German Intelligence Issues Taboo-Breaking Report on Muslim Antisemitism

Excellent study of antisemitism in Islam in Germany. Dr. Gerstenfeld is right-on.

The report doesn't look into how Muslim antisemitism affects Germany beyond the obvious. How much it increases antisemitism among native Germans; whether or not it affects decisions in the Bundestag through concern for upsetting Muslims? I have been saying for several years now that Europe would become more and more hostile toward Jews and Israel because of the increased presence of Muslims. Hopefully, someone will research this.

By Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

Antisemitic, pro-Palestinian demonstration in Berlin, July 17, 2014, photo by Boris Niehaus via Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,158, April 30, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The German Agency for Domestic Security recently published a report on Muslim antisemitism in the country – a development that is unprecedented not only for Germany but for all of Europe. The report makes clear that Muslim antisemitism is a major problem in Germany. At long last, Muslim antisemitism in Germany has been officially detailed for the public.

The German Agency for Domestic Security (Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz) recently published a 40-page report entitled “Antisemitism in Islamism.” Never before has any European intelligence agency published a report on Muslim antisemitism. This report is a major break with the German past. It is the first official publication by a national body that exposes in reasonable detail the antisemitism originating in parts of the country’s Muslim community.

The report’s title doesn’t quite reflect its content. It was likely considered unacceptable – from a political correctness point of view – to give the report the more accurate title “Antisemitism and Islam.” In many (not all) of the quotes below, the word “Islamist” should be replaced by the word “Muslim.”

The report defines Islamism as a form of political extremism among Muslims that aims to eliminate democracy. Antisemitism is one of its essential ideological elements.

Many Muslims are not antisemitic, but the antisemitism problem in Islam is far from limited to people with extreme political views or even to religious Muslims. The report notes that many incidents have been caused by individuals “about whom until then no [connections] were [indicated] to organized Islamism.” Islamism was probably not the direct cause behind a substantial number of incidents.

Just a year and a half ago, speaking of Muslim antisemitism was taboo in Germany and was certainly never to be mentioned by politicians. This was despite the fact that it was generally known that major antisemitic incidents had been perpetrated by Muslims in the country.

The document starts by stating that for historical reasons, and in view of the country’s experience with National Socialism, antisemitic positions were viewed for a long time as being inevitably related to right-wing antisemitism. Only gradually in the current century has it become clear that right-wing extremists do not hold a monopoly on antisemitism in Germany. The report states that a pattern of common, “daily” antisemitism is widespread in the social and political center of German society. In addition, anti-Zionism and antisemitism exist among leftist extremists.

The authors state that antisemitic opinions in Islamism are even more far-reaching. Religious, territorial, and political motives combine into an antisemitic worldview. All Islamist groups have as a central pillar a picture of Judaism as the enemy.

The report states that the arrival of more than a million Muslims in Germany between 2014 and 2017 increased the influence of Islamist antisemitism inside the country. It cites Anti-Defamation League statistics of antisemitism among the populations of states in the Middle East and North Africa. In that region, Turkey – a country from which many Muslims now living in Germany originated – is one of the least antisemitic countries, yet even it is “nearly 70%” antisemitic. The study mentions that many children in these countries are raised with a steady diet of antisemitic indoctrination.

Like other studies, the report sees a turning point in German awareness of Islamist antisemitism in a demonstration that took place in Berlin in 2017. At that demonstration, placards were carried demanding the destruction of Israel. An Israeli flag was set on fire. The report notes that extremist acts were initiated by people who were unknown to have had any prior relationship with Islamist organizations – a fact that has probably never before been published.

The burning of the Israeli flag shocked Germans because of the association with the far more severe book burnings of 1933, which were encouraged by the German National Socialist government at the time. The video of the flag-burning went viral, prompting a number of brief comments by leading politicians. German president and Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the responsibility of Germany for its history knows “no limits for those who were born later, and no exceptions for immigrants.” He added, “This is not negotiable for all those who live in Germany and want to live here.” Jens Spahn, a board member of Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU), who has since become Germany’s Minister of Health, remarked that the mass immigration from Muslim countries was the reason for the demonstrations in Germany. Stephan Harbarth, Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag (the German parliament), said, “We have to strongly confront the antisemitism of migrants with an Arab background and those from African countries.”

The study states that it is crucial to counteract the spread of extreme antisemitism among Muslims in Germany. This will require a greater awareness of the problem in the public domain. That should include teachers, social workers, the police, and employees of the government office for migration and refugees, as well as relevant officials in Germany’s federal states.

The authors also note that the way Islamists interpret Islam is contrary to the basic elements of the German constitution concerning the sovereignty of citizens, the separation of state and religion, freedom of expression, and the general equality of all citizens. This is why German intelligence services monitor the activities of Islamist organizations.

The report lists major antisemitic expressions of Islamist antisemitism, such as: “Jews control finance and the economy,” “Jews operate with the help of secret agents and organizations,” and “there is an eternal battle between Muslims and Jews.”  The report also names various extremist Muslim organizations that are active in Germany. They include the local Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb Ut-Tahrir, ISIS, the Turkish Milli Görus, and Salafists.

The long-overdue study concludes that the more than 100 antisemitic incidents officially caused by Muslims in 2017 are most likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Shortly after the above document was released, a 178-page report was published by the Liberal Islamischer Bund (Liberal Islamic Association) entitled “Empowerment Instead of Antisemitism.”  It was financed, inter alia, by the German government office for migration and refugees. The report shows that many Muslim teens justify their antisemitism with the argument that they themselves have experienced degradation and intolerance due to increasing Islamophobia. It concludes that members of the Muslim minority seek a scapegoat in an even smaller minority, the Jews.

