Terry and the (Antifa) Bandits Will Inherit the Wind - Clarice Feldman

by Clarice Feldman

Governor Terry McAuliffe -- is likely to have stirred up a whirlwind, which will sink his party even further in the voters’ eyes.

As the “Russian Collusion” excuse for Hillary’s loss fails for want of evidence (and common sense) as did her “misogyny” claim before it, Hillary’s pal, Governor Terry McAuliffe, obviously thought he had another keen plan to keep his party from utter ruin. Instead, he is more likely to have stirred up a whirlwind, which will sink his party even further in the voters’ eyes. 

Led by Charlottesville Deputy Mayor Wes Bellamy (a McAuliffe appointee to the local school board now on leave for racist, sexist, homophobic tweets, the city council narrowly approved removing a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park. 

The move was opposed by traditional nationalists who think erasing history and disparaging a man who did so much to restore peace at the conclusion of the Civil War is wrong.

As Holman Jenkins writes:

The city is a Democratic town, run by a Democratic machine. Its elections are typically settled in a Democratic primary. The GOP is a non-factor. Of the three City Council members who voted in February to remove a Robert E. Lee statue from a town park, two who thereafter faced re-election are now gone.
One chose not to run. The other lost in a landslide. The lone remaining anti-statue vote, who did not face re-election, was Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy, who recently had to leave his high-school teaching job over a history of bigoted, anti-white tweets. He is assumed to have no political future either. Notably, Mayor Mike Signer, who declared Charlottesville a “capital of resistance” shortly after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, voted to keep Lee’s statue.
All this might suggest the anti-statue cause was not a popular one with the town’s liberal majority.

Removing the statue also, apparently, was something a ragtag band of nutters thought was an issue on which they could capitalize. They sought and obtained a permit under the organizational banner. “Unite the Right” to demonstrate their opposition. The leader of Unite the Right, Jason Kessler, was until late 2016 active in the far left Occupy movement, Obama’s Organizing for America, and has the same name as a reporter for CNN sported.

The ACLU, which had long abandoned its strong defense of First Amendment rights for everyone, suddenly appeared, and against McAuliffe’s opposition, obtained a federal court order permitting the demonstration. It is unclear if any other group had a lawful permit. If so, it was not at the area where Antifa massed and the United group had a permit. (The ACLU says they won’t do this for the right again -- free speech only for one side) 

Buses bearing hundreds of Antifa in their distinctive masks and Unabomber garb, BLM, and other leftwing street thugs descended on the site, masked and armed with bats, clubs, and tear gas spray. They infiltrated the area set aside for Unite and when the police forced the legal demonstrators into the crowd, the Virginia police did nothing to stem the perfectly predictable violence. Indeed, at 11:52 a.m. Governor McAuliffe ordered the legal demonstrators out. When the mayhem continued, McAuliffe reportedly issued a stand-down order. It sure looks as if it was a setup. And surely the left got the message -- the Democratic government of Virginia will do nothing to stop you – go for it and the media will cover for you. The right, too, got a message: the law will not protect you, even when you have the clear right to such protection. You are on your own if you dare to resist us. As my Facebook friend Harry Lewis observed: the governor and local Democrats wanted to foment violence “Because they want to depict the government as unable to maintain order, and violence is an acceptable way to achieve political objectives.”

At American Greatness, Conrad Black described in detail the Virginia Democrat’s moves:

As the day unfolded, it was clear that orders had been given to the local police to ensure that a serious fracas occurred. The police did nothing to disperse the armed groups on each side, on several occasions herded them toward each other to encourage combat, and then withdrew at times to facilitate the violence. It must be assumed that orders for an insufficient law enforcement and ineffectual rules of engagement emanated ultimately from the governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, the ne plus ultra of Clintonian zeal and cynicism, and former Democratic Party chairman.
The debacle ensued; the peaceful majorities on both sides were shouldered aside by the violent thugs on the extremes, with the Klansmen and neo-nazis being more vocal and recognizable by their signs and costumes. Since one of their number appears to have been responsible for the (mercifully) sole fatality, the white supremacists and neo-nazis seem to have been the more violent group. But the entire incident had almost nothing to do with the issue of what should happen to Charlottesville’s statue of General Lee (who would have been as disgusted as we are by the extremists of both sides).
[snip]
This incident is of a piece with the mindless violence at Berkeley and other university campuses. The nihilists and anarchists of both sides want bloody conflict and vandalism, and most of the Democrats and the anti-Trump Republicans and the national media are trying to pin the phenomenon on Trump.

In the melee that followed, a mentally disturbed man plowed his car into the crowd. He’s been charged with second-degree murder, and it is for the trial to determine whether he was responding to fear or deliberately targeting the Antifa crowd.

The media to its shame, played along with the Democrats’ script.

Antifa gangs beat up reporters to stop them from filing their violent acts, something barely reported. (Taylor Lorenz of The Hill and a photojournalist from CBS Richmond).
(The motivation of the BLM organizers, operators and allies was studied and is described here.)

The operatives’ motive is social upheaval. It is purely opportunistic to get radical social change because they see the American system as evil. It matches its ally, Antifa’s, goals.
While the media in a “mass hysteria bubble” plays up fear of radical groups, statistician Salil Mehta notes on Facebook, that fear is irrational:

#Charlottesville was a major problem, but most Americans should get some probabilistic perspective on this. Don't let someone petrify you that you might be a victim of a hate group attack unless you follow their counsel. It's simply HIGHLY unlikely. Adding up all of these nutjob members from both the left and right hate groups, we get much less than a few basis points. There are far more murders and gang members, or actual rapists out there, and most of us don't stay up all night dwelling about that. Additionally mapping this out, most Americans (except the small overall fraction who live in Manhattan, New York or Los Angeles, California) don't live even within 40 or so miles of the nearest random hate group.

