Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Majid Rafizadeh • January 5, 2021 at 5:00 am
More than 100 Congressmen recently signed a letter expressing their support and urging presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden to rejoin the nuclear deal, which, incidentally, Iran never signed. Biden... also appears to be on board with the lawmakers to appease the mullahs: "I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations. With our allies, we will work to strengthen and extend the nuclear deal's provisions, while also addressing other issues of concern." — CNN, September 15, 2020. This means that as sanctions will be lifted against the Iranian regime, the ruling clerics will ensure the survival of their theocratic establishment and militia groups across the Middle East. Have these lawmakers and Biden learned nothing from recent history? Some may argue that Iran's mullahs would change their destructive behavior if they were rewarded in advance with appeasement policies and financial incentives. This argument, however, has been proven to be breathtakingly wrong. Tehran also used that influx of revenues to expand its influence throughout the region, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon -- and as far away as Venezuela. Iran apparently sees Venezuela as its "beachhead for diplomatic and commercial expansion into Latin America," including "underground 'missile cities'" along the Gulf coast. "You young people should be assured that you will witness the demise of the enemies of humanity, meaning the degenerate American civilization, and the demise of Israel". — Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on his official website after a meeting with students, Reuters, May 22, 2019.
Amid the pandemic, some US Congressmen already appear to be spending their political capital on one thing: Appeasing the Iranian regime and pushing for a softer policy towards the mullahs. Pictured: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Photo by khamenei.ir/AFP via Getty Images)
Amid the pandemic, some US Congressmen already appear to be spending their political capital on one thing: Appeasing the Iranian regime and pushing for a softer policy towards the mullahs. More than 100 Congressmen recently signed a letter expressing their support and urging presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden to rejoin the nuclear deal, which, incidentally, Iran never signed. Entering the nuclear deal again would lift sanctions against the Iranian regime. The letter, led by Reps Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), David Price (D-N.C.); Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA.), read: "We are united in our support for swiftly taking the necessary diplomatic steps" in order to "return both Iran and the United States to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a starting point for further negotiations."
Continue Reading Article
by Khaled Abu Toameh • January 4, 2021 at 5:00 am
When someone with George Kurdahi's weight and stature openly states that it is up to the Arab countries to decide whether they want to make peace with Israel, this sends a message to millions of Arabs that the idea of establishing relations with Israel may not be a bad one after all. This, needless to say, is a refreshing change, especially because it is coming from a country such as Lebanon, which is effectively ruled by Hezbollah and the mullahs in Iran. "If the weapons [of Hezbollah] undermine the State of Lebanon and are an obstacle to the return of many Arabs to Lebanon, then there needs to be re-examination of the situation. Hezbollah must reconsider its positions so that we can ensure a prosperous future for Lebanon." — George Kurdahi, one of the Arab world's most influential TV presenters, YouTube, December 26, 2020, Lebanon. Kurdahi may have "shocked" his audience by speaking out in favor of peace with Israel and by criticizing the Palestinians and Hezbollah. His words, however, hardly surprised those who read and listen to what many Arabs in the Gulf have been saying about the Palestinians and Hezbollah, as well as peace with Israel. These Arabs also have a clear and powerful opinion of Hezbollah: a manipulative and murderous terrorist group that serves as proxy for the mullahs in Iran and poses a real threat not only to Israel, but to Lebanon and other Arab countries as well.
When someone with the weight and stature of George Kurdahi, one of the Arab world's most influential TV presenters, openly states that it is up to the Arab countries to decide whether they want to make peace with Israel, this sends a message to millions of Arabs that the idea of establishing relations with Israel may not be a bad one after all. (Image source: Yahya Al Qahtani/Flickr/CC by 2.0)
George Kurdahi is one of the Arab world's most influential TV presenters. On December 26, 2020, he surprised many of his fans by stating that Arab countries are entitled to normalize their relations with Israel. The Lebanese-born Kurdahi, ex-host of the Arabic version of the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" also angered many Arabs and Muslims by criticizing the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization and the Palestinians. Until recently, Kurdahi was considered a supporter of Hezbollah and an opponent of relations with Israel. Kurdahi's statements, during an interview with Lebanon's Sawt Beirut International TV, reflect the views of a growing number of Lebanese and Arabs regarding the issues of normalization with Israel, Hezbollah's destructive policies and actions, and widespread disillusionment with the Palestinians residing in Arab countries.
