Tlaib Blames Israel for Palestinian Muslim Honor Killings

By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
Breaking News Israel

“Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right, for I will not acquit the wrongdoer.” Exodus 23:7 (The Israel Bible™)

A young Palestinian woman was brutally murdered in an honor killing and true to form,

Congressman Rashida Tlaib does not blame the fists that beat the young woman to death but,

rather the Israeli “occupation” that compels Palestinians to murder.

Femicide: Killed for an Instagram Post

Israa Ghrayeb, a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of Bethlehem, died last week amid conflicting reports of how she died. Israa was killed in her hospital bed after receiving treatment for a spinal injury she sustained jumping off the balcony of her family home, reportedly while fleeing male relatives. Her family insists that she died of a heart attack but in a video recorded outside her hospital room her screams and the shouts of her attackers are clearly heard. 

Other sources, most notably the Palestinian Human Rights organization Adalah Justice Project, are claiming Israa was tortured and beaten to death by her male relatives in a case of femicide, or, as it is more commonly known an honor killing. 

Israa’s crime was posting an Instagram video showing her with her fiancé. Among the family members named in the reports as responsible for Israa’s death is her brother, Ihab, who attends college in Canada. 

Apparently, being alone with your fiance is against Sharia.

Tlaib Cites Article: Honor Killing Not Muslim or Arab But Caused by Israel

Congressman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) posted a tweet decrying the murder.

Rashida Tlaib✔

@RashidaTlaib

"Isra’s death illustrates an ever-present toxic masculinity and control over women’s bodies and lives." 

Help get #JusticeforIsraa by exposing the truth: https://baby-fist.com/get-inspired/isra-gharibs-murder-exposes-stories-of-power-we-cant-ignore …

Her tweet linked to the Palestinian feminist website Babyfist. The article was prefaced by a disclaimer about honor killings, more accurately referred to as femicide: 

Honor killings are not Muslim and they are not Arab. This is a universal phenomenon which takes places in nearly all corners of the globe, from the United States to Europe. The US president stands accused of rape. Honor killings were legal in Italy until the 1970s and still happen today. Do not use this narrative to reinforce dangerous stereotypes of Arab culture and Islam. Patriarchy exists every where. 

Though technically correct, the disclaimer is a lie. According to Haaretz, 11 Palestinian women in the West Bank and nine in the Gaza Strip were suspected victims of femicide last year. Social pressure on families prevents accurate reporting. In North America, a study of 172 honor killing incidents worldwide involving 230 victims, 91 percent of the perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, 84 percent of the killers were Muslim. In Europe, Muslims constituted 96 percent of the killers. 

Even worse, the article goes on to claim that since femicide is not linked to culture or religion, femicide is caused by “social and political power structures present in Palestine, in the occupation, and even in diasporic activism.” It seems clear that under the Palestinian Authority which administrates Bethlehem, Israa’s murder will go unpunished. 

The article names two culprits responsible for Israa’s death and other cases of femicide: “Israeli military occupation and a corrupt Palestinian Authority.”

Palestinian protesters are demanding the law be changed in the Palestinian Authority but that will be difficult. The Palestinian Parliament has not functioned since 2000 and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently in the 13th year of a four-year term, has yet to act on a petition with 12,000 signatures submitted to him requesting the law be changed. 

UN Blames Israel for Palestinian Violence Against Women

This claim by Babyfist that was picked up by Tlaib is not a recent invention. At the 35th session of the Human Rights Council, Ms. Dubravka Šimonović, Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, presented her findings from a visit to Israel. Her report to the UNHRC focused on the “gendered impact of the occupation”. She cited a “clear link between prolonged occupation and gender-based violence”, blaming the prevalence of violence against Palestinian women by Palestinian men entirely on Israel. 

As if it doesn't happen in a hundred other countries where Israel has no presence or influence. They ignore the very obvious problem of male over-dominance of women and girls in Islamic society. Sharia prefers to keep women invisible by covering them head to toe when in public. Is this because Islamic men have no self control? They can't seem to control themselves but insist on the privileged of controlling women in Muslim society.