This second report came under heavy criticism. Alan Posener, political correspondent at Die Welt, wrote that antisemitism among Muslim youth is the expression of preexisting antisemitic prejudice, not a response to Islamophobia. Political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad also denied that Muslim antisemitism is the result of Islamophobia. If this were the case, he wrote, the Muslim world would be free of Islamism and antisemitism, since Islamophobia is nonexistent in those countries.

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Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ is a Senior Research Associate at the BESA Center and a former chairman of the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He specializes in Israeli–Western European relations, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism, and is the author of The War of a Million Cuts.

Aussie Rugby Star Apologizes After Sharing ‘I Love Jesus’ Message at Easter

© Global Look Press / AFLO / Yoshio Tsunoda

Australian rugby star Samu Kerevi has apologized for “offending ” some fans after sharing an Easter message which quoted from the Bible, amid a backlash against Kerevi's international teammate Israel Folau over anti-gay comments.

Kerevi, who is captain of The Queensland Reds and has won more than 20 caps for the Wallabies, shared a message at Easter on his Instagram account which read: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16."

“Thank You Jesus for dying on the cross for me. I love you Jesus,” he added, alongside a picture of himself appearing for the Reds.

The post came amid a row involving Wallabies teammate Folau, who is facing the sack over a social media post earlier in April in which he said that “hell awaits” gay people.

Israel Folau

Some fans questioned Kerevi’s Easter post in light of the Folau controversy, with one writing: "I know a lot of gay kids and adults in our sport would love to hear a rugby leader like you say you love and respect them for who they are – are you willing to endorse that message?"

Another wrote: "I hope you don't support Israel's comments Samu." 

Kerevi later took to Instagram Stories to apologize “to anyone that I have offended in giving praise to our God on a weekend that we take off to celebrate his Sacrifice for you and I.”

After the bizarre apology, he later posted a message clarifying that he was “not apologizing for my faith in Jesus Christ my saviour."

"I do not feel obliged to apologise because of a situation happening right now to a brother of mine,” he added, referring to Folau’s case.

Kerevi has won considerable support from fans despite the initial criticism from some, while fellow Wallabies international and Queensland Reds teammate Taniela Tupou – known as ‘The Tongan Thor’ – wrote on Facebook: “Might as well sack me and all the other Pacific Islands rugby players around the world because we have the same Christian beliefs.

“I will never apologise for my faith and what I believe in, religion has got nothing to do with rugby anyways.”

Taniela Tupou (C) gave a show of support to his teammate. © Global Look Press / AFLO / Jun Tsukida

Folau, meanwhile, is set to learn his fate at a code of conduct hearing with a three-member Rugby Australia panel on May 4.

The star, capped 73 times by his country, faces the termination of his contract with both club and country, ahead of the World Cup in Japan later this year.

Spanish Socialist Party Wins Most Seats in Snap Elections

Far-right VOX party wins 24 seats, but conservative influence

in congress significantly reduced

By Daniel Uria

Spanish Prime Minister and Secretary General of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Pedro Sanchez,

celebrates after the party won the most seats in the country's general elections Sunday.

Photo by JuanJo Martin/EPA

(UPI) -- Spain's ruling Socialist Party was declared the winner of the country's snap election Sunday, a government spokeswoman said.

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, or PSOE, won 122 of the 350 seats in Spain's Congress of Deputies, leading all other parties but failing to win an outright majority.

Sunday's results indicate Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will likely enter into negotiations to form a coalition with Pablo Iglesias' Podemos party, which won 42 seats, and will still require support from other parties to form a 176-seat majority.

The far-right Vox Party also won 24 seats in the election, becoming the first far-right party to win more than a single seat since the country returned to democracy in 1975.

The conservative People's Party, or PP, saw its control of Congress weaken, as it won just 66 seats compared to the last election in June 2016 where it won 137.

PP leader Pablo Casado said the election was one of the most decisive in recent years, adding his party's results were "very bad."

Voter turnout reached a record high of 75.8 percent, up from 66.5 percent during the previous elections.

"My feeling is that in Spain there is an ample progressive majority and when there is high participation that becomes very clear," said Iglesias.

Not really, Iglesias, the PP Party's corruption was reflected in the cutting of their support by more than half. These people didn't suddenly become socialists.

Sanchez called for the snap general elections in February, after he failed to pass his 2019 budget deal.

After voting on Sunday, Sanchez said he hoped the election would provide a parliamentary majority to allow him to pass social and political reforms.

"After many years of instability and uncertainty, it's important that today we send a clear, defined message about the Spain we want," Sanchez said. "From there, a broad parliamentary majority must be built that can support a stable government."

If you continue down this socialist, pro-globalization path, you will find your support weaken significantly over the next couple years and your opposition becoming more and more hardened.

China Emits More Carbon Dioxide Than The U.S. and EU Combined

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of climate change and CO2,

this is an interesting and informative read.

Robert Rapier, Forbes

Over the past decade, the U.S. has decreased annual carbon dioxide emissions

by nearly 800 million tons.

In this Dec. 30, 2016 photo, a truck leaves with metal products from the sprawling complex that is a part of the Jiujiang steel and rolling mills in Qianan in northern China's Hebei province. Faced with choking smog in the Chinese capital, Chinese media and policy circles often point to a list of culprits: the central government's inability to shut down polluting steel mills, the middle class's insatiable demand for cars, poorer segments of society's insistence on burning coal. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

In a previous article, I discussed the relentless upward march of global carbon dioxide emissions. According to data from the 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the world reached a new all-time high for global carbon dioxide emissions in 2017.

