Iran extends reach with fight for land link to Mediterranean - AP and Israel Hayom

by AP and Israel Hayom 

Hat tip: Dr. Jean-Charles Bensoussan

Thousands of Iranian-backed fighters are advancing across Syria's east, bringing Tehran closer to goal of securing a corridor from its border to the Mediterranean

Thousands of Iranian-backed fighters in Syria's central desert region are advancing east, bringing Tehran closer to its goal of securing a corridor from its border, through Iraq and all the way to the Mediterranean and providing it unhindered land access to its allies in Syria and Lebanon for the first time.

The land-route would be the biggest prize yet for Iran in its involvement in Syria's six-year-old civil war.

It would facilitate movement of Iranian-backed fighters between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as well as the flow of weapons to Damascus and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran's main proxy group. It also positions Iran to play a prime and lucrative role in what is expected to be a massive rebuilding effort in both Iraq and Syria, which have been devastated in their ongoing wars.

The potential for a physical artery for Iran's influence across the region is raising concern in predominantly Sunni Arab countries and in Israel. It also poses a challenge to U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which has vowed to fight Iran's growing reach.

The route is largely being carved out by Iran's allies and proxies, a mix of forces including troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah fighters and Shiite militias on both sides of the border aiming to link up. Iran also has forces of its own Revolutionary Guard directly involved in the campaign on the Syrian side.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian resort of Sochi, warned that Iran's increased presence in Syrian and Lebanon could spell war for the Middle East. 

During the two leader's meeting, Netanyahu said Iran's growing role in Syria poses a threat to Israel, the Middle East and the world.

"Mr. President, with joint efforts we are defeating Islamic State, and this is a very important thing. But the bad thing is, that where the defeated Islamic State group vanishes, Iran is stepping in. We cannot forget for a single minute that Iran threatens every day to annihilate Israel. It [Iran] arms terrorist organizations, it sponsors and initiates terror," Netanyahu said.

Iran, he said, "is already well on its way to controlling Iraq, Yemen and to a large extent in already in practice in control of Lebanon. ... Iran's aggression in the region continues to grow. The regime is trying to entrench itself militarily on Israel's border. Israel cannot and will not allow this. Any cease-fire which allows Iran to establish a foothold in Syria is a danger to the entire region."

Destabilizing the region 

The corridor the Islamic republic is striving to create would be a boost for Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group, which has an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Iran currently ships weapons to Hezbollah mostly by flying them to Syria to be shipped on the ground to Lebanon.

Israel has warned it would do what it can to keep Iran from threatening its borders and has carried out airstrikes in Syria against weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah. Israel pushed hard for a U.S- and Russia-brokered truce that came into effect recently in southern Syria to keep Iranian-backed militias at a distance from the its shared borders with Syria and Lebanon.

The land route is by no means a fait accompli. Any road link will likely be a frequent target by Sunni insurgent groups.

But Iran's allies are making progress on both sides of the border, taking territory from the Islamic State group.

In recent months, Syrian troops and allied militiamen have marched forward on three fronts toward areas bordering Iraq. One of their main targets is the IS-held eastern city of Deir ez-Zour, where the militants have imposed a siege for years on a small government-held pocket.

Syrian troops and pro-Iranian Iraqi militiamen do already meet at one small area on the border -- at the Jamouna region on the Iraqi side and Wadi al-Waer on the Syrian side. But the area is too dangerous to be used as a corridor, since militants continue to launch hit-and-run attacks.

Syrian troops reached another part of the border in June, but much of the adjacent territory on the Iraqi side is still IS-held.

Inside Iraq, Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen are gaining more influence in predominantly Sunni areas bordering Syria. Militiamen are involved in the battle to retake the Iraqi town of Tel Afar, which would boost the militias' hold on the nearby border region. The Shiite militiamen are also present in Iraq's western Anbar province bordering Syria.

"Our aim is to prevent any barriers from Iraq to Syria all the way to Beirut," said Jaafar Husseini of Iraq's Kataeb Hezbollah militia. "The resistance is close to achieving this goal."

Husseini warned that if the Americans try to act against the advances on the Syrian side, Iraqi militiamen will target U.S. troops in Iraq.

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters had aimed to move up from southeastern Syria to the north through Islamic State-held territory along the Iraqi border, an assault that would have blocked pro-Iranian forces' moves to link up. But in June, Assad's forces succeeded in reaching the border first, cutting them off. Now the American allies are preparing to try to from the other direction, moving south along the border from the northeastern province of Hassakeh, according to Syrian activists.

In addition to hundreds of members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard corps, thousands of pro-Iranian fighters are deployed in Syria and have played instrumental role in shoring up Assad's forces. They include Lebanon's Hezbollah, Afghanistan's Fatimiyoun, Pakistan Zeinabiyoun as well as Iraq's Nujbaa and Kataeb Hezbollah groups.

Iranian leaders avoid publicly speaking about their aim to link to so-called "axis of resistance," referring to Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and other anti-Israel forces. But its allies have no qualms about showing their ambition.

"The aim is for a geographical connection between Syria, Iraq and the axis of resistance," Syrian Information Minister Ramez al-Turjuman said in a TV interview.

AP and Israel Hayom

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=44835&hp=1

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Iran Makes Mockery Of Nuclear Deal - Ari Lieberman

by Ari Lieberman

Time for a serious reassessment.

Things are unfolding rapidly in Syria as relentless offensives, undertaken by the joint might of Iran, Russia and Hezbollah against a plethora of rival Sunni militias, have taken their toll on the rebels. Analysts are fearful that the pending fall of Islamic State, which seems likely, will create a vacuum that the Islamic Republic will rush to fill. This coupled with the recent revelation that the United States terminated a covert military aid program to rebels seeking to topple Assad, virtually ensures that Iran will remain a dominant power in Syria. A troubling consequence of this development is that Iran will have essentially succeeded in creating a land bridge of sorts that travels through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea, a prospect that is inimical to both U.S and Israeli interests.