These antiSemitic ravings remind me a little of Flip Wilson.

This premise was challenged by UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer who noted that her report failed to bring any data or facts to substantiate this claim.

“Is it right to continue infantilizing Palestinians, such that when a man in Ramallah beats his wife, we encourage him to say ‘Israel made me do it’?” Neuer stated. “Why did you fail to mention that official Palestinian TV regularly broadcasts Islamic preachers who tell the people how to beat their wives?” he said, citing several examples. 

“The hitting is a kind of reminder that the love and friendship that Allah commanded is still found between the couple,” Neuer said, quoting a Mufti in Gaza.

The Babyfist article went on to criticize the lack of international attention on the case while also criticizing its overage in the Israeli media.

“Doubtless some Hebrew articles being published by some Zionist news outlets to try and pink-wash occupation,” the article writes. The intention was that the “Zionist news” is using the murder of Israa to discredit the Palestinian cause.  

Tlaib: Israel Responsible for Palestinians Murdering Jews

Neur’s claim that the UNHRC report “infantilized Palestinians” should go double for Rashida Tlaib. Not only did she cite an article blaming the murder of a Palestinian woman by her Palestinian brother but she also blamed Israel for a Palestinian terrorist attack which killed a Jewish teen-aged girl two weeks ago, Tlaib blamed Israel. 

Tlaib retweeted a post by the anti-Israel group IfNotNow which blamed the attack specifically on “the occupation”, a historically and factually inaccurate term anti-Semitic groups use to refer to Israel.

My comments above would appear to 'infantilize' Sharia-bound Muslims as well. Perhaps this needs more exploration.

Texas: Muslim Murders his Sister’s Friend in Honor Killing for Encouraging his Sister to Marry a Christian

BY ROBERT SPENCER
Jihad Watch

Islamic law forbids Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men. And there will be much, much more of this in America: 

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. 

The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer.

“Texas man pleads guilty in 2012 so-called honor killing” 

Associated Press

Nesreen Irsan, the widowed daughter,
testified against her father in court.

A Texas man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for what prosecutors call the “honor killing” of an Iranian rights activist who was his sister’s friend.

Nasim Irsan pleaded guilty to murder Thursday in Houston. Irsan could have faced life in prison if convicted of capital murder for the January 2012 fatal shooting of Gelareh Bagherzadeh (GEL’-uh-ray buh-GAR’-zuh-day).

Prosecutors say Irsan’s family is Muslim and was angry that his sister wed a Christian and converted. Bagherzadeh encouraged her friend to marry Coty Beavers. He was slain in late 2012.

Irsan’s father, Jordanian immigrant Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan, was convicted last year of capital murder in both shootings and sentenced to death. 

I wonder if Nasim and his father are feeling honorable as they sit in prison for the rest of their lives.

US-Purchased Arms End Up With ISIS in Yemen

'It's a tip of an iceberg': Bulgarian journo reveals how US-purchased arms

end up with ISIS in Yemen

Keep in mind that this report is from RT, nevertheless, it is perfectly in keeping with the many

reports where I have accused the USA of supplying arms to more than one side of a conflict. 

Mortar shells shown in an Islamic State propaganda video have put a Bulgarian journalist on the scent of an alleged US-run arms shipping network supplying militants in the Middle East, she told RT in an exclusive interview.

This story began back in June, when Islamic State terrorists in Yemen demonstrated several Serbian-made 82mm mortar shells in their propaganda video. Independent investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, believes that the deadly munitions ended up with the jihadists after going through US hands.

Tracing origins

Clearly visible on one of the shells is a mark that reads '82 mm M74HE mortar shells KV lot 04/18.' The letters KV stand for the Serbian state arms manufacturer Krusik, located in the town of Valjevo, while the digits 04/18 refer to lot 04 produced in 2018. One should not jump to any conclusions, however, as it is not the Serbs who were responsible for the shells suddenly appearing in the hands of terrorists, according to Gaytandzhieva.

A trove of "explosive" leaked documents she said she received from an "anonymous source" shows that the lot in question was part of a deal between the Serbian arms factory and a Pentagon contractor, Alliant Techsystems LLC. It was part of a purchase of more than 100,000 such shells "for the needs of the US government."

