How to Beat Islamic State - Maajid Nawaz

by Maajid Nawaz

Hat tip: Dr. Carolyn Tal

To win against the jihadists, isolate them, undercut their appeal to Muslims and avoid a ‘clash of civilizations’

Islam is a religion, and like any other faith, it is internally diverse. Islamism, by contrast, is the desire to impose a single version of Islam on an entire society. Islamism is not Islam, but it is an offshoot of Islam. It is Muslim theocracy.

In much the same way, jihad is a traditional Muslim idea connoting struggle—sometimes a personal spiritual struggle, sometimes a struggle against an external enemy. Jihadism, however, is something else entirely: It is the doctrine of using force to spread Islamism.

President Barack Obama and many liberal-minded commentators have been hesitant to call this Islamist ideology by its proper name. They seem to fear that both Muslim communities and the religiously intolerant will hear the word “Islam” and simply assume that all Muslims are being held responsible for the excesses of the jihadist few.

I call this the Voldemort effect, after the villain in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Many well-meaning people in Ms. Rowling’s fictional world are so petrified of Voldemort’s evil that they do two things: They refuse to call Voldemort by name, instead referring to “He Who Must Not Be Named,” and they deny that he exists in the first place. Such dread only increases public hysteria, thus magnifying the appeal of Voldemort’s power.

The same hysteria about Islamism is unfolding before our eyes. But no strategy intended to defeat Islamism can succeed if Islamism itself and its violent expression in jihadism are not first named, isolated and understood. It is as disingenuous to argue that Islamic State is entirely divorced from Islam as it is to assert that it is synonymous with Islam. Islamic State does indeed have something to do with Islam—not nothing, not everything, but something. That something is the way in which all Islamists justify their arguments using Islamic scripture and seek to recruit from Muslims.

The urgency of making these distinctions should be apparent to everyone. The attacks seem to be coming in swift succession now: Istanbul, Sinai, Beirut, Paris, San Bernardino, London. What is the strategy behind this Islamic State-inspired violence? Jihadists of all bents seek to create discord, pitting Muslims against non-Muslims in the West and Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims in the East. The theocratic ideology of Islamism thrives on division, polarization and claims of Muslim victimhood.

Islamic State’s leaders insist that the U.S. and the rest of the West are waging a global war against all Islam and Muslims. This is obvious nonsense, but by a combination of provocation and self-fulfilling prophecy, Islamic State is doing everything possible to make it a reality—helped along, alas, by Donald Trump’s call this week “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Islamic State’s goal is to leave Sunni Muslims—in Europe, America and the Middle East—with no refuge except the terrorist group’s own self-declared caliphate in the lawless regions of Syria and Iraq.

As Islamic State has outlined in its own magazine Dabiq, it aims to eliminate what it calls the “gray zone,” the middle ground between Islamist theocrats and anti-Muslim bigots, so that everyone is forced to pick sides. In this way, Islamic State hopes to turn non-Muslims against Muslims and, once this process is complete—that is, once we all begin to see each other primarily through narrow religious lenses—to set off a global religious war.

I bear some personal responsibility for this effort to eliminate the gray zone, to promote the idea that Muslims have no home in the West. As a young Muslim growing up in the U.K., I spent more than a decade as one of the leaders of a global Islamist group that advocated the return of a caliphate, though not through terrorism. My activities eventually led me to Egypt, where at 24 I was jailed as a political prisoner and sentenced to five years in Mazra Tora prison.

Only in jail, after Amnesty International adopted my case, did I dedicate myself to rereading, reviewing and reappraising my every thought. As I deradicalized myself over the next five years, I eventually concluded that Islam, my faith, was being exploited for a totalitarian political project and must be reclaimed from the theocrats. I have spent the past eight years doing just that through a counterextremism organization that I co-founded.

This struggle can be won, but it will not be easy. Over the past few years, in survey after survey, attitudes in the U.K. have reflected a worrisome trend. A quarter of British Muslims sympathized with the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, according to a February poll by ComRes for the BBC. A 2008 YouGov poll found that a third of Muslim students believe that killing for religion can be justified, and 40% want the introduction of Shariah as law in the U.K. Another poll, conducted in 2007 by Populus, reported that 36% of young British Muslims thought apostates should be “punished by death.”

It should come as no surprise that, from this milieu, up to 1,000 British Muslims have joined Islamic State, which is more than have joined the British Army reserves.

The actual strength of Islamic State’s army probably lies somewhere between the CIA’s estimate of about 32,000 and Kurdish estimates of some 200,000. According to the Soufan Group, a New York-based private intelligence firm, the number of foreigners streaming into Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State and other Islamist groups has doubled over the past 18 months, despite the West’s best efforts, and may now be as high as 31,000.

The latest polling by Pew of 11 countries with large Muslim populations found widespread disdain for Islamic State—but also troubling levels of support. Only 28% in Pakistan disapproved of the group, and 62% offered no opinion. In Nigeria, 14% of respondents had a favorable view of Islamic State; in Malaysia and Senegal, it was 11%; in Turkey, it was 8%; in the Palestinian territories, it was 6%. There is, in short, nothing like majority support for Islamic State among the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, but such numbers are still worrisome.

After the Paris attacks, Pope Francis declared that we are in the midst of a piecemeal World War III. It is more accurate to say that we face a global jihadist insurgency. Islamic State is the latest incarnation of this insurgency, but it has been brewing for decades, spurred on by Islamist social movements that have filled the void left by the shortcomings of all too many Muslim-majority governments. Characterizing Islamic State as part of an insurgency is important because, as Vietnam taught us the hard way, defeating an insurgency is different from winning a conventional war.

Counterinsurgency rests on the assumption that the enemy has significant support in the communities from which it recruits. The aim of counterinsurgency strategy is to deny the enemy any propaganda victories that can further fuel its recruitment. Insurgents must be isolated from their targeted host communities. This requires a combination of psychological, physical and economic warfare, all with the aim of undermining the insurgents’ ideological, operational and financial capabilities.

The most critical part of such a strategy must be messaging. In fighting Islamic State, we must avoid the language that it uses to promote its worldview and, at the same time, offer compelling alternative narratives. Only in this way can we deny today’s Islamists and jihadists their ability to appeal to Muslim audiences.

In this effort, Muslims who deny that Islamist extremism is a real problem are as counterproductive as Mr. Trump and his populist fear-mongering. Both serve to increase the religious polarization and mistrust that the extremists relish. Islamic State is out to provoke a “clash of civilizations.” We should not oblige them.

What is at stake in these failures and evasions? Absent an accurate language that explains the difference between Islamist ideologues and the majority of non-Islamist Muslims, anxious non-Muslims in the West can be more easily alarmed by blaring media coverage and attention-seeking politicians. Some will simply assume that the problem is Islam itself and all Muslims per se, which helps to explain the rise of xenophobic politics in both Europe and the U.S.

As for Muslim communities themselves, if they hold that Islamism has “nothing to do with Islam,” then there is nothing to discuss, which is plainly not the case. This position undermines brave Islamic reform theologians such as Britain’s Usama Hasan, Pakistan’s Javed Ahmad Ghamidi and America’s Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, who are urgently trying to lay the foundations of a theology that rejects Islamism and promotes freedom of speech and gender rights—thereby undermining the insurgents’ message.