Israel is cognizant of the fact that as a result of the leadership vacuum created by the Obama administration, Moscow now pulls the strings in Syria. It also understands that the U.S. decision to terminate funding for certain Syrian rebel groups signals that the U.S. has limited its immediate aims in Syria to toppling the Islamic State. Malign Iranian and Hezbollah influences appear to have become secondary concerns. For good reason, Israel views Iran’s entrenchment in Syria as a direct strategic threat and regional challenge. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his concerns to Vladimir Putin in a meeting between the two leaders which took place on Wednesday in Sochi. Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Alexander Petrovich Shein, noted that Russia would take Israeli interests into consideration when dealing with Syria. 

While Iran’s cancerous spread of its hegemony is disconcerting, equally alarming is its continued violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also informally known as the Iran deal. The disastrous and dangerous Iran deal, mendaciously orchestrated by the Obama administration and sold to the American public through half-truths, cynical exploitation of the media and use of “echo chambers,” poses serious challenges to the Trump administration.

Twice since the signing of the accord, Iran has exceeded the JCPOA’s prescribed limitations on heavy water production, and according to German intelligence, Iran continues to utilize front companies in efforts to purchase high-tech equipment for use in nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development. Moreover, Iran’s secretive Parchin facility, where the Islamic Republic conducts its most secretive nuclear experiments, continues to remain off limits to international inspectors. But Iranian malfeasance does not end there.

According to a report compiled by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Iran, in flagrant violation of the JCPOA, has been using commercial airliners to transport Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen and proxy militias to various Mideast hotspots including Syria. Photos obtained by the FDD, and forwarded to congressional leaders show militia fighters affiliated with the Fatemiyoun Brigade, an Afghan Shiite militia, seated in an Iranian commercial airliner bound for Syria. The aircraft belongs to Iran Air, a purported Iranian civilian airliner, and its logo is clearly visible in the photo.

The stunning revelation comes on the heels of a report by the German media outlet Welt am Sonntag that Iran was using commercial airliners to transport military hardware to Syria from where it was shipped to Russia for maintenance and upgrading. Welt am Sonntag featured a satellite image of an Iranian Boeing commercial airliner parked on the tarmac at Khmeimim airbase, Russia’s largest and most important military airbase in Syria. The plane was likely purchased by Iran in the 1970s during the Shah’s era.

These disturbing incidents prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran is using dual use platforms for military applications. It is a fact that in Iran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has spread its tentacles far and wide and maintains rooted interests in various civilian enterprises including the airline and banking industries. As noted, it utilizes commercial airlines to ferry troops and military equipment to Syria and elsewhere but it also uses its banking sector to launder money and finance overseas terror operations. In 2016, former secretary of state and Iranian lobbyist wannabee, John Kerry, attempted to persuade Western banks to do business with the Iranians, a request flatly rejected by banking executives who noted the IRGC’s well known infiltration of the Iranian banking sector and other civilian institutions.

Two Iranian commercial airliners – Aseman Airlines and the aforementioned Iran Air – have contracted with Boeing and its European competitor, Airbus, to purchase several dozen commercial airliners in deals collectively worth almost $50 billion. But Boeing needs the U.S. Treasury Department’s approval before the sale can be finalized. Airbus too requires Treasury’s approval because at least 10 percent of the airplanes’ components are of American origin.

Clearly, events of late dictate denial of all sales to the Iranians. Moreover, sanctions must be imposed on all Iranian commercials airline companies for flagrantly breaching international obligations. Those sanctions should be imposed in collaboration with our allies and should include denial of air and landing rights. As noted by Reps. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), Andy Barr (R., Ken.), and David Reichert (R., Wash.) in a letter addressed to Treasury Department, Iran Air is culpable in “facilitating the ongoing atrocities committed against the Syrian people by the Assad regime and its allies.” Lastly, it is patently obvious that Iran, by both word and deed, is defying the terms of the JCPOA. It is time for a serious reassessment of this dreadful accord that is worth less than the paper it is written on.

Ari Lieberman

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267691/iran-makes-mockery-nuclear-deal-ari-lieberman

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When a US gov't official calls you a liar, you go on the offensive - David Bedein

by David Bedein

The school year is upon us, and guess what Palestinian Authority children are being taught in UNRWA classrooms ...

Exactly two years ago, a senior official at the US State Department called me a liar to my face. He informed me that all the work that we had done on the Palestinian Authority textbooks used by UNRWA was one great fabrication, that the US government had checked out the PA textbooks used by UNRWA, and that they met the highest standards of peace education.

Six months later, the White House issued a statement in a similar vein to a colleague in DC: “While there is still work to be done, the Palestinian government has made significant progress in reducing inflammatory rhetoric and revising official textbooks. Over the past few years, the PA has helped improve the Palestinian curriculum, including textbooks that discuss human rights and the Holocaust, which has contributed to a better education for young Palestinians.”

To respond to this, I asked my staff to purchase all PA textbooks used by UNRWA and to translate all the books, so that we could hand the results to the US Congress and to the Israeli Knesset.

One of the ironies is that USAID in Ramallah wrote to us, saying that the US never examines the PA textbooks used by UNRWA…despite the fact that the US donates $400 million each year to UNRWA – one third of the UNRWA budget.

As a sneak preview, here are some items taken from the new PA Schoolbooks used in UNRWA schools, in the new school year that commences next week.

The Zionist occupation started in 1856 (Social Studies, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 10)
“Since the Zionist movement established in 1856 its first settlement, known as ‘Montefioriyyah’ [Mishkenot Shaananim, built by Sir Moses Montefiore before the emergence of modern Zionism, ed.], south-west of the Jerusalem city wall, the series of division [actions] in Palestine has not stopped. It [i.e., the Zionist movement] established settlements that included training centers and arms depots. After the Catastrophe [Nakbah in Arabic] of 1948 it ruled over more than 78% of Palestine’s territory. More than 850 thousand Palestinians were made to emigrate and they and their families lived in refugee amps in Palestine and in the Diaspora. Nothing of it [Palestine] was left, except the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that were occupied [later] in 1967.”



Zionists adopted Canaanite place names (Social Studies, Grade 6, Part 1, 2017, p. 54)
“The Zionist occupation named its own settlements by these Canaanite names, [thus] having stolen and forged Palestinian national heritage and history.”


