Date: 10/11/2014
Latest Analysis and Commentary
Germany: Hooligans Declare War on Islamic Radicals
by Soeren Kern • November 10, 2014 at 5:00 am
Hooligans from rival football clubs have temporarily set aside their mutual hatred for each other in order to unite against a common enemy: radical Salafists who are bringing Islamic Sharia law to Germany.
After police predicted that more than 10,000 hooligans would show up at an anti-Salafist rally in Berlin, authorities cancelled the event. Similar rallies planned for Frankfurt, Hamburg and Hannover have also been banned.
Vogel, a former professional boxer who often depicts himself as the embodiment invincible Islam, is now portraying himself as a helpless and fearful victim of the football hooligans
Thousands of police and hooligans face off at a rally by "Hooligans against Salafists" that turned into a riot in Cologne, Germany, on October 26, 2014. (Image source: Focus.de video screenshot)
A group of nearly 5,000 football hooligans from across Germany gathered in the western city of Cologne on October 26 to protest the spread of radical Islam in the country.
The watershed march was organized by a new initiative called "Hooligans against Salafists," better known by its German abbreviation, HoGeSa, short for Hooligans gegen Salafisten.
HoGeSa is a burgeoning alliance between hooligans from rival football clubs who have temporarily set aside their mutual hatred for each other in order to unite against a common enemy: radical Salafists who want to replace Germany's democratic order with Islamic Sharia law.
The alliance has its roots in a hidden Internet forum called GnuHoonters (homophone of "New Hunters") formed in 2012 between 17 different hooligan groups from across Germany. GnuHoonters was established primarily to fight anarchists, Marxist-Leninists and other left-wing extremists in the country.
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UK: New Charity Commission Powers Fall Short
by Samuel Westrop • November 10, 2014 at 4:00 am
The government continues to work on the wistful principle that charities promote extremism merely because of one or two wayward trustees. The Charity Commission and government still appear unable to grasp that charities might be established for the very purpose of promoting extremism.
On October 22, the British government announced new funding and legislation to strengthen the Charity Commission's attempts to identify and suppress the misuse of charities for the purposes of supporting terrorism or promoting extremist ideas.
Although the proposed measures appear to be a step in the right direction, they indicate, once again, that the government still does not truly understand the problem of Islamic extremism.
The majority of the new statutory measures focus on tackling the activities of trustees. The Commission will now have the discretionary power to disqualify a person from becoming a trustee simply "where the Charity Commission considers them unfit."
Although a firmer attitude is welcome, the basis for this approach is part of the problem: the government continues to work on the wistful principle that charities promote extremism merely because of one or two wayward trustees.
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The West's Dangerous Enchantment with Islam
Muslim Women Thrown "Under the Bus"
by Uzay Bulut • November 9, 2014 at 5:00 am
There are no women's rights in Islam; there are no women's rights in most Muslim countries. And there is no freedom of expression in these countries; people have become virtually voiceless.
To make a positive change in Muslim countries, we need to be able to speak openly, without putting one's life at risk, and tell the (too-often criminalized) truth about what Islamic teachings and traditions actually contain.
If one is called "racist" or "Islamophobe," the answer is that these are the accusations bullies always use to silence those who disagree with them. The real Islamophobes are those who degrade, abuse and kill their fellow Muslims.
If oppression of women is rooted in the culture, shouldn't one be asking, 'what makes a culture that misogynous?'
There is a situation even more frightening. It now seems to be difficult to speak openly about fundamentalist Islam even in Western countries. The worst thing any Western progressive or feminist can do is to stay silent.
Left: Canan Arin, a feminist lawyer arrested in Turkey for "insulting religious values adopted by a part of the society" and "insulting the President," after she mentioned that the Muslim prophet Muhammad married a 7-year-old girl and the President of Turkey married his wife when she was 15 years old. Right: Mohsen Amir Aslani, an Iranian psychologist who was hanged in Iran for the crimes of "heresy" and "insulting prophet Jonah," after he said that the biblical prophet Jonah could not have emerged from a whale's belly.
The loudest voices in the West now seem to come from many progressives who say that criticizing of Islam is racist, intolerant, bigoted and Islamophobic. Injustices, they claim, take place all around the world, not just among Muslims or in Muslim countries. The criticism, they go on, comes from wrong interpretations of Islamic teachings. They say that Islam respects women, and that there are good and bad Muslims, just as there are good and bad people in all religions.