"In the shipping documentation and on the labels on the mortar shells' containers, there is a name of… the importer… that purchases the weapons on behalf of the US government," the journalist told RT, citing the documents.

"There are indications and information about a US federal contract, under which these weapons were purchased, and this is absolutely verifiable in the case of Alliant Techsystems LLC, the company, which purchased the mortar shells and this particular lot of weapons pictured in the ISIS video in Yemen."

Some leaked documents published by Gaytandzhieva do indeed mention a contract between Alliant Techsystems LLC and the Pentagon, which was allegedly aimed at supplying the Afghan National Army. "This lot was purchased under a $50 million contract between Alliant Techsystems and the US DoD for the delivery of non-standard US weapons to Afghanistan," the journalist said.

Gaytandzhieva believes, however, that this case is just the tip of the iceberg. It could be a part of a far-reaching arms supply scheme involving up to "three million pieces of weapons – rockets and mortar shells – that have been diverted either to Syria or to Yemen."

Weapons ending up with terrorists is OK, as long as Obama did it: The world according to CNN.

'Corporate international weapons shipment network'

The leaked documents, which include emails, internal memos, photos and correspondence between the American arms dealers and the Serbian arms factory Krusik, have helped Gaytandzhieva to "expose the existence of a secret US special command unit code-named "Task Force Smoking Gun." That unit has allegedly operated an arms depo since at least 2017, which is used in shady arms shipping operations by the US and its allies.

"I found that four private American companies were US government contractors and they were commissioned by the Pentagon to deliver non-US standard weapons to different destinations. According to the other leaked documents, I found that one of these destinations was Syria.

"This is a whole international weapons shipment network," the journalist explained to RT, adding that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also using it for its operations alongside the US. "The scheme is using different routes and diplomatic flights diverting weapons via a third party to their final destination, which appears to be Syria or Yemen."

Gaytandzhieva said that she investigated at least "350 diplomatic flights carrying weapons for the last three years" by the same Azeri state-run company that delivered the mortar shells to Afghanistan in 2018. "They made technical landings with stays varying from a few hours to up to a day in intermediary locations without any logical reasons such as needing to refuel the planes," she wrote in a separate report investigating this particular issue.

"That means that this international weapons shipment network has never [ceased to exist] and continues [it operations] to this date."

RT has managed to independently verify parts of Gaytandzhieva's report by finding the contracts between Alliant Techsystems LLC and the Pentagon that she mentions in the US Federal Procurement Data System. It has also been established that the company has regularly worked for the US Department of Defense since at least 2016.

Denisovans, Mysterious Human Relatives, Looked Just Like Us in At Least 1 Way

Rediscovery of missing finger bone shows slender fingertips

unlike knobby Neanderthal finger bones

Some human groups have more than five per cent Denisovan DNA

Emily Chung · CBC News 

Denisovans were originally identified from DNA in a bone from the base of the pinky finger of a young girl, shown above. Now the rest of that bone has been rediscovered, showing the entire bone is similar to that of modern humans and different from the fingertip of Neanderthals, which are more closely related to Denisovans.

They may have had huge, brutish-looking teeth, but Denisovans — ancient cousins of humans and Neanderthals — had slender, delicate fingertips like ours, a new study shows.

After rediscovering a missing piece of one of only five Denisovan fossils ever discovered, researchers from France, Russia and Canada digitally reconnected the two halves from the tip of the pinky finger from a Denisovan girl. 

The reconstruction showed it was indistinguishable from a human fingertip and different from the knobbed or clubbed fingertip bones of Neanderthals, they reported Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

The finding is a small piece of the puzzle in figuring out who the mysterious Denisovans were, given that only five small fossils of the hominin species have ever been found.

"Until now, all we knew was how their teeth looked," said Bence Viola, a University of Toronto anthropologist who co-authored the paper. "All these little pieces allow us to build a picture of who the Denisovans were."