As is often the case, the Democrat propagandists, play on Jewish fears of anti-Semitism without noting the strong current in the most viable, best-funded and largest cohort of both sides in Charlottesville. Antifa is every bit as anti-Semitic as their counterparts on the far right. Once again, Iowahawk nails it most succinctly:

Mob 1: JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US Mob 2: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE *eyes meet* *baseball bats drop* *giant orgy*

Max Madison on Facebook expands on this:

“Dear Media: Go to an Antifa rally and tell them you support Jews and Israel. Let's see who, as Romney said, is in a 'different moral universe' than the Nazis. The Nazis are fringe. The anti-Jewish left is basically every campus in America. It's not 100 semi-employed Nazi losers. It's tens of thousands of professors getting money from gov't subsidized student loans.
So media, your claims of moral superiority are bullshit. You are the ones promoting violence, hatred, and bigotry. You are the ones who fail to condemn violence. You are the ones that don't rush to smear every Democrat with the crime of fostering violence when Bernie supporters shoot people, create riots and beat people in the streets.”

The antifa anti-Semitic campus movement is growing, not shrinking as the organizers of the revolution seek to draw in ever more converts to their cause using the "intersectionality" ploy. 

Indeed, days after the first very biased media coverage, some media been forced to pull back. The Los Angeles Times published a report from various participants and observers documenting that there was violence on both sides, a result which was sure to follow police inaction.

And the New York Times even implicitly backtracked on its claim that when Trump charged that both sides engaged in violence he was making some sort of “moral equivalence” argument.

The new article today seems to acknowledge the inadequacy of the 2-day-old article. The older article seemed intent on pushing back Donald Trump for talking about the "alt-left" as well as the "alt-right." The term "false equivalence" -- which was a big media talking point earlier in the week -- appears in the older article. I thought "false equivalence" was being used to say, essentially: When one side is worse than the other side, you're not even allowed to compare them.

There was something false about saying "false equivalence." Strictly speaking, the label applies only when 2 things are said to be the same. It shouldn't work to exclude all comparisons when people are being clear about the similarities and differences.

In the case of Charlottesville, there was no logical fallacy in saying there were 2 opposing factions that arrived on scene ready to rumble as long as you're also clear that the 2 sides were different. One side wanted to exercise its free speech rights to express bad, ugly ideas. The other side wanted to interfere with the exercise of free speech rights and was motivated by hostility to ideas that deserved hostility.

In the new article, there's less concern about stepping on the "false equivalence" talking point. There's a recognition that people like Nauert are headed in a violent direction and are gaining adherents. Maybe acting like they're nothing (or nothing any good people dare speak about) is dangerous. Right after that quote from Nauert, there's this subtle discarding of the "false equivalence" talking point:

“Others on the left disagree, saying antifa’s methods harm the fight against right-wing extremism and have allowed Mr. Trump to argue that the two sides are equivalent...”
Now, Trump never said, "the 2 sides are equivalent." He didn't say "equivalent" and he didn't even say "2 sides." He said, "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides." But those who were pushing the "false equivalence" idea needed to rely on the idea that one side is bad and the other is good, and they needed to minimize antifa. Now, the NYT admits the left has a violence problem. Good.

Nevertheless, the Times is still searching in vain for evidence that Trump is a racist. 

As an aside, Ace of Spades noted that when Obama nonsensically blamed both sides -- Islamists and Christians -- for Islamic violence, the Washington Post nodded in agreement and castigated those who criticized what was truly vile as arguments of “moral equivalence.” 

Since that melee in Charlottesville statues are being defaced around the country. Three far leftists pulled down a statue in Durham of a man who, post-Civil War, started a college for freed blacks, which later became Duke University; Abraham Lincoln’s bust was burned; even Joan of Arc’s statue was defaced. And Al Sharpton is calling for a cessation of federal funds to maintain the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. Nancy Pelosi who had no problem with them when she was majority leader of the party, which controlled all three branches of the government, now calls for removing statues of Confederate leaders from the Capitol’s statuary hall.

In the meantime, surveys show the majority of Americans, including more blacks than not, do not want the statues removed. I have to believe that as these thugs grow ever more ubiquitous spines will harden against this nonsense. 

At the moment, fewer Americans identify as Democrats, the party’s coffers are running dry, and Trump supporters are still supporting him.

It seems clear to me that the Democrats would happily destroy the country rather than accept losing it at the ballot box. Is it just me? I cannot see such thuggery persuading the voters in the states Hillary lost to switch back to her violence-supporting party or those who voted for pride in our nation and support for its constitutional guarantees of equal rights to jump ship to join anarchists, racists, communists, and rule by violence.

Clarice Feldman

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

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The Hajj and the struggle for Islamic leadership - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca symbolizes much more than the desire of the worshipers to be closer to Allah.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017, is the first day of Zhu–l-Hijjat, the Muslim month in which two important events take place: The pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the most central of the five Islamic commandments, and the Holiday of the Offering, Id al-Adha, with which it comes to an end. 

This month is notable in the Muslim world as a result of its religious content, but also due to the political aspects that accompany that content. It is well known that in Islam there can be no separation between religion and state, between religious factors, public issues and politics.

The Hajj ceremonies in Mecca and its environs last for nine days, from the first to the ninth of the month, with each day having its own specific rituals. The tenth day marks the start of Id al-Adha, the holiday of the offering, which lasts for four days, until the 13th. The House of Saud appointed itself "guardian of the holy places" in 1925 when it took over the Hajj. It manages the Hajj with a powerful hand, making sure that all pilgrims observe the rituals in the traditional Islamic manner as interpreted by the Saudi monarchy. This fact is of great significance, because it proves that the Saudi ruler, and no one else, is the most important figure in the Islamic world.

The decision about when the month of the Hajj begins is an example of this power. The first day of each of the months making up the Islamic year is set by the Sharia court in each country, using the testimony of witnesses who see the new moon with their own eyes and testify to the court.  That naturally leads to the months and the 30 day Ramadan fast beginning on different days in various countries, because if it is cloudy and the moon cannot be seen in a specific country, the month is 30 days long, while somewhere else it might be of only 29 days duration. That is why Ramadan, which begins on the first day of the ninth Hajjidic month, does not start on the same day everywhere in the Islamic world. 

In addition, there are cities, such as Bagdad, where there are both Sunni and Shiite residents with separate courts. Sometimes the Sunnis begin a new month while it is the last day of the previous month for the Shiites living in the same city and sometimes it is the other way around due to the different decisions of their separate courts. This is most conspicuous during Ramadan, when one sect begins to fast while the other is still eating; then at the end of the month when the Eid al Fitr holiday begins, the first group celebrates with food and drink while the second is still fasting.