In just seven years, however, between 2002 and 2009, the rate of murdered women in Turkey has increased by 1400 percent.[1]
There are also more than 181,000 child brides in Turkey.[2]
When those figures are provided by state authorities, they are based on factual statistics. But when they are expressed in a critical manner by Canan Arin, a lawyer and women rights activist, they are, apparently, a "crime."
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Turkey's Rules for Safety
by Burak Bekdil • November 8, 2014 at 5:00 am
"Death is in the nature of mining." — Turkey's then-Prime Minister, now President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"Why is death not in the nature of French, British or Spanish mining but only in Turkish mining?" — Kemal Kilicdaroglu, opposition leader, Social Democrat Party.
"Whenever we attempt to close a mine the employer brings 50 well-connected people to lobby against the closure." — Faruk Celik, Labor Minister.
Rescue workers and soldiers at the Soma mine in May 2013, Manisa, Turkey. (Image source: VOA/Hilmi Hacaloğlu)
"And they die an equal death — the idler and the man of mighty deeds," wrote the ancient Greek epic poet Homer in "Iliad." Nearly three millennia later, in Turkey "they do not quite die an equal death."
After 30 coal miners died in a May 2010 accident in Karadon, northern Turkey, then Prime Minister (now president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan resorted to Islamist fatalism to wave off criticism of what was an obvious administrative negligence: "Death is in the nature of mining."
Earlier this week, the main opposition party leader, Social Democrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu asked Erdogan a legitimate question: "Why is death not in the nature of French, British and Spanish mining but only in Turkish mining?" — a question not likely to be answered by any government politician.
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Palestinians' "Car Intifada" and Obama's Peace Process
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 7, 2014 at 5:00 am
It is hard to see how Abbas can return to the negotiating table while many Palestinians, at his behest, are busy thinking about how to kill Israelis.
It is not enough for Kerry to listen to what Abbas or Erekat are telling him in English. Instead, Kerry and Obama should listen to what Palestinian leaders and activists are telling their people in Arabic. Perhaps they will understand that as long as the incitement against Israel continues, there is no chance — zero — for the success of any peace process.
Security camera footage from the "Shimon Hatzadik" light rail station in Jerusalem shows four victims lying on the tracks as the terrorist, Hamas member Ibrahim Akkari, speeds away in a white van (upper right), November 5, 2014. One person was killed and 14 others were wounded in the attack.
It began as a "children's intifada" in Jerusalem, where Palestinians aged eight to 18 were encouraged to take to the streets and throw stones and shoot fireworks at vehicles driven by Israelis and policemen.
Now, however, Palestinians are referring to it as a "car intifada" after two Palestinian drivers deliberately ran over Israelis in Jerusalem over the past two weeks.
The "car intifada," which has claimed the lives of four Israelis, including a three-month-old infant, is being hailed by many Palestinians as a "natural response to Israeli crimes."
The "crimes" they are referring to are visits by Jewish groups and individuals to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority [PA], Hamas and Islamic Jihad are using these visits to stir up Palestinians against Israel. The recent terror attacks in Jerusalem are the direct result of this campaign of incitement.
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Christians "Losing Everything" to Islam
by Raymond Ibrahim • November 7, 2014 at 4:30 am
This week in Pakistan, a pregnant Christian mother of four and her husband, falsely accused of burning pages of the Koran, were beaten by a Muslim mob and thrown into a kiln, a fiery oven at a brick factory, where they were roasted alive.
Over 200 Christian girls in Nigeria were captured by Boko Haram. "I abducted your girls, said its leader, Abubakar Shekau in May; "By Allah I will sell them in the marketplace" as slaves.
Abubakar Shekau (pictured here), the leader of Nigeria's Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, proudly claims responsibility for the abduction, sale as slaves, and forced conversion of hundreds of Christian schoolgirls.
"I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things"—Philippians 3:8
When St. Paul wrote the above in his letter to the Christians of Philippi, he and the early church were being persecuted (Paul was eventually executed in Rome). While today's Western Christians still quote his words in reference to their daily sacrifices, an increasing number of Christians around the world, especially the Muslim world, are indeed still losing absolutely everything for their faith.
In Uganda, in just a decade, matters have gone from bad to worse to murderous. The situation of Hassan Muwanguzi, for instance, a Muslim convert to Christianity — whose initial sacrifices are recorded in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (page 131) — far from abating, have only gotten worse.