Zionism’s changes in Jerusalem (Social Studies, Grade 7, Part 1, 2017, p. 62)

“The Zionist occupation pursued a policy of erasing Palestine’s Arab and Islamic features in general, and especially in Jerusalem. Since the first day of Jerusalem’s occupation, the Zionists started to change the identity of this Arab-Muslim city and make it [a city] of a Zionist nature. They confiscated Palestinian land and built settlements there, harassed the Palestinian inhabitants in order to force them to leave Jerusalem, so that the settlers would come in their stead, demolished houses and forced the inhabitants to emigrate, took their identity cards and separated Jerusalem from its Arab environment. They annexed the Islamic features to the Zionist heritage list, as they transformed the Al-Buraq Wall into the Wailing Wall; they destroyed the Mugrabi neighborhood and changed its Arab-Muslim nature; they removed some of the Jerusalem city wall and put instead other ones with Zionist decorations and forms; they opened Jewish synagogues in Jerusalem’s Old City, and they are striving painstakingly these days to gain control over the Noble Shrine [Al-Haram al-Sharif – the Arabic traditional name of the Temple Mount] by letting the Zionist settlers to enter it daily in preparation for its complete takeover and cut any Muslim connection to this place that is sacred to Muslims.” 


The Hebrew letter endangers Arab Jerusalem (Arab Language, Grade 10, Part 1, 2017, p. 17)
“This article draws attention to the dangers surrounding Jerusalem, such as the foreign centers that overlook its basins and suffocate its breath, the foreign wall that encircles its scope, the checkpoints that limit its movement and the Hebrew letter that threatens the nature of its culture. But Jerusalem is a genuine and sacred land that spits out the scum of foreigners and pretenders.”



The Dimona reactor causes cancer in southern Hebron (Scientific Education, Grade 11, Part 1, 2017, p. 40)

“For research:
Studies indicate an increase of cancer cases in southern Hebron compared to other Palestinian areas. I will investigate the connection of that to its proximity to the Dimona reactor in the Negev desert.”


The occupation releases boars to cause damage to the Palestinians’ crops (Social Studies, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 21)

“The occupation has transformed vast areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into dumps of poisonous refuse and acted to pollute the Palestinian environment with radioactive and chemical materials, which has caused an increase of the averages of affliction with severe diseases, chiefly cancer. It [also] dumped their markets with spoiled goods beyond their expiration dates in the Zionist markets such as cars and foodstuffs, and released herds of boars that caused damage to the inhabitants and their crops…”



The Zionist gangs (Arabic Language, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 23)
“…And the land – it changed its features out of anger, as if it could not bear the steps of those ones who broke into it without asking permission – Zionist gangs that came from a foreign world loaded with hostility and hatred to Arabs and Palestinians.”



“Barbecue party” with Molotov cocktail (Arabic Language, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 61)
“…The neighbor: ‘the curfew does not include us in Al-Shurfah [neighborhood]. It is imposed on Al-Natarish [neighborhood]. It seems that there is a barbecue party with Molotov cocktails in one of the buses to the colony [Jewish settlement] of Psagot on Jabal al-Tawil mountain.'”


Map titled “the Arab Homeland – Political” (Social Studies, Grade 9, Part 1, 2017, p. 5)
The whole country appears in one color with the name “Palestine” next to it.



Caricature and the accompanying text (History Studies, Grade 11, Part 1, 2017, p. 60)

Let us think and examine:

Land is the pivot of colonialist Imperialism [verbally: settlement-oriented Imperialism – Al-Isti’mar al-Istitani in Arabic, ed.]. It strives as much as it can to take hold of it by all means, even by the extermination [ibadah in Arabic] of the inhabitants and their annihilation [ifna’].”



A piece taken from a PA schoolbook issued in 2016 that talks of the extermination of the foreigners’ remnants in Palestine following its liberation (Our Beautiful Language, Grade 3, Part 2, 2016, p. 64)

The books issued in 2016 intensify the violent struggle for liberation of Palestine, which includes – for the first time in the PA curriculum – reference to the fate of 6 million Jews living in the country following its supposed liberation: the removal of the usurper [codename for Israel] and the extermination of the defeated remnants of the foreigners. This new element in the PA schoolbooks sounds the alarm most powerfully:

“Let us sing and learn by heart: The Land of the Noble Ones [Ard al-Kurama’]
 
I swear, I shall sacrifice my blood
In order to water the land of the noble ones
And I shall remove the usurper from my country
And shall exterminate [ubiyd] the scattered remnants [fulul] of the strangers
O country of Al-Aqsa [Mosque] and the Holy Place [haram]
O cradle of pride and nobleness
Patience, patience, because victory is ours
And dawn will peep out of darkness.”


David Bedein is director of Israel Resource News Agency and heads the Center for Near East Policy Research, author of Genesis of the Palestinian Authority and Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict: UNRWA Policies Reconsidered.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20923

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The Racist Attacks on America and Trump - David Horowitz

by David Horowitz

Why the Left hates the president and the nation he heads.

Let’s start by noticing the obvious. The biggest hate group in America - by a wide margin - is the anti-Trump chorus, which has advanced from calling him “unfit to be president” to accusing him (in the words of CNN’s Ana Navarro) of being “unfit to be human.” In between are malignant accusations that he is a “neo-Nazi,” a “white nationalist” and a “white supremacist” – all revelations about Trump’s character that somehow remained hidden during the thirty years he was a public figure and before he ran against Hillary Clinton. Nor is the hate confined to Trump alone but includes his aides and supporters. Congressman Jerrold Nadler and other House Democrats have even attacked Trump’s policy adviser Stephen Miller as a “white supremacist” for defending a merit-based immigration reform. The attacks from the anti-Trump left also include the charge that America itself is a “white supremacist” country.

In a nation which for eight years was headed by a black president, had two chief law enforcement officers who were black, has recently had two black secretaries of state and three black national security advisers, and has elected more than 10,000 black government officials; in a nation that has been governed for fifty years by statutes that outlaw discrimination by race and whose national culture is saturated with non-white heroes and icons – in such a nation, people who refer to America as “white supremacist” would normally be dismissed as an oddball fringe, members of a fraternity that includes people who think Elvis is still alive and on the moon. Unfortunately, we live in times that are not normal.

