boom in births as a product of its "unmanageable" population influx.
"Something must be done immediately. We cannot wait any longer," says Michael Kiefer, an Islamic Studies specialist at the government-sponsored Institute for Islamic Theology at the University of Osnabrück, about the growth of Salafism in Germany.
Such warnings, quoted in an analysis by Gatestone Institute as far back as 2014, evidently fell on deaf ears. The following year, Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, permitted over 1.5 million Muslim migrants to swell her nation's Islamic population still further.
According to Dr. Bernd Baumann, a representative of the populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) from Hamburg, with Germany representing less than 1% of the world's population, in the year 2016, the European nation had accepted more "refugee" applications than the rest of the world combined:
Public Islamist recruitment drives, however, are becoming an increasingly common sight on German streets, as Die Zeit reported on November 28.
The Daily Express reported on December 15, 2016:

"The Kuwaiti Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), a non-governmental organization (NGO) banned by the U.S. and Russia for alleged links to terrorist group Al-Qaeda, has also been blamed for the rising support for fundamentalist Salafi groups in Germany."

Missionary groups from the Gulf States, including the Saudi Muslim World League, and Qatar's Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad al-Thani Charitable Association, are allegedly involved in a "long-running strategy to exert influence" on Muslims in Germany.
RIHS and the Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad al-Thani Charitable Association have denied the allegations. The Saudi ambassador to Germany, Awwas Alawwad, also rejected the intelligence claims, saying his country has "no connection with German Salafism."
Despite such denials, Chancellor Angela Merkel, "has confirmed plans rapidly to expand the scope and size of Germany's intelligence services including its domestic spy agency."
As the German MP and Middle East expert, Rolf Mützenich, has said, "The danger is real and should not be underestimated." He added:

"For quite some time, we have had indications and evidence that German Salafists are getting assistance, which is approved by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, in the form of money, the sending of imams and the building of Koran schools and mosques.
"The best way of preventing refugees from being radicalised is speedy and successful integration. To achieve that, we need professional prevention and de-radicalisation programs. That means more money and resources for specialists in schools, government administration, police, youth welfare organisations, prisons and reform schools."

Critics might argue that that there is enormous pressure in Muslims not to assimilate. The injunction begins with the Koran:

O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people. (Q5:51, Sahih International translation)

And:

Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends rather than believers; and whoever does this, he shall have nothing of (the guardianship of) Allah, but you should guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully; and Allah makes you cautious of (retribution from) Himself; and to Allah is the eventual coming. (Q3:28, Shakir translation)

Declining to assimilate in the West continues with the apparent, religiously mandated, preference to have the host countries become Islamic.
With Islamist double-agents working for German intelligence services now being arrested in the country, Germany's security challenges clearly go far deeper.

George Igler, between 2010 and 2016, aided those facing death across Europe for criticizing Islam.

================

Douglas Murray : UK: Two Systems of Justice : The Tommy Robinson case!

UK: Two Systems of Justice

by Douglas Murray
November 26, 2016 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8893/uk-justice

• Tommy Robinson has not been -- as Choudary was -- at the heart of a nexus of terrorists and terrorist-supporters going back years. He has not been on friendly terms with numerous people who have beheaded civilians and carried out suicide bombings.
• Robinson is in an exceptionally unfortunate position. He is not a radical Islamist and nor is he from any discernible minority. He is a white working-class man who, it appears, can thus not only be harassed by certain authorities with impunity, but can find few if any defenders of his rights among the vast panoply of people in our societies who are only too keen to defend the rights of Islamists.
• Civil liberties groups such as "Liberty," which are so stringent in protecting the rights of Islamist groups such as "Cage," are silent on the case of Tommy Robinson.

So farewell, then, Anjem Choudary. For two and half years at least. On September 6, the radical cleric was sentenced by a British judge to five and a half years in prison for encouraging people to join the Islamic State. If he behaves himself in prison he could be out in half that time, although whenever he emerges, it is unlikely that it will be as a reformed character. But the law has taken its course and in a rule-bound society has responded in the way that a rule-bound society ought to behave -- by the following due process. So it is useful to compare the experience of Anjem Choudary and the way in which the state has responded to him with the way in which it has responded to another person.