Today, I want to discuss trends and relative contributions from the world's most significant carbon dioxide emitters.

Since 1965, no country has put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the United States. The 264 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide the U.S. has emitted to the atmosphere represented 22.5% of global emissions during that time, and was well ahead of the cumulative 216 billion metric tons from the European Union (EU). In second place among countries was the 188 billion metric tons emitted by China.

But as China has industrialized -- with a heavy reliance on coal-fired power -- Chinese emissions have rocketed past both those of the U.S. and the EU:

Carbon dioxide emissions from 1965 to 2017. ROBERT RAPIER

China's emissions passed those of the U.S. in 2005, and by 2012 had surpassed the combined contribution of both the U.S. and the EU. Should recent trends continue, China will be responsible for the most atmospheric carbon dioxide in less than 20 years.

China has lots of regional company, too. The Asia Pacific region is home to both China and India -- the world's two most populous countries and two of the largest carbon dioxide emitters. It is also home to other fast-growing and/or populous countries, like Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Japan. Over the past decade, this region's carbon dioxide emissions have grown at an average annual rate of 3.1%, which was nearly triple the global average. As a result, Asia Pacific is now responsible for nearly 50% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Thus, Asia Pacific as a whole continues to drive global carbon dioxide emissions higher:

Asia Pacific carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb. ROBERT RAPIER

There are some positives in the data. Over the past decade, the U.S. has decreased annual carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 800 million tons. This is by far the most of any country in the world, and is primarily a result of shifting coal-fired power to natural gas and renewables. The EU has also made significant strides, reducing its annual carbon dioxide emissions by 681 million tons.

These reductions paled in comparison to China's two billion ton per year increase in emissions, but China's emissions have been relatively flat since 2013. This, combined with the decreases in the U.S. and EU, have helped slow the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade versus the previous decade:

Global carbon dioxide emissions. ROBERT RAPIER

It is true that the U.S. has put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other country, and that U.S. per capita emissions are among the highest in the world. But it is also true that the U.S. won't solve this problem alone (even if we weren't dropping out of global climate treaties).

Regardless of the actions taken by developed countries, the primary driver of carbon dioxide emissions in coming decades will be areas of the world with huge populations, but with low, and growing per capita emissions. A small increase in those per capita emissions can result in a huge increase in overall emissions -- amply demonstrated by Asia Pacific's skyrocketing emissions.

Thus, the most pressing need in the world today is to ensure that countries can develop without a heavy reliance on coal and other fossil fuels, because this is the reason for the status quo.

"The most pressing need in the world today", is typical climate change hysteria. I can think of plenty of needs that are far more pressing. Check out my blog on child sex abuse - the worst atrocity mankind has ever inflicted upon itself. Climate change doesn't come close and is no more than a distraction from the real evil going on in the world today.

Robert Rapier has over 25 years of experience in the energy industry as an engineer and an investor. Follow him on Twitter @rrapier or at Investing Daily.

A Far-Right Party is Poised for a Breakthrough in Spain's Elections for the First Time Since Franco

Vox is projected to win about 10 per cent of the vote

in Sunday's election

CBC News 

Spain's far-right party, Vox, appears to be headed for a major breakthrough in the country's parliamentary elections Sunday. 

Currently polls show that the party, lead by Santiago Abascal, could capture about 10 per cent of the vote. It's a significant development because the far-right hasn't won more than a single seat in Spain's national parliament since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

But Spanish voters feeling the pinch of austerity measures are being drawn to Vox's anti-immigration messaging, joining other countries across Europe where citizens are turning to far-right populist parties. 

Edward Koning is an associate political science professor at the University of Guelph and he specializes in far-right politics in Europe. He spoke with Day 6 host Brent Bambury about what the election means to Spain's future. 

Here's part of that conversation.

Populist parties are rising in a lot of countries across Europe. Why would it be surprising that Vox is poised to win seats in Spain?

If you look at the what political scientists have to say about it they usually point out a couple of explanations. First, the fact that the history of Francoism doesn't really give a good taste to add to the ... extreme right experience. And second, that Spanish politics are being so dominated by controversy about nationalism versus separatism, and in particular the Catalonian and Basque issue, that voters don't really use immigration as an issue to make up their mind [about] which party they will vote for.

So it's not so much that they ... might not be concerned about immigration, but it's not really one that will determine their their vote for one party or another.

Vox banners hang from a bar in Brazatortas, on the edge of the Alcudia valley in central Spain. Spain is preparing

for its third parliamentary election in less than four years, and the far-right Vox party is projected to win seats.

(Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press)

Obviously that's been the situation since Franco. But what's happened in recent years that's adjusted the way people are thinking now?

Spanish politics are really in a state of turmoil and this is usually what we see that when anti-immigrant parties first do well. [It's] always in unusual elections; and these elections are really looking to be very unusual in Spain. 

First of all, there are socioeconomic conditions that are very unusual. The country is still struggling with the ... aftershock of the economic crisis and the austerity measures. The aftermath of the refugee crisis [has also] led to a ... quite significant increase in the number of asylum seekers that entered the country.

But then the political conditions are also very unusual. For one thing, there's still a constitutional crisis about the status of Catalonia. 

What you usually see in countries where anti-immigrant parties do well is that

there is a weird election where they establish themselves.

- Edward  Koning , professor or political science

And on top of that .. the message that populists always want to voice — which is, there is a corrupt and self-serving and politically correct elite that doesn't care about the interests of real ... Spaniards — seems particularly appropriate today.

On the one hand, you have the centre right party, the Partido Popular, which has been embroiled in a massive corruption scandal. This corruption scandal was so damaging to the party that the incumbent government had to step down.