This denialist position also betrays the many besieged ex-Muslim voices—such as the Pakistani-Canadian writer Ali A. Rizvi—who struggle for the right to be fully accepted by their own Muslim communities. These reformers all need a vocabulary that distinguishes Islam from the politicized distortion of it peddled by Islamists and jihadists.

Just as one doesn’t need to be black to care about the struggle against racism and one needn’t be gay to worry about homophobia, one needn’t be Muslim to speak out against Muslim theocrats. Considering their founding history, Americans are especially well placed to speak about why theocracies are never good for humanity. They also can help Europeans deal with the challenges of creating new, post-migration national identities.

Many of my fellow Muslims have resisted the call to refute Islamism head-on. They ask why they should apologize for something with which they have little or nothing to do. But just as we Muslims expect solidarity from others against anti-Muslim bigotry, such as Mr. Trump’s outlandish remarks, we have a duty to reciprocate this solidarity by speaking out against the Islamists.

What should a counterinsurgency strategy mean for the actual conduct of foreign policy? President George W. Bush may have rushed headlong into the jihadist snare by invading and occupying Iraq, but Mr. Obama and the international community are now sleepwalking toward another precipice in Syria. Though it is true that our intervention in Syria will be used by Islamic State to galvanize more recruits, our failure to intervene has been used by them as evidence that the world has forsaken Syrians, leaving them to face Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s barrel bombs alone.

My own journey into radical groups began not when the world intervened in a foreign conflict but when it failed to intervene in the Bosnian genocide. I opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but passivity can be just as dangerous as invasion. So long as Islamists control the narrative among angry young Muslims, both our action and our inaction can be used to radicalize them.

The world is facing a global jihadist insurgency, working to advance a well-thought-out operational strategy, fed by Islamist ideological convictions that remain appealing to some Muslims. After Paris and San Bernardino, the Obama administration’s policy toward Islamic State is unraveling. From likening Islamic State to “a jayvee team” last January to saying one day before the Paris attacks that Islamic State had been “contained,” Mr. Obama has remained one step behind the group’s predictable rise.

A key part of our counterinsurgency response should involve getting the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds off the sidelines. Yes, this will be uncomfortable for our allies in Turkey, and it will trouble Iraq’s rulers. But the Kurds have proven themselves over and over again to be the only effective fighting force on the ground against Islamic State.

If that means a Kurdish state, so be it. Outside of the continuing experiment in Tunisia in North Africa, a Kurdish state could become the only democratic, secular Muslim-majority state in the Middle East. It could become a political and religious beacon for the region. Our diplomacy until now has inexcusably neglected the possibilities this presents.

Airstrikes against Islamic State must also be supported by an international ground force, a few thousand in number, and fronted by Sunni Arabs. These should be backed by an international squad of special forces and support staff, all of whom are focused on dislodging Islamic State from its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa. As for the question of Mr. Assad, as part of a deal with Russia and Iran, the Syrian regime should be kept intact, but Mr. Assad must go.

Such actions may weaken Islamic State’s operational capacity but will not defeat its ideological appeal. The Islamist extremism that first inspired al Qaeda and then Islamic State will continue to inspire others. Islamic State was not alone in radicalizing the estimated 6,000 Europeans who have traveled to join them. That many recruits couldn’t have emerged from a vacuum. Islamic State propaganda is good, but not that good.

In fact, decades of Islamist propaganda had already primed these young Muslims to yearn for a theocracy. The same YouGov survey I cited above found that 33% of young British Muslims expressed a desire to see the resurrection of a world-wide caliphate. Islamic State has simply plucked the low-hanging fruit seeded long ago by other Islamist groups operating across Europe.

Reversing this campaign will require decades of work by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but the endgame must be to render the ideology of Islamism intellectually and socially obsolete.

Maajid Nawaz is the founding chairman of Quilliam, a London-based counterextremism organization, and the author of “Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism.”

Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-beat-islamic-state-1449850833?mod=trending_now_1

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Sweden: Shambles in Asylum Heaven - Ingrid Carlqvist

by Ingrid Carlqvist

• In Sweden, only the people who say they are not applying for asylum are checked.
• To avoid having to show any papers, a terrorist going to Sweden to commit acts of terror only has to tell the border police that he is seeking asylum. He will immediately be driven to the closest Immigration Service facility. And while the Immigration Service tries to figure out who he is, he can plan his attacks in the peace and quiet of the Swedish countryside.
• "The truth is that persons with evil intent know exactly what to do when they come here. That information spreads like wildfire. These new border controls are there for the sole purpose of reassuring the public. They have absolutely no effect on the influx of migrants." — Border policeman at the Öresund Bridge (between Denmark and Sweden).
• Despite many Swedes drawing a sigh of relief when the government announced that immigration was to be limited, the new policy does not really entail any difference at all.
  

In spite of the supposedly tighter asylum rules announced November 24, chaos rules in Sweden. So far, in 2015, 150,000 asylum seekers have been registered; but as there is nowhere to house them, people are sleeping in tents, on cardboard boxes in exhibition halls, and even on the street. Many run away from the Immigration Service facilities. More than 22,000 people are supposed to be deported but refuse to leave. Swedes are understandably terrified that terrorists might be hiding among the refugees. The police are busy with pointless border controls and cannot attend to their normal work. It is not an exaggeration to say that in this situation, Sweden has lost track of pretty much everything.

Some homeless migrants now sleep on the street in Sweden. (Image source: Expressen video screenshot)

Even the asylum seekers are complaining. On a Swedish public television program, Uppdrag Granskning, aired on December 2, Salwa, a mother of young children, told the reporter how she is forced to live in an asylum house along with men she called "bad people." When the reporter explained to Salwa that 10,000 new asylum seekers arrive every week, and this was why everything was topsy-turvy, she replied: "Then close the borders. Stop taking in more people. If you have ten guests in your house and there is not enough room, would you still take in ten more?"

Sweden's Social Democrat Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, said in an interview last April with the daily Sydsvenskan,

"There is no limit [to the number of refugees Sweden can accept]. We will accept refugees according to the conventions that bind us. We have done it before. In the early 1990s, many came from the former Republic of Yugoslavia. Today, they are a natural part of the Swedish society. They contribute a lot."

So, when Prime Minister Löfven and Vice Prime Minister, Åsa Romson (Green Party) presented their new, tougher immigration policy on November 24, it sent shockwaves through the Swedish establishment. Journalists, who never asked the governing politicians a single critical question about their affinity for open borders, now appeared stunned -- despite one authority after another, during the last few months, having warned of an imminent systemic collapse. When Romson started crying during the live press conference because, she said, she was "forced" to be a part of the tightening of the world's most generous immigration policy, everyone believed that these new immigration rules must be for real.

The message conveyed to the Swedish people on November 24 was that the borders were now essentially being shut; that Löfven had discovered there was a limit. The political party most critical of immigration policy, the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), declared victory. Its party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, immediately reached out to the Conservatives (Moderaterna) and the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna), offering to bring down the government and form a new one together with them. This invitation was immediately declined. The reply should probably be viewed in the light of all seven parties in Parliament having vowed never to co-operate with the "xenophobic" Sweden Democrats.