The month of Hajj differs from other months because the entire Islamic world takes part in the pilgrimage and has to accept the Saudi calendar in order to participate in the date-dependent ceremonies. This includes the Shiites, who refuse to recognize Sunni hegemony over holy Islamic sites, but have no choice but to accept Saudi dictation. The Saudis take advantage of their power and stress the unity of Islam achieved during the period of their control. There were years when the Shiites, mainly Iranians, refused to accept Saudi rule and carried out rituals foreign to Sunni tradition, leading to riots and the death of a large number of pilgrims.

The rising tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia as a result of their major conflicts over Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, caused Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah ali Khamenei to fear a bloodbath at the Hajj of 2016. He accordingly moved the pilgrimage site to Karbala, Iraq, where in 680 C.E. Mohammed's grandson Hussein ben Ali was beheaded by the Sunni Caliph Yazid ben Mu'awiya's army. One million Iranian pilgrims arrived in Karbala and celebrated the holiday in memory of  Hussein ben Ali.

Sunni elders, including Egyptian Sheikh Alazar publicized opinions criticizing the Iranian move, accusing Khameini of deepening the schism in Islam. Other Sunnis, mostly Saudi, said that Shiites followed the devil, not Allah, in moving the Hajj from Mecca.

The import of this remark is that it implies that the Shiites are not part of Islam and their blood can be spilled with impunity  Last year's dispute poured oil on the fire of inter-Islamic hate and on the wars between Saudi Arabia, representing the Sunnis, and Iran, representing the Shiites.

What can we look forward to this year when the Hajj to Mecca approaches?  I do not know, but I will not be surprised if the political tension between the Saudis and Iran, particularly after the Sunni ISIS defeats, Shiite Hezbollah victories and Iran's moving into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, finds an outlet during the Hajj. It could be in the form of a Shiite boycott of Mecca or Saudi violence against any Shiites who attempt the pilgrimage to Mecca.

In June, Jerusalem became the site of the struggle ("Ribat") between Islam, the religion that expects to take the place of Judaism and Christianity, and Judaism, which is in the midst of a return to its former status as a living, worthy religion. The background of the struggle is the renewal of Jewish sovereignty on the Temple Mount. During the short period of Muslim demonstrations for the right to enter the Al Aqsa Mosque without "Jewish" security checks, Saudi Arabia's voice was conspicuously absent.

The reason for the Saudi silence was the fear that the Muslim Brotherhood and those over whom they hold sway would raise the Al Aqsa Mosque to a level of importance that  could contest the centrality of Mecca in Islam.  

This plan was heard in Muslim Brotherhood media pronouncements. In 2012, for example, Safwat Higazi, the Muslim Brotherhood's chief spokesman in Egypt, said that the capital of the Islamic Caliphate that can unite all the Arab nations "is not Mecca, not Medina, not Cairo, but Jerusalem. 




A similar pronouncement was made in 2014, at a demonstration in Jerusalem, by Kamal Khatib, Deputy head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, headed by Sheikh Raad Salah,




Sheikh Raad Salah himself declared that he intends to bring water from the Zamzam spring in Mecca to pour into the cistern on the Temple Mount in order to sanctify the Al Aqsa Mosque with the holiness of Mecca. The Saudis see this as unacceptable competition and did not permit Salah to attend the Hajj in Mecca. Jerusalem's challenge to Mecca is also evident in the boycott the Saudis declared on Qatar, a country which publicly supports the Muslim Brotherhood's offshoots, such as Hamas, for whom the struggle for Jerusalem and Falestin – which they call Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis – the sectors of Jerusalem – is the raison d'etre.
Qatar has even set aside half a billion dollars for the purpose of removing Jerusalem from within Israel's boundaries.  It is using them to buy the media, political figures and organizations like UNESCO

Turkey's Erdogan is playing a role in the struggle for Islamic hegemony by working ceaselessly to strengthen his status as the all-powerful Sultan bringing Turkey back to its status prior to WWI.  Erdogan's hegemonic aspirations clash with the Saudis on points of Muslim memory, because they know full well that for 400 years, Turkey ruled the Hijaz, the territory that included Mecca and Medina, until defeated by the Christian heretics - that is, the British. The victors promptly handed over Islam's holy land, the Hijaz (Iraq and historic Palestine which includes today's Jordan) to the Arab friends who had cooperated with them, stabbing the Turks in the back. Today, unsurprisingly, Erdogan supports Qatar, the country the Saudis are trying to bring to its knees.

Saudi sensitivity to the Hijaz stems from the fact that the ruling Al-Saud family is not originally from the part of the Hijaz in the western Arabian peninsula,  but from the centrally located Najd Heights.  The fact that they conquered the area in 1925 from the Sharif's Notables who claim to be direct descendants of Mohammed, casts a shadow on the Saud family's legitimacy. This is the reason the Saudi king calls himself "Protector of the holy sites," intending for that title to grant him "kosher" Islamic status. However, many people in the Sunni world do not buy that and do not entirely accept the Saud family's right to rule and force their Wahabee Islamic traditions to be the norm at sites that are holy to all Muslims.

The Sauds invest large sums of money to maintain the sites so as to gain legitimacy for ruling over Mecca and Medina, building roads, bridges, railways and amenities that make it easier for the two million Muslims whose annual pilgrimages they allow, to be comfortable and secure. Saudi Arabia imports hundreds of thousands of sheep, mainly from Australia, handing them out to the pilgrims for the holiday celebrated on the tenth of the Hajj month.

Next month, the Hajj is likely to bring the tensions over Islamic hegemony to a boil, when the internal Islamic rifts described above threaten to destabilize the present situation during the Hajj and due to the Hajj: The ethnic Sunni-Shiite rift parallels the Saudi-Iranian political rift, the Wahabee-Muslim Brotherhood ideological rift, and the historic rift between Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Hopefully, these deep differences will not lead once again to dead and wounded pilgrims, most of whom come only in order to be close to Allah, keep the fundamental commandments connected to the Hajj and obtain forgiveness for their transgressions. They are not interested in all the ethnic, political, ideological and historical considerations involved; all they desire is to come closer to the heavens, keep Allah's commandments and do Allah's will.