The image above shows the bone from the tip of the pinky finger from, left to right, a Neanderthal, modern human and Denisovan. (Bennett et al./Science Advances, licensed under CC BY NC)

The new finding suggests researchers looking for Denisovan fossils might have to be more open-minded about what to look for, and that some fossils previously identified as modern humans may, in fact, be Denisovans, said Eva-Maria Geigl, an anthropologist at the Institut Jacques Monod at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique and the University of Paris who also co-authored the report.

More closely related to Neanderthals

Denisovans were first identified in 2010 as a new species of hominin using DNA extracted from the bottom half of the finger bone. Genetic analysis showed Denisovans were more closely related to Neanderthals than modern humans, but Denisovans interbred widely with modern humans, and some human groups have more than five per cent Denisovan DNA.

Re-writing Early History of Mankind - Again

Neanderthals - Incest, Interbreeding and Possibly Pedophilia

Complex Human DNA Trail Provides Some Interesting Surprises - Neanderthals & humans interbred 100,000 years ago

However, scientists know little about what they looked like, other than the fact they had massive molars similar to those of a more ancient hominin, Homo erectus.

Viola was a postdoctoral researcher at the lab Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig that analyzed the DNA from the bone from the base of the fingertip. What the researchers didn't know at the time was that after the bone was excavated from Denisova Cave in Siberia in 2008, it was cut in half.

The finger bone was excavated at Denisova Cave in 2008. (Bence Viola)

They only learned a couple of years ago that the other half had been sent to a different lab in the U.S. for analysis.

That half was subsequently photographed and measured by Geigl, who noticed that it had been cut. After she analyzed it genetically, she realized that it had exactly the same DNA as the bone that identified the Denisovans as a new species, and therefore must be part of the same bone.

But because the DNA analysis had already been published by the German researchers, and she was asked to return the bone to the U.S., she set the project aside.

2 halves reunited

Some years later, she said, she spoke to the Viola and the German researchers about the bone, which they didn't know about.

"It was a shock to us that somebody had the other half," Viola said in a phone interview from Kyrgyzstan, where he was doing field work.

Geigl offered to show the bone to them and suggested they find some way to publish the information.

"It's pity that nobody knows the no one knows that I'm the only one who has the pictures of this bone in my computer," she recalled telling them.

Viola was keen to see the photos, but quite surprised when he received them.

"This looks very different than what I expected," he recalled, writing in response.

The Denisovans had large, unusual teeth unlike those of humans or Neanderthals. (Bence Viola/University of Toronto)

Based on their huge teeth and a small fragment of skull, he had the impression Denisovans were even heftier and therefore less human-like than Neanderthals: "All of those are very large and robust. They come from huge individuals."

Geigl said the fact the bone looked more human than Neanderthal wasn't really a surprise for her. "Evolution is not something linear. Some features evolve faster than others."

The new finding suggests the knobs on the ends of Neanderthals' fingertips evolved relatively late.

Knobs on the fingertips suggest devolution, not evolution.

Viola combined the images of the two halves to reconstruct of the entire finger. That allowed the researchers to see that based on the growth of the bone, the girl it belonged to was likely a couple of years older than previously thought — about 14 or 15.

Matthew Tocheri, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Human Origins at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., and was not involved in the study, said he thought the results were "kind of neat."

Like Geigl, he thought the similarity to humans was not that surprising. He noted modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans are all closely related, and, in fact, many Neanderthal and human features are indistinguishable. The fingertips just happen to be one difference.

Similarly, many Denisovans characteristics will likely be very human-like, and we don't yet know their "distinguishing" features, he said.

Tocheri said it was nice to have a bone that could be compared in modern humans, Denisovans and Neanderthals. But he added, "That's one bone out of over 200 elements to the skeleton. So we've got another 199 or so to go."

NASA Pulls Climate Data Out of Hats Like Rabbits

Historical temperature data post 2015 look very different from pre-2015 data

By Dr. Jay Lehr 

Late last year NASA scientist Martin Mlynczak, announced that the Earth may be cooling. It was surprise because data manipulation has been going on for many years at both NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency) and NASA (National Aeronautic and Space Agency).