It does not matter, therefore, that the other parties have now adopted much of the Sweden Democrats' policies, or that many Conservatives actually want to take them even further and could easily get them through Parliament by forming a government with the Sweden Democrats.

An outsider may get the impression that every party in Sweden is now competing over who can suggest harsher austerity measures. The Conservatives say they want, among other things, to stop people who are coming from other EU countries from applying for asylum in Sweden. The Conservatives also say they want new measures for deporting those who have had their application rejected. The government is already negotiating with Afghanistan to try to persuade it to take back some of the many Afghans (36,261 in total; 20,947 supposedly "children") who applied for asylum in Sweden this year.

So far, no journalist in the mainstream media seems to have discovered that the new border controls -- implemented because the government evidently decided there is "a serious threat to public order and safety in the country" -- have had no discernible effect. The media still give the public the impression that asylum seekers are actually stopped at the border, and that, as the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, announced, all border crossings will be controlled before Christmas.

As noted last month, however, to avoid having to show any papers, a terrorist going to Sweden to commit acts of terror only has to tell the border police he is seeking asylum. He will immediately be driven to the closest Immigration Service facility. While the Immigration Service tries to figure out who he is, he can plan his attacks in the peace and quiet of the Swedish countryside. And as it takes the Immigration Service 222 days, on average, to establish a plausible identity, he need not be in any hurry.

One person who has grown tired of this whole charade is actually one of the Border Police at the Öresund Bridge (between Denmark and Sweden). He told Gatestone Institute that every day, the new controls cause a number of people -- many of whom had planned on passing through Sweden to seek asylum in Finland or Norway -- to return to Denmark of their own volition. But, he said, it is rare that someone refuses to show identification or apply for asylum, and thus be turned down.

"The truth is that persons with evil intent know exactly what to do when they come here," he said.

"That information spreads like wildfire. These new border controls are there for the sole purpose of reassuring the public. They have absolutely no effect on the influx of migrants. The public is given a completely erroneous picture of what we are doing. They do not understand that we spend enormous amounts of time checking Swedish and Danish commuters. If we do not, the press goes crazy and starts screaming about discrimination.
"It seems as if those in power do not want the people who are here illegally to be deported. They give them free health care, free dental care, and schooling for their children. It is mixed messages all the time. I think they need to make up their minds about what they want. These controls mean nothing. They are just a formality to make everything look good and avoid discriminating against anyone. We should put our time and effort where they are needed."

When asked by Gatestone why the police were allocating enormous resources to border controls that in fact do not amount to anything, the Press Officer at the Swedish National Police Agency (Rikspolisstyrelsen), Stephan Ray, stated that he did not have time to discuss it because he needed to go to the bathroom; then hung up the phone.

An expert on international law, who asked to remain anonymous, told Gatestone that he could no longer understand what the government was thinking by allowing potentially dangerous people into Sweden. Nowhere in any international conventions, he said, does it say that the right of asylum takes precedence over the security of a country's own population. The most reasonable thing to do, he said, would be to establish fenced-in refugee camps near the borders and not let the asylum seekers out until it was determined that they were not terrorists or war criminals: "According to the Refugee Convention of 1951," he said, even if people are war criminals and risk facing the death penalty at home, a country has the right to send them back."

Even so, convicted murderers and war criminals -- happily for them -- get to stay in Sweden. The rule is that no one risking the death penalty or persecution in their home country will be sent back. This includes even people who have committed capital crimes in Sweden and been sentenced to deportation. It is uncertain that the IKEA-murderer, Abraham Ukbagabir, can be deported to Eritrea after serving his time in prison. There are, apparently, "hindrances" to enforcing deportations to Eritrea. Recently, the alternative-media site, Nyheter Idag, revealed that, as there are "hindrances" to deporting people to Syria, terrorists discovered to be Islamic State combatants seeking asylum will get to stay in Sweden.

When Gatestone asked the Immigration Service why it was more concerned about the safety of foreign citizens than the lives of Swedish citizens, Matilda Niang of the Immigration Service press office replied that it would be inhumane to lock up asylum seekers until their identity had been established. "A lock-up," she said, "would also affect asylum seekers who did not commit any crimes."

So, despite many Swedes drawing a sigh of relief when the government announced that immigration was to be limited, the new policy does not really entail any difference at all.

No sitting politician has yet expressed doubt about the wisdom of turning Sweden from a Swedish country into a multicultural one, and none has yet said the policy of importing migrants needs to stop.

It may well be that the government's measures are only a facade, designed to soothe the Swedish people, in the hope of relieving some of the pressure.

Among these new measures are:

• A moratorium on permanent residency status. From now on, a residency status is valid for three years, with an option for a one-year extension. Permanent residency is given only to persons who, after this time, are able to support themselves financially.
• Stricter limits on bringing in relatives.
• Tightening demands on self-sufficiency and the ability to support financially one's own family.
• Medical determination of so-called unaccompanied refugee children.
• Identity checks on all public transport: everyone on a ferry, train, or bus to Sweden must show a passport or a driver's license.

The temporary residency is a message that will reach migrants quickly. Whether or not this means that fewer people will get to stay is doubtful. Nothing prevents the government from transforming the temporary residencies into permanent ones after the four years expire. There will also be the problem of what to do with migrants who do not leave at that point. Medically determining the age of the many Afghans who claim to be under 18, in order to get a fast track on their asylum application, might have some effect. Sweden's failure to age-test asylum seekers has led to an avalanche of "bearded children." Each week, over 1,000 "children" arrive, of whom 80% come from Afghanistan. In Denmark, where age-testing has been routine, it turned out that at least 50% of these so-called children were in fact adults; and in Norway and Finland, this number was 66%.

About 75% of all the "children" who apply, are granted asylum in Sweden. It is therefore extremely popular, when seeking asylum, to claim to be under 18. In 2013, 4,000 arrived. In 2014, the number was 7,000; and during the first eleven months of 2015, a staggering 32,180 "unaccompanied refugee children" sought asylum in Sweden. More than half were from Afghanistan; the second largest group was from Syria, followed by Eritrea and Somalia. About 2,000 were girls.

A few days after the announcement of Sweden's new asylum rules, the influx of migrants slowed significantly. On November 28 and 29, from a peak of about 1,500 a day, only 392 and 375 people, respectively, were registered. Most were from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. The next day, however, the number of applications once again jumped to more than 1,000.

An intelligence analyst at the Immigration Service, Anders Westerlund, told the daily Aftonbladet that the decline was most likely due to fewer refugees arriving on the Greek isles from Turkey. "We also see that tougher border controls in the Balkans, and the cold weather, are keeping people from coming to Europe," he said. "Winter is coming, and that makes the journey riskier."

Meanwhile, police are swamped with pointless border controls and cannot do their usual work, and criminals roam the streets.

District Attorneys [DAs] apparently have so little to do, that they recently promised to supply the Immigration Service with 30 underemployed DAs. The Immigration Service, despite having recently hired another 1,200 employees, is, of course, struggling to cope with the current situation. In total, Immigration Service staff wages cost the Swedish taxpayers 250 million kronor (about $29,000,000) a month, or about 3 billion kroner (about $350,000,000) a year.