I wish the pilgrims to Mecca: Haj mabroor wa-saiy mashkoor wa-dhanb maghfoor – a pure holiday, hearts full of gratitude and forgiven sins. May they return safely to their homes.

Translation by Rochel Sylvetsky


Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20897

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When Feminists Join Islamist Terrorists - Majid Rafizadeh

by Majid Rafizadeh

The fact is that these supposed feminists not only turn a blind eye to those atrocities, but their presence at these events actively endorses and legitimizes the rule of these dictators.

• The fact is that these supposed feminists not only turn a blind eye to those atrocities, but their presence at these events actively endorses and legitimizes the rule of these dictators.
• When the subject turns to the specific cases of millions of oppressed women around the world -- such as Asia Bibi, a Christian mother on death row in Pakistan for seven years for taking a drink of water; or the 19-year-old who, this year, was raped by her cousin at gunpoint and then sentenced to death by stoning for "adultery"; or women who were forced to marry their rapists; or child marriages at 12,000 a day; or women who are beaten by their husbands or who have acid thrown in their faces; or women used as suicide bombers.
• When Mogherini smiles in her hijab in Iran, she is delivering a strong blow to women rights movements that attempt to remove the compulsion of the obligatory hijab and grant women equal autonomy, education and freedom. She is empowering suppression.

The social democrats and so-called feminists have been raising their voices for all to hear. They boast about advocating gender equality, individual rights, and advancing women's rights. They argue that these values are universal; that every person, especially every woman, everywhere in the world, is entitled to these "inalienable" rights. Speeches are given, fundraisers are held, and an army of champions charges toward the cause.

Everyone is equal, and everyone deserves these rights. The chants, the inspirational lectures, the determination that echoes through television interviews, and is spread across the pages of magazines, all fill their followers with enthusiasm. But what is the reality?

Alongside other social democrats, Federica Mogherini, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, recently visited the Islamist state of Iran to attend the official endorsement and inauguration of the regime's president, Hassan Rouhani. Instead of enforcing the standards she professes -- such as the strong support for women -- she folded in with those around her. Others who accepted Iran's invitation were North Koreans, members of Hezbollah, and leaders of Hamas. All three of these groups are known for cruelty, especially against women, and crimes against humanity.

The presence of such people makes the issue of despotism more complicated than it needs to be. By attending these kinds of events, social democrats such as her repeatedly endorse and give legitimacy to repressive states that implement Islamic law, Sharia. As Mogherini rubs elbows with men who have ordered the deaths of thousands of women (and men), she toes the line of their expectations. Instead of evolving their mindset, she allowed all of the women she claims to represent, to remain oppressed, as they have been for so very long.

Mogherini took the problem even a step even farther. Instead of attempting to appear as if she were working toward progressive thinking among these violent Islamist leaders, she acted as if they were friends. She appeared proud to snap selfies with the representatives of this repressive regime. The story came under the international spotlight. Some of the deputies used their selfies with Mogherini to project their legitimacy to the international community while others created self-promotional posters of themselves with Mogherini wearing the mandatory hijab. Mogherini, a social democrat Italian politician who speaks of women's rights and was once a member of the Italian Communist Party, delightedly agreed to follow the Islamist rule of wearing a mandatory hijab. This act of compliance sends a brutal and unshakeable message. Women in these Islamist societies are controlled by laws which proclaim they must be hidden, or treated as their husband's property. The hijab has become a symbol of this. Conversely, when Iranian leaders visit Mogherini's country, they do not follow Italy's rules. Instead, Italy follows the regime's Islamist rules by offering appeasements such as covering up nude statues and not serving wine.

Mogherini -- who years ago also agreed to be in controversial picture taken with the late Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat -- also played a crucial role in sealing the nuclear agreement for the Iranian regime and lifting the sanctions for those dictators. Instead of seeing these oppressors punished, she enabled them to have fewer limitations, as they still hold their own people beneath their thumbs and continue to be the cause of their suffering.

Mogherini then tweeted about her blog post, which states "It was an opportunity to talk again to Rouhani, to Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and to the Supreme Leader's foreign policy advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati".

Is this really an opportunity to be proud of and boast about? And what did she talk to them about?

While Mogherini is joyfully attending events with these Islamist leaders and rejoicing in having taking pictures beside them, does she ever think about the millions of women who are brutally oppressed under these Islamist regimes? Does she consider those women balled up and crying on the floor after being beaten by their husbands? Does she ever think about hundreds of people -- men and women -- being executed, often after sham trials, every year, and based on the Islamist laws in this country?

During her visit to Iran this month, Federica Mogherini (left), the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, rubbed elbows with men who have ordered the deaths of thousands of women (and men). Does she ever think about hundreds of people being executed, often after sham trials, every year, and based on the Islamist laws in this country? (Image source: European Commission)

While she shakes the hands of these men, does think of the nine-year-old girls who are "legally" being forced into marriage with the government's approval?

Where are all the women's rights, liberal moral values that she and her party stand for? They were not at the celebration, and they were certainly not represented by those selfies.

Women are dehumanized, subjugated and treated as inferior on a daily basis in Islamist state of Iran as well as other Muslim states. Many people in there are struggling every day despite all the dangers they face to obtain the few rights they can. In general, a woman's testimony in court is worth half of a man's testimony. Women need approval from their male guardian to leave the country, and in Saudi Arabia, to leave their home. Women cannot obtain a passport without a guardian's consent. In Iran, a man can marry any woman he desires. Men are allowed to have four wives and an unlimited number of temporary marriages (mut'a), but women can only marry a Muslim man. Honor killings continue while the regime turns a blind eye to them.

Based on the law of tamkin (obedience), women must provide full accessibility and unhampered sexual availability to her husband. Article 1105 of Iran's Islamist Civil Code states, "In relations between husband and wife, the position of the head of the family exclusively belongs to the husband." Article 1117 of the Iran's Islamist Civil Code states that states :

"The husband can prevent his wife from an occupation or technical profession which is incompatible with the family's interests or the dignity of him or his wife."