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Promoting "British Values" by Curbing Free Speech
by Soeren Kern • November 6, 2014 at 5:00 am
"Yes we need to combat the Islamist threat, but this is not the way to do it.... You can't protect democracy by undermining its very foundations…. Freedom of expression is an essential freedom for any democratic society." — Colin Hart, Director, The Christian Institute.
"They made us feel threatened about our religion. They asked, 'Do you have friends from other religions?' They asked this many times until we answered what they wanted us to say." — Eleventh grade student at a Jewish Orthodox school for girls.
Trinity Christian School, a small independent school in Reading, is being downgraded and may even be closed for not inviting a Muslim imam to lead a chapel service.
"Individuals who criticize the spread of Islamic Sharia law in Britain could be deemed to be racist and silenced…. Without precise legislative definitions, deciding what [is extremism] is subjective and therefore open to abuse now or by any future authoritarian government." — Keith Porteous Wood, Director, National Secular Society.
'Are you an extremist?' UK Home Secretary Theresa May has announced new "Extremism Disruption Orders" that will ban any person the government labels an "extremist" from appearing on radio or TV, protesting in public or even posting messages on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, without permission.
The British government has unveiled a new proposal that would require Islamic extremists to have their social media posts pre-approved by the government.
The plan—which is aimed at curbing the spread of jihadist propaganda in Britain—is part of a wide-ranging effort to strengthen the government's counter-terrorism strategy ahead of general elections set for May 2015.
The new policy is so broad in scope, however, and the definition of "extremist" is so all-encompassing, that the government could ultimately silence anyone whose views are deemed to be politically incorrect, according to free speech activists.
The so-called Extremism Disruption Orders (EDOs) would prohibit any individual the government considers to be an "extremist" from appearing on radio and television, protesting in public or even posting messages on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, without permission.
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Don't Tell Erdogan Jihadists Kill People
by Burak Bekdil • November 6, 2014 at 4:00 am
It was vintage Erdogan: There is no Islamic terror. ISIS is not an Islamic organization and its name is not even ISIS.
'Islamic State? ISIS? Terrorists?' Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has frequently declared, "There is no Islamic terror" and "Muslims never resort to terror or violence." He once stated, "I went to Sudan and did not see any genocide there. Muslims never resort to genocide."
Slightly more than a year ago, the world was shocked at the dramatic death tolls in Kenya and Pakistan when jihadists, in separate attacks over one weekend, killed more than 150 innocent people -- with the Kenya attack claiming victims aged between two and 78. In a public speech after the "black weekend," Turkey's then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (now President) looked very sad. Indeed, he was sad.
But not for the victims of terror attacks the previous weekend. He was mourning Asmaa al-Beltagi, a poor, 17-year-old Egyptian girl who had been shot dead by security forces in Cairo as she was protesting the ouster of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, in a July coup d'état. Asmaa's father was a senior Brotherhood figure and after her death, Erdogan once even shed tears during a televised speech. He then commemorated the girl at almost every election rally.
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"We Need Your Head": Muslim Persecution of Christians, July 2014
by Raymond Ibrahim • November 5, 2014 at 5:00 am
"The United States did not come out to say anything about Boko Haram. They kept talking about economic problem. That is not true... The United States deliberately ignored the fundamental issues of religious ideology." — Nicholas Okoh, Primate, Church of Nigeria
A judge in Iran sentenced a Christian man to have his lips burnt with a cigarette for eating during the day in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
A church member added that members of the Muslim group had said they wanted to transform Uganda into am Islamic nation and would kill anyone who refused to convert.
A fire rages in the compound of Mosul's 1800 year-old church, July 2014.
The purge of ancient Christian communities throughout Iraq that started in June culminated in great intolerance in July.
Among other Islamic attacks, a Christian church that had stood Iraq for 1,800 years -- a church that was erected less than 200 years after Christ -- was reportedly torched by the Islamic State, according to countless news agencies, including Al Arabiya.
Islamic State jihadis also stormed and took over an ancient monastery in northern Iraq. St. Behnam monastery had stood since the fourth century and was one of Iraq's best-known Christian landmarks. It was built by an Assyrian king as a penance for executing his children Behnam and Sarah for converting to Christianity.