"We can lend them 30 DAs and clerks," chief prosecutor Solveig Wollstad said in an interview with Gatestone, "because our influx of cases has gone down. The police are busy doing other things, such as fighting terrorism and taking care of migrants."

When asked if the situation was possibly due to crime going down, Wollstad said, "No, no, no. The decrease is due to the police working so much with other things, such as preventing terror and dealing with the refugee flow. More police are needed at the borders now. Sweden is in crisis. It is not just us who are lending out staff: it is also the National Courts Administration, the Enforcement Authority, the Prison and Probation Service and a number of other authorities."

In short, the only discernible effect of the "humanitarian superpower's" new asylum rules is that the Swedish police are busy checking the identities of people who do not want to seek asylum in Sweden, and therefore lack the resources to apprehend criminals.

"As long as the ingrained rhetoric in Sweden is viewed as a manifestation of divinity and goodness," writes Associate Professor of Business Administration and author Jan Tullberg in a recent article, "political ineptness will continue paralyzing the country."

• Follow Ingrid Carlqvist on Twitter

Ingrid Carlqvist is a journalist and author based in Sweden, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7045/sweden-asylum-shambles

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Moderation and Radicalization in Lebanon - Omer Einav

by Omer Einav

The balance between the contradictory trends of moderation and radicalization currently underway in Lebanon will dictate the direction of the country for the near future. 

After a long period of relative deadlock, Lebanon has recently witnessed a number of political and security-related developments that are likely to have substantive implications for the future of the country. In contrast to 2014 – when Lebanon experienced a number of formative events, most notably the non-election of a new president, increased Hezbollah involvement in the war in Syria alongside the Assad regime and Iran, and the abduction of Lebanese soldiers by the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in the border town of Arsal – 2015 was relatively uneventful. The most important event of the year was actually the civil protest that emerged surrounding the issue of trash collection in the Beirut area and ultimately evolved into a fierce protest against the establishment. However, the end of the year brought with it significant developments that, taken together, comprise a fascinating state of affairs: a terrorist attack on November 12, 2015 by the Islamic State in the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya, which resulted in the death of more than 40 civilians; the release of the security forces who had been held prisoner by the al-Nusra Front since August 2014 as part of a deal between Lebanon and the al-Qaeda branch in Syria; and possible progress in the process of electing a president to enter the Presidential Palace in Baabda, which has stood empty since May 2014.  
  

Abducted Lebanese soldiers, released after an 

exchange deal between Lebanon and the al-Nusra 

Front, are welcomed at a government palace in 

Beirut, December 1, 2015. 

Photo: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

The most fundamental political issue has been the election of a president. Since the end of Michel Suleiman’s term in May 2014, the March 8 camp and the rival March 14 alliance have been unable to reach an agreement regarding a candidate for the highest state position in the multi-sector country. Contending for the position, which must be filled by a Maronite Christian, were two old rivals in Lebanese politics: Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, and Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces party; both men are controversial figures for a number of reasons. Among other names proposed and subsequently rejected was Jean Kahwaji, Commander in Chief of the Lebanese Army. Recently, however, the crisis appeared to be moving toward resolution with the proposal of Suleiman Frangieh, the current leader of the Marada Movement, as a candidate accepted by all parties. Frangieh, the scion of a well known family in local politics and the grandson of a former Lebanese President of the same name, is known, like the other members of his family, for his support of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The fact that a figure such as Frangieh, who is so closely associated with the March 8 Alliance and a supporter of Hezbollah, is considered a realistic option for the presidency by both camps is far from self-evident. One explanation is the willingness of Saad al-Hariri, who heads Tayyar al-Mustaqbal (the “Future Movement”) – the leading party in the March 14 Alliance – to trade a president from his camp for assurances regarding his appointment as Prime Minister (after not serving in the position since 2011) or the appointment of someone on his behalf. Such a compromise, whether implemented or not, would be an expression of the strong desire within the Lebanese leadership to conclude the ongoing presidential affair. While it is still too early to know whether the effort will succeed, the positive momentum is a promising step toward stabilization and the prevention of further deterioration of the Lebanese state system.  
  

Another positive development was the prisoner exchange with the al-Nusra Front on December 1, 2015. In exchange for 16 members of the Lebanese security forces that were taken captive in Arsal, Lebanon released 13 prisoners, including the ex-wife of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The prisoner release raised spirits across all sectors and political camps in the country, and in addition to national level-headedness, the deal’s implementation can be credited to the media struggle and the struggle over public opinion. Many details are still unclear, but it is known that Qatar served as a mediator between the parties (according to reports that have been officially denied, Qatar even paid the al-Nusra Front a large sum to secure the release) and credits the success of the long process to its diplomatic expertise. Hezbollah quickly claimed credit for its role in completing the deal, emphasizing Secretary-General Nasrallah’s role in the negotiations, alongside that of Abbas Ibrahim, the General Director of General Security, who is associated with Nasrallah. Hezbollah’s conduct in this context is understandable in light of its ongoing struggle over its image in the Lebanese domestic arena as a protector of the state, particularly in response to accusations of embroiling the movement in the Syrian civil war and creating a tragic dependence on the Assad regime. This struggle for public image takes on significant internal Lebanese and regional significance when Hezbollah works vis-à-vis Qatar, which may not be the patron of the March 14 Camp (a role currently played by Saudi Arabia) but is a Sunni state with ties to Sunnis in Lebanon that is opposed to Iran and its allies.
    

In contrast to these developments, which suggest a warming in sectoral relations in Lebanon, Lebanon’s campaign against the Islamic State signals radicalization. The al-Nusra Front was party to the deal, but the Islamic State was left out of the picture, and as a result, continues to hold nine Lebanese captives that were abducted in Arsal, with their release seemingly nowhere on the horizon. This has stemmed from the escalation in Islamic State operations in Lebanese territory, as reflected in the Dahiya attack of November 12, 2015. This was not the first time the Islamic State struck at targets within Lebanon, particularly those associated with Hezbollah, Syria’s bitter enemy. However, in this case, the intensity of the attack, which was carried out between the downing of the Russian plane over the Sinai Peninsula and the terrorist attacks in Paris, may indicate an overall change in the policy of the Islamic State toward action outside of Syria and Iraq against rivals whom it is fighting within these countries. Its weakening – caused by the entry of Russian forces into the campaign, which has forced it to withdraw forces from territories it had previously held – leaves it with little alternative if it wishes to maintain its deterrence within the Middle East and the international community. Against this background, Lebanon, and especially its Shiite population centers, constitutes a target that is a high priority of the Islamic State.   

The balance between the two contradictory trends currently underway in Lebanon will thus dictate the direction the country pursues in the near future. On the one hand, Lebanon has witnessed positive developments, which were made possible by a degree of apparently obligatory cooperation between the rivals from the two sides of the political map. On the other hand, it has also seen an intensification of the threat posed by the Islamic State, reflecting developments on the battlefield in Syria. The unfolding positive trend serves national interests, primarily the preservation of internal stability and movement away from the traumatic scenarios associated with the years of the Lebanese civil war. At the same time, however, this trend is playing into the hands of Hezbollah, whose chief interest is drawing Lebanese attention to the two struggles it regards as truly important: the struggle against takfiris (infidels to Islam, such as the Islamic State and other Salafi jihadist movements) and the resistance, i.e., the struggle against Israel.
                