The most current temperature curves produced by these agencies track well with the increases in man’s carbon dioxide emissions in recent decades. However a few years earlier the data presented looked nothing like that of more recent times.

For years Climate activists in charge of NOAA and NASA were surprised that their own data and satellite measurements had been showing the climate to be stable or cooling since 1998 while CO2 levels had continued to rise. They were under intense pressure to explain how this could be in the face of all the alarmist reports put out by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

It was time to resort to the strategy that progressives use in times of crisis. If you do not like the facts, ignore them. 

The publication Frontiers of Freedom in their February 23, 2016 issue documented what has been done in an article by T. Richard titled “How NOAA Rewrote Climate Data to Hide Global Warming Pause”.

The falsification of climate data by NOAA and NASA covers more than just the past decade. The U.S. has published temperature data beginning in 1880 up to the present. Tony Heller shows how their data has been tinkered with many times in past years, in The History of NASA/NOAA Temperature Corruption.

The graph of the NASA data from 1880 to the year 2000 (below) was posted in 1999. On the same chart is the data NASA posted for the very same years in 2016. This obvious alteration of reality should be an embarrassment to NASA, but it appears not to be.NASA pulls climate data out of hats like rabbits

Representative Lamar Smith former chair of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee demanded that NOAA and NASA produce their data for independent analysis. NOAA refused to release the subpoenaed documents. Judicial Watch has sued NOAA under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain access to their data. So far nothing has been turned over.

The climate curve recalculated in 2016 is now in complete agreement with the global warming movement. The cooling trend between 1940 and 1970 has been eliminated. 

Remember my article revealing 30 year temperature cycles? This cooling trend roughly lines up with the one I pointed out in 2015. To be followed by a warming period of 30 years through to near the end of the century, then another cooling (or non-warming) cycle which we are in now. it should last until about 2030 whereupon, the cooling temperatures of the upper atmosphere may well reach the earths surface. The greenhouse effect may temper the cooling trend along with the 30 year cycle, but many scientists around the world are more concerned about global cooling than global warming. Certainly, if the sun-spot minimum lasts more than 30 or 40 years, the latter part of this century may be much cooler than most people expect.

The data now show that temperatures are increasing along with our rising carbon dioxide. The new curve shows the Earth’s temperature increased 1.4 degrees C since 1880. Temperatures that are out of line with the prediction of alarmists are gradually and systematically adjusted and replaced by corrected computer generated temperatures. Children who are fed this new data are being recruited to beg us to save their futures.

Children are also being stressed out that the world will come to an end if they don't act now. What kind of evil craziness is that? Major media outlets and governments are deliberately raising the panic level among children. It is extremely irresponsible.

The truth seeping out from NASA was first reported in the New American magazine by James Murphy in October of 2018 where he quoted Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center saying “High above Earths’s surface, near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, it could soon set a Space Age record for cold”. 

Major media outlets completely ignored this information.

This new revelation comes from NASA’s SABER instrument aboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. In plain talk SABER stands for Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry and TIMED stands for the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics.

SABER monitors infrared radiation from carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide which are two of the gases that play a major role in releasing energy from the thermosphere at the top of our atmosphere which encapsulates our planets heat. Mlynczak, who is the associate principal investigator for SABER said “the thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimums. It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle effects our planet”. Solar Minimums as the words would indicate are periods of less activity spawning a decrease in radiation launched toward the Earth.

While pondering this surprise comment from NASA in a January 30, 2019 post, author Michael Sherlock said “all any of this proves is that we have at best, a cursory understanding of Earth’s incredibly complex climate system. So when mainstream media and carbon credit salesman Al Gore breathlessly warn you that we must do something about climate change, it’s alright to step back, take a deep breadth, and realize that we don’t have the knowledge, skill or resources to have much effect on the Earth’s climate.”

Author
Dr. Jay Lehr
Jay Lehr is the author of more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles and 36 books. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government, as well as many foreign countries. He is a leading authority on groundwater hydrology.