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Terrorists Gunning for Egypt, Hamas Aims at West Bank
by Yaakov Lappin • November 5, 2014 at 4:00 am
Under Hamas's rule, terrorist groups are trying to acquire a foothold in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Hamas is also trying to construct terror cells in the West Bank.
Hamas's dark influence is... starting a new countdown to the next showdown.
Egyptian soldiers and armored vehicles operate to demolish all homes and other buildings in a 500-meter wide corridor, creating a "security zone" along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip, October 2014. (Image source: PressTV video screenshot)
Under Hamas's rule, terrorist groups in Gaza are currently trying to acquire a foothold in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and Hamas is trying daily to resurface in West Bank.
Recent events in Sinai have placed Hamas on a collision course with Egypt, and threaten further instability in the region.
Egypt finds itself threatened by Al-Qaeda-inspired jihadi organizations that use Gaza -- under Hamas rule, a nest of weapons and terrorism -- as a base of operations.
These jihadi groups often attack the Egyptian state in the Sinai Peninsula, then, with their weapons, move back into Gaza through underground tunnels to escape Egyptian security forces.
Hence, Egypt continues to block underground smuggling passages linking Gaza and Sinai as quickly as it can find them.
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Who is the Real Chickenshit?
by Bassam Tawil • November 4, 2014 at 5:00 am
Judging by their actions, most Arab leaders do not want to create yet another terrorist Islamist state, dedicated to the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology and to toppling their regimes. We do want a Palestinian state, but please, only one that will provide responsible governance.
According to the "Arab street," it is the Americans and Europeans who are cowards, afraid to take significant steps against Iran, and terrified of the Islamic ghettoes in their cities, which have been exporting terrorists to fight for the Islamic State, and providing housing to the seasoned fighters who return.
To Arabs, the ultimate irony is that America is paying Qatar to have its airbase there, while Qatar is paying terrorists to kill Americans.
When John Kerry claimed it was the unresolved Palestinian issue that caused a ripple effect that crated ISIS, he simply inspired the Palestinians to use Al-Aqsa mosque as a religious trigger for future bloodshed.
Does Kerry really blame Israel for ISIS? Above, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 23, 2014. (Image source: U.S. State Department)
There is a civil war currently under way between radical Islam -- motivated by imperialist fantasies of restoring the Islamic Caliphate -- and the more moderate secular Muslim regimes that are seeking the path to modernization and progress.
At the same time, Sunni Islam is in the midst of an increasingly violent crisis in its dealings with Shi'ite Iran, which looks as if it is about to be granted nuclear weapons capability, and which for decades quietly has been eyeing neighboring Arab oil fields.
Into the middle of this explosive disarray, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his supporters have thrown the accusation that it was actually Israel's so-called refusal to reach a peace agreement that was responsible for the ripple effect that led to the creation of ISIS. This incorrect diagnosis of the situation merely postpones the West's efforts to find a real, workable solution for the Palestinian issue.
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Acid Attacks on Women in Iran
by Denis MacEoin • November 4, 2014 at 4:00 am
To reduce their own fear, the clerics try to raise the fear levels among the public.
Rare as they are, media accounts of attacks are minimized; victims are blamed; women's voices are omitted, and the attackers are regarded sympathetically.
A young woman with two inches of hair showing is the small "hole in the dyke" that can with time, break the dam and flood the country with all the things the revolution was carried out to prevent: liberalism, individual freedoms, religious and political tolerance, democracy, free speech, equal rights for women and on and on.
One curly lock in the open air convulses the totalitarian with fear, the fear that he may be shown to be, in the last analysis, irrelevant.
A bandaged acid-attack victim speaks to a reporter from her hospital bed in Isfahan, Iran, October 2014. (Image source: PressTV video screenshot)
News reports are coming in of massive demonstrations in Iran on October 25, throughout the northern half of the country -- Saqqez, Tehran, Mashhad, Rasht, Shahr-e Kord, and Isfahan. The protests all focused on the issue of acid-throwing. At each event, the regime's Revolutionary Guards, the police and their supporters moved in hard with tear gas and pepper spray. They were shooting in the air, and battering women.