For its part, Israel must recognize that internal stability within Lebanon could provide Hezbollah with greater confidence in its struggle against its enemies. Although no balances have changed in the northern sphere in recent years, and although neither Israel nor Hezbollah has good reason to initiate a military confrontation, the mutual caution attests to the fragility of the status quo. On December 1, 2015 the al-Manar television network reported that a listening device in the Marjayoun region of southern Lebanon had been blown up by Israel, and one day later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel operates in Syria to prevent the transfer of arms from Syria to Lebanon and the construction of Iranian infrastructure in the Golan Heights. This is not evidence that the strategic situation in the north has changed. However, Israel must understand that Hezbollah, after a difficult period, is currently attempting to strengthen itself against Israel through the stabilization of the internal systems inside Lebanon, which can then act as a strong, supportive force for the Shiite organization.

Omer Einav

Source: http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=11089

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Syrian war as testing ground for Russia’s latest sea and air weapons - DebkaFile

by DebkaFile

The cruise missiles launched from a Kilo-class submarine provided visible proof of how President Vladimir Putin is using his intervention in Syria as a showcase for Russian military prowess..

Like other manufacturers of advanced military weaponry, Russia has sought - and found in the Syrian conflict - a live battleground for testing and exhibiting its latest and most advanced tools of war. The two most sophisticated Russian armaments on full operational display in recent weeks are the Kalibr NK cruise missile and the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter-bomber.

Western sources commented Sunday, Dec. 13: The cruise missiles launched from a Kilo-class submarine provided visible proof of how President Vladimir Putin is using his intervention in Syria as a showcase for Russian military prowess..

In terms of flexing muscle, the Kalibr NK subsonic cruise missile, or as it is known in the West, the SS-N-30As, takes the prize. Its debut launch from a warship in the Caspian Sea on Nov. 20, not only hit Islamic State and rebel targets, but allowed Russian warships to show their paces in delivering long-range missiles, capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads, to targets at a distance of between 990 km (620 miles) and 1,467 km (923 miles) away.

It also conveyed the message to NATO that nuclear cruise missiles fired from Russian Black Sea Fleet warships were capable of reaching any target in Europe.

To counter this message, American and other Western military sources claimed that the Kalibr missiles had missed their mark, either crashing in Iran or blowing up prematurely in mid-air. They hoped to temper the strong impression conveyed to European governments, which suddenly felt exposed to a nuclear-capable missile threat from the Black Sea region as well as from Russian fleet bases in the Baltic Sea port of Kaliningrad, which had just received brand-new Kalibr missile shipments.

On Dec. 9, the commander of US forces in Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, addressed this situation. He said that Russia had indeed transferred ballistic missiles to its Kaliningrad military enclave and conducted nuclear strike drills. He also said: “There is a significant amount of capability in Kaliningrad, including anti-ship weapons, air defenses, and electronic warfare equipment.”  

Gen. Hodges spoke the day after the second Russian missile barrage targeted Syria - 17 days after the first. This time, the Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from a Kilo-class submarine, the Rostov-on-Don, which had meanwhile sailed into the eastern Mediterranean. This round too hit their targets, and also conveyed a dual message:

1. The Russians are capable of firing advanced cruise missiles from submarines as well as surface warships, and 2.  Russia has established a chain of warships and missiles running 2.500 km from Kaliningrad in the north to the eastern Mediterranean, via the Black Sea.

To boost the air power Moscow is investing in the Syrian war, Russian has brought over half a dozen Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback warplanes. This fighter-bomber is designed primarily for striking ground and naval targets. It excels in destroying small moving targets. Under the conditions in Syria, The Su-34’s rare ability to pinpoint small ISIS or rebel convoys as well as big ones is especially apposite.

This is a brand new warplane, debkafile’s military sources report, which entered the service of the Russia air force only two years ago. It is being tested in Syria for the first time in real combat conditions. So far, the SU-34 has stood up to Russian expectations. They are now testing it further to find out if it can replace the older Su-24 fighter bombers.


DebkaFile

Source: http://www.debka.com/article/25080/Syrian-war-as-testing-ground-for-Russia%E2%80%99s-latest-sea-and-air-weapons

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Is the West Indebted to Islam? - Mark Durie

by Mark Durie

The idea that Western people should feel indebted to Islam for keeping Greek and Hindu learning alive is common enough. But does it make any sense at all?

^{Originally published under the title "Turnbull's Islamic Howlers."}

The belief that the West owes everything to Mohammad is commonplace today.

Back in 2011, on 28 February, Malcolm Turnbull, now Australia's Prime Minister, had this to say about Islam on Q&A:

Islam is an ancient religion, of great scholarship. I mean — for heavens sake — much of our learning and culture came to us from the Muslims, just like, you know, our whole system of numbers and much of the learning of the ancient Greeks only survived because of the Arab scholars and the Islamic scholars.

So, you know, the idea that Islam is antithetical to learning or culture or scholarship is absurd. Now, you know, it's a great tradition. It is important for us that we promote and encourage Islam and Islamic traditions which are moderate, which support freedom, which support democracy and which support Australian values — not in the sense of "Aussie values" — but in the sense of democracy, rule of law, tolerance, freedom. That's what we're talking about and they are universal values.

Turnbull made this statement in order to dismiss a suggestion he considered absurd, namely that Islamic schools in Australia promote extremism. He intended the argument he put forward to be evidence for the inherent moderation of Islam.

The idea that Western people should feel indebted to Islam for keeping Greek and Hindu learning alive is common enough. But does it make any sense at all?

Should the West feel indebted to Islam for keeping Greek and Hindu learning alive?

Consider the case of the Hindu number system. Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent commenced in the 7th century and, by the early 9th century, Muslim scholars had learned about the Hindu numbering system and adopted it. Use of the system then spread rapidly across the Arab world, and by the early 10th century it had reached Spain.

The Hindus were quite capable of preserving their intellectual achievements without the dubious benefits of Islamic conquest. Indeed Hindu societies have preserved the use of the number system they invented right down to the present day.

The fact that this excellent system passed into Europe via Arab colonies stretching around the Mediterranean cannot justify a claim that the Hindu system of numbers 'only survived' because of Muslims or Islam. Nor does it imply that the Arabs who passed on this numbering system to the West were – to use Turnbull's words — 'moderate' or supportive of freedom and democracy. It is not possible to work out whether a society is moderate from the numbering system it uses. Even the Islamic State uses the same numbering system as Malcolm Turnbull.

Concerning Greek learning I had this to say in my book, The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom:

A repeated theme in ... school texts is that the West should be grateful to Islamic civilization for preserving Greek philosophy. The narrative offered to justify this gratitude is that during the Dark Ages the Islamic world underwent a golden age of cultural and scientific development, preserving Greek learning, which then kick-started the Western Renaissance.

Greek civilization did not need 'rescue-by-conquest': indeed it continued in Constantinople all through the European dark ages.

The Hindu and Greek civilizations did not need 'rescue-by-conquest.'

