What Happened When an Anti-Semite Found He was Jewish?

'We're not willing to look at the achievements of other peoples. We're afraid their cultures might be as valuable as ours'.

By Nick Thorpe
BBC News, Hungary

Csanad Szegedi speaking as a member of Jobbik in 2012

Three years ago, a Hungarian far-right politician with a strong line in anti-Semitism discovered that he was Jewish. He left his party, and set out on a remarkable personal journey to learn and practise his Jewish faith.

Only seconds before he goes on stage, Csanad Szegedi paces the school corridor like a bear in an unfamiliar forest. Then the headmaster's introduction is over, the pupils who pack the hall are clapping enthusiastically, and the big man is going up the steps, the blood roaring in his ears.

The confidence returns and he plays to the crowd, just as he once did at party rallies, or as a member of the European Parliament.

He comes across a bit like the American singer Johnny Cash. "Hello, I'm Csanad Szegedi." And the schoolchildren of the Piarist Secondary School in Szeged hang on every word.

"I'm speaking to you here today," says the tall chubby faced man, with small, intelligent eyes, "because if someone had told me when I was 16 or 17 what I'm going to go tell you now, I might not have gone so far astray."

As deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party in Hungary, Szegedi co-founded the Hungarian Guard - a paramilitary formation which marched in uniform through Roma neighbourhoods.

And he blamed the Jews, as well as the Roma, for the ills of Hungarian society - until he found out that he himself was one. After several months of hesitation, during which the party leader even considered keeping him as the party's "tame Jew" as a riposte to accusations of anti-Semitism, he walked out.

Hungarian national guard

Members of the Magyar Garda, or Hungarian Guard
Complete with attitude. Notice the sign.

Not a man to do things in half-measures, he has now become an Orthodox Jew, has visited Israel, and the concentration camp at Auschwitz which his own grandmother survived.

He discovered that his grandmother wore long-sleeved shirts, or a plaster in summer, to cover the tell-tale concentration camp number tattooed on her arm. As his old personality collapsed, Szegedi performed radical surgery on himself. He even set fire to copies of his own biography, I Believe in the Resurrection of the Hungarian Nation.

Today he speaks to the students without notes, sometimes striding along the stage, sometimes sitting back in a chair, but keeping their attention with a mixture of confessions, family histories, and jokes.

His volte-face seems complete - there are giggles from the girls, awkward squirming from the boys in the audience as he describes his circumcision. Then come the questions.

"Did you know any Jews before you discovered your own Jewish roots? How do you react when you hear anti-Semitism expressed today? Were you a practising Christian before you practised Judaism? Was it hard to break with your party?"

The answers are straightforward.

"Anti-Semitism doesn't need Jews, because its based on false premises. It is the projection of one's own fears, and lack of self esteem." He had a Protestant wedding, but was never christened. Every rupture was hard, but he tried to do it peacefully, and state firmly his own mistakes. And also did his duty to point to the extremism in his old party.

Csanad Szegedi talking to pupils

Later, we meet in a Budapest flat in a popular pedestrian street - one of several he rents out. While once he sold far-right paraphernalia, like T-shirts and flags, he's now moved into real estate, with equal success.

It's as though everything he touches turns to gold.

What does he think of the new, more moderate direction, imposed on his former party by leader Gabor Vona? I ask. If Vona succeeds, might he even consider rejoining it, this time as a practising Jew, rather than an anti-Semite?

Szegedi laughs. "Only the BBC would ask me that question!"

"Vona had to turn to the centre. But the party is still full of people who joined it for its radicalism, its nationalism, its extremism. And they don't want anything less now. So there is a limit to how moderate it can become." There is no way back into politics for him, he insists.

Still a patriot, he defends his people from the slur of racism. Hungarian people are not anti-Semitic, although there is an anti-Semitic discourse in society, he says.