In the days of Shah Abbas the Great, his capital city, the beautiful Isfahan, was celebrated in the rhyming couplet "Isfahan, nesf-e jehan": "Isfahan is half the world." Today, however, in Shah Abbas's Isfahan, acid attacks on "badly veiled" girls have grown frequent. In early October 2014 alone, there were as many as 14 acid attacks on young women in Isfahan.[1]
One woman died from injuries sustained in the attack. The others have seen their futures destroyed within moments. Here is what acid can do:
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Egypt's War on Terrorism: World's Double Standards
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 3, 2014 at 5:00 am
Egypt's crackdown in Sinai once again exposes the double standards of the international community toward the war on terrorism. While it is fine for Egypt to demolish hundreds of houses and forcibly transfer thousands of people in the name of the war on terrorism, Israel is not allowed to fire back at those who launch rockets and missiles at its civilians.
The Egyptians have finally realized that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip has become one of the region's main exporters of terrorism.
What is perhaps more worrying is the fear that the security clampdown in Egypt will drive Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip to resume their attacks on Israel.
Needless to say, the international community will continue to ignore Egypt's bulldozing hundreds of houses and the forcible eviction of hundreds of people in Sinai.
A building is blown up by Egypt's army as part of an operation to clear all buildings out of a "buffer zone," along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip. (Image source: PressTV video screenshot)
Three months after the military conformation between Hamas and Israel, the Egyptians are also waging their own war on terrorism in north Sinai.
But Egypt's war, which began after Islamist terrorists butchered 33 Egyptian soldiers, does not seem to worry the international community and human rights organizations, at least not as much as Israel's operation to stop rockets and missiles from being fired into it from the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian army's security crackdown includes the demolition of hundreds of houses along the border with the Gaza Strip and the transfer of thousands of people to new locations.
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Can NATO Afford a War on Two Fronts?
by Peter Martino • November 3, 2014 at 4:00 am
Recently, Russian fighter planes and even bombers were spotted over the Baltics, Norway, the Netherlands, the Turkish part of the Black Sea and as far as the Atlantic Ocean.
Russia more than doubled its defense expenditure between 2007 and 2013, and plans to increase it again by 44 per cent in the 2014-2016 period.
A Norwegian F-16 shadows a Russian air force Tupolev Tu-95 bomber. (Image source: Norwegian Air Force)
It is always unwise to fight a war on two fronts, especially after defense cuts have undermined one's military. But that seems to be where the West is heading. The Western allies are fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq, while at the same time tensions are rising between NATO and Russia. The question is whether NATO can afford both after the cuts in its defense budgets of the past two decades.
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The "Explosive Growth" of Jihadism in the Netherlands
by Soeren Kern • November 2, 2014 at 5:00 am
"The increasing momentum of Dutch jihadism poses an unprecedented threat to the democratic legal order of the Netherlands." — Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
"For adherents unable or unwilling to join the armed struggle in Syria or elsewhere, social media offers a form of involvement that allows them to identify themselves as jihadists... without actually having to fight. After all, the movement also considers 'dawah' -- preaching the 'call to Islam" -- a form of jihad." — Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
"Social media has made it possible for a person to go far more quickly from being a passive recipient of jihadist propaganda messages to a sympathizer and then a supporter... Some are also known to have been involved in atrocities, such as beheading prisoners... social media has changed the structure of the and cohesions of the jihadist movement... it has taken on the characteristics of a swarm (in the group behavior sense)." — Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
"The jihadist movement can only genuinely be disrupted, in a way that prevents the emergence of new guiding figures and structures, if such efforts [not one-off actions] are maintained over an extended period." — Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
"Dutch jihadists are convinced that the caliphate is not some utopian dream but an achievable reality for Syria and other Muslim nations -- and even for the Netherlands." — Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
The Dutch-Turkish jihadist known as Yilmaz, pictured in Syria, has proven adept at the use of social media for jihadist "public relations".
The home-grown jihadist movement in the Netherlands is experiencing sudden and explosive growth, according to a new report published by the Dutch intelligence service, AIVD.
The Dutch jihadist movement is not only growing in size and strength, it is also becoming increasingly open and provocative, both online and on the streets, according to the report, which warns that the increasing momentum of Dutch jihadism poses an unprecedented threat to the democratic legal order of the Netherlands.
The 58-page report, entitled "The Transformation of Jihadism in the Netherlands: Swarm Dynamics and New Strength," provides an in-depth analysis of the various factors underlying the "new dynamism" of the jihadist phenomenon.
According to the AIVD, the Dutch jihadist movement began a process of far-reaching change in late 2010, when several jihadists were prevented from leaving the Netherlands to join fellow jihadists in Pakistan and Somalia.
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