It is true that when the Europeans translated Arabic texts into Latin, this did stimulate the development of Western philosophy and science. Many terms passed over from Arabic into European languages as a result, including sherbet, zero and zenith. However the fact that elements of Greek philosophy and science were transmitted to Europe via Arabic was not something for which Western children should be schooled to feel grateful. If Arab conquest had never happened, we can assume that Greek culture and philosophy would have continued to develop in Alexandria, Damascus and Constantinople to the present day.

In reality, as A.C. Crombie pointed out in Augustine to Galileo, the conquest of the heart of the Greek-speaking world by Islam, and resulting Arab control of the Mediterranean, stunted scientific progress in Europe:

[I]t was the eruption of the Mohammedan invaders into the Eastern Empire in the 7th century that gave the most serious blow to learning in Western Christendom. The conquest of much of the Eastern Empire by the Arabs meant that the main reservoir of Greek learning was cut off from Western scholars for centuries.

Islam's disruption of Mediterranean civilization ushered in the so-called European 'Dark Ages', as historian Henri Pirenne concluded in his classic study, Mohammed and Charlemagne:

The cause of the break with the tradition of antiquity was the rapid and unexpected advance of Islam. The result of this advance was the final separation of East from West, and the end of the Mediterranean unity. ... The Western Mediterranean, having become a Musulman lake, was no longer the thoroughfare of commerce and of thought which it had always been. The West was blockaded and forced to live upon its own resources.

It is disappointing that today history books are teaching a dhimmified version of history, according to which children are schooled in feeling grateful to Islam for rescuing Western and Christian culture from Islam itself. This is exactly the dhimmi condition, and the essential meaning of the jizya payment ritual: to render gratitude to Islam for being rescued by conquest.

Malcolm Turnbull's comment on Q&A illustrates the hole the West is falling into. It risks being buried alive by the weight of bad ideas about its own identity and history.

In the face of escalating Islamic terrorism, it is reasonable to inquire into the contribution schooling may or may not make to the ideological formation of jihadis. However, the way to make that inquiry is by examining what people are saying and doing today, not by making grandiose appeals to a mythical history.

To learn from history is wisdom. To abuse it is folly indeed.


Mark Durie, the pastor of an Anglican church and founder of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness, is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum,

Source: http://www.meforum.org/blog/2015/12/does-the-west-owe-islam

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Turkey's "Spies," EU's "Human Rights" - Burak Bekdil

by Burak Bekdil

• "He who ran this story will pay heavily for it." — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey
• The two journalists, Dundar and Gul, are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization; espionage, and revealing state secrets. The prosecution has asked for life sentence for both journalists.
• Really, why would a spy publish secret material in a newspaper instead of handing it over to his foreign controllers?
• As Dundar and Gul completed their 11^th day in solitary confinement, that human rights champion, the European Union, committed to push forward the process towards Turkish EU membership and open five accession chapters.
• Dr. Bilgin Ciftci posted photos on Twitter juxtaposing the fictional character Gollum with Erdogan. He was fired from the hospital where he worked, then brought to court for insulting Erdogan, an offense punishable by up to four years in prison.
•  
  

On January 19, 2014, the Turkish Gendarmerie command in southern Turkey searched three trucks heading for Syria. Accompanying the trucks were Turkish intelligence officers; the trucks had a bizarre cargo: In the first container, were 25-30 missiles or rockets and 10-15 crates loaded with ammunition; in the second, 20-25 missiles or rockets, 20-25 crates of mortar rounds and anti-aircraft ammunition in five or six sacks. The crates had markings in the Cyrillic alphabet. One of the drivers testified that the cargo had been loaded onto the trucks from a foreign airplane at Ankara's Esenboga Airport and that, "We carried similar loads several times before."

It was evident that the arms were bound for jihadists fighting against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regional nemesis, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Nearly two years later, Erdogan would nearly confess to the arms shipments. "What does it matter if it [the cargo] was arms or not," he said on November 24. The incident still has grave consequences for some Turks.

In May 2015, the secular daily newspaper Cumhuriyet published on its front page video and photographic evidence of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist groups in Syria. A month later, President Erdogan himself filed a criminal complaint against Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief, the prominent journalist, Can Dundar, and the newspaper's Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul. In a public speech, Erdogan said: "He who ran this story will pay heavily for it."

On November 26, the journalists Dundar and Gul went to an Istanbul prosecutor to testify. On the same day, they were arrested under a court order. Their lawyers' two appeals for their release were rejected.

They are being charged with being members of a terrorist organization; espionage, and revealing state secrets. The prosecution has asked for life sentences for both journalists. Still having nerves that remained cool, Dundar mocked the judiciary by calling himself "an inexperienced spy." Really, why would a spy publish secret material in a newspaper instead of handing it over to his foreign controllers?

The journalists' arrest left the entire world speechless. Several Western publications and institutions condemned their arrest. PEN International called for the immediate and unconditional release of both journalists and "once again called on the Turkish authorities to drop any other charges brought against Dundar for his legitimate expression as a journalist and political commentator."

Turkey keeps on ridiculing itself while persecuting intellectuals and journalists whom the ruling Islamists passionately wish would not exist -- or think, or write. In the past, the European Union (EU) had some leverage on member candidate Turkey, but in recent years, relations between Ankara and Brussels have grown largely transactional.

As Dundar and Gul completed their 11^th day in solitary confinement, that human rights champion, the European Union, committed to push forward the process towards Turkish EU membership and open five accession chapters. To add insult to injury, the photo accompanying that news shows European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker hugging Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Was the European President congratulating the Turkish prime minister for catching and locking up two spies?

The EU, however, apparently does not give up on bolstering human rights and civil liberties in candidate Turkey -- mostly, it ridicules itself as Turkey does.

On December 6, the EU said it will mark this year's Human Rights Day with movies addressing individual rights, human dignity and the experiences of a varied group of people, bringing 33 documentaries to audiences in Ankara. That was not even a joke.

"In order to jointly reflect on these themes and highlight all the values which form the foundation of the European Union, we bring you the European Union Human Rights Film Days," reads an introductory catalogue from the EU's Turkey Delegation. Perhaps the European Commission's ambassador to Ankara should consider organizing a private screening in the prison cells hosting journalists Dundar and Gul?

Apart from arresting its most prominent journalists for being "spies" because they had run a scoop, Turkey, these days, has the attention of the international community also for tasking a court with determining if the former Hobbit Gollum (from The Lord of the Rings) is good or evil.

Turkish doctor Bilgin Ciftci posted photos on Twitter juxtaposing Gollum with Erdogan. He was immediately fired from the hospital where he worked. Then he was brought to court for insulting Erdogan, an offense punishable by up to four years in prison. His lawyers made a point about Gollum not necessarily being evil. And then events took an even more tragicomic turn.

Part of the Gollum/Erdogan image for which Dr. Bilgin Ciftci is on trial in Turkey.

The makers the Lord of the Rings films, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, stated:

"If the images are in fact the ones forming the basis of this Turkish lawsuit, we can state categorically: None of them feature the character known as Gollum. All of them are images of the character called Smeagol ... Smeagol is a joyful, sweet character. Smeagol does not lie, deceive, or attempt to manipulate others. He is not evil, conniving, or malicious -- these personality traits belong to Gollum, who should never be confused with Smeagol. Smeagol would never dream of wielding power over those weaker than himself. He is not a bully. In fact he's very loveable. This is why audiences all over the world have warmed to his character."