Continue Reading Article
by Pierre Rehov • January 4, 2021 at 4:00 am
"30 years is long enough to place ballot boxes." — Sami Gailani, blaming the UN for the conflict in the Western Sahara that had been frozen for 30 years; Euronews; November 17, 2020. "There is no Sahrawi people as there is a French, American or Moroccan people," stated the political scientist Alexandre Greenberg. "The only institution that claims to represent the Sahrawi people is the Polisario Front, a Marxist guerrilla group armed by Algeria." Through these agreements, stemming from the Trump doctrine, which redraw the map of an Arab world more united in the face of Iranian threats and Turkish ambitions, a modern myth is shattering -- that of "international law" represented by the false omnipotence of the United Nations. The agreement forged by His Majesty King Mohammed VI and the United States is a feat of great statesmanship -- a firm diplomatic triumph for peace in the Middle East.
The agreement to normalize relations with Israel, forged by Morocco's King Mohammed VI and the United States, is a feat of great statesmanship -- a firm diplomatic triumph for peace in the Middle East. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)
In December 2020, Morocco became the fourth Arab-Muslim country -- after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan -- to announce the normalization of relations with Israel, including direct flights from Tel Aviv to Rabat. The relationship between the two countries has long been rooted the large number of Jews who had lived in Morocco before and after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Moroccans who immigrated to Israel in the two decades following its establishment became one of the most important components of the new state's population. Today, they and their descendants comprise nearly one million people, whom Morocco's King Mohammad VI can consider distant supportive sympathizers.
Continue Reading Article
by Guy Millière • January 3, 2021 at 5:00 am
"As President, I have no higher duty than to defend the laws and the Constitution of the United States. That is why I am determined to protect our election system, which is now under coordinated assault and siege". — President Donald J. Trump, December 2, 2020. "The top line here is very simple: [Many people] used a coordinated strategy across six battleground states -- you've got Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- a coordinated strategy to stuff the ballot box with mail-in and absentee ballots, and do it in a way where they bend and often break the law..." — Peter Navarro, regarding his report, "An Indecent Exposure," Newsmax, December 21, 2020. There are accusations that many politicians in America are not even slightly interested in fair elections or equal justice under law -- only about attaining power and keeping it in perpetuity. "Make no mistake: voter fraud is real. [Many people], the media and the so-called public interest groups on the political Left will tell you otherwise, but they are either lying or totally ignorant. Voter fraud is a threat to the integrity of our elections, the heart of our democracy—and [many people] want to make the problem worse with their new voting laws." — Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, Newsweek, June 7, 2020. The evidence gathered is available to be seen. That judges dismissed lawsuits without seeing it does not make it disappear. Many commentators apparently accept the idea that Biden will soon be president and resign themselves to it. Others apparently have decided that accepting so much lawlessness is unacceptable. It could, they assess, undermine American democracy, fatally erode American institutions, and plummet the country into an authoritarian future, foreign or domestic, and economic ruin. "Weak-kneed [politicians]," columnist Charlie Eastman wrote, "who choose to wave the white flag instead of fighting to the last man to challenge the fraud that occurred in the 2020 election are committing political suicide".
(Image source: iStock)
November 3, 2020. New York. Midnight. A reporter on television said that election vote counting had been stopped in several states. At this point, President Donald J. Trump seemed in a position to win and easily to have a second term. Commenting a bit later, he said, "We did win," but added a warning: "We don't want them to find any ballot at four o clock in the morning". By morning, everything had changed. Thousands more ballots had appeared. States where Trump had a clear lead displayed different results. Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have won. Three days later, on November 7, Biden delivered a victory speech. Trump repeated, "I won this election". He added, "by a lot".
Continue Reading Article
by Amir Taheri • January 3, 2021 at 4:00 am
To start with, it made most of us understand that as members of the human species, we are all in the same leaking boat. The pandemic was like a general amnesty or a conflagration that transcends boundaries and includes everyone, high or low, rich or poor, young or old. One other important feature of the crisis may have been the reassertion of capitalism as the surest means of coping with a disaster hitting us out of the blue. The huge mass of available capital with historically low interest rates.... and virtually inexhaustible productive capacities across the globe, provided many nations with a shield against potentially fatal economic and social shocks. The year just ending taught us not take things for granted and to value even the most pedestrian joys that existence allows us, such a walk in a park....
(Image source: iStock)
As 2021 begins, one is reminded of the verse by Persian poet Masud Saad Salman, hoping that the new year would not resemble the old one. Masud, of course, was expressing that hope from the Nay Fortress where, having fallen from the grace in the court of a local despot, he had been imprisoned for a year, and was to remain there for the rest of his life. He lamented the fact that Saturday was like Friday and April like March and his share of sunshine reduced to a sickly ray from a hole in the roof of his cell. In other words, he wasn't doing any better than many us did in the year just ended. But, let us be provocative, didn't 2020 have any redeeming feature? I think it did.