Recent events have turned out crowds in the tens of thousands denouncing “neo-Nazis” and “white supremacists” both real and imagined, who number in the hundreds, if that. Yet the outpouring of righteous rage in a veritable orgy of virtue signaling has extended across both ends of the political spectrum, as though Nazism hadn’t been defeated more than seventy years ago, or racial discrimination outlawed for sixty. The ranks of actual neo-Nazis and white supremacists are so minuscule that besides the universally despised David Duke and Richard Spencer there are no figures on this “alt-right” that even informed observers could actually name.

In contrast to the trivial representatives of organized Nazism, there are – to take one obvious example - tens of thousands of members of the American Communist Party, also a defeated totalitarian foe. Yet no one seems alarmed. There have been “Million Man” marches led by black racists Farrakhan and Sharpton, while “white nationalists,” and Klan members can’t attract a sufficient number of supporters to even constitute a “march.” Black Lives Matter is an overtly racist and violent group that is led by avowed communists and has allied itself with Hamas terrorists. It is an organization officially endorsed by the Democratic Party and lavishly funded by tens of millions of dollars contributed by Democratic donors like George Soros. But the self-congratulating denouncers of Nazism and white racism find nothing wrong with them.

On any rational assessment, “white supremacy” as a descriptor of American society or American institutions or a significant segment of the American right is loony toons paranoia. Yet on the political left it is now an article of faith, and also a convenient weapon for disposing political opponents. Its power as a weapon is actually a tribute to America’s success in institutionalizing the principles of diversity and tolerance. It is because America is a truly inclusive society that makes the mere accusation of intolerance is so effective.

Notwithstanding the marginal existence of actual Klansmen and “neo-Nazis” in American culture and institutions, the term “white supremacy” currently turns up 3.7 million references in a Google search – a tribute to its rampant mis-usage. Of these references, 1.2 million are linked specifically – and absurdly - to Donald Trump. The term “white nationalism” turns up 4.2 million references, of which 2.1 million are linked directly to the president. Only a slightly lower number – 1.8 million - link Trump to “Nazi.” The parity of the numbers is easily explained by the fact that in the lexicon of the left they are identical. As a leftwing smear site created by the Southern Poverty Law Center explains, “White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies.”

The malicious charge that Trump and his supporters are white racists is the central meme of a concerted effort to overthrow the Trump presidency before it has run its course – or before it had even gotten started. The accusation is made despite the fact that Republicans who elected Trump also voted for Barack Obama, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindahl, and that Democrats – not Republicans - were the principal resistors to the Civil Rights Acts. Reality aside, just 12 days after Trump’s inauguration Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi was already denouncing Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, as a “white supremacist,” while Rep. Maxine Waters was revving up the call to impeach him with her colleagues not far behind. Six months later, the lead headline at Salon.com, was proclaiming, “White Supremacy Week at the White House.” Not to be outdone, The Week, whose commentators include the Atlantic’s David Frum, and Kerry adviser, Robert Shrum, ran a piece titled, “It’s White Nationalism Week at the White House.” Really.

Obviously the terms “white supremacy and “white nationalism” can’t actually mean what they say. If they did, one would have to conclude that half the country had simply lost its mind and morals. To make sense of the terms one has to understand them as expressions of an ideology that has emerged out of its university incubators to become a dogma of the Democratic Party and progressives generally. This radical perspective, known as “cultural Marxism,” divides society into a white majority that oppresses, and “people of color” who are oppressed, attributing all racial and ethnic disparities to “racism.”

As Wikipedia explains: “The term white supremacy is used in academic studies of racial power to denote a system of structural or societal racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or the absence of racial hatred.” In other words, actual racism –  racist hate by individuals - is not the problem. If eighty percent of corporate executives are white, that is prima facie evidence of what the left calls “institutional racism,” even though there are no racists pulling strings to keep non-white people down. Racism is redefined as defending the invisible system – e.g., the system of standards – that allegedly perpetuates these disparities. But note the hypocrisy. If 95% of the multimillionaires in the National Basketball Association or the National Football League are black, no one regards these as anything but disparities based on merit.

The unexamined premise of the argument that regards white Americans as racists is that statistical disparities are all the result of oppression. But who is oppressed in America? There are an estimated 65 million refugees in the world today fleeing oppression, but not one of them is fleeing oppression in the United States. Why do Haitians and Mexicans risk life and limb to come to America? To be oppressed? They come because in America they have more rights, more privileges and more opportunities than they would in Mexico and Haiti, which have been governed by Hispanics and blacks for a hundred years and more.

The reality that the academic theory of faculty leftists tries futilely to deny is that America is the least racist most tolerant multi-ethnic, multi-racial society in the history of the world. America has outlawed racial supremacies of any kind. The only group oppressed in America are illegal immigrants who cannot defend themselves because they have already put themselves on the wrong side of the law. For everyone else, the law – the civil rights laws - are their protector.

In the end, however, all the spurious outrages over white supremacy and homegrown Nazism, and all the canards about “white nationalism” in the Trump White House are not really about Trump. What they are about is America. More particularly, they are about the left’s ongoing indictment of America for the sins of its past (sins by the way that are shared by every other nation both white and non-white).

To see how the leftist attack actually proceeds - how deeply embedded it is in the liberal mind - one has only to recall the notorious exchange between CNN’s anti-Trump correspondent, Jim Acosta, and Stephen Miller, the president’s chief advisor for policy, over immigration reform. The exchange was triggered by Acosta’s appalled response to Miller’s announcement of a proposed new immigration policy that would privilege English-speaking applicants for American citizenship. Requiring familiarity with English might seem a reasonable way to make assimilation of immigrants easier and to put more opportunity within their reach in a country in which it is the official language. But not to liberals like Acosta. Acosta objected: “This whole notion of … they have to learn English before they get to the United States. Are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?”

Miller’s response was this: “Jim, actually, I have to honestly say, I am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English.” Miller’s shock was not hard to understand. According to Wikipedia: “In 2015, there were 54 sovereign states and 27 non-sovereign entities where English was an official language.” In addition, “many country subdivisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level.” Among these English speaking countries are Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Liberia, Belize, India, Fiji, Micronesia – a veritable rainbow of ethnicities and racial identities.