It is now seven years ago that a young British man from Luton going by the name of Tommy Robinson formed the English Defence League (EDL). He did so after he and other residents of the town of Luton were appalled by a group of radical Muslims who protested a home-coming parade for British troops. There is some interesting symmetry here in that the Islamists present in Luton that day were members of Anjem Choudary's group, al-Muhajiroun. Robinson and other residents of Luton were not only taken aback by the behaviour of the radicals but by the behaviour of the police who protected the radicals from the increasingly angry local residents.

Whatever its legitimate grievances when it began, the EDL did undoubtedly cause trouble. Protests often descended into thuggery, partly because of some bad people attracted to it and partly because "anti-fascist" counter-demonstrators often ensured that EDL protests became violent by starting fights with them. But through most of the time that Robinson led the EDL, there did appear to be -- confirmed by third-party observers including independent journalists -- a sincere and concerted effort to keep genuinely problematic elements out of the organisation.

To those who said that Robinson and his friends had no right to organise protests, there are two responses. The first is that they had as much right to be there as anyone else. And second, that the problems they were objecting to (hate-preachers, grooming-gangs and so on) are real issues, which the state has increasingly realised are such in the years that followed.

In 2013 Robinson left the group he started, and in the years since, has engaged in a range of activities, including authoring a book. The book chronicles, among other things, a campaign by the state of harassment, which began from the moment Robinson formed the EDL. His own house and those of his nearest relatives were repeatedly raided by police, and computers and other materials taken away for examination. Any fair reading of the book -- whose details have again been broadly confirmed by the few journalists who have been interested in the case -- suggests that there was a very clear and concerted effort to find something -- anything -- on Robinson to get him locked up.

In the end the police did find something -- a mortgage fraud matter -- for which Robinson was eventually tried and found guilty. In 2014, he was imprisoned for eighteen months. Even after his release, the effort to find something on Robinson continued. His movements were restricted. His ability to speak and congregate was restricted. He was repeatedly threatened with a return to prison for alleged breaches of bail conditions. On one occasion, the nature of the charge was a brawl Robinson had been involved with in prison, with a Muslim prisoner who was allegedly in the act of attacking Robinson -- who had repeatedly been placed in prison wings where there were large numbers of Muslim inmates.
Since his release, as before, Robinson has been repeatedly assaulted in the streets, including by Luton Muslims who have faced no subsequent charges for their attacks, even when caught on camera. In February of this year, he was hospitalised after being assaulted upon leaving a nightclub in Essex.

Then, this August, as he and his family were attending a football game in Cambridge, they were once again the subject of police harassment. While sitting in a pub with his wife and young children, they were ejected from the pub by Cambridgeshire police. The police did this despite the volunteered insistence of the management of the pub that the family had been doing nothing wrong and were causing no trouble. Police escorted Robinson and his family from the premises, and on the video footage of the incident you can easily hear the sound of Robinson's young children crying.

Unlike Anjem Choudary (left), who was at the heart of a nexus of terrorists and terrorist-supporters, Tommy Robinson (right) is a white working-class man who can not only be harassed by police and other authorities with impunity, but can find few if any defenders of his rights among the vast panoply of people in our societies who are only too keen to defend the rights of Islamists.

There will be those who think that such harassment of Robinson is correct -- that in order to keep the peace it is necessary to keep an eye on anybody who may have any effect to the contrary. But if that is true, it is curious that such measures were not routinely used on Anjem Choudary in all his years living freely in the community. It would be interesting to know if there are any records of Choudary and his family being harassed by police or removed from establishments while the hate-preacher was on whatever down-time he used to have. Or whether the British police ever routinely raid and search the houses of radical Islamists in the hope of finding errors in their VAT returns and the like.

But of course the very comparison is unfair and in many ways lazy, because Tommy Robinson has not been -- as Choudary was -- at the heart of a nexus of terrorists and terrorist-supporters going back years. He has not been on friendly terms with numerous people who have beheaded civilians and carried out suicide bombings.

There are not any occasions, of which the author is aware, on which Robinson has called for violence or the breaking of the law in the name of his political views. But in the eyes of the law, much of the media and a certain number of people in the country Robinson is in an exceptionally unfortunate position. He is not a radical Islamist and nor is he from any discernible minority. He is a white working-class man who, it appears, can thus not only be harassed by certain authorities with impunity, but can find few if any defenders of his rights among the vast panoply of people in our societies who are only too keen to defend the rights of Islamists.