In fact, Budapest is a great place to be a Jew in, he beams - with its kosher restaurants, synagogues, and Jewish shops. You can practise your culture, and practise your faith here. You might get funny looks if you wear a kippah - a traditional Jewish skullcap - but you won't be spat on, or physically threatened as you might be in France or Belgium.

"The paradox of Hungarian nationalism," says the man who used to fly its banner, "is that we are proud of our own achievements, but we're not willing to look at those of other peoples. We're afraid their cultures might be as valuable as ours."

Two Suspects Dead after Shooting Outside Muhammad Art Exhibit in Garland, Texas

Fox4news

Two suspects were shot dead by police on Sunday outside the Curtis Culwell Center where a Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest was being held.

The New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative event included a "Draw the Prophet" art contest. Event organizers had heavy security in place ahead of time, including metal detectors at the door and a perimeter established around the building and its parking.

During the shootout a Garland ISD security officer was struck and was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The officer, identified as 8 year veteran Bruce Joiner, was released hours later.

A Garland Police spokesperson says a vehicle arrived at the scene about 7 p.m. and started firing weapons. The two suspects were met with police fire and were shot dead.

The Curtis Culwell Center, located at 4999 Naaman Forest Blvd, was immediately locked down. Nearby areas, including a shopping center, were evacuated as a precaution. SWAT and bomb squads were called in to the area to check the suspect's car for possible explosives.

Footage from Sky4 showed robots examining the suspect's vehicle.

Eventually individuals from inside the Culwell Center were evacuated out safely.

I should hope police charge the event organizers for all the extra work. I certainly agree in principal to what they were doing, but there is a smell of 'baiting' in the whole thing. I would be very careful with the next display.

Putin Extends Control over 'Independent' Media

Putin pledges state support for independent mass media

President Vladimir Putin (C) attending the Second Media Forum of independent regional and local mass media, "Truth and Justice", sponsored by the Russian Popular Front at the Lenexpo Exhibition Center in St.Petersburg, April 28, 2015. (RIA Novosti / Alexei Druzhinin)

RT
The Russian president has told the participants of a major media forum that society was interested in the development of independent mass media, and the state would lend support to both government-owned and private companies in this sphere.

Vladimir Putin made this statement on Tuesday as he spoke before the media-forum of the United Popular Front, a political support organization made up of those who support the president’s policies, but choose not to join any political party.

One of the journalists participating in the event complained that the private company he worked for had difficulties in competing with state-owned mass media, as the latter received help from the authorities in the form of low office rent, subsidized transport and computers, and even subsidies for staff wages. “We are surviving on our own during the crisis and we have found ourselves in completely non-market conditions,” the reporter complained.

“If we take a formal position it is all right for the state to pay for its own organizations, but society as a whole is also unconditionally interested in the development of the independent sector in mass media,” Putin answered. “We must develop the system of support that would help everyone,” he added.

"Your job is to ensure that the problems that exist everywhere in our country be resolved in a civilized fashion," Putin told reporters, noting that otherwise the potential for public protest could grow and suddenly erupt in an unpredictable fashion. "I would like to thank you for doing your job right. As I was listening to you I thought: who would dare say we don't have free media?" he added.

Ah, that would be me! My first thought is to say, "Don't do it!" Don't allow the government to be the difference between a successful operation and a marginal one. Once that happens, you are owned by the government.

My second thought was, "What"? "Your job is to ensure that the problems that exist everywhere in our country be resolved in a civilized fashion,". In other words, don't stir up controversy regardless of the injustices occurring. Don't say anything that would cause people to doubt the sincerity of the government. That's your job! But that does not remotely resemble a free media.

However, the Russian leader noted that it was important to prevent abuse of mass media by various forces. “We must surely push for the situation when no one would even attempt to use the mass media to achieve some business ends or any other interests not connected with the objectives of society or the regions,” Putin said. That is, not connected to government objectives. No competition for the oligarchs.

He also criticized the media outlets that allowed an excessive amount of advertising. “Print media must not be simply a spot for ads, they must carry useful information,” he said.