The current prime minister is a man by the name of Pedro Sanchez who is basically everything that a populist likes to criticize. He has a PhD in economics; he's an intellectual. When he's asked about his opinion on immigration, he tends to answer in at least 10 sentences, with nice subordinate clauses.

So if you're a populist and you say the elites are either [corrupt] or don't care about the views of ordinary Spaniards, you have two very easy examples to draw from.

People walk past a billboard of Spanish Prime Minister and Socialist Party candidate Pedro Sánchez in Madrid, Spain. Appealing to Spain's large pool of undecided voters, top candidates on both the right and left are urging Spaniards to

choose wisely and keep the far-right at bay in Sunday's general election. (Andrea Comas/The Associated Press)

You study far right movements in Western Europe. Where does what's happening in Spain fit into the broader trend that you're seeing in that part of the world now?

What you usually see in countries where anti-immigrant parties do well is that there is a weird election where they establish themselves. And then once weird times are over say, so to say, when the conditions stabilize, these parties stick around because by that time they have familiarized the electorate with their presence.

They have established themselves as some sort of credible political player. They have built up some party organization, so they won't go away.

The timing is different because it requires one of those unusual elections.  For example in the Netherlands, where I'm originally from, it was the elections of 2002 that marked this type of watershed.

Since then the Netherlands have been marked by anti-immigrant politics quite significantly and so we can tell a similar story for almost every country where anti-immigrant parties have broken through.

So Spain fits in this story quite neatly.

Edward Koning is a professor of political science at the University of Guelph. He says once far-right parties establish themselves through unusual elections in Western Europe, they tend to stick around. (Submitted by Edward Koning)

That means if Vox wins only 10 per cent of the seats, as they're projected to in tomorrow's election, that's still very significant for Spanish politics going forward.

Absolutely. Yes. It will mean that it's unlikely that we will see this type of party disappear anywhere in the near future.

What you see sometimes is that new anti-immigrant parties are so poorly organized or so centred around one particular person that they kind of blow up once they have any type of responsibility, but that never actually leads to a permanent disappearance of these parties in general.

What instead you'll see that quickly another party will appear that learns from the organizational mistakes of its predecessor and then will secure the anti-immigrant vote in the subsequent elections.

So it's absolutely important because these kinds of parties will stick around. And the other reason why it's very important is that these parties always turn out to be quite influential although to varying degrees in different countries.

Right-Wing Parties Gain Highest Voter Approval Ahead of EU Elections – Study

The election of a Republican Government in the US was tempered by the mid-term rise in the numbers of Democratic law-makers. But elsewhere, countries are turning more and more to the right.

In Canada, when the very Liberal Party and Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, there were 8 left-leaning provincial governments in our 10 provinces, and only 2 right-leaning governments. Since then, the country has flipped with only 4 left-leaning provincial legislatures and 6 right-leaning houses. 

This is not because the right-wing message is so appealing to Canadians, but because the far-left message of the very Liberal Trudeau and the far-left governments of Kathleen Wynne in Ontario and Rachel Notley in Alberta were simple rejected as 'not who we are as Canadians'. 

(L-R) Matteo Salvini, from Italy's Lega Nord, Austrian Freedom Party member Harald Vilimsky, Marine Le Pen,

France's National Front political party head, Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders and

Belgium's Flemish Vlaams Belang party member Gerolf Annemans © Reuters / Francois Lenoir

One in 10 Europeans will back right-wing parties in the upcoming European Union elections, according to a new study, pointing to growing support for Euroskeptic movements across the bloc.

EU elections will be held May 23rd-26th, 2019.

A Bertelsmann Foundation study found that right-wing parties with a populist, nationalist or Euroskeptic bent received the highest level of voter approval of any single political grouping. 10.3 percent of voters said they would cast their ballots for right-wing parties, while only 6.2 percent said they positively identified with left-wing groups, and 4.4 percent with a Green party.

Right-wing parties have seen a surge in support amid growing disillusionment with Brussels. Those parties include Italy’s Lega Nord, France’s National Rally party, as well as the right-wing Alternative for Germany – commonly known by its German acronym, AfD.

The research indicates that voters care more about stopping parties and policies they dislike than advancing a positive agenda of their own, which, the researchers said, could end up feeding movements on the fringes.

“Many citizens no longer choose to back one party, but rather vote against parties they oppose the most,” said Robert Vehrkamp, a co-author of the Bertelsmann study.

“The populist parties have managed to create a stable and loyal voter base in a relatively short space of time,” he added.

Interesting, but aren't these two statements contradictory?

Nearly 24,000 voters were surveyed for the study, which conducted interviews in 12 EU member states. The EU’s parliamentary elections will be held May 26.

Even centrists such as French President Emmanuel Macron are beginning to bend to growing right-wing sentiment. In an apparent concession to the Yellow Vest protest movement, the French leader conceded that the Schengen agreement, which allows for visa-free travel between 22 EU member states and four non-EU countries, is no longer tenable. Echoing right-wing leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Macron also called for changes to the Dublin Regulation, which gives an EU member state the right to send back asylum seekers to their first country of entry to the bloc.

‘Political Islam’ Wants to ‘Secede’ from France – Macron

Of course, he is wrong to begin with; Islam doesn't want to secede from France; Islam wants France under Sharia Law. Islam wants every country under Sharia. But, at least Macron has recognized there is an elephant in the room and verbalized that realization. It may be too late to do anything about it, but, you never know.

©Reuters / Benoit Tessier

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed an ‘intractable’ fight against ‘political Islam,’ which he said seeks secession from the French Republic. His comments left many puzzled about his goals.