Civil liberties groups such as "Liberty'" which are so stringent in protecting the rights of Islamist groups such as "Cage," are silent on the case of Tommy Robinson. To consider why this is so is to see to the heart of a problem that Britain has been going through in recent years and which seems destined to continue for many years to come.

Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England.

• Follow Douglas Murray on Twitter

======================

Nonie Darwish : What About the Cultural Imbalance?

What About the Cultural Imbalance?

by Nonie Darwish
November 29, 2016 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9379/cultural-imbalance

• If we do not demand equal cultural access, such a cultural imbalance will result in one side absorbing the values of the other, while keeping the Islamic nation "pure" and free of any outside influence. This one-sided cultural tyranny is forcing us, the American citizen, into tolerating intolerance while never expecting anything more aligned to Western values from the Muslim world.
• As soon as Muslims form a small community inside a Western nation, they immediately deny access to any kind of Biblical preaching or education inside their community, but at the same time apparently feel entitled to demand access to preach the Koran in American prisons and spread Islamic culture and values in American schools.
• If Muslims finance Islamic Studies departments on American campuses and teach Islam in our public schools, the same rights must be awarded to Americans. It is true there are a few American schools in the Middle East, such as the American University in Cairo, but these schools are forbidden from having departments of Biblical Studies.
• If Muslim governments and citizens have full access to build mosques in America, America must insist on having the same access in their countries. That is not the fault of Muslim countries, so much as it is the fault of Western "multiculturalism," which expects nothing and is adhered to only by Western nations.
• If such one-sided access of Islam into the West continues, while other religions in Muslim communities and countries are considered by them illegal "hate crimes," Western culture and the values of free will and religious freedom will atrophy and die. Islamists are counting on Western inertia to win.

Similar to the often-mentioned trade imbalance, there is a large imbalance Western nations and Muslim nations that is hardly ever mentioned: the cultural imbalance.

Muslims have access to build mosques in the West, yet give no access to the West to build churches or synagogues in Muslim countries. Muslim governments finance "Islamic Studies" and "Middle East Studies" departments in almost all major American universities, but will not allow Christian Studies or Judaic Studies departments at any university in the Muslim world. They freely preach Islam everywhere and consider it their right. But not one Muslim country legally permits Christian missionary work, and those few missionaries who dare to try are harshly punished, imprisoned or killed.

As soon as Muslims form a small community inside a Western nation, they immediately deny access to any kind of Biblical preaching or education inside their community, but at the same time apparently feel entitled to demand access to preach the Koran in American prisons and spread Islamic culture and values in American schools.

Evangelical ministers have often been expelled from Arab and Islamic communities. This happened at an Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan. The city of Dearborn had to apologize for arresting several Christian missionaries who were peacefully preaching to Muslims at the Dearborn Arab International Festival in 2010.

Dearborn police arrest a Christian for the "crime" of peacefully preaching to Muslims at the Dearborn Arab International Festival, in 2010.

It was also reported by the Telegraph that two Christian ministers in the UK were ordered by a "community support officer" to "stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham." The local Muslims threatened to beat the pastors, and accused them of committing a "hate crime" against Muslims by preaching the gospel -- while Muslim preachers are preaching Islam and building mosques all over the world.

If such one-sided access of Islam into the West continues, while access to other religions in Muslim communities and countries is considered by them an illegal "hate crime," Western culture and the values of free will and religious freedom will atrophy and die. Western values will be the loser in this equation. Islamists are counting on Western inertia to win.

If Muslim governments and citizens have full access to build mosques in America, America must insist that it has the same access in Muslim countries. The fault is not with the Muslim countries so much as it is the fault of Western "multiculturalism," which expects nothing and is adhered to only by Western nations.

If Muslim countries have the right to proselytize in America, then Americans must insist on having the right to do the same in Muslim countries. If Muslims finance Islamic Studies departments on American campuses and teach Islam in our public schools, then the same rights must be awarded to Americans. It is true there are a few American schools in the Middle East, such as the American University in Cairo, but these schools are forbidden from having departments of Biblical Studies.

The Coptic Christians of Egypt have no access to any services from the Egyptian government to study the Bible. While every school in Egypt teaches Islam and the Koran, Egyptian Christians are left to play instead of being provided with equivalent religious studies.