Continue Reading Article
by Judith Bergman • January 2, 2021 at 5:00 am
In June, China Daily filed a disclosure with the Justice Department showing that, since November 2016, it had paid $19 million to U.S. media outlets, including $12 million to newspapers such as the Washington Post and New York Times. China Daily's ads -- in a strategy known as "borrowing a boat to go out on the ocean" -- come in the form of advertising supplements, inserts called China Watch... camouflaged to look like the other news content of the media outlets in which they appear. The practice does not seem to have caused any sort of actual uproar in those media circles that engage in it... This reticence is odd... but because so many journalists and editors consider themselves as standing up against racism, ethnic and religious discrimination, and human rights abuses. Taking money from the Chinese Communist regime in exchange for spreading its propaganda would seem to indicate that this stance is simply empty posturing.
The Chinese government-controlled English language newspaper, China Daily, in 2020 paid a variety of US media outlets nearly $2 million for publishing propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party, according to a disclosure that China Daily filed with the US Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Pictured: The entrance to the offices of China Daily in Beijing, on January 18, 2007. (Photo by Voishmel/AFP via Getty Images)
The Chinese government-controlled English language newspaper, China Daily, in 2020 paid a variety of US media outlets nearly $2 million for publishing propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a disclosure that China Daily filed in late November with the US Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), according to Daily Caller. China Daily has reportedly been registered as a foreign agent under FARA since 1983, which means it is required to report its activities and financial transactions to the Justice Department.
Continue Reading Article
by Soeren Kern • January 1, 2021 at 5:00 am
A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy. The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Moreover, Germany turned a blind eye as multiple serial human rights abusers, including China, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan and Venezuela, among others, were elected to the UN Human Rights Council, the UN's highest human rights body. In 2020, Germany voted 13 times to condemn Israel, but failed to introduce a single resolution on the human rights situation in Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela — or on 175 other countries, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based, independent non-governmental watchdog group. "While nearly all EU countries backed 13 out of 17 UNGA resolutions singling out Israel this year, they failed to introduce even one resolution for women's right [sic] activists jailed and tortured in Saudi Arabia, dissident artists arrested in Cuba, journalists thrown behind bars in Turkey, religious minorities attacked in Pakistan, and opposition members persecuted in Venezuela, where more than five million people have fled government repression, hunger and economic collapse." — UN Watch, December 16, 2020. Germany pursued a similar policy of approving anti-Israel resolutions at the UN in 2018, 2017, and 2016, when Germany voted for an especially disgraceful UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel as the world's only violator of "mental, physical and environmental health."
A close examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy. Pictured: Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (left) and Ambassador to the UN, Christoph Heusgen attend a UN Security Council meeting on March 28, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
Germany's two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council ended on December 31, 2020. The German Foreign Ministry, in a self-congratulatory compilation of its supposed achievements to "strengthen the international order," declared that Germany now deserves to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. A closer examination of Germany's voting patterns at the UN over the past several years, however, reveals a troubling double standard on a range of issues, especially on human rights, which the German government claims to be "a cornerstone" of its foreign policy. The record shows that during its stint on the UN Security Council, Germany voted for dozens of resolutions — many of which smack of anti-Semitism — that singled out Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
Continue Reading Article
by Richard Kemp • December 31, 2020 at 5:00 am
Under a Biden administration, many will be mindful of the Obama-era sell-out of America's Middle East allies while accommodating the hostile Iranian ayatollahs. Despite the optimistic indulgences by foreign policy experts and politicians over decades, China will not reform to allow normal coexistence within the world order but must instead be contained. A modern alliance to resist today's "attempted subjugation and outside pressures" should focus not only on China and the immediate challenges of 5G technology and supply chains, but also on the other major strategic threats to democratic states.... The object should not be... to lecture governments such as Hungary, Poland and Romania... While [Biden] may find their internal policies unpalatable, they pose no threat to any other country. An interests-based, rather than ideological, alliance of strategically like-minded democracies should be built, each with the economic power and will to counter the authoritarian entities that oppose the Free World.... The alliance should work to push back the authoritarians and radicals across the economic, cultural, political, cyber and technological realms and deny them access to critical infrastructure and technology as well as opportunities for cultural subversion. It should also act to deter their further advances. An important function of the proposed alliance would be to encourage member states, and their allies against authoritarian and extremist entities, to both provide adequate defence resources and where necessary adapt and modernise forces to ensure credible deterrence. If a country lacks the confidence to stick up for its own values at home, how is it to robustly defend its virtues against those who wish to undermine them? This weakness in Western democracies has already allowed great strides across the world by China, Russia and jihadism and has helped create the situation that a D10 alliance is now urgently needed to repair.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to use the G7 summit that Britain is hosting in 2021 to launch the "D10", intended as an alliance of democracies to counter China. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to use the G7 summit that Britain is hosting in 2021 to launch the "D10", intended as an alliance of democracies to counter China. His proposal is for the G7 group of leading industrialised nations to be joined by Australia, South Korea and India. The focus would be on developing 5G telecommunications technology to reduce dependence on Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party as well as reliance on essential medical supplies from China. President-elect Joe Biden put forward a somewhat similar initiative in 2019 and it is widely believed that he plans to convene a "Summit for Democracies" in 2021. It appears his intention is broader than Mr Johnson's both in scope and participation, and that it includes promoting liberal democratic values across the world.