Salvini's Gamble Leaves Italy Lurching Back to the Left, for Now

'It was supposed to be a sort of coup by Salvini,' but a new political majority in Italy is emerging instead

New coalition leaves far-right League party's Salvini out in the cold

Megan Williams · CBC News 

At the height of the mid-August holidays, after barely a year in power, the populist ruling coalition of the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement and the far-right League party came undone at the hands of Deputy Prime Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini. (Remo Casilli/Reuters)

With the crumbling of Italy's coalition government and the scramble to form yet another, this latest crisis to grip Italy could be seen as just one more confusing chapter in a country where chaos has been the one political constant.

At the height of the mid-August holidays, after barely a year in power, the populist ruling coalition of the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement and the far-right League party came undone at the hands of League leader Matteo Salvini.

Salvini was in the midst of a "beach tour." As he licked gelato, posed for shirtless selfies and ranted against migrants, his party shot high in the polls, far above the Five-Star, which just months earlier had been Italy's most popular party.

Eyeing his moment, Salvini pulled out of the coalition last month and went for broke by seeking a no-confidence vote that he hoped would trigger a fall election.

"It was supposed to be a sort of coup by Salvini, who was aiming to exploit his political support of almost 40 per cent for a snap election," said political expert Lorenzo Castellani. "But we are a parliamentary republic, and it's possible that a new political majority might emerge instead."

That is exactly what happened.

For all his political acumen, say observers, Salvini seemed to forget that after the last election more than a year ago, the Five-Star had tried to hook up first with the leftist Democratic Party to form a coalition. It was only after the Democrats rejected the Five-Star's advances that the populist movement turned to the League for their marriage of convenience. The Five-Star, which had risen to prominence with large public rallies called F-off Days aimed at politicians perceived as corrupt, were proving to be far more like the class of people they once so boisterously flipped the middle finger at — namely politicians.

Giuseppe Conte was widely mocked as a 'Mr. Nobody' when he was chosen as the compromise prime minister in the first coalition government. Now, he's basking in praise in both the Italian and international press for his 'charisma,' 'gravitas' and 'steel' after his departing Senate smackdown of Salvini following a year of silence. (Remo Casilli/Reuters)

As this latest government crisis inches forward, the Five-Star proposal last week to form a coalition with the Democrats seems so far to be sticking, with outgoing Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tasked with forming this second alliance.

The largely unknown law professor was widely mocked as a "Mr. Nobody" when he was chosen as the compromise prime minister in his first coalition government. Now, Conte is basking in praise in both the Italian and international press for his "charisma," "gravitas" and "steel" after his departing Senate smackdown of Salvini following a year of silence.

This political cartoon from Il Foglio has Italians suddenly perceiving their once

'Mr. Nobody' Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte as 'more and more handsome by the day.

Why, I think he even looks a bit like Justin Trudeau.'

As Italy says goodbye to a government born of protest, the country is now ushering in one that ties together the protesters with the very people they protested against.

Shared issues

But Cristina Fosane, a professor of political science at Rome's Luiss University, said the new pairing is less antithetical than it seems.

"The way these parties are internally managed is completely different," Fosane said. "Key points in the political process of the Five-Star are driven by the Rousseau platform, the populist's online voting system. It's a party that rather than leading and giving political direction, is given political direction by the base."

But, Fosane said, much of that political direction is closely in line with that of the Democratic Party: the focus on combatting poverty and social exclusion, the protection of the environment, ways of combining economic growth with fiscal stability and a growing pro-EU stance on the part of the Five-Stars.

As shared issues emerge, major symbolic divisions — the fate of Europe's largest steel plant and the construction of a controversial high-speed rail between Italy and France — have, if not disappeared, at least deflated. That is mostly thanks to the Five-Star setting aside populist rhetoric in favour of economic pragmatism.

Even the composition of the Five-Star, once a near evenly distributed melange of left-wing, right-wing and previous non-voters, has tilted more to the left as it's lost support. Over the past months, the party has bled the support of right-wingers.

Salvini support slipping

And after a year of Salvini, who in the role of interior minister dominated Italy's political scene, both the Five-Stars and the Democrats understand more than ever before just exactly what the alternative to their uncomfortable alliance looks like: far-right tirades and harsh 'security decrees' curbing migrants' rights softened by Facebook posts of Salvini with kittens and his favourite chocolate breakfast spread.