After delivering a speech addressing numerous social issues tied to France’s burgeoning protest movement, the Yellow Vests, Macron’s press conference took an odd turn when he laid into the French Muslim population.

“We are talking about people who, in the name of a religion, pursue a political project,” he said. “A political Islam that wants to secede from our Republic,” against which he asked the government to be “intractable.”

Macron also gave a ringing defense of French secularism, and called out “communitarianism.”

No-Go Zones, France

“We must not hide ourselves when we talk about secularism, we do not really talk about secularism, we talk about the communitarianism that has settled in certain districts of the Republic,” Macron said, referring to Muslim communities.

The government has in recent months worked to strengthen the enforcement of a 1905 law mandating a separation of church and state, Macron said, threatening to shut down “more associations or cultural institutions when they do not respect the rules of the Republic."

The move appears to make good on a statement Macron gave last year, saying he wanted to create an “Islam of France,” wherein the government would “set down markers on the entire way in which Islam is organized” in the country.

Good luck with that, Emmanuel! Better men than you have tried to rescue Islam from its barbaric roots, and failed miserably. Islam will always come back to its violent, bloody, intolerant roots.

Armenian Genocide - The Massacres of 1915 - Can it Happen Again?

BY: Ronald Grigor Suny, Encyclopedia Brittanica

Armenian Genocide, campaign of deportation and mass killing conducted against the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turk government during World War I (1914–18). Armenians charge that the campaign was a deliberate attempt to destroy the Armenian people and, thus, an act of genocide. The Turkish government has resisted calls to recognize it as such, contending that, although atrocities took place, there was no official policy of extermination implemented against the Armenian people as a group.

Armenians In Eastern Anatolia

For centuries the great mountain plateau of Eastern Anatolia—in present-day eastern Turkey—was inhabited primarily by Christian Armenians who shared the area with Muslim Kurds. In antiquity and the Middle Ages the area was ruled by a succession of Armenian dynasties, although it often faced incursions by outside powers. Armenian political independence was largely brought to an end by a wave of invasions and migrations by Turkic-speaking peoples beginning in the 11th century, and in the 15th and 16th centuries the region was secured by the Ottoman Turks and integrated into the vast Ottoman Empire. Armenians retained a strong sense of communal identity, however, embodied in the Armenian language and the Armenian Church. That sense of distinctiveness was fostered by the Ottoman millet system, which accorded non-Muslim minorities significant administrative and social autonomy.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 2.5 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire, mostly concentrated in the six provinces of Eastern Anatolia. A significant number of Armenians also lived beyond the eastern border of the Ottoman Empire, in territory held by Russia. In Eastern Anatolia Armenians lived intermixed with the dominant Kurdish nomads. Armenians did not constitute a majority in any of the regions in which they lived, although they often resided in homogeneous villages and neighborhoods within towns and cities.

Life for Armenian villagers and townspeople in the Ottoman Empire was difficult and unpredictable, and they often received harsh treatment from the dominant Kurdish nomads. Because local courts and judges often favoured Muslims, Armenians had little recourse when they were the victims of violence or when their land, livestock, or property was taken from them.

The great majority of Armenians were poor peasants, but a few found success as merchants and artisans. Armenians’ involvement in international trade led in the 17th and 18th centuries to the establishment of significant Armenian settlements in Istanbul and other Ottoman port cities and as far away as India and Europe. Although Ottoman society was dominated by Muslims, a small number of Armenian families were able to attain prominent positions in banking, commerce, and government. For several generations in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, the chief architects of the Ottoman court were in the Armenian Balian family. The prominence and influence of the well-educated and cosmopolitan Armenian elite had a drawback, however, in that it became a source of resentment and suspicion among Muslims. In the 19th century Armenians struggled against the perception that they were a foreign element within the Ottoman Empire and that they would eventually betray it to form their own independent state.

Young Armenian activists, many of them from Russian Caucasia, sought to protect their compatriots by agitating for an independent state. They formed two revolutionary parties called Hënchak (“Bell”) and Dashnaktsutyun (“Federation”) in 1887 and 1890. Neither one gained wide support among Armenians in Eastern Anatolia, who largely remained loyal and hoped instead that sympathizers in Christian Europe would pressure the Ottoman Empire to implement new reforms and protections for Armenians. The activities of the Armenian revolutionaries, however, did stoke fear and anxiety among the Muslims.

Anti-Armenian feelings erupted into mass violence several times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When, in 1894, the Armenians in the Sasun region refused to pay an oppressive tax, Ottoman troops and Kurdish tribesmen killed thousands of Armenians in the region. Another series of mass killings began in the fall of 1895, when Ottoman authorities’ suppression of an Armenian demonstration in Istanbul became a massacre. In all, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed in massacres between 1894 and 1896, which later came to be known as the Hamidian massacres. Some 20,000 more Armenians were killed in urban riots and pogroms in Adana and Hadjin in 1909.

The Young Turks And World War I

In 1908 a small group of Ottoman revolutionaries—the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), popularly referred to as the “Young Turks”—came to power. Armenians welcomed the restoration of the Ottoman constitution, and the promise of elections led Armenians and other non-Turks within the empire to cooperate with the new political order. Over time, however, the ambitions of the Young Turks became more militant, less tolerant of non-Turks, and increasingly suspicious of their Armenian subjects, whom they imagined were collaborating with foreign powers. Increasingly authoritarian, the Young Turks consolidated power and sidelined their more-liberal opponents, and in January 1913 the most-militant members of the party, Enver Paşa and Talat Paşa, came to power in a coup d’état.