If we do not demand equal cultural access, American Christians and Jews who live in majority Muslim neighborhoods could one day be forbidden from studying the Bible. Such a cultural imbalance will result in one side absorbing the values of the other while keeping the Islamic nation "pure" and free of any outside influence. This one-sided cultural tyranny is forcing us, the American citizen, into tolerating intolerance while never expecting anything more aligned to Western values from the Muslim world.

For many decades, America has set itself as the light of freedom to the world, an example for the world to emulate. Our politicians and media allowed the signing of agreements to lift up other nations at the expense of the American worker in the hope that the world would eventually reciprocate.

But reciprocation in kind, as planned by the do-gooders in the West, was not given. As Donald Trump said, we give them the money and the jobs and they give us the drugs and unemployment.

Trump's statement struck a nerve among the suffering and hard-working American middle class. No other American politician in recent history has said such a long-awaited comforting statement to the American people, even after 9/11.

It is also time to treat US citizens, culture and values as number one again. Culture matters, and it is time to acknowledge the importance of values, sovereign law, and Western freedoms. The multiculturalists have for too long trampled over American pride, traditional values and Judeo-Christian ethics. The damage done to American national pride and dignity has been profound.

The American and European public has been suffering in silence for too long and getting the short end of the stick from those who were elected to look after their own citizens first. It is time for Western politicians and leaders, from the left and right, to treat their citizens as number one again inside their own countries.

Nonie Darwish, a Middle East Expert born and raised in Egypt, is the author of the upcoming book: "Wholly Different: Why I Chose Biblical Values over Islamic Values."

===================

Yves Mamou : France's Politician Dhimmis

France's Politician Dhimmis

by Yves Mamou
November 29, 2016 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9443/france-politician-dhimmis

• "Moreover, it is puzzling and disturbing that France adopts a double standard in relation to Israel, while ignoring 200 territorial conflicts currently taking place around the world, including those taking place right on its doorstep." — Response of Israel's Foreign Ministry to France's new labeling regulations.
• In the Ukraine, a few sanctions were imposed by France and EU, but there was never any labeling of food or cosmetic products.
• Ironically, and sadly, the people most negatively affected by the French and EU regulations will be the 25,000 Palestinians employed by Israelis in the West Bank.
• In just one year, 2016, France and its socialist president have made multiple hostile gestures towards Israel, which reveal more about raw anti-Semitism posing as anti-Israelism in France than about its unjustly solitary target.
• The Muslim vote is now an important factor in French politicians' decisions. In 2012, socialist President François Hollande was elected with 93% of the Muslim vote. That is how diplomacy is made conducted in France, and in Europe generally. It is a diplomacy solidly rooted in domestic policy. It is a domestic policy made by dhimmi politicians.

In France, retail chains and importers now have the legal obligation to label products originating in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
On November 24, the Official Gazette of the French Republic (JORF) published Regulation No 1169/2011, ordering "economic operators" to inform consumers about "the origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967."
This French regulation is an application of the interpretive notice issued by the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ), on November 12, 2015. The notice states that the EU "does not recognise Israel's sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, namely the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and does not consider them to be part of Israel's territory" and claims it is responding to "a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities".
The European Commission allowed member states to arrange their own national implementation of this European regulation, with financial penalties.
The French adoption of this EU policy insists on labeling Israeli products with the greatest precision possible.

A limited reference to "originating from the Golan Heights" or "product originating in the West Bank" is not acceptable... The omission of the additional geographical information that the product is derived from Israeli settlements is likely to mislead the consumer into error as to the true origin of the product. In such cases, it is necessary to add, parenthetically, the term "Israeli settlement" or similar terms. Thus, expressions such as "product originating in the Golan Heights (Israeli settlement)" or "product originating in the West Bank (Israeli settlement)" can be used.

Apparently, "precision" in the French regulation is not associated with financial penalties. It is a kind of "moral recommendation."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a tough response to the French decision, stating:

"The Israeli government condemns the French government's decision...
"We regret that France, at a time when there are anti-boycott laws, promotes such measures, which can be interpreted as a boost to radical elements and to the boycott movement against Israel. Moreover, it is puzzling and disturbing that France adopts a double standard in relation to Israel, while ignoring 200 territorial conflicts currently taking place around the world, including those taking place right on its doorstep."