Men can initiate a unilateral divorce. Women receive only half of what men get in inheritance. A wife gets to receive only one-sixth of an inheritance if she has a son when her husband dies. If she has only a daughter, the inheritance would not automatically go to them. The deceased husband's family -- brothers, sibling and parents -- would have a call on it as well. Women cannot become judges... and the list goes on.

Of course, people such as Mogherini are fully cognizant of these atrocities and the discrimination which are repeatedly reported by human rights organizations. These are even possibly the same abuses that people such as Mogherini then use to rally funds at their parties and splash in disturbing images across the media. Not one of these European leaders can plead ignorance of the acts that those men commit.

Yet, there we see people like Mogherini shaking the hands that rob women of their freedom and their voices.

The fact is that these supposed feminists not only turn a blind eye to those atrocities, but their presence at these events actively endorses and legitimizes the rule of these dictators.

People like Mogherini may be calling for admission to exclusive clubs and higher salaries for women because that equality is fair. But why, if they claim that they are champions and front-runners of women all around the world, do they contribute to, and facilitate the rule of ruthless dictators against their own people?

When the subject turns to the specific cases of millions of oppressed women around the world -- such as Asia Bibi, a Christian mother on death row in Pakistan for seven years for taking a drink of water; or the 19-year-old who, this year, was raped by her cousin at gunpoint and then sentenced to death by stoning for "adultery"; or who were forced to marry their rapists; or child marriages at 12,000 a day; or women who are beaten by their husbands or who have acid thrown in their faces; or women used as suicide bombers -- they become totally silent. They disregard these women's rights.

By demonstrating their support for these regimes and the men that enforce them, people such as Mogherini significantly weaken and undermine the indigenous movements that attempt to advance precisely the human rights that people such as Mogherini claim to advocate.

When Mogherini smiles in her hijab in Iran, she is delivering a strong blow to women rights movements that attempt to remove the compulsion of the obligatory hijab and grant women equal autonomy, education and freedom. She is empowering suppression.

A true advocate of individual rights and democracy might instead have set a brave example. Women such as Mogherini are feeding into the system, not destroying it. Those who continue to give legitimacy to oppressors and Islamists need to be held accountable.

Finally, my message to people such as Mogherini and others like her is simple: Do you have any conscience or sense of decency? Or is it simply all about power, money, narcissism, and manipulations at the cost of the oppressed, including women? Can you hear that little girl's cry, or are your ears as deaf to it as the men who cause it?

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Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He is a Harvard-educated and Iranian-American political scientist, businessman, and author of "Peaceful Reformation in Iran's Islam". He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10852/feminists-islamist-terrorists

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ISIS Moroccan net primed to strike across Europe - debkaFile

by debkaFile

There are troubling signs that the attacks in Spain and Finland were no more than the opening shots of a major onslaught in preparation by this Islamic State network.

Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido repeatedly promised on Saturday Aug. 19 that after the Islamic State’s car attacks Thursday and Friday had left 14 dead and more than 130 injured in two Spanish cities, the terrorist network responsible for the violence had been “fully dismantled” and no longer posed a threat.

That assurance was meant to calm the jittery public and visitors, but was far from representing all the facts..

debkafile’s intelligence and counterterrorism sources report that the clandestine ISIS cell which ran those attacks from a base in the small Ripoli, near Spain’s Pyrenean border with France, has indeed gone out of business. But it was only one branch of a broad terror network stretching out from Morocco across at least six European countries: Spain, France, Germany, Belgium Holland, and as far north as Finland, where a Moroccan “refugee” Friday stabbed to death two women in the southwestern town of Turku.

There are troubling signs that the attacks in Spain and Finland were no more than the opening shots of a major onslaught in preparation by this Islamic State network. Unusually, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in Cambrils, Spain, after first claiming the prior outrage on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas promenade. The second claim cited both attacks, substantiating the link in an ongoing chain of events. The bomb-making workshop, which accidentally blew up at Acrona, also provided lethal evidence of an organization bent on sowing death on a massive scale.

In Cambrils, police shot dead all five terrorists, after they used a vehicle to replicate the Barcelona outrage, killing one person and injuring seven. Four suspects are in police custody.

The Spanish Minister did not of course disclose the events leading up to the Catalan attacks. Our sources can reveal, however, that they go back to May 8, when Spanish and Moroccan intelligence agencies working together uncovered a dangerous ISIS network which had sent out shoots across Europe through Moroccan Tangiers and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Catalonia was to be their new address and theater of operations.

Most of the perpetrators of the Catalan attacks were in fact local residents of Moroccan descent. Some had direct links to ISIS contacts in Syria and Iraq, and some were discovered leaving the country to fight with ISIS in Syria.

On May 22, Spanish and Moroccan anti-terror agencies working in conjunction rounded up a group of suspects in Essaouira on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. They were in possession of large amounts of weapons and preparing to strike a famous music festival in the town that attracts audiences from many countries.

Catalans were found in this group too.

Since the deadly Barcelona terror attack, a pattern has emerged of mass-casualty crimes mostly targeting popular international holiday resorts during this summer. The Spanish authorities knew that the Catalan cell, which operated as part of this multi-armed killing machine, was run by the “Wilaya of the Islamic State in the Maghreb al-Aqsa-Morocco,” which takes its orders from the ISIS central command in Syria.

Nonetheless no high security alerts marred the peak tourism season at Catalonia’s holiday resorts, even though local Muslim extremists had been picked up on their way to Morocco or Syria.

debkafile’s terror experts note that the Turku attack was a small pointer to the broad wingspread of the ISIS network run from Morocco,  but it has not told Europe’s counter-terror authorities where those scattered cells will strike next.


debkaFile

Source: http://debka.com/article/26190/ISIS-Moroccan-net-primed-to-strike-across-Europe

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Israeli minister: Efforts to portray Trump as anti-Semitic are pathetic - Israel Hayom Staff

by Israel Hayom Staff

Economy Minister Eli Cohen: U.S. President Donald Trump is "among the greatest friends Israel has had in a president" • Trump has hit back at those trying to boycott Israel economically, has changed the diplomatic attitude toward Israel, Cohen explains.