Antipathy toward Christians increased when the Ottoman Empire suffered a humiliating defeat in the First Balkan War (1912–13), resulting in the loss of nearly all its remaining territory in Europe. Young Turk leaders blamed the defeat on the treachery of Balkan Christians. Furthermore, the conflict sent hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees streaming eastward into Anatolia, intensifying conflict between Muslims and Christian peasants over land.

Fearful Armenians capitalized on the Ottoman defeat to press for reforms, appealing to the European powers to force the Young Turks to accept a degree of autonomy in the Armenian provinces. In 1914 the European powers imposed a major reform on the Ottomans that required supervision by inspectors in the east. The Young Turks took that arrangement as further proof of the Armenians’ collusion with Europe to undermine the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire.

As World War I began in the summer of 1914, the Young Turks joined the Central Powers (Germany and Austro-Hungary) against the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France, and Russia). Because Armenians and Assyrians lived along the Russian-Ottoman front, both the Russians and the Ottomans attempted to recruit the local Christians in their campaigns against their enemies. The Young Turks proposed to the Dashnaktsutyun, by then the leading Armenian political party, that it convince Russian Armenians as well as those in Ottoman lands to fight for the Ottoman Empire. The Dashnaks replied that Armenian Russian and Ottoman subjects would remain loyal to their respective empires. That was seen by powerful Young Turks as an act of treachery.

Armenians in the Ottoman Empire fought alongside the Ottomans, while Armenian volunteer units made up of Russian subjects fought on the Russian side. In the areas where Ottoman and Russian troops faced each other, there were massacres of both Christians and Muslims.

Genocide

In January 1915 Enver Paşa attempted to push back the Russians at the battle of Sarıkamış, only to suffer the worst Ottoman defeat of the war. Although poor generalship and harsh conditions were the main reasons for the loss, the Young Turk government sought to shift the blame to Armenian treachery. Armenian soldiers and other non-Muslims in the army were demobilized and transferred into labour battalions. The disarmed Armenian soldiers were then systematically murdered by Ottoman troops, the first victims of what would become genocide. About the same time, irregular forces began to carry out mass killings in Armenian villages near the Russian border.

Armenian resistance, when it occurred, provided the authorities with a pretext for employing harsher measures. In April 1915 Armenians in Van barricaded themselves in the city’s Armenian neighborhood and fought back against Ottoman troops, On April 24, 1915, citing Van and several other episodes of Armenian resistance, Talat Paşa ordered the arrest of approximately 250 Armenian intellectuals and politicians in Istanbul, including several deputies to the Ottoman Parliament. Most of the men who were arrested were killed in the months that followed.

Soon after the defeat at Sarıkamış, the Ottoman government began to deport Armenians from Eastern Anatolia on the grounds that their presence near the front lines posed a threat to national security. In May the Ottoman Parliament passed legislation formally authorizing the deportation. Throughout summer and autumn of 1915, Armenian civilians were removed from their homes and marched through the valleys and mountains of Eastern Anatolia toward desert concentration camps. The deportation, which was overseen by civil and military officials, was accompanied by a systematic campaign of mass murder carried out by irregular forces as well as by local Kurds and Circassians. Survivors who reached the deserts of Syria languished in concentration camps, many starved to death, and massacres continued into 1916. Conservative estimates have calculated that some 600,000 to more than 1,000,000 Armenians were slaughtered or died on the marches. The events of 1915–16 were witnessed by a number of foreign journalists, missionaries, diplomats, and military officers who sent reports home about death marches and killing fields.

Causes And Consequences Of The Genocide

The Armenian Genocide laid the ground for the more-homogeneous nation-state that eventually became the Republic of Turkey. By the end of the war, more than 90 percent of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were gone, and many traces of their former presence had been erased. The deserted homes and property of the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were given to Muslim refugees, and surviving women and children were often forced to give up their Armenian identities and convert to Islam. Tens of thousands of orphans, however, found some refuge in the protection of foreign missionaries.

An Armenian refugee camp in the Caucasus, 1920.

George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. 27082)

The Armenian Genocide had both short- and long-term causes. Although the expulsion and murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in 1915–16 was an immediate response to the crisis of World War I and not the result of a long-held plan to eliminate the Armenian people, its deeper causes go back to Muslims’ resentment of Armenians’ economic and political successes—a reversal of traditional Ottoman social hierarchies that had Muslims superior to non-Muslims—and to a growing sense on the part of Young Turk leaders and ordinary Muslims that Armenians were an alien and dangerous element within their society.

Turkey has steadily refused to recognize that the events of 1915–16 constitute a genocide, even though most historians have concluded that the deportations and massacres do fit the definition of genocide—the intentional killing of an ethnic or religious group. While the Turkish government and allied scholars have admitted that deportations took place, they maintain that the Armenians were a rebellious element that had to be pacified during a national security crisis. They acknowledge that some killing took place, but they contend that it was not initiated or directed by the government. Major countries—including the United States, Israel, and Great Britain—have also declined to call the events a genocide, in order to avoid harming their relations with Turkey. In 2015 government officials in Turkey offered condolences to the Armenian victims, but Armenians remained committed to having the killings during World War I recognized as a genocide.

Just over 100 years ago is pretty recent history for such an astonishing act of genocide. It shows what can happen when a few ambitious Muslims take control of a government. Early in the second half of this century, European countries like France and Belgium will be predominantly Muslim and will be vulnerable to government takeovers like that of the Young Turks. It's almost too late to stop it.

From a more spiritual perspective - One might wonder why God would allow the slaughter of up to a million Christians in such a short period of time? I can't answer that; only God can, but I will point out that the Ottoman Empire and the Young Turks came to a very quick end at the hands of Ataturk, after ruling much of eastern Europe and western Asia for hundreds of years. 