Russian bloggers have responsibilities of mass media but few of the rights

Aleksey Kazakov noted that after the adoption of the legislative amendments concerning bloggers in August 2014, the latter received additional responsibilities, but gained scarcely any additional rights.

The current Russian law orders the authors of all blogs and social media accounts with 3,000 daily readers or more to register with the state watchdog Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identities, verify the information before making it public and abstain from releasing reports containing slander, hate speech, extremist calls or other banned information such as, for example, advice on suicide. Also, the law bans popular bloggers from using obscene language.

Violations of the law carry administrative responsibility and are punishable with fines.

She Left Islam After Reading the Quran

by, Brenda Walker | V Dare -|- Dale Hurd | CBN

CBN reporter Dale Hurd recently interviewed Mona Walter, an ex-Muslim living in Sweden, to learn about her spiritual journey. After she left Somalia for Scandinavia as a refugee, she read the Koran for the first time and discovered the truth of what Islam is about. Her search eventually led her to Christianity, but her mission is still with Islam, namely to tell Muslims what the Koran really says.

Truth-tellers, particularly when the subject is Islam, often face a lot of resistance. Walter gets death threats and sometimes needs security when she travels. She is brave to do outreach to the Allah tribe, but the hostile reaction of Muslims again demonstrates what a monster the west has created by allowing Islam immigration.

Mona Walter is my hero for today

Ex-Muslim: Koran Revealed a Religion I Did Not Like

CBN News, By Dale Hurd,

GOTHENBURG, Sweden — Mona Walter is on a mission. Her mission is for more Muslims to know what is in the Koran. She says if more Muslims knew what was in the Koran, more would leave Islam.

Walter came to Sweden from Somalia as a war refugee when she was 19. She says she was excited about joining a modern European nation with equal rights for women. But as a young Muslim woman, that was not the Sweden she encountered.

A Real Introduction to Islam

It was in Sweden that she first experienced radical Islam on a daily basis.

“I discovered Islam first in Sweden. In Somalia, you’re just a Muslim, without knowing the Koran. But then you come to Sweden and you go to mosque and there is the Koran, so you have to cover yourself and you have to be a good Muslim.”

Walter says she grew up in Somalia never having read the Koran.

“I didn’t know what I was a part of. I didn’t know who Mohammed was. I didn’t know who Allah was. So, when I found out, I was upset. I was sad and I was disappointed,” she recalled.

And it was in Sweden that Walters says she discovered Allah is a god who hates, and that Islam is not a religion of peace.

“It’s about hating and killing those who disagree with Islam. It’s about conquering. Mohammed, he was immoral. He was a bloodthirsty man. He was terrible man, and Muslims can read that in his biography — what he did to Jews, how he raped women, how he killed people. I mean, he killed everyone who didn’t agree with him,” she explained.

Discouraged, Walter left Islam and became an atheist, until one day a family member encouraged her to read the Bible. She still remembers the first time she read Matthew 5:44, where Jesus said to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Christianity, a New Perspective

“It was very strange for me to ‘love your enemy,’ because in Islam it is ‘kill your enemy.’ ‘Kill your enemy and anyone who refuses Islam.’ But Jesus Christ was all about love and peace and forgiveness and tolerance, and for some reason, I needed that,” she said.

She went to see Pastor Fouad Rasho of Angered Alliance Church, a Syrian immigrant who ministers to former Muslims in Sweden.

“She started to believe and she came to me. And that was the beginning of her trusting,” he said.

When she accepted Christ, Walter said she felt “so happy” and “filled with joy.”

Walter says the Lord gave her a burden for Muslims who still do not know the truth about Islam. And she began to study the Koran, and began copying verses from the Koran and handing them out on the street to Muslim women.