Economy and Industry Minister Eli Cohen | Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin

Economy and Industry Minister Eli Cohen (Kulanu) came out in support of U.S. President Donald Trump over the weekend, after the embattled president faced accusations of being racist and anti-Semitic in the aftermath of violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Efforts to portray Trump as anti-Semitic are pathetic," Cohen said, adding that of all the U.S. presidents, Trump is "one of the most sympathetic toward Israel."

"Ever since Trump entered the White House, efforts to boycott Israel in the economic arena have suffered a critical blow," he said. 

"The shift in the discourse toward Israel has been apparent in the diplomatic arena in general and in the U.N. in particular," he added. "U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has been clearly implementing Trump's policies." 

Furthermore, on the economic plane, the efforts to target Israel economically, which were prevalent in the past, have waned dramatically since Trump took office," he said. 

"Calling a person whose son-in-law and daughter are Jewish, and whose first official overseas trip [as president] was to Israel, an anti-Semite is utterly unfounded. There is nothing anti-Semitic about him," Cohen insisted. 

"Even in conversations with [other] administration officials, the positive atmosphere is discernible," he continued. "It is apparent in the expansion of trade agreements with the U.S., which are on the rise and have reached a record $27 billion in the last year, not to mention the investments being made by American companies in Israel and the establishment of development and manufacturing centers [in Israel]."

Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=44751

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Quo vadis the Arab tsunami ‎- Yoram Ettinger

by Yoram Ettinger

Acquaintance with Middle East "modernization" highlights the critical role of ‎the posture of deterrence -- while avoiding appeasement and retreats in the ‎face of temptations and pressure

Where is the Arab Middle East headed? Now after the ‎disintegration of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Sudan? After the toppling of ‎several Arab regimes? After the estimated 400,000 fatalities and 6 million ‎refugees resulting from intra-Arab conflicts? After the proliferation of Islamic ‎Sunni terrorism? After the unprecedented power-projection surge by Iran's ayatollahs? After the Sunni and Shiite terrorist machetes at the throat ‎of the House of Saud and all other pro-U.S. Arab regimes? And after the intensified ‎violation of human rights in every Arab country, all ruled by minority ‎regimes?‎

The raging Arab tsunami -- popularly referred to as the Arab Spring -- of the last six and a half years has further destabilized the one-bullet, ‎provisional Arab regimes, characterized by tenuous policies and uncertain ‎bilateral and multilateral intra-Arab agreements.

This has added much fuel to the fire of the ‎inherently unpredictable and intensely complex, non-nation-state, non‎democratic Middle East, which has been systematically misperceived by the ‎Western establishment.‎

Where is the Arab tsunami heading? The chaotic intra-Arab roller-coaster ‎may have shifted, temporarily, to a relatively lower gear, but it is brutally surging on.

By dealing a severe blow to Islamic State terrorists in 2017 without ‎clipping the wings of Iran's ayatollahs , the U.S. has provided a tailwind ‎to Iran's entrenchment in Syria, and increasingly in Lebanon. It has ‎advanced the ayatollahs' domination of the critical area from the Persian ‎Gulf to the Mediterranean, which is a prelude to Iran's megalomaniacal vision ‎of denying the U.S. "modern-day-Crusader" regional and global pre-eminence. ‎

This could be a repeat of the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, when ‎the U.S. elevated Iraq's Shiites, dumping Iraq's Sunnis, which ‎reinforced the ranks of Sunni terrorism. This paved the way for the ayatollahs' dominance in Iraq -- which intensified anti-U.S. terrorism -- and ‎created a clear and present danger for every pro-U.S. Arab regime in the ‎Persian Gulf and beyond.‎

In 2011, a U.S.-led coalition toppled Moammar Gadhafi‎'s rogue regime in Libya, despite the fact that Gadhafi‎ was involved in a ferocious war against Islamic terrorism ‎in Libya and Africa. Moreover, in 2003, Gadhafi‎ transferred his infrastructure ‎of weapons of mass destruction to the U.S. The toppling of Gadhafi‎ ‎accelerated the disintegration of Libya, transforming the huge country ‎‎(680,000 square miles, two and a half times the size of Texas) into a major safe haven and ‎breeding ground for Islamic terrorism.‎

While the U.S. military power projection and posture of deterrence are ‎prerequisites for the Western battle against Islamic terrorism -- and keeping ‎Islamic terrorism away from the U.S. mainland -- a misguided U.S. policy has ‎tolerated the ayatollahs' imperialism, subversion and terrorism, allowing ‎them to surge on the coattails of the 2015 nonratified Iran nuclear deal, ‎further destabilizing the Middle East.‎

For example, tectonic developments simmer below the seemingly stable ‎surface in Jordan. These developments are ‎generated and bolstered by the 60% Palestinian majority. Examples include the 1951 ‎murder of King Abdullah by a Palestinian, the 1970 civil war, the 1980s ‎Hashemite-Palestinian confrontations); the unpredictable Muslim ‎Brotherhood terrorists; the importation of additional Sunni Islamic terrorist ‎sleeper cells; the historical divisiveness between the Hashemite migrants ‎from the Arabian Peninsula and the indigenous Bedouin; the 1.5 million Syrian ‎refugees; the boiling borders with Iraq and Syria, which increasingly ‎accommodate the anti-Hashemite ayatollahs.‎

A volcanic eruption in Jordan could spill over, swiftly, into neighboring Saudi ‎Arabia and other pro-U.S. Arab countries, which are threatened by the ayatollahs and home-grown terrorists. This would impact the life ‎expectancy of the ruling House of Khalifa in Bahrain, as well as the level of violent ‎Muslim Brotherhood opposition to the Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi regime in Egypt.‎

Where is the Middle East heading? According to Amir Taheri, the veteran ‎Iranian writer, researcher and expert on Islam, the Persian Gulf and the ‎Middle East: "'Modernization' is spreading. ... I saw a 'modernized' Middle ‎East with armies marching across scorched plains, soldiers and mercenaries ‎cursing in a dozen different languages, the choir of cannons and the ‎choreography of armored cars and tanks. I saw refugees and displaced ‎persons camps, barbed wire, watchtowers, loudspeakers spreading the ‎latest version of truth. There were minefields and grieving mothers, naked ‎children and victims of gas attacks and chemical weapons. The skies were ‎dotted with warplanes dropping more bombs on Syria and Iraq than on ‎Germany during the Second World War. The landscape of ruins, reminding one of Berlin, ‎Warsaw and Leningrad in 1945. ... This looked like Europe in 1918 or 1945, ‎only magnified many times over thanks to the superior power of destruction ‎we now have."‎