Israel's Foreign Ministry may have been thinking of the island of Alboran in the Mediterranean Sea, controlled by Spain but claimed by Morocco; the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, claimed by Morocco; northern Cyprus, occupied by Turkey; Crimea belonging to Ukraine but annexed by Russia. In the Ukraine, a few sanctions were imposed by France and EU, but there was never any labeling of food or cosmetic products.

Labeling food and cosmetic products is a compromised position. Like dhimmi nations, moved by a strong desire to comply to the wishes of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (a bloc of 56 Islamic countries and "Palestine"), many countries in the European Union, with France as usual foremost among them, were advocating even tougher measures against (only) Israel -- a move that reveals more about raw anti-Semitism posing as anti-Israelism in France than about its unjustly solitary target.

Economic impact: If all EU member states adopt this labeling regulation, Israel's Ministry of the Economic estimates that the negative impact would be about $50 million a year, and affect fresh produce such as grapes, dates, wine, poultry, honey, olive oil and cosmetics (Dead Sea products). But this $50 million would represent only one-fifth of the $200-$300 million worth of goods produced in settlements each year -- and a drop in the ocean compared to the $13 billion in goods and $4 billion in services Israel exports to the EU annually.
Ironically, and sadly, the people most negatively affected by the French and EU regulations will be the 25,000 Palestinians employed by Israelis in the West Bank, and earning as much as two to three times the wages paid by Palestinian factories.
Political and diplomatic impact. EU officials have insisted that the labeling is not a boycott of Israeli products in general, but the singling out of Israel, and in such pettiness, unmasks their denial as just another French fraud.
In just one year, 2016, France and its socialist president have made multiple hostile gestures towards Israel.

• On January 27, 2016, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran -- a regime that denies the fact that the Holocaust took place and does not hide its intention to commit still another one -- was received in Paris for an official visit. Iran was presented on every side as a "reliable ally" of the West in the fight against the Islamic State.
  
• The day after Rouhani's visit in Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (who has since resigned) announced that France wanted to organize a major international conference to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process," based on an old Saudi peace plan, which includes, of course -- as a poison pill -- the "right of return." Fabius added that if the French initiative failed, France would nevertheless recognize a Palestinian state.
  
• On April 15, 2016, France supported, voted on and passed another fraudulent resolution at the Executive Board of UNESCO, the Paris-based UN organization dealing with education, culture and heritage. The resolution was drafted by the Palestinians, but officially submitted by Sudan's genocidal regime together with Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, and Qatar -- all members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The text of the UNESCO resolution tries to "delete" any Jewish link to Jerusalem's Temple Mount, and erase any historical record of a first Jewish Temple and a second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. From now on, according to UNESCO, the area is supposedly just the Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif.
  
• On October 13, France was among 26 countries that abstained from adopting the same resolution denying any Jewish link with Temple Mount at UNESCO.
  

France has the first largest Muslim community in the European Union. More than six million Muslims live in France, and make up approximately 10% of the population. The Muslim vote is now an important factor in French politicians' decisions. In 2012, socialist President François Hollande was elected with 93% of the Muslim vote. In 2017, the same president will probably pursue reelection and is already looking for the votes of French Muslims, on the basis of hatred towards Israel. That is how diplomacy is made conducted in France, and in Europe generally. It is a diplomacy solidly rooted in domestic policy. It is a domestic policy made by dhimmi politicians.

Yves Mamou is a journalist and author based in France. He worked for two decades for the daily, Le Monde, before his retirement.

• Follow Yves Mamou on Facebook

======================

Giulio Meotti : Islamic Terrorists not Poor and Illiterate, but Rich and Educated

Islamic Terrorists not Poor and Illiterate, but Rich and Educated

by Giulio Meotti
November 19, 2016 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9343/terrorism-poverty-despair