Quran

Rescuing Muslims with Truth

“Sometimes they listen and sometimes they become very upset, and I tell them, ‘You know your husband has a right to beat you if you don’t obey him?’ And they say ‘No, It does not say that.’ ‘Yes, it does say that.’ I thought if I tell them about Muhammed and about the Koran and about this god of Islam who hates, who kills, who discriminates against women, maybe they will have a choice and leave,” she explained.

But in politically correct Sweden, Walter has come under attack for simply repeating what is in the Koran.

“I’ve been called an ‘Islamophobe,’ and yeah [they tell me], ‘You’ve been bought,’ ‘You’re a house nigger,’ and stuff like that, terrible things, ” she said.

She has also been called a racist. Walter warns that Islamic radicalism is a serious threat in Sweden, and says Swedish society should care more about women trapped in Islam.

“[Swedes] will think, ‘Oh, we’re in Sweden; we have freedom of religion,’ but Muslim women don’t have freedom of religion. They live under the law of Allah, not under Swedish law. So they will suppose everyone has freedom of religion. We don’t have freedom of religion. It’s not for Muslim women. It’s for everyone else,” Walter argued.

Walter lives under death threats and sometimes travels with police protection. She wanted to show us Muslim areas around Gothenburg, but had to first dress as a Muslim. She believes if she were to show her face, she would be attacked.

“I can never go to those areas just being me, flesh and blood Mona. I would never get out of there alive,” she said.

“I mean, Muslims are normally good people like everyone else,” she continued. “But then when they read the Koran, then they become a killing machine.”

“This so-called ISIS, al Shabab or Boko Haram, they’re not like extremists. They’re not fanatical. They’re just good Muslims, good Muslims who follow the teachings of Islam. The prophet Mohammed, he did that. They’re doing what he did,” she explained.

So, she seems to be saying that the 'peaceful' Muslims are quite ignorant of the Quran and Mohammed's life. That if they actually read it, they would either reject Islam for the evil that it is, or they would become radicalized. 

That should put the fear of God into liberal politicians who keep inviting more Muslims into western countries, but, I'm sure it won't, because they have made up their minds and could never come into agreement with a conservative. The west will suffer unimaginably for their intransigence.

Walter now uses videos and speaking appearances to spread her message. And she says she won’t stop, even though her life is in danger.

See her interview here.

ISIS Militants Execute 600 Yazidis Northern Iraq - Updated!

BBC is now reporting the incident although they are using the number 300, not 600. In any case it's genocide and more worth of the 7th century than the 21st. 2 May, 2015, 21:36P

A word of caution: this story is all over the internet, however, it has not been picked up by any major news service that I am aware of. Consequently, I have some doubts about its credibility. It's possible that it was fabricated to try and get the world's attention back on the desperate plight of the Yazidi people. 

Yesterday's post on my other blog may also be in that vein, although some of the facts I have read before.

ARA News
May 2, 2015Middle East & World

Erbil, Kurdistan Region – On Friday the so-called Sharia Court of the Islamic State group (IS/ISIS) reportedly executed 600 hostages from the Yezidi community of Shingal (Sinjar) in the Talafar district in northern Iraq.

The group piled the bodies into the well of Alo Antar on al-Ayyadiya highway, local sources reported.

Shahin Shingali, a fighter in the ranks of the Peshmerga forces, stated to ARA News that since Friday the IS radicals transferred nearly 700 Yezidi hostages to Talafar.

“Without a direct intervention by the international community, Iraq will be witnessing more genocides against innocent people at the hands of the IS terrorists,” Shingali said.

Aseel al-Nujaifi, governor of Nineveh province in Iraq, confirmed on Friday that the IS terrorists executed hundreds of Yezidi captives. 

“A new crime was committed by Daesh (Islamic State) against our Yezidi people on Friday,” al-Nujaifi said in a statement.

“IS gangs executed hundreds of innocent Yezidi prisoners.” 