Dr. Ciftci's trial has been adjourned until February 23, when his and Gollum's fate will be decided.

All of that may sound surreal in saner parts of the world. In [EU candidate!] Turkey, they are just bitter facts of life.

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7023/turkey-spies-human-rights

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Apprehensions of illegal alien children and families explode over the last two months - Rick Moran

by Rick Moran

More than 10,000 undocumented children have been stopped in just the last two months, according to U.S. Border and Customs Protection.

The number of illegal alien children traveling alone who have been caught at the US border has more than doubled over the same two month period from last year, according to U.S. Border and Customs Protection.

And the number of illegal alien families who have been apprehended has risen 173% over the same period.

What's going on? Authorities cite a change in routes used by smugglers to avoid Mexican and American checkpoints along the border and the continuing violence in Central America caused by gangs and drugs.

NBC News:

While the world has been focused on Europe's migrant crisis, apprehensions of unaccompanied minors along America's own border have exploded: More than 10,000 undocumented children have been stopped in just the last two months, according to U.S. Border and Customs Protection.
The 10,588 apprehensions are a 106 percent increase over the same Oct. 1 through Nov. 30 period from last year, when 5,129 kids were picked up.
Apprehensions of family units — legal guardians with children under 18 — have proliferated too, with 12,505 detentions in those two months, representing a 173 percent increase from last year's 4,577 seizures in the same time frame.
In June 2014, during the height of the border crisis, Obama tapped FEMA to lead an effort across federal agencies to address the young refugees.
"These children are some of the most vulnerable, and many become victims of violent crime or sexual abuse along the dangerous journey," the White House said in a statement on June 20, 2014, during the height of the influx.
Changes were implemented: Department of Homeland Security boss Jeh Johnson deployed 150 additional Border Patrol agents to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where the largest numbers of unaccompanied minors arrive, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. And the administration approved a plan to allow young children from Central America to apply for refugee status in the U.S. as a way of discouraging them from making the risky trek across Mexico.
But recently, said Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that represents unaccompanied children in their deportation proceedings, smugglers have changed their tactics, working around the points where the U.S. and Mexico are cooperating to intercept their routes.
"The smugglers have adjusted their routes and they're working around those border control points that the Mexicans have put in place, finding new routes," she told NBC News.

Here we go again. The fact that things are bad in some Central American countries is not the point. The only reason these illegals are coming to America is that they know we won't turn them away and that we will take care of them after they arrive.

"Refugee" should be a term reserved for those suffering from oppression or who are being persecuted for their religious or political beliefs. Those who simply want a government that will take care of them, school their children, give them good health care - these are economic migrants. Unless they have skills that we can use, they should be sent back. Instead, most of these illiterate illegals will be released, given benefits, and put on a path to US citizenship.

Like the German government being burdened with refugees, we'll be taking care of these illegals for 25 years.


Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/apprehensions_of_illegal_alien_children_and_families_explodes_over_the_last_two_months.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Intellectual State of Emergency: The Occupied Territories of Progressive Thought - Jacques Tarnero

by Jacques Tarnero

• Who are today's racists?
• A "March for Dignity" recently assembled outraged "anti-racists," who shouted insults in the name of universal love.
• It was in the name of anti-racism that the progressives chanted "death to Jews" at the UN's Durban conference against racism in 2001.
• Every week, the Place de la République has seen the roaring processions of the Sheikh Yassin Collective, inciting the hatred of Jews. Did anyone even care?
• These "progressives" were strangely silent while a quarter of a million people were killed in Syria, while Yazidi women were sold into slavery, or when a new Caliph ordered the massacre of thousands in the name of Allah, or the mutilation and murder of Christians who refused to convert. Is that kind of behavior nothing more than bad taste?
• Today the new virus of prejudice has two faces: brandishing a knife and trying to appear as innocent as a lamb.
• The suffering of the Arabs, of the Palestinians and of the suburban youth is real, but will be alleviated only if there is first a critical examination of the delusional views on what is causing it. Neither the Jews nor Israel are at the root of this suffering.
  

The massacre perpetrated on November 13th in Paris was predictable and announced; only those who refuse to see things that clash with their ideological beliefs do not understand this. The ideological denial of reality remains the main reason for our inability to fight terrorists, whom many do not dare admit are Islamists.

For months now, our hatred has been directed only at those who have been urging us to open our eyes and call things by their real names. For months now, the demands not to associate an entire population with a few extremists, as well as calls to "stop Islamophobia," have been forcing us to close down our minds.

But who has been making this connection in the first place? Who actually are today's racists?
Every week, the Place de la République in Paris has seen the roaring processions of the Sheikh Yassin Collective, inciting the hatred of Jews. Did anyone even care? Recently, a "march for dignity" assembled outraged anti-racists, who shouted insults in the name of universal love, anti-racism and "fraternity" against several prominent Jewish philosophers and journalists, including Bernard-Henri Lévy, Éric Zemmour and Alain Finkielkraut.

Members of the "Sheikh Yassin Collective" demonstrate in support of Hamas, in Paris, on August 30, 2014.

What is this taste for hatred on full display in public debates, as well as on the streets of Paris? Some youths who adopted a Nazi identity are having a nostalgic sit-in on the Boulevard Saint Germain. They are demanding, right in the midst of the Latin Quarter, that the "Talmudist BHL" (Bernard-Henri Lévy) be expelled from the country -- and no one bats an eye.

When the multi-racial crowd, "Marching for Dignity," the supposed protectors of our universal conscience, descend into the streets to protest the pain and suffering of the offended, they denounce "racism" against "victims" -- usually non-French citizens of non-French origins: Muslims, Arabs, black Africans and others from the former French colonies -- all victims of a supposedly dominant "Islamophobia."[1]

In the midst of all these compassionate anti-racists, the Hamas flag -- from a group we all know to be so charitable and benevolent -- is unfurled. No one denies that there is racism in France but what is this French version of the Nation of Islam, in which suburban Black Panthers declare their hatred for France and the French?

They, who call themselves "Les Indigènes de la République," [Non-Ethnic French Citizens] take full advantage of the reigning anti-racist indignation. Today, no one dares to declare himself a "racist." Racism is the primordial evil. This struggle against racism is the first step toward a new awareness. Today, everyone is anti-racist except for those who practice a kind of "State racism." This idea, which corrupts history and is based on lies, today takes the place of Holocaust denial. The difference today is that these "Indigènes de la République" mobilize people from the projects under the benevolent guise of anti-racism.

There seems to be some confusion. That neo-Nazis denounce the Jews is nothing new, but what of the offended anti-racists who are "not Charlie"? What is the meaning of these slogans splashed across the protest signs of those "Marches for Dignity"? Who are these anti-racists denouncing "white power," while they assemble in the name of ethnic diversity? What demon possesses these people the minute the name of Israel is pronounced or the Star of David makes its appearance?

In the summer of 2015, the City of Paris invited the City of Tel Aviv as a partner for Paris's month-long "Paris Plage" (Paris Beach) event. That was all it took for a Mrs. Simmonet, an elected official from the left, to go into "progressive" fits and an anti-fascist stupor. "Shame on the City of Paris! Obscene invitation, etc. Inviting a colonial racist country, etc.!" We have never heard Mrs. Simmonet denounce trade between France and China, Egypt, Iran, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia, for instance.