• "The better young people are integrated, the greater the chance is that they radicalize. This hypothesis is supported by a lot of evidence". — From a report by researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
• "The proportions of [Islamic State] administrators but also of suicide fighters increase with education," according to a World Bank report. "Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group."
• Britain's MI5 revealed that "two-thirds of the British suspects have a middle-class profile and those who want to become suicide bombers are often the most educated".
• Researchers have discovered that "the richer the countries are the more likely will provide foreign recruits to the terrorist group [ISIS]."
• The West seems to have trouble accepting that terrorists are not driven by inequality, but by hatred for Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian values of the West.
• For the Nazis, the "inferior race" (the Jews) did not deserve to exist; for the Stalinists, the "enemies of the people" were not entitled to continue living; for the Islamists, it is the West itself that does not deserve to exist.
• It is anti-Semitism, not poverty, that led the Palestinian Authority to name a school after Abu Daoud, mastermind of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

"There is a stereotype that young people from Europe who leave for Syria are victims of a society that does not accept them and does not offer them sufficient opportunities... Another common stereotype in the debate in Belgium is that, despite research which refutes this, radicalization is still far too often misunderstood as a process resulting from failed integration... I therefore dare say that the better young people are integrated, the greater the chance is that they radicalize. This hypothesis is supported by a lot of evidence."

That was the result of extremely important Dutch research, led by a group of academics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Terrorists seem to be models of successful integration: for instance, Mohammed Bouyeri, the Moroccan-Dutch terrorist who shot the filmmaker Theo van Gogh to death, then stabbed him and slit his throat in 2004. "He [Bouyeri] was a well-educated guy with good prospects," said Job Cohen, the Labor Party mayor of Amsterdam.

Terrorists seem to be models of successful integration. Mohammed Bouyeri (left), the Moroccan-Dutch terrorist who shot the filmmaker Theo van Gogh (right) to death, then stabbed him and slit his throat in 2004. "[Bouyeri] was a well-educated guy with good prospects," said Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam.

The Dutch research was followed by research from France, adding more evidence to the thesis that goes against the liberal belief that to defeat terrorism, Europe must invest in economic opportunities and social integration.

Dounia Bouzar, director of the Center for Prevention, Deradicalization and Individual Monitoring (CPDSI), a French organization dealing with Islamic radicalism, studied the cases of 160 families whose children had left France to fight in Syria. Two-thirds were members of the middle class.

These findings dismantle the myth of the proletariat of terror. According to a new World Bank report, "Islamic State's recruits are better educated than their fellow countrymen".

Poverty and deprivation are not, as John Kerry said, "the root cause of terrorism."
Studying the profiles of 331 recruits from an Islamic State database, the World Bank found that 69% have at least a high school education, while a quarter of them graduated from college. The vast majority of these terrorists had a job or profession before joining the Islamist organization. "The proportions of administrators but also of suicide fighters increase with education," according to the World Bank report. "Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group."

Less than 2% of the terrorists are illiterate. The study also points to the countries that supply ISIS with more recruits: Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey and Egypt. Examining the economic situation of these countries, researchers have discovered that "the richer the countries are the more likely will provide foreign recruits to the terrorist group."

Another report explained that "the poorest countries in the world don't have exceptional levels of terrorism".

Despite the evidence, a progressive mantra repeats that Islamic terrorism is the result of injustice, poverty, economic depression and social unrest. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 

The thesis that poverty breeds terrorism is pervasive today in the West, from French economist Thomas Piketty to Pope Francis. It is probably so popular because it plays on Western collective guilt, seeking to rationalize what the West seems to have trouble accepting: that terrorists are not driven by inequality, but by hatred for Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian values of the West. For Israel, this means: What are Jews doing on land that -- even though for 3,000 years it has been called Judea -- we think should be given to Palestinian terrorists? And these terrorists most likely wonder why they should negotiate, if instead they can be handed everything they want.

For the Nazis, the "inferior race" (the Jews) did not deserve to exist but must be gassed; for the Stalinists, the "enemies of the people" were not entitled to continue living, and had to die of forced labor and cold in the Gulag; for the Islamists, it is the West itself that does not deserve to exist and has to be blown up.

It is anti-Semitism, not poverty, that led the Palestinian Authority to name a school after Abu Daoud, mastermind of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

The Paris bombings, the anniversary of which France will commemorate in a few days, was a blow unleashed by an ideology that does not seek to fight poverty, but to gain power through terror. It is the same Islamist ideology that murdered the Charlie Hebdo journalists and the policemen on duty to protect them; that forced British writer Salman Rushdie into hiding for a decade; that slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel; that butchered commuters in London, Brussels and Madrid; that assassinated hundreds of Israeli Jews on buses and restaurants; that killed 3,000 people in the United States on September 11; that assassinated Theo Van Gogh on an Amsterdam street for making a film; that committed mass rapes in Europe and massacres in the cities and deserts of Syria and Iraq; that blew up 132 children in Peshawar; and that regularly kills so many Nigerians that no one now pays any attention to it.