Ataturk secularized the government of what became Turkey and the military ensured it stayed secular for the rest of the 20th century. Then came Erdogan, the ambitious Muslim, who replaced most of the top military officers with devout Muslim officers, loyal to Erdogan, not Ataturk's policy. 

Again, an example of how quickly a government can be taken control of by ambitious Muslims. 

One more issue I would like to raise and that has to do with the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. He appears in Muslim texts as the redeemer of Islam. He rules for 5, 7, 9 or 12 years before the Great Day of Judgment. In the Bible, He is the Antichrist. He brings in great destruction and the deaths of non-Muslims, or Muslim who do not embrace the murder of non-Muslims, before Jesus Christ returns and destroys him.

I want you to consider what will happen to ordinary, peace-loving Muslims living in Christian countries around the world when the Mahdi appears and performs miracles and demands Islam rise up and destroy the infidels wherever they are. Islam's real goal is to have a global caliphate where everyone worships Allah under Sharia Law. 

What is most disconcerting about all this is the left and far-left politicians are doing everything they can to enable this, from encouraging Muslim immigration, curbing free-speech criticizing Islam, to gun-control legislation. They, and the predominantly left-wing media hide or minimize Muslim atrocities from massacres of Christians, to grooming and raping thousands of young, white, British girls.

John Robson: Sorry, Woke Brigade — White Nationalism Isn't a Major Threat

The very Liberal Canadian government, and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in particular, have decided that White Nationalism should be at the top of the anti-terrorism agenda. The very Liberal government of Canada is not averse to using hysteria as a political tool, and the MainStreamMedia makes little attempt to correct the hyperbole. Thank you National Post for doing just that.

The vast majority of some 20,000 terror victims in the world annually are non-white Muslims killed by non-white Muslim terrorists

John Robson

National Post

It looked odd at the time. In late March our foreign minister tweeted “Today, at the UN Security Council, Canada condemned white supremacist terrorism. This grave terrorist threat must not be ignored and must be at the top of the agenda when we talk about confronting terrorism.” Really? I thought. At the top? Is it the one most likely to kill people?

People pray near St. Anthony Church in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on April 23, 2019, two days after a series of

suicide attacks that killed more than 300 at Sri Lankan churches and luxury hotels. Atul Loke/Getty Images

Following the Easter massacre in Sri Lanka, with over 300 dead and which ISIL has now taken responsibility for, I think “odd” looks today like an insufficient term. Naturally everybody’s against white supremacy. And with solid historical reason given the evil it did over the past 500 years. But for all the horrors of racial slavery, the biggest killers in the 20th century were Mao, Stalin and Hitler, and in no case was skin colour an issue. In the Holocaust, ethnicity was explicit, and in the Holodomor, class warfare intersected with a cultural tradition of individual farming, not communal farming, to make Ukrainians the main target of Stalin’s deliberately engineered famine. And today the biggest threat isn’t the one related to race, and our foreign minister shouldn’t be in denial about it.

If you say anything that downplays white nationalism as an ideological force or source of violence, some fool will claim you’re blowing a racist dog whistle. And will probably misspell it. But the accusation is grotesque because one thing that struck me immediately about Chrystia Freeland’s tweet was its callousness about non-white lives. The vast majority of some 20,000 terror victims in the world, year after year, are not killed by white supremacists. The most common terror victims are non-white Muslims killed by non-white Muslim terrorists. Wikipedia, for instance, says four attacks last year killed over 100 people each. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Nigeria. All by Islamists. Drill down to the monthly list of smaller incidents and it’s almost entirely non-whites, killed by Islamists with the occasional Maoist or purely local ethnic motive.

Even if Freeland were concerned solely with Canadian lives, it would be difficult to explain why she considered white nationalism the top threat or even “grave.” A Google search reveals a lot of people hyperventilating about it. But the Wikipedia article on “Right-wing terrorism” cites the left-leaning New America think-tank’s list of such deaths in the United States since 2001 and it’s 86, an average of five a year.

Every one matters. But Nation of Islam member John Allen Muhammad alone killed 10 people of various races, ethnicities and genders in 2002. Nidal Hasan killed 13 at Fort Hood in 2009 in what the Obama administration insisted was “workplace violence.” Then there’s 9/11 or, as U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar put it, when “some people did something.”

Obviously white nationalists are squalid losers who can be dangerous. The man who killed 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, seems to have been primarily a bigot, though also anti-Muslim. As I wrote at the time, such terrorists and their ideologies must be taken seriously. But devoting scarce anti-terrorist resources to the wrong threat leaves you vulnerable in ways that are irresponsible.

Devoting scarce anti-terrorist resources to the wrong threat

leaves you vulnerable in ways that are irresponsible

   

When I saw Freeland’s tweet I thought there really needs to be an adult in the room. Sure, it’s chic to condemn the West and white people. Especially in an undergraduate seminar. But she’s in government. And lest she, or someone else, be tempted to excuse her strange sense of priorities by saying she doesn’t have priorities, they’re all her top concern, grammar and logic alike forbid it.

It’s not what she said. And whoever guards everything guards nothing. Only one thing can be at “the top of the agenda,” and it should be those who kill thousands a year not those who kill dozens or fewer. How many UN members have seen a single death due to white nationalist terror in the past, say, 50 years? (Even in Canada, the horrific 2017 attack on a Quebec City mosque was motivated by religious hatred, which is not the same as racism; there are a great many white Muslims and non-white Christians.) But how many UN members have seen Islamist slaughter?