“These terrorists are degrading Islamic religion. (Is that even possible?) Muslim clerics should bear their responsibility to show the public the reality of this terrorist group, demonstrating how it is diametrically opposed to the correct, tolerant teachings of the Islamic religion,” al-Nujaifi added.

Actually, it is exactly what the Quran teaches!

Commenting on the incident, the Yezidi writer and researcher Salem Rashidani told ARA News: “We have received reports saying that IS militants executed the Yezidi men in the district of Talafar in Nineveh province, after isolating them from their families, throwing their corpses in the valley near the city.

Syria Regime in Greater Peril Than any Time

Growing strains on Al Assad’s manpower becoming obvious, magnitude of losses are too big to hide

Rebel fighters from the Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement cover their ears
during the launch of grad rockets from Idlib countryside towards forces loyal
 to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, who are stationed at
Jureen town in al-Ghab plain in the Hama countryside

BY LIZ SLY, WASHINGTON POST

Beirut: A surge of rebel gains in Syria is overturning long-held assumptions about the durability of President Bashar Al Assad’s regime, which now appears in greater peril than at any time in the past three years.

The capture on April 25 of the town of Jisr Al Shughour in northern Idlib province was just the latest in a string of battlefield victories by rebel forces, which have made significant advances in both the north and the south of the country.

As was the case in the capital of Idlib province last month, government defences in Jisr Al Shughour crumbled after just a few days of fighting, pointing as much to the growing weakness of regime forces as the revival of the opposition.

The battlefield shifts come at a time when the Obama administration has set aside Daesh (IS) in Syria to focus on its chief priorities: defeating Daesh in Iraq and concluding a nuclear deal with Iran.

Yet the pace of events in Syria may force the United States to refocus on the unresolved war, which remains at the heart of the turmoil engulfing the Middle East, analysts say. Iran backs Al Assad, Saudi Arabia backs the rebels, and a shift in the balance of power in Syria could have profound repercussions for the conflicts in Iraq and Yemen.

Game Changer

“We’re seeing a game changer right now in Syria,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist. “I think we are going to see an end to the Al Assad regime, and we have to think now about what will happen the day after, because the day after is near.”

Other observers say the prospect of a government collapse in Damascus is still remote. The capital is well defended, and the rebels’ gains have come mostly on the periphery of the country, where the regime’s supply lines are stretched.

But perceptions that Al Assad will survive indefinitely or serve at least as an interim counterbalance to Daesh and its strongholds in northeastern Syria are in doubt, said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The growing strains on Al Assad’s manpower and resources “are becoming extremely obvious, and the magnitude of his losses are now too big to hide,” Hokayem said.

“This destroys the narrative that he is winning, which he was counting on, and also the argument that he is the best option against Daesh,” the analyst added. “If he’s not able to take on or even defend against the rebels, he’s going to have a hard time presenting himself as able to fight Daesh.”

The revival of rebel fortunes is attributed to a large degree on the recent rapprochement between a newly assertive Saudi Arabia and its erstwhile rivals for influence over the rebels — Turkey and Qatar.

Since inheriting the throne in January, Saudi King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has moved forcefully to challenge the expanding regional influence of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s biggest foe, most publicly by embarking on an air war against Houthi militiamen in Yemen. He has also acted to shore up the flagging and deeply divided rebels in Syria against the Iranian-backed Al Assad, in coordination with Qatar and Turkey, Khashoggi said.

Saudi Arabian air strike

‘Major rifts’

The result has been an unexpectedly cohesive rebel coalition called the Army of Conquest that is made up of Al Qaida affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra, an assortment of mostly Islamist brigades, and a small number of more moderate battalions. The coalition, which launched last month, has proved more effective than expected.

After seizing most of Idlib province in recent weeks, the rebels are pressing south toward the government strongholds of Hama and Homs and are threatening the Al Assad family’s coastal heartland of Latakia. A separate, more moderate rebel coalition has been making swift advances in the south, challenging government control over the key provincial capital of Daraa and making progress north toward Damascus.