Behind Acosta’s clueless question lay the racial animus characteristic of the left’s attacks on Trump, his policies and supporters. This is the official CNN transcript: “ACOSTA (OFF-MIKE) Sounds like you’re trying to engineer the racial and ethnic flow of people into this country through this policy.” In other words a “flow” of whites; in other words the policy is “white supremacist,” racist. Miller’s response: “Jim, that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant, and foolish things you have ever said…. “The notion that you think that this is a racist bill is so wrong.” To even think the policy was racist, Acosta had to overlook the fact that non-white English speakers actually outnumber white English speakers globally. Yet the left immediately began charging Miller with being a “white supremacist.”

This embarrassing but revealing moment is what the anti-Trump movement comes down to: the racist accusation that white supremacists, backed by 63 million American voters, have seized control of the American government and need to be overthrown.

But this hateful movement is not really about Trump. It is about America. Beyond that it is about the left’s attack on the democratic societies of the West in general, and specifically their foundations in individual rights rather than group identities. This was evident in the reactions to the major foreign policy address Trump delivered in Poland on July 6. His speech was a full-throated and often eloquent defense of the West and its values, and of America’s role in defeating the Soviet Union and the global Communist empire. In a climactic passage, Trump delivered a paean to the values that had inspired the West’s resistance to the totalitarians left and right, to the values that created western civilization. These were the values - above all that of individual freedom - that the wars against Nazism and Communism had been fought to defend. What Trump said was this:

“We reward brilliance.  We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression. We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success.  We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives. And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves. And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.”

On finishing this tribute, Trump issued a call to the people of the West to rally again to the defense of these values in the face of the new totalitarian threats that confront us: “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”

Despite, and more likely because of its reaffirmation of American values, Trump’s speech was immediately attacked by the political left. The common theme of these attacks was once again the left’s race war against Trump and the country he leads. Slate.com, an online publication of the Washington Post ran with this headline: “The White Nationalist Roots of Donald Trump’s Warsaw Speech.” The Bernie Sanders’ left at Salon.com repeated the accusation: “Trump’s Alt-right Poland Speech: Time to Call His White Nationalist Rhetoric What It Is.” The respected Atlantic Monthly followed with this: “The Racial and Religious Paranoia of Trump’s Warsaw Speech.” For the left, American patriotism is white nationalism.

The Atlantic article was written by Peter Beinart, and began this way: “In his speech in Poland on Thursday, Donald Trump referred 10 times to “the West” and five times to “our civilization.” His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he means. It’s important that other Americans do, too.”

The West, Beinart explained, is neither a “geographic term,” nor an ideological category. “The West is a racial and religious term. To be considered Western, a country must be largely Christian (preferably Protestant or Catholic) and largely white.” Whatever else one might think, this was certainly a perverse way of looking at Trump’s description of the West, or at the way the West has traditionally understood itself. Beinart’s attack displayed the racist animus that informs leftwing politics across the board these days, and that shapes its war against the White House and a Western civilization we have all celebrated until now.

The political left is relentless in its commitment to identity politics, which is a not so subtle form of racism. This animus is rooted in a racial and gender collectivism that is antagonistic to the fundamental American idea of individual rights applied universally and without regard to origins - to race, ethnicity or gender. The war to defend this idea is what created Trump’s candidacy and has shaped his political persona.

An American patriotism – which is precisely not about blood and soil, which is the antithesis of racism and collectivism - is what drives Trump and his presidency. If we are loyal to our country we will be loyal to each other; if we have patriotism in our hearts there will be no room for prejudice; we are black and brown and white but we all bleed patriot red. This is the mantra of Trump’s inaugural address; it was the mantra of his announcement of a new strategy to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan; and it is the mantra behind the call to “make America great again.” Patriotism – a specifically American patriotism – is the loyalty that unites us and makes us equal. It is this patriotism with which the political left is at war, and the reason they hate this president and are determined to destroy him.

David Horowitz
[For Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov's essay on David Horowitz's life and work, click here.]
David Horowitz is the author of Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America, now in its tenth week on The New York Times’ best-seller list.
Horowitz was one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and an editor of its largest magazine, Ramparts. He is the author, with Peter Collier, of three best selling dynastic biographies: The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (1976); The Kennedys: An American Dream (1984); and The Fords: An American Epic (1987). Looking back in anger at their days in the New Left, he and Collier wrote Destructive Generation (1989), a chronicle of their second thoughts about the 60s that has been compared to Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and other classic works documenting a break from totalitarianism. Horowitz examined this subject more closely in Radical Son (1996), a memoir tracing his odyssey from “red-diaper baby” to conservative activist that George Gilder described as “the first great autobiography of his generation.”
Horowitz is founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) and author of many books and pamphlets published over the last twenty years.  Among them: Hating Whitey; Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left; The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America; and The End of Time.


Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267676/racist-attacks-america-and-trump-david-horowitz

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Trump must question Abbas-PLO commitment to peace with Israel - David Singer

by David Singer

The current visit of President Trump's representatives to the Middle East is the time to test the commitment of the PLO and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to concluding a peace treaty with Israel.

The visit to the Middle East at the end of August by President Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell – presents a wonderful opportunity for them to test the commitment of the PLO and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to concluding a peace treaty with Israel.

Abbas needs to confirm or reject his following remarks reported on 11 January 2014:

“Referring to Israeli demands to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Abbas said, “This is a story that we have heard only in the last two years. We won’t recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel. We have many excuses and reasons that prevent us from doing so.”Abbas was speaking during a meeting in his office with dozens of east Jerusalem residents.Israel’s problem is that the Palestinians know more than the Israelis about history and geography, he said. “We talk about what we know,” he said.“We won’t accept the Jewishness of Israel. We are asking for the 1967 borders.”

Abbas and the PLO should be asked to amplify these remarks by written responses to the following questions:
  
On the Jewishness of Israel:
 
What excuses and reasons do you have for refusing to recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel?

On the history of Palestine: 
 
Do you accept the historical accuracy of the following statements in Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

“The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.

Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.”