Acquaintance with Middle East "modernization" is a prerequisite for a ‎realistic national security policy, devoid of wishful thinking and ‎oversimplification-driven hopes.‎

Acquaintance with Middle East "modernization" highlights the critical role of ‎the posture of deterrence -- while avoiding appeasement and retreats in the ‎face of temptations and pressure, which trigger more pressure and ‎terrorism -- in shaping homeland and national security policies.‎

Acquaintance with Middle East "modernization" underlines the unique role ‎played by Israel -- as long as it controls the high ground rather than ‎withdrawing to the pre-1967 sliver along the Mediterranean -- in extending ‎the strategic hand of the U.S. in the face of mutual threats.‎

Acquaintance with Middle East "modernization" clarifies the nature of the ‎primary threats to regional stability and the survival of pro-U.S. Arab regimes ‎‎-- posed by the rogue ayatollahs and Sunni Islamic terrorism -- and the ‎limited regional role played by the Palestinian issue.‎

Yoram Ettinger is a former ambassador and head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19721

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Media contortions protect their established narrative in Boston - Thomas Lifson

by Thomas Lifson

@AntifaBoston chortled over getting the “idiots Democrats” to side with them and bragging about media support.

Something dramatic and important happened yesterday in Boston, but the mainstream provided a counter narrative to mask the shame of it all. The media violated the normal rules of the TV news game – if it bleeds it leads and find a victim -- in order to protect the sacred resistance narrative’s presumptive good guys.

The real story of yesterday is that the Boston Police there advised a small crowd of free speech advocates – nary a white supremacist among the speakers – to stop the program early and [I paraphrase] “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” I am sure they said it a bit more diplomatically, that the group’s safety could not be guaranteed as a mob of 20,000 approached. The crowd had warmed up and psyched up by marching and chanting their way 2.4 miles from Roxbury Crossing. Antifa, with a record of violence was on hand. The police advised evacuation. To protect them from the throngs already assembled, they put them into police wagons and ferried them to safety.

The only violence and arrests (“dozens” according to ABC News) were on the left, including a disgusting attack on an elderly woman that pushed her and Old Glory to the ground.

Boston police were even attacked with bottles of urine and tweeted out a plea for “individuals” to stop it.

Absolutely no groups are ever to be associated with this vicious act, and none were in the maor media that did manage to cover the attack, so far as I saw. But I am reasonably sure that none of the free speech crowd threw urine at the police as they were being sheltered from a hostile throng and given safe haven. But that sort of thing is best left to inference in the media's view. You can find many of the bare facts in the narrative mentioned above and none of the finger pointing in the statement and answers to reporters made by Boston Police Commissioner William Evans. It is well worth the minute and half it takes. Hat tip: Jim Hoft.



Oddly enough, some of the most illuminating commentary on the day came from antifa itself, which was far more honest than the media. Joshua Caplan collected some choice tweets in which @AntifaBoston chortled over getting the “idiots Democrats” to side with them and bragging about media support.

(If you have the time, check out the @BostonAntifa Twitter feed. It leaves no doubt about how far left this violent mob is.

The establishment has got its narrative and its sticking to it.

I guess it is hate speech to frame the story with the drama and victims prominent in the story when the wrong people are being persecuted. 

Thomas Lifson

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

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Anti-Semitic signs hung on Oregon overpasses - JTA

by JTA

“UNJEW HUMANITY”

Signs with anti-Semitic messages were hung on highway overpasses in Oregon.

The banners were hung on two northbound highways, which were heavily travelled by California tourists heading to the state to get a better view of Monday’s expected solar eclipse, according to local reports.

The banners read, “UNJEW HUMANITY,” “Eclipse Whitey,” and “Jewish Financing Available,” the Oregon Statesman Journal reported on Saturday. They were taken down later on Saturday.

Beth Dershowitz of Sacramento told the Oregonian in an email that the banners upset her, her husband Michael, and their children during their family road trip on Saturday. She said her husband took photos of the banners to show state transportation officials.

“I cannot believe that we still have to face this vicious anti-Semitism in such a public place in 2017,” she wrote. “We want to expose this hatred so people stop pretending like it isn’t happening in our own backyards.”

In June, a sign blaming Jews for the Sept. 11 attacks was hung from a pedestrian bridge over an interstate highway in Portland, Oregon.


JTA

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/234205

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Muslims Tell Europe: "One Day All This Will Be Ours" - Giulio Meotti

by Giulio Meotti

"Muslim believers know very well that their fertility is such today, that they call it... the Great Replacement. They tell you in a very calm, very positive way: One day all this, all this will be ours...".

• The Archbishop of Strasbourg Luc Ravel, nominated by Pope Francis in February, just declared that "Muslim believers know very well that their fertility is such today, that they call it... the Great Replacement. They tell you in a very calm, very positive way: One day all this, all this will be ours...".
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán just warned against a "Muslimized Europe". According to him, "the question of the upcoming decades is whether Europe will continue to belong to Europeans".
• "In the coming 30 years, the number of Africans will grow by more than one billion people. That is twice the population of the entire European Union... The demographic pressure will be enormous. Last year, more than 180,000 people crossed in shabby boats from Libya. And this is just the beginning. According to EU Commissioner Avramopoulos, at this very moment, 3 million migrants are waiting to enter Europe". — Geert Wilders, MP, The Netherlands, and leader of the Party for Freedom and Democracy (PVV).

This week, yet another Islamic terrorist attack targeted the Spanish city of Barcelona. As it was for many years under Muslim rule, it is, therefore, like Israel, land which many Islamists believe they are entitled to repossess.

At the same time, far from Spain, elementary schools have been closing, shuttered by the state after the number of children dropped to less than 10% of the population. The government is converting these structures into hospices, providing care for the elderly in a country where 40% of the people are 65 or older. That is not a science-fiction novel. That is Japan, the world's oldest and most sterile nation, where there is a popular expression: "ghost civilization".