Just as significantly, government forces have been proving increasingly ineffective. The collapse of two much-trumpeted offensives earlier this year, in southern Syria and in Aleppo, presaged the success of the recent rebel offensives, suggesting that even if the government can remain in control in Damascus, its chances of regaining the rest of the country are slipping.

There are signs that the regime itself is fraying under the strain of the four-year-old war. On Friday, pro-government news outlets reported the death of political security director Rustom Gazaleh, a longtime Al Assad stalwart, after months of rumours that he had fallen out with the regime, been badly beaten up by a rival and was languishing in hospital.

The reports followed the firing last month of the military intelligence chief, Rafiq Shehadeh, another inner-circle loyalist. Western diplomats monitoring events in Syria from Beirut say the two men appear to have clashed with the Al Assad family over the growing battlefield role played by Iran.

The tensions are reaching into the heart of the Al Assad family, whose four-decade-old rule had seemed unshakeable until the revolt erupted in 2011.

Hafez Makhlouf, Al Assad’s cousin, was fired late last year as head of security in the province of Damascus and has since fled the country, the diplomats say. Another cousin, Munzer Al Assad, was detained this month amid rumours that he had been plotting a coup.

Sudden collapse possible

“It looks like there are major rifts going on inside the Al Assad regime,” one of the diplomats said. “A military collapse on the regime side is not impossible.”

Much will depend on Iran, which has stepped up in the past to dispatch men, money and arms whenever Al Assad seemed to be faltering. But Iran is stretched, too, by the economic effects of continued international sanctions and by the competing demands of the war next door in Iraq, which has diverted some of the Iraqi militias that had been fighting for the regime in Syria.

In a commentary for the Middle East Institute in the past week, Robert Ford, a former US envoy to Syria, said a regime collapse cannot be ruled out. The regime’s schisms, its battlefield setbacks and its manpower shortages “are all signs of weakness,” he wrote. “We may be seeing signs of the beginning of their end.”

Then what?

That's the big question. What or who will take Al Assad's place if and when he falls? Will he align with Iran, with Saudi Arabia, with Daesh, or none of the above? The only thing I would take odds on right now, is that whatever happens, it will probably be worse than anyone expects. Wait, darn, my glass is half empty already.

Iran Violating UN Sanction on Nuclear Technology

As nuclear negotiations continue, Iran is actively seeking to procure nuclear technology through blacklisted companies in violation of UN sanctions.

Iran is actively seeking nuclear technology through blacklisted companies in violation of UN sanctions, Britain warned the UN according to a confidential report. The P5+1 and Iran are working out the final details of an agreement intended to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“The UK government informed the panel on April 20, 2015 that it ‘is aware of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network which has been associated with Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA) and Kalay Electric Company (KEC),’” said the report, which was seen by the AFP. “Given the late communication, the panel could not independently investigate the above information.”

gas centrifuges

KEC was blacklisted by the UN because it is a shell company used by Iran to conceal its nuclear program. Until 2002, when operations moved to Natanz, KEC facilities served as the primary site for Iranian centrifuge R&D. TESA was involved in the production of Iranian centrifuges, which they operated at KEC. In 2003, the IAEA asked to inspect the site, and was told that KEC manufactured watches.

In response to the report, US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “We remain concerned about their procurement, taken steps to designate entities for procurement in the recent past.”

Nevertheless, nuclear negotiations with Iran continue despite this and other signs of bad faith on the part of Iran since the signing of the framework agreement.

Iran has said it will not allow its military sites to be inspected by nuclear inspectors, and insists that all sanctions be dropped as soon as a nuclear agreement is signed.  It calls for death to America and Israel at official events.

Russia has decided to proceed with the sale of air defense systems that could be used to protect Iranian nuclear facilities from airstrikes.

Reported by United with Israel staff

So, one would think that Israel would have to strike Iran's nuclear facilities before the Russian protection system is installed and operational. Anyone have any idea how long that would take?