On the geography of Palestine:
 
Do you still claim that:

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

Did the boundaries of Palestine during the British Mandate encompass what is known today as Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza?

 Did 78% of the British Mandate territory become the sovereign independent Arab State called ”The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan” in 1946?

On asking for the 1967 borders:
 
Are you aware that:

The “1967 borders” are in fact the “1949 Armistice Demarcation Lines” delineated under an agreement signed on 3 April 1949 between The Government of the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom and the Government of Israel (Armistice Agreement)

 Article VI (9) of the Armistice Agreement provided:

“The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto”.    

If Abbas and the PLO can’t provide satisfactory answers – then Trump will be wasting his time trying to jumpstart negotiations – stalled since April 2014 - between Israel and the PLO - since those negotiations will assuredly end up going nowhere like previous PLO - Israel negotiations conducted during the last 24 years. 

Jailed PLO terrorists and families of deceased terrorists still receive life-time payments for murdering Jews - rebuffing Trump’s demand they cease.

Trump has shown no compunction jettisoning poor performers like Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci and Steve Bannon who failed to deliver. 

Abbas and the PLO could suffer the same fate if they show no genuine commitment to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict after 50 years of relentless rejectionism.


David Singer is an Australian lawyer who is active in Zionist community organizations in that country. He founded the "Jordan is Palestine" Committee in 1979.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20924

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Israel’s red lines in Syria long crossed by Iran - debkaFile

by debkaFile

[Netanyahu] said to reporters that what is new today is Iran’s attempt to “Lebanonize Syria.” in the same way as it seized control of Lebanon through its surrogate, Hizballah.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu set out for President Vladimir Putin Israel’s red lines against Iran establishing a permanent, expanded military presence in Syria. This theme dominated their three-hour conversation in Sochi on Wednesday, Aug. 23. Netanyahu stiffened his warning with a veiled threat that should Iran or Hizballah cross those lines, there would be a regional war.

It was the first time that the prime minister had publicly threatened to go to war against Iran and Hizballah. After talking to Putin, he said to reporters that what is new today is Iran’s attempt to “Lebanonize Syria.” in the same way as it seized control of Lebanon through its surrogate, Hizballah. “We are looking at Tehran’s future takeover of Syria through its Shiite militias.

If that happens, “we will not remain passive,” he said - nor if Syria becomes a link in Iran’s overland corridor via Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. And we certainly can’t accept Iranians and Hizballah close to the Golan.

“We told President Putin plainly that we won’t put up with Iran using Syria as a military base for attacking Israel.

Putin, in the part of the meeting to which reporters had access, did not address Netanyahu’s remarks about Iran’s role in Syria, nor his warning of unilateral military action. The Russian president just repeated the standard Moscow line that foreign forces would not stay in Syria at the end of the war, but offered no timetable or guarantees.

The Russian leader would clearly prefer not to see an Israel war against Iran and Hizballah breaking out in Syria, debkafile’s sources say, especially since Russian special forces, naval and air force contingents are deployed there - albeit not in large numbers.

At the same time, he may well find Netanyahu’s strong words useful for boosting Russia's clout in Syria. If Tehran believes an Israeli war against its forces and Hizballah is potential, it will be in Iran’s interest to strengthen its military ties with Russia so as to gain its military and political backing.

For Putin, this would be a welcome change from the atmosphere of acrimony prevailing for some weeks between Iranian and Russian officers in Syria. Russian colonels have been posted at the most sensitive sectors in Syria, such as Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eastern Damascus. They are taking over both the military and civilian administration there and, in effect, shouldering the Iranian officers aside.

In Iraq, the Iranians seized control of the country from within, by setting up armed militias and getting them integrated in the national army, as Trojan horses. Tehran knows how to manage this ruse on the quiet, without drawing unwanted attention from the powers on the spot.

In Syria, the problem facing Israel is quite different. If Netanyahu shared sensitive intelligence with Putin that he had not known before, he can’t help noticing that Israel’s red lines for Iran’s expansion were crossed months ago, some of them with Russian assistance.

Four instances stand out:

1. Iran and Hizballah have already set up a chain of military bases in Syria - notably in the Qalamoun Mountains on the Syrian-Lebanese border, from which missiles can be launched against Israel.

2. Iran has already won its coveted land bridge through Iraq to Syria. Bashar Assad’s army has taken over whole sections of the Syrian-Iraqi border, and opened the door for pro-Iranian Shiite militias, Hizballah and Iraqi Shiite groups to move into strategic positions on both sides of the border.

3.  Netanyahu warned of the danger of planting an extremist Shiite entity in the heart of the Sunni Muslim region. But this is already underway. On orders from Moscow, the Syrian army’s 5^th Corps is in the process of absorbing the pro-Iranian Shiite militias which fought for Assad.

The prime minister did not inform Putin of any timetable for Israeli action. But the Russian leader will take it for granted that the Israeli army will not move into Syria without a nod from the Trump administration in Washington.

For now, Putin and Trump are synchronizing their operations is [in] Syria with better results than Netanyahu’s understanding with the US administration.


debkaFile

Source: http://debka.com/article/26193/Israel%E2%80%99s-red-lines-in-Syria-long-crossed-by-Iran-

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Egypt, America's Ally in the Larger War - Shoshana Bryen

by Shoshana Bryen

Nothing should suit the United States more than to find Egypt working to ensure that Iran does not have a permanent hold on Syria.

In his televised address on the future of American operations in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump took a sharp turn from his predecessors.

• I share [the American people's] frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money, and most importantly lives, trying to rebuild countries in our own image, instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations.
• Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an everlasting peace. We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live, or how to govern their own complex society. We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.
• We will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands, or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests. We are not asking others to change their way of life, but to pursue common goals that allow our children to live better and safer lives. This principled realism will guide our decisions moving forward

Think "Egypt" in place of "Afghanistan" in each phrase and then ask how the administration decided to cut nearly cut nearly $100 million dollars in U.S. military and economic aid to Egypt and withhold another $200 million in military financing over human rights concerns and a change in law governing civic organizations and NGOs.

Is Egypt a paragon of the American definition of human rights? No. Is Egypt an American-style democracy? No. Is Egypt a bulwark against both ISIS and Iranian-supported radicalism in the Middle East? Yes, it is. Is Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi "protect(ing) our shared interests" and "pursu(ing) common goals" with the United States? Damned right he is.