Even the former Democratic prime minister Matteo Renzi, who last year went on Italian television to proclaim his party would never strike an accord with a movement that accused the Democrats of being "mafiosi, corrupt, friends of bankers and oil barons" has changed his mind.

But Italy, with its string of failed governments, frenemy pacts and ever-swelling debt, has been a political anomaly as well as a harbinger. Twenty-five years ago when Silvio Berlusconi, a cruise-ship-crooner-turned-TV-tycoon, swept to power on the soccer-chant "Forza Italia!" (Go Italy!) — the world laughed. Now, the world has Donald Trump.

Last year, Italy became the first major European democracy to elect a far-right populist government.

It's not actually 'far-right' just 'right wing'. It appears far-right because everyone else is so far left.

Now, support for Salvini is slipping. And if the Five-Stars and the Democrats are able to put their animosities aside, the country could become the first to stave off this wave before it crests.

But most observers doubt this will happen, even if the next government manages to tackle what previous governments have put off: Italy's outsized debt, high unemployment and anemic growth.

"This government needs to act quickly to pass a new budget [to cut spending and avoid new taxes]," Fasone said. "But even if they do, it could only feed more into the far-right, anti-austerity rhetoric."

Salvini may now be shouting from the wings instead of centre stage, but he's also keenly watching for his next moment, which could be his biggest yet.

Even if he manages to get the most votes in the next election, he has to then find another party, or two, that will work with him in Parliament. He should be cautious about what bridges he burns with Five-Stars.

Merkel and Allies Lose Votes but Hang on in German Elections as Right-Wing AfD Surges

Elections in 2 states - AfD virtually doubles vote count in one

and triples in the other

Journalists watch first exit polls following the regional state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg in Berlin

© Reuters / Fabrizio Bensch

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU and coalition partners SPD have managed to cling to power in two crucial state elections. However, these former strongholds have seen a surge in support for Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The states of Saxony and Brandenburg – once part of former Eastern Germany or DDR– have long been considered bastions of support for Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD). However, parliamentary election results on Sunday have dealt another blow to the so-called ‘Grand Coalition.’

Saxony has been ruled by CDU prime ministers since the 1990s and is considered by some as the party’s spiritual home. However, the CDU saw its support drop to 32 percent on Sunday, down 7.4 points since the last election in 2014, according to an exit poll by German broadcaster ARD. While the party remains the largest in the state, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) came a close second, taking 27.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, up from 9.7 percent in 2014.

Europe Elects

@EuropeElects

Germany (Saxony regional election), FGW exit poll:

Age group: 18-29

AfD-ID: 22%

GRÜNE-G/EFA: 19%

CDU-EPP: 17%

LINKE-LEFT: 12%

SPD-S&D: 7%

FDP-RE: 7%

Brandenburg encircles Berlin, and has been ruled by the SPD since German reunification in 1990. The AfD’s hopes of surrounding the German capital were dashed on Sunday, but not by a wide margin. The SPD won 27.5 percent of the vote, ahead of the AfD's 22.5 percent. In 2014, AfD only managed to score 12.2 percent, while the socialists took just under 32 percent.

While campaigning in Branderburg, AfD invoked the spirit of 1989 to win votes, printing posters bearing the slogan “Wende 2.0,” referring to the German word for 'turnaround,' used to describe the collapse of East Germany. While the party made a name for itself by vocally opposing Merkel’s 'open door' immigration policies, it has also positioned itself as a champion of the relatively disadvantaged east, protesting the planned closure of coal mines and calling for urban regeneration.

While Merkel's Open Doors policy is being blamed here for the surge in AfD support, I think they are missing the point. Open Doors certainly gave rise to the AfD, but the surge in support in 2019 probably has more to do with the handling of migrants since 2015. The government, courts, police and media policy of not naming the nationality of criminals, and going extra easy on them in the courts, has given rise to far-right neo-Nazi groups, but has also caused great disillusionment among average Germans. How can you trust a government that seems to do more to protect criminals than honest Germans?