Continue Reading Article
by Uzay Bulut • December 31, 2020 at 4:00 am
Sadly, Hüseyin Nihal Atsız still has many fans in Turkey. "As the mud will not be iron even if it is put into an oven, the Jew cannot be Turkish no matter how hard he tries. Turkishness is a privilege, it is not granted to everyone, especially to those like Jews... If we get angry, we will not only exterminate Jews like the Germans did, we will go further...." — Hüseyin Nihal Atsız, in his National Revolution (Milli Inkılap) journal, 1934. Today, behind many of Turkey's continued aggressive policies such as its anti-Armenian, anti-Greek, anti-Cypriot, anti-Jewish, anti-Kurdish, anti-Western, and anti-Israeli activities lie the racist views of Atsız and the like. Millions of Turks have for decades been poisoned with Atsız's Nazi-like views.
In November, the Istanbul metropolitan municipality, led by Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), named a park in Istanbul's Maltepe district after Hüseyin Nihal Atsız, a racist anti-Semite and one of Turkey's most prominent Nazi sympathizers. Pictured: CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu (left), waves to supporters at a rally in the Maltepe district of Istanbul on July 9, 2017. (Photo by Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images)
In November, the Istanbul metropolitan municipality, led by Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), named a park in Istanbul after Hüseyin Nihal Atsız, a racist anti-Semite and one of Turkey's most prominent Nazi sympathizers. The request was made by members of another Turkish opposition party, "The Good Party" (Iyi). Atsız (1905-1975) was known for "measuring skulls" to determine people's "amount of Turkishness." In March, a member of the Good Party presented a motion to the Istanbul municipal assembly, calling for a park in Istanbul's Maltepe district to be named after Atsız. The motion stated that Atsız spent most of his life in the Köyiçi region of Maltepe, and the subject was put on the assembly's agenda in November. After the motion was passed by the assembly, the park in the Yalı Neighborhood officially received Atsız's name.
Continue Reading Article
December 31, 2020 at 3:00 am
On August 20, 2020 Gatestone published an article by MEF writer Jackob Glogauer that included incorrect claims about Ahmad Attia. We apologize for publishing the article and have since deleted the article.
by Gordon G. Chang • December 30, 2020 at 5:00 am
China's economy is worse than it appears, and its vaccines, needed for a full recovery, are still in development, far behind America's. In the meantime, Beijing's response to the coronavirus, which includes the smearing of America, is resulting in China losing friends worldwide. Government stimulus is powering much of the current growth as are net exports. Yet the current "flood of defaults" in China points to widespread weakness. Beijing's spending spree, therefore, is not sustainable, even with the help of foreign investment. Ultimately, the economy will recover only when China has an effective and safe vaccine. Although the Chinese have had months of head start, they are far behind America. China is fast losing support in capitals around the world. It is not hard to figure out why. Chinese ruler Xi Jinping deliberately spread the virus beyond China's borders — by lying about the transmissibility of the disease and, while locking down Wuhan, forcing countries to take arrivals from China — and others are now starting to understand the maliciousness of the Communist Party. Moreover, they are learning about its venality. For instance, China this spring sold Italy medical protective gear that Italians had donated to Beijing a few weeks earlier.