Egypt and Israel have partnered to control the tidal wave of Iranian-sponsored and ISIS-related people and weapons moving across Sinai and Egypt and into Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. (Note that all of these are less than stable and lie just south of NATO.) Egypt sells natural gas to Jordan, which is facing its own security threats. Egypt moved with Saudi Arabia to highlight the problem Qatar's support for Iran, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and Sunni jihadist groups, has caused in the region -- and for Egypt itself. And, most recently, Egypt -- with the concurrence of Russia -- has begun diplomacy in areas of Syria to shore up local ceasefires and, by the way and by design, to discomfit Iran.

Nothing should suit the United States more than to find Egypt working to ensure that Iran does not have a permanent hold on Syria.

While Russia is seeking an exit from Syria that preserves its naval and air bases in the country, Iran's long-term objective in Syria is to be there. And in Lebanon. And in Iraq. The three countries constitute an overland avenue for Iran to the Mediterranean Sea and a lid over American allies Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. Then consider Iranian expansion in the areas south, east, and west of those countries -- in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea with a base in Yemen -- potentially able to close the Bab el Mandeb Straits, cutting off Israel and Jordan's only outlet to the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. Egypt, on the northwest side of the Red Sea, can also be stymied by Iranian aggression there, particularly since Sudan and Eritrea, south of Egypt, are corrupt, unstable, and susceptible to smuggling.

It isn't so much a Shiite Crescent as a Shiite encirclement of American allies.

And why? The Islamic Republic declared war on the West when it came to power in 1979 and it remains at war with us today. There are no Iranian "moderates" in power in the government or the military. In the same way President Trump rightly sees Afghanistan as the locus of organizations, weapons, and funding that threaten Western interests from a Sunni orientation, Iran is the same from the Shiite orientation -- only more so. Iran has money unimagined by ISIS and al Qaeda (thank you, President Obama). Iran has weapons capability, including missiles and always the potential for nuclear weapons. Iran the assets of a state and ties to North Korea. Iran is building missile factories in Syria and has already spread a hundred thousand or more rockets and missiles across southern Lebanon through its mercenary army, Hizb’allah.

The American review on Afghanistan was a necessary and welcome exercise, but if Washington believes it can address problems serially -- leaving the Iran problem until the ISIS problem has been "solved" in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq -- it is mistaken. They are corresponding and overlapping issues. Allowing Iran to "win" in Syria because it means ISIS "loses" contains the seeds of a bigger war with a state-based enemy that seeks the destruction of the West no less than ISIS does.

Egypt's President al-Sisi is willing to do what President Trump is willing to do - put its military where its strategic interests are. For this, Egypt should be welcomed as an ally and an asset in the defense of the West.


Shoshana Bryen

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/08/egypt_americas_ally_in_the_larger_war.html

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Clemson prof calls all Republicans 'racist scum' - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

Professor Knijenbyrg has a decided bias against Republicans and Trump supporters, as he made perfectly clear in a series of Facebook posts.

If you're a student at Clemson and a Republican, you might want to avoid assistant professor of human-centered computing Bart Knijnenburg's class. Chances are, taking the course will bring down your grade point average.

That's because Professor Knijenbyrg has a decided bias against Republicans and Trump supporters, as he made perfectly clear in a series of Facebook posts.

Campus Reform:

"All trump supporters, nay, all Republicans, are racist scum," Assistant Professor of Human-Centered Computing Bart Knijnenburg wrote in a recent Facebook post.
"All republicans? Yes," he confirmed in the comments section. "Your complacency made this happen. Pick a side: denounce your affiliation, or admit you're a racist."
Some individuals questioned the broad accusation, one of whom chided Knijnenburg that "We must be careful not to generalize as this is arguably the root cause of the extreme right's existence," adding, "I've always looked up to you, as my 1st yr mentor but also for passing on the idea to study abroad. But it saddens me a bit to see this coming from you."
"You should come live in the south for a while. It's exhausting," Knijnenburg replied. "The republican ideology of 'everyone is equal and nobody deserves a handout' is naive at best, covertly racist at worst. I truly believe that turning a blind eye makes you complicit in what is happening now."
"This society is aggressively structured to make cis white males succeed, at the expense of minorities," Knijnenburg continued, though he didn't stop there. In another post, Knijnenburg equates President Donald Trump, Trump voters, the GOP, and Steve Bannon to "Nazis," the "KKK," and the "Alt-right," declaring that they are "all racists."
Additionally, Knijnenburg explicitly endorses violence in one post, stating, "I admire anyone who stands up against white supremacy. Violent or non-violent. This needs to stop, by any means necessary. #PunchNazis"

We've come to expect this kind of moral preening from professors. But lumping all Republicans in with the racists is not only factually wrong, but dramatically stupid. The professor's comment brings to mind the quote from Sgt. Buster Kilrain, the tough Irish sergeant of the 20th Maine in the film Gettysburg. "Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time."

Knijenburg is apparently incapable of doing that, which makes him unfit even to teach needlepoint. Speaking approvingly of violence against his political opponents should get him fired. No doubt, he will claim "academic freedom" to spew his hatred.

What makes the professor's comments so chilling is that you know that many of his colleagues both at Clemson and at universities around the country believe the same thing but don't have the guts (or stupidity) to put it in writing. Thankfully, Knijenburg has revealed himself to students, parents, and administrators as a biased partisan who couldn't possibly be objective with students who disagree with his radical views. The sooner the school dismisses him, the better.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/08/clemson_prof_calls_all_republicans_racist_scum.html

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Anti-Semitism in Europe: New Official Report - Bruce Bawer

by Bruce Bawer

To some of us, it is hardly a secret that anti-Semitic violence is on the rise in Europe, or that the chief perpetrators are Muslims.

• Examining statistics from France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Russia, Enstad points out that one of these seven countries "clearly stands out with a very low number" of anti-Semitic incidents despite its "relatively large Jewish population..."
• Absurdly, whenever a perpetrator draws a swastika, the Swedish government automatically considers it a "right-wing" act.
• Enstad concludes that right-wingers, in all four of the major Western European countries in his study, "constitute a clear minority of perpetrators." Indeed, "in France, Sweden and the UK (but not in Germany) the perpetrator was perceived to be left-wing more often than right-wing."