According to Japan's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, by 2040 most of the country's smaller cities will see a dramatic drop of one-third to one-half of their population. Due to a dramatic demographic decrease, many Japanese councils can no longer operate and have been closed. Restaurants have decreased from 850,000 in 1990 to 350,000 today, pointing to a "drying up of vitality". Predictions also suggest that in 15 years, Japan will have 20 million empty houses. Is that also the future of Europe?

Among the experts in demography, there is a tendency to call Europe "the new Japan". Japan, however, is dealing with this demographic catastrophe with its own resources, and banning Muslim immigration to the country.

"Europe is committing demographic suicide, systematically depopulating itself in what British historian Niall Ferguson has called "the greatest sustained reduction in European population since the Black Death in the fourteenth century'", as George Weigel recently noted.

Europe's Muslims appear to be dreaming of filling this vacuum. The Archbishop of Strasbourg, Luc Ravel, nominated by Pope Francis in February, recently declared that "Muslim believers know very well that their fertility is such today, that they call it ... the Great Replacement. They tell you in a very calm, very positive way: 'One day all this, all this will be ours' ...".

A new report by the Italian think tank Centro Machiavelli just revealed that if current trends continue, by 2065 first- and second-generation immigrants will exceed 22 million persons, or more than 40% of Italy's total population. In Germany, as well, 36% of children under the age of five are being born to immigrant parents. In 13 of the 28 EU member countries, more people died than were born last year; without migration, the populations of Germany and Italy are expected to decline by 18% and 16%, respectively.

The impact of demographic free-fall is most visible in what was once called the "new Europe", the countries of the former Soviet bloc such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, to distinguish these from the so called "old Europe", France and Germany. Those Eastern countries are now the ones most exposed to the "depopulation bomb", the devastating collapse in birth rate that the current-events analyst and author Mark Steyn has called "the biggest issue of our time".

The New York Times asked why, "despite shrinking population, Eastern Europe resists accepting migrants". The shrinking demography is precisely the reason they fear being replaced by migrants. In addition, much of Eastern Europe has already experienced being occupied by Muslims for hundreds of years under the Ottoman Empire, and are all too well aware what would be in store for them were they to come there again. Aging countries fear the antipathetic values sure to appear if there were a replacement by the current young foreign population.

"There are two distinct views in Europe today to consider [regarding the decline and aging of the population]", Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently said. "One of these is held by those who want to address Europe's demographic problems through immigration. And there is another view, held by Central Europe – and, within it, Hungary. Our view is that we must solve our demographic problems by relying on our own resources and mobilising our own reserves, and – let us acknowledge it – by renewing ourselves spiritually". Orbán just warned against a "Muslimized Europe". According to him, "the question of the upcoming decades is whether Europe will continue to belong to Europeans".

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently said: "Our view is that we must solve our demographic problems by relying on our own resources and mobilising our own reserves, and... by renewing ourselves spiritually". (Image source: David Plas/Wikimedia Commons)

Africa is also pressing Europe with a demographic time bomb. According to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders:

"In the coming 30 years, the number of Africans will grow by more than one billion people. That is twice the population of the entire European Union... The demographic pressure will be enormous. One-third of the Africans want to move abroad, and many want to come to Europe. Last year, over 180,000 people crossed in shabby boats from Libya. And this is just the beginning. According to EU Commissioner Avramopoulos, at his very moment, 3 million migrants are waiting to enter Europe".

Eastern Europe is thinning out. Demography has even become a problem for Europe's security. There are fewer people to serve in Europe's military and social welfare posts. The President of Bulgaria, Georgi Parvanov, has, in fact, called on the country's leaders to attend a meeting of the national Consultative Committee entirely devoted to the problem of national security. Once Eastern European countries feared Soviet tanks; now, they fear empty cradles.

The United Nations estimated that there were about 292 million people in Eastern Europe last year, 18 million fewer than in the early 1990s. The number is equivalent to the disappearance of the entire population of the Netherlands.

The Financial Times had called this situation in Eastern Europe "the largest loss of population in modern history". Its population is shrinking as has no other before. Not even the Second World War, with its massacres, deportations and population movements, had come to that abyss.

Orbán's way -- dealing with a demographic decline using the country's own resources -- is the only way for Europe to avoid Archbishop's Ravel's prediction of a "great replacement". Mass immigration will most likely fill those empty cradles -- but Europe will then become also just a becomes a "ghost civilization"; it is just a different kind of suicide.

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

APPENDIX

Romania will lose 22% of its population by 2050, followed by Moldova (20%), Latvia (19%), Lithuania (17%), Croatia (16%) and Hungary (16%). Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine are the countries where the population decline will be most severe. Poland's population is estimated to decrease by 2050 to 32 million from the current 38 million. Nearly 200 schools have closed, but there are enough children to fill the remaining ones.

In Central Europe, the proportion of "over 65s" increased by more than one-third between 1990 and 2010. The Hungarian population is at its lowest point in half a century. The number of people fell from 10,709,000 in 1980 to the current 9,986,000 million. In 2050, there will be fewer than 8 million people in Hungary; and one in three will be over the age of 65. Hungary today has a fertility rate of 1.5 children per woman. If you exclude the Roma population, this figure drops to 0.8, the lowest in the world -- the reason Prime Minister Orbán announced new measures to solve the demographic crisis.

Bulgaria will have the fastest population decline in the world between 2015 and 2050. Bulgaria is part of a group that is expected to decrease by more than 15% between 2015 to 2050, along with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. Bulgaria's population of about 7.15 million people is estimated to fall to 5.15 million in 30 years -- a decline of 27.9%.

Official figures show that 178,000 babies were born in Romania. By comparison, in 1990, the first post-Communist year, there were 315,000 births. Croatia last year had 32,000 births, a decline of 20% from 2015. The depopulation of Croatia could come to more than 50,000 people each year.

When the Czech Republic was part of the Communist bloc (as part of Czechoslovakia), its total fertility rate was conveniently close to the replacement rate (2.1). Today it is the fifth most barren country in the world. Slovenia has the highest GDP per capita in Eastern Europe, but an extremely low fertility rate.

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

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10748/europe-muslims-demography

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