"Is the mention of Israel pornographic?" one man says. Some people verge on hysteria, as if the mere mention of the word is a breach of global etiquette. These "progressives" were strangely silent while a quarter of a million people were killed in Syria, while Yazidi women were sold into slavery. They were quiet when two hundred schoolgirls were abducted in Nigeria, and when a new Caliph, in the name of Allah, ordered the massacre of thousands in Iraq or the mutilation and murder of Christians who refused to convert. Is that kind of behavior nothing more than bad taste?

However, if Israel expresses its concerns to the UN regarding explicit plans for its own annihilation by another country and member of this same UN, the exalted Human Rights Commission (in which our dear friend, Saudi Arabia, participates) hastens to denounce the savagery of the Jewish state.

Since the 1970s, anti-Zionism has managed to mainstream ancient racist Jew-hate. This new virus has now supplanted the even more ancient virus of hating Jews as individuals -- a bigotry that led to their massacre, burning, expulsion, and the destruction of their books. It also led to baseless accusations, collective blame for all sorts of ills, blanket condemnation, and finally to their being gassed. At its peak, under Nazism, this hatred then regressed over 20 years, but at the end of the 1960s, it began mutating, and the word "Israel" took on a repellent character no one could have foreseen.

This racist mutation was completed at a UN conference in Durban, South Africa in 2001, when the old, unmentionable antisemitism was merged with a new, liberating anti-Zionism. It was in the name of anti-racism that the progressives chanted "death to Jews" at the UN conference against racism.
This disease of the mind seems extraordinarily mutable, with the capacity to reproducing under different guises. Today the new virus has two faces: brandishing a knife, and trying to appear as innocent as a lamb.

Why raise the recurring issue of hatred for the Jews now, a hatred which has turned into hatred for Israel? Because this is at the heart of this current rabid insanity. Because it is the seed of hatred that the Islamists have planted against Western civilization. What more can be said that has not already been said? Why are hundreds of thousands of people drinking from the cup of this religion that dares not say its name?

This hatred for Israel takes on the same characteristics in the 21st century as the collective medieval belief that blamed the Jews for the bubonic plague. Remember when sharks began attacking tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh, and the Egyptian director of tourism placed the blame on the Mossad? He claimed it had trained these killer sharks so that tourists would flee Egypt and harm its economy; no one has yet explained how the sharks were trained not to eat Egyptians.

"Pro-Palestinians" often do not really care about Palestine. For them, this truly compelling cause is nothing more than fiction: it is hatred for Israel that mobilizes them.

The basic reproach was formulated, simply, by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Israel, he said,would be "illegitimate" -- meaning it has no right to exist. That is indeed what is being said or thought: Israel, nobody wants you. Please disappear. The world would be so peaceful if it were not for your wrench in the works.

When the journalist Edwy Plenel, the self-proclaimed vigilante against the lies of the government, quoted Nelson Mandela in order to condemn Israel, the quote was discovered to be totally made up. "If I have committed a factual error," he said, "at least I was politically correct!"

During the fall of 2015, the French newspaper Le Monde led the charge against the hidden source of all of our political ills. What worries our anti-fascist vigilantes is the threat of the Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, as well as that popular thought leaning toward the right. Those who are leading this shift to the right must therefore, according to Daniel Lindenbergh, be named and called out. They are Michel Houellebecq, Éric Zemmour and Alain Finkielkraut. How does this view contaminate the mind? Read their works. In France there is no worse insult than being called a racist, but in intellectual circles it is even worse to be called a "reac" (reactionary). If you have murdered your mother and father, there will always be some sort of reason, however subtle, for your actions. But to be called a "reac" is too harsh. It is unbearable. The "reac" thinker is now the new enemy.

The thinkers have found a new home, and the left a new dogma. Here, in order of top priority, is France's greatest enemy: those-intellectuals-who-are-used-by-the-Front-National and who must be flushed out and their names added to the blacklist.[2] What would become of enlightened thinking without the illusory safety of the Front National? The specter of "the darkest years of our history" of the 1940s is often used by those who claim to be Enlightened and to represent universal love.

So here is the predictable return of the already seen, read and heard Fascist menace -- this prefabricated artificial idea that invents radical enemies to avoid dealing with complexities it pretends to understand. [3]

More recently, another incident added to this reversal of causes and responsibilities. The historian Georges Bensoussan is at risk of being summoned by the MRAP (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples) "before a criminal court for racial slurs and incitement to hatred and racial violence." The reason is apparently having dared to bring up the antisemitism that is commonplace in the Arabic and Muslim culture in the Maghreb.[4]

If the Republic suffers today in so many areas riddled with such a brotherly hatred, it is because it refuses to face the evil that is devouring it. The suffering of the Arabs, of the Palestinians and of the suburban youth is real, but will be alleviated only if there is first a critical examination of the delusional views on what is causing it. Neither the Jews nor Israel is at the root of this suffering. What is causing it is what happened to this culture -- born from Islam, or from Arabic heritage -- always to place the blame elsewhere when it is itself the source of the current disaster. It is not Israel that is bombing and starving the Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Syria. The historian Bernard Lewis asked the timely question "What Went Wrong?" to cause this heritage to go so far astray? Placing the blame elsewhere was the answer.

This failure of thought not only affects the Arabic and Muslim world. It also affects the ideas of the progressives.

Would the 21st century see the posthumous victory of Comrade Stalin? Have we not learned the lessons of the blinded intellectuals in front of seductive totalitarian ideologies? One fears that the ideological denial of facts -- in exchange for demanded intellectual opium for "unity" -- will remain the norm. These dogmas, even in the name of progressivism and anti-racism, do not eliminate evil, they only lead to deeper graves. Run, Comrade. Graves might be behind you, but the cutthroats are out in front.

Jacques Tarnero, affiliated with the Cité des sciences et de l'Industie, Paris, specializes in the study of racism.
This article was originally published in a slightly different form in French. Gatestone is most grateful to the author for his kind permission to publish it in English.

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[1] Quoting the spokesperson for the Indigènes de la République
[2] Which the historian Daniel Lindenberg is getting ready to publish.
[3] On the heels of the Charlie Hebdo and Jewish supermarket attacks, Philippe Lioret, director of the movie "Welcome," a film about the conditions of illegal migrants in France in 2008, stated on France Inter radio: "I have had this idea for a while that I never hear in the news. Who, historically, is responsible for this crisis? The Six Day War for example. In 1967, the Israelis entered into West Bank and Gaza. They dispossessed the Palestinians. Wasn't this the beginning of a terrible transformation of the Arabic identity that brings today this type of Islamic fundamentalism (...) The West is always to blame. The ones with the money," he concludes,"are the ones that decide."
[4] A petition signed by about twenty people was sent to the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (the French TV and radio regulatory body) to decry the statements made by Bensoussan during a debate with Patrick Weil during a program called "Répliques" hosted by Alain Finkielkraut on France Culture on Saturday, October 10, 2015.

Jacques Tarnero, affiliated with the Cité des sciences et de l'Industie, Paris, specializes in the study of racism.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7022/intellectual-state-of-emergency

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.