To some of us, it is hardly a secret that anti-Semitic violence is on the rise in Europe, or that the chief perpetrators are Muslims. But many politicians and news media have been so indefatigable in their efforts to obscure this uncomfortable fact that one is always grateful for official -- or, at least, semi-official -- confirmation of what everyone already knows. 


It is a pleasure, then, to report that a new study, Antisemitic Violence in Europe, 2005-2015 -- written by Johannes Due Enstad of the Oslo-based Center for Studies of the Holocaust and the University of Oslo, and jointly published by both institutions -- is refreshingly, even startlingly, honest about its subject. Enstad notes that while anti-Semitic violence has declined in the U.S. since 1994, it has been on the rise worldwide. That, of course, includes Europe -- most of it, anyway.

Examining statistics from France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Russia, Enstad points out that one of these seven countries "clearly stands out with a very low number" of anti-Semitic incidents despite its "relatively large Jewish population"; the country in question, he adds, "is also the only case in which there is little to indicate that Jews avoid displaying their identity in public." In addition, it is the only one of the six countries in which the majority of perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence are not Muslims. Which country is Enstad referring to? Russia.

That Russia is relatively free of anti-Semitic violence may sound surprising to anyone familiar with the words Cossack and refusenik, but it actually makes sense. Would-be Jew-bashers in Russia know that if they're arrested for committing acts of violence, the consequences won't be pretty. In western Europe, by contrast, the courts are lenient, the terms of confinement short, and the prisons extremely comfortable. And while Muslims know that they are a protected class in Western Europe, able to commit all kinds of transgressions with near-impunity, that is far from being the case in Putin's Russia.

If Muslims do not dominate the anti-Semitic crime statistics in Russia, who does? The answer: right-wing extremists. Although politicians and the media in Western Europe like to talk as if Jews (and others) in their countries are principally endangered by the far-right, Russia is, in fact, the only one of the seven countries in Enstad's study in which that group does play a significant role in anti-Semitic acts.

What about the other countries? Denmark has few Jews, and Norway even fewer, so these two countries play a relatively minor role in Enstad's study. That leaves Germany, Britain, France, and Sweden. Nearly 10% of French Jews say they have been physically attacked for being Jewish during the past five years; in Germany and Sweden the figure is about 7.5%, in Britain nearly 5%. Asked how often they "avoid visiting Jewish events or sites" for fear of danger, 7.9% of Jews in Sweden say they do so frequently, followed by their coreligionists in France, Germany, and Britain (where the number is only 1.2%). Asked if they "avoid wearing, carrying or displaying things" in public that would identify them as Jews, 60% of Swedish Jews say they do so "all the time" or "frequently," with, again, France, Germany, and Britain following in that order.

Almost 50% of French Jews have considered emigrating because they feel imperiled in their own country; for Germany the figure is 25%, and for Sweden and Britain it is just under 20%.

Enstad weighs official statistics from all of the countries under examination, but finds that while those from most of the countries essentially jibe with the results of independent studies, those published by both Germany and Sweden are fishy, in some cases betraying an apparent effort by officials to massage the numbers to avoid certain uncomfortable facts. While an independent survey, for example, concludes that right-wing extremists make up a small minority of perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence in Germany, German police statistics blame most such violence on just right-wingers. Enstad, in his polite way, suggests that this discrepancy is the result of "a categorisation problem." Could it be possible, Enstad wonders, that "German police considers antisemitism a right-wing type of ideology and thus categorises most anti-Semitic attacks as right-wing, regardless of the perpetrator's ethnic or religious background?" Another problem is that German officials categorize some incidents -- including the fire-bombing of a synagogue -- as anti-Israeli, not anti-Semitic.

Police walk through a Jewish cemetery in Berlin, Germany, where at least 30 graves were vandalized, April 30, 2008. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Of course, the exclusive attribution of anti-Semitism to the far-right is ridiculous, as is the distinction between "anti-Israeli" and "anti-Semitic." But this kind of wordplay on the part of German officialdom is not surprising. Such fiddling with semantics and statistics in order to avoid pointing the figure at Muslims is thoroughly consistent with the current practice by both the German government and media of downplaying the extent of Muslim sexual assaults and other crimes -- most notoriously, of course, in the wake of the New Year's Eve 2016 mass sexual assaults in Cologne, after which, as the commentator Ezra Levant put it, not only did Cologne's police chief lie about the extent of the atrocities, but "[t]he media lied. The Justice Minister lied too. The mayor lied." It is also consistent with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration's fierce determination to stamp out criticism of Muslims.

The Swedish government's numbers are also dubious. While attributing a "minority" of anti-Semitic incidents to "right-wing extremists," official Swedish reports prefer not to say who is responsible for the majority of them. The closest they come to doing so is to state that many "expressions of antisemitism" are "linked to... conflicts in the Middle East." It seems clear that this is a euphemistic way of indicating that the perpetrators in question are Muslims. In any event, anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that most of the people who commit anti-Semitic violence in Sweden are, indeed, Muslims. For example, Judith Popinski, a concentration-camp survivor living in Malmö, told the Sunday Telegraph back in 2010 that she had begun experiencing the same "hatred" in that city that had once been directed at her by the Nazis, only this time, she said, it "comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now."

There is more. Like the Germans, the Swedes appear to have a "categorization problem." Absurdly, whenever a perpetrator draws a swastika, the Swedish government automatically considers it a "right-wing" act.

Yet, after examining both official and independent figures, Enstad concludes that right-wingers, in all four of the major Western European countries in his study, "constitute a clear minority of perpetrators." Indeed, "in France, Sweden and the UK (but not in Germany) the perpetrator was perceived to be left-wing more often than right-wing."

If the Western media were interested in the facts, Enstad's report would receive wide circulation and explode a few myths. I would not hold my breath.

Bruce Bawer is the author of the new novel The Alhambra (Swamp Fox Editions). His book While Europe Slept (2006) was a New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10896/antisemitism-europe

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