It is the Islamist ideology that drives terrorism, not poverty, corruption or despair. It is them, not us.

The whole history of political terror is marked by fanatics with advanced education who have declared war on their own societies. Khmer Rouge's Communist genocide in Cambodia came out from the classrooms of the Sorbonne in Paris, where their leader, Pol Pot, studied writings of European Communists.

The Red Brigades in Italy was the scheme of wealthy privileged boys and girls from the middle class. Between 1969 and 1985, terrorism in Italy killed 428 people.

 Fusako Shigenobu, the leader of the Japanese Red Army terrorist group, was a highly-educated specialist in literature.

 Abimael Guzman, founder of the Shining Path in Peru, one of the most ruthless guerrilla groups in history, taught at the University of Ayacucho, where he conceived of a war against "the democracy of empty bellies." 

"Carlos the Jackal," the most infamous terrorist in the 1970s, was the son of one of the richest lawyers in Venezuela, Jose Altagracia Ramirez. 

Mikel Albizu Iriarte, a leader of the Basque ETA terrorists, came from a wealthy family in San Sebastián. 

Sabri al-Banna, the Palestinian terrorist known to the world as "Abu Nidal," was the son of a wealthy merchant born in Jaffa.

Some of the British terrorists who have joined the Islamic State come from wealthy families and attended the most prestigious schools in the UK. Abdul Waheed Majid made the long journey from the English town of Crawley to Aleppo, Syria, where he blew himself up. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, graduated from the London School of Economics. Kafeel Ahmed, who drove a jeep full of explosives into the Glasgow airport, had been president of the Islamic Society at Queen's University.

Faisal Shahzad, the failed terrorist of Times Square in New York, was the son of a high official in the Pakistani military.
Zacarias Moussaoui, the twentieth man of the 9/11 attacks, had a PhD in International Economics from the London's South Bank University. 
Saajid Badat, who wanted to blow up a commercial flight, studied optometry at London University. Azahari Husin, the terrorist who prepared the bombs in Bali, studied at the University of Reading.

Britain's MI5 revealed that "two-thirds of the British suspects have a middle-class profile and those who want to become suicide bombers are often the most educated."

Most British terrorists also had a wife and children, debunking another myth, that of terrorists as social losers.

 Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the suicide bombers of July 7, 2005, studied at Leeds Metropolitan University. Omar Khan Sharif had a scholarship at King's College before carrying out a suicide bombing on Tel Aviv's seafront promenade in 2003. Sharif was not looking for economic redemption, but to slaughter as many Jews as possible.

Virtually all the heads of international terror groups are children of privilege, who led gilded lives before joining the terror ranks.

 15 of the 19 suicide bombers of September 11 came from prominent Middle Eastern families. 
Mohammed Atta was the son of a lawyer in Cairo. Ziad Jarrah, who crashed Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, belonged to one of the most affluent Lebanese families in Lebanon.

Nasra Hassan, who wrote an informed profile of Palestinian suicide bombers for The New Yorker, explained that, "of 250 suicide bombers, not one was illiterate, poor or depressed." The unemployed, it seems, are always the least likely to support terror attacks.

Europe and America gave everything to these terrorists: educational and employment opportunities, popular entertainment and sexual pleasures, salaries and welfare, and religious freedom. 
These terrorists, such as the "underwear bomber," Umar Farouk Abulmutallab, the son of a banker, have not seen a day of poverty in their life. Paris's terrorists rejected the secularist values of liberté, egalité, fraternité;
British jihadists who bombed London and now fight for the Caliphate rejected multiculturalism; the Islamist who killed Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam repudiated Dutch relativism, and ISIS's soldier, Omar Mateen, who turned Orlando's Pulse Club into a slaughterhouse, said he wanted to purge it from what he perceived as libertine licentiousness and apparently his own homophilic wishes.

If the West does not understand the real source of this hatred, but instead indulges in false excuses such as poverty, it will not win this war being waged against us.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

=================