Sri Lankan security personal remain on high alert on April 23, 2019, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Atul Loke/Getty Images

I wish people like Ms. Freeland worried more about anti-Christian violence internationally. And again whistle me no dogs. Most persecuted Christians are not white, from victims of Chinese government repression to those driven from their historic Middle Eastern communities by mob violence (first they came for the Jews), even in Bethlehem. Meanwhile, good luck denouncing anti-Semitism at the UN. Still, the possibility of genocide if Israel ever lost a war, or the wrong people got nuclear weapons, should be near the top of our security agenda. As for terror specifically, the Islamist kind is the biggest threat, especially to non-white Muslims.

Obviously we’re against all hate in principle and all terrorism in practice. But if we’re going to prioritize, it should be saving lives not sounding “woke” that tops our list. And white nationalism just isn’t that big a problem. It may be ugly, but it has few adherents and kills few people.

I wonder if the very Liberal's target is either free speech - shutting down all criticism of Islam, or, perhaps it is 'nationalism' of any kind as it runs counter to the far-left's global ideology.

Saudi Arabia Beheads 37 People, Mostly from Shia Minority, Puts Body on Display

37 People in one day qualifies as a massacre in my books. So far, in 2019,

the total number of beheadings in the kingdom has surpassed 100.

In spite of this inhumanity, Quebec prefers Saudi oil to Alberta's.

Go figure!

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends a graduation ceremony for the 95th

batch of cadets from the King Faisal Air Academy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 23, 2018.

© Reuters / Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court / Bandar Algaloud

Riyadh has drawn outrage from human rights advocates after it put to death 37 people and displayed a mutilated body of one of them on a pole. The execution was carried out after "sham trials," Amnesty International said.

The ultra-conservative kingdom on Tuesday beheaded 37 of its citizens in its biggest mass execution in three years and first of that scale since Mohammed bin Salman became the heir apparent to the throne in June 2017. AP reported, citing Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed, that at least 34 of those who were executed were members of the country's Shia minority. According to Al-Ahmed, it became the "largest execution of Shiites in the kingdom's history."

The Saudi Interior Ministry said that the men were subjected to capital punishment for their role in spreading extremist ideologies and establishing terrorist cells. Those executed, the ministry argued, were bent on fueling sectarian tension and plunging the country into chaos. Some were found guilty of killing law enforcement officers, staging attacks against security infrastructure, and assisting an enemy of the state.

A beheaded body of one of the men, reported to be a Sunni militant, was pinned to a pole and put on public display.

While the Saudi government insists that all the executions were perfectly in line with the law, Amnesty International sounded the alarm over what it called a "shocking execution spree."

The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Amnesty reported that 11 men were found guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia's archrival, Iran, while 14 others were sentenced to death for "violent offences" they allegedly committed while taking part in anti-government protests against the Saudi government in 2011-2012.

The protests rocked the country's Eastern Province, home to the Saudi Shia minority, who demanded an end to anti-Shia discrimination and the release of political prisoners. Riyadh's crackdown on dissent led to the execution of the leader, Shia cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, in 2016. Al-Nimr was put to death along with 46 other prisoners in the largest mass execution since 1980.

20 Year Old Sentenced to Beheading and Crucifixion in Saudi Arabia

Amnesty further noted that one of the prisoners executed on Tuesday was a young Shia man who had not come of age at the time of his alleged offence. The group said that Abdulkareem al-Hawaj was just 16 when he was arrested and found guilty of crimes linked to his participation in the anti-government protests.

Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty's Middle East research director, said that the men were convicted after "sham trials" and were forced to confess under torture.

"It is also yet another gruesome indication of how the death penalty is being used as a political tool to crush dissent from within the country's Shia minority," she said.

Saudi Arabia Will ‘Return to Moderate, Open Islam’ – Crown Prince

What's the Difference Between Saudi Arabia and ISIS? Not Much!

Saudi Arabia have executed over 100 people since the beginning of the year and is on pace to surpass last year's total – 149.

‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’: Lord Admiral Slams Maritime Museum for Gender-Neutral Ships

Lord Admiral Sir Alan West stands beside a "living statue" dressed and painted as Admiral Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar Square © AFP / Adrian Dennis

The de-gendering of ships by a maritime museum is “political correctness gone mad,” a retired senior British Royal Navy officer has said. He warned conceding to pressure groups is a “very dangerous road” to go down.

Admiral Lord Alan West was responding to the Scottish Maritime Museum’s decision to introduce a “gender neutral interpretation” of ships, following a spate of vandalism targeting the words ‘she’ and ‘her’ on one of their signs.

Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, phoned BBC Radio 4’s Today show, to argue that boats have been referred to as ‘she’ for centuries, and scraping that tradition would be “absolutely stupid.”

It’s stark staring bonkers and political correctness gone mad…

an insult to a generation of sailors, the ships are seen almost

as a mother to preserve us from the dangers of the sea and

also from the violence of the enemy.

David Mann, director of the maritime museum, in Irvine, Scotland, claims they have been forced into making the changes, saying offended vandals have targeted their “very expensive” signs for a second year in a row.

In other words, vandalism is now in control. And if vandals want gender neutral ships in the Royal Navy, then the ships will be neutered.

The museum will now phase in the use of new gender neutral signs, having recognized the changes in society around gender neutral interpretation, despite previously having followed the universally-adopted maritime tradition of referring to vessels as female.

Lord West, who served under Gordon Brown’s Labour government between 2007 and 2010, warned that it’s a “very dangerous road we are going down” if changes are made to age-old traditions, based on the concerns of “tiny pressure groups.”

A spokesperson for the Royal Navy has insisted the tradition should not be changed, adding: “The Royal Navy has a long tradition of referring to its ships as ‘she’ and will continue to do so.”