China's economy is worse than it appears, and its vaccines, needed for a full recovery, are still in development, far behind America's. In the meantime, Beijing's response to the coronavirus, which includes the smearing of America, is resulting in China losing friends worldwide. (Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.K.-based Centre for Economics and Business Research believes that, due to China's superior response to COVID-19, the Chinese economy will become the world's largest by 2028, five years earlier than previously forecast. "For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China," the Centre wrote in a December 26 report. "The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China's favor." No, it has not. In fact, the opposite looks to be true. The Centre's prediction, which mimics one of Beijing's narratives, is more than just premature. It is based on fundamentally wrong assumptions.
Continue Reading Article
by Bassam Tawil • December 29, 2020 at 5:00 am
While Abbas is talking to the international community about his desire to achieve a peaceful settlement alongside Israel, his Fatah faction is sending messages to the Palestinians that glorify the "armed struggle" against Israel and that promise a "revolution until victory" -- meaning replace Israel. The poster chosen by Fatah to celebrate the January 1, 1965 anniversary of the first terrorist attack against Israel depicts a map of "Palestine" superimposed over the entire state of Israel. It is important to note that Fatah is one of the groups forming the Unified Leadership of the Palestinian Resistance. When the Palestinians talk about "resistance," they are referring to actions such as throwing rocks and firebombs at soldiers and settlers, as well as stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. Abbas has long been dreaming of a multi-party conference that will impose a solution on Israel. He does not want to hold direct negotiations with Israel. Abbas claims to the international community that he just wants to establish a Fatah-controlled Palestinian state next to Israel, with the help of the UN, Russia, China, and the European Union.... He does not want Biden and other world leaders to hear the messages of violence that Fatah is spreading (in Arabic), including his pledge to "liberate Palestine." What Fatah is saying in Arabic is infinitely more important than what Abbas writes in a letter to the UN secretary-general or to any world leader.... Failure to call out the Palestinians for their self-contradictory messages will not advance any cause of peace, but, on the contrary, only further embolden Palestinians to carry out more terrorist attacks and thwart the way to peace.
If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is sincere about holding a peace conference, he first needs to order his Fatah lieutenants to stop inciting violence against Israel and urging his soldiers and citizens to "liberate Palestine." (Photo by Alaa Badarneh/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinian ruling Fatah faction has just celebrated the 56th anniversary of the launching of its first terrorist attack on January 1, 1965 by promising, in Arabic, to continue the fight to do away with Israel. On that day, Fatah terrorists attempted to bomb Israel's National Water Carrier. Meanwhile, Fatah's leader, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to persuade the Arab countries and the rest of the international community to pressure Israel to return to the negotiating table with the Palestinians. He is arguing that he is just seeking to establish an independent Palestinian state next to Israel.
Continue Reading Article
by Soeren Kern • December 28, 2020 at 5:00 am
"We continue to call on Russia to cease using its energy resources for coercive purposes. Russia uses its energy export pipelines to create national and regional dependencies on Russian energy supplies, leveraging these dependencies to expand its political, economic, and military influence, weaken European security, and undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. These pipelines also reduce European energy diversification, and hence weaken European energy security. — U.S. Department of State, "Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act," October 20, 2020. On December 24, the Kremlin admitted that U.S. sanctions may succeed in preventing completion of the pipeline. The U.S. government is now readying a fresh round of congressionally mandated sanctions that could deal a fatal blow to the project, according to the Reuters news agency. A report by the Swedish Defense Research Agency found that Russia has threatened to cut energy supplies to Central and Eastern European more than 50 times. Even after some of those states joined the European Union, Russian threats continued.
The United States is ratcheting up the threat of sanctions against European companies in an effort to deal a death blow to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. Pictured: The Nord Stream 2 landfall facility in Lubmin, Germany, on September 7, 2020. (Photo by Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)
The United States is ratcheting up the threat of sanctions against European companies in an effort to deal a death blow to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. The pipeline would double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany by transporting the gas under the Baltic Sea. U.S. President Donald Trump, like his predecessor Barack Obama, has criticized the project because it would make Germany "captive" to Russia for its energy supplies. Trump has been especially critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, in opposition to the United States and many Eastern European countries, has doggedly pursued the pipeline project, which would funnel billions of dollars to Russia at a time that Germany is free-riding on the U.S. defense umbrella that protects Germany from that same Russia.
Continue Reading Article
by Raymond Ibrahim • December 27, 2020 at 5:00 am
"They tried to force some of our Christians to convert to Islam. They also tried to force my wife and our four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, they shot my wife in the head while our four children were cut into pieces with a Somali sword. — Morningstar News, Democratic Republic of Congo. "Islamic militants turned a village soccer field in northern Mozambique into an execution ground when they beheaded more than 50 people during three days of savage violence.... More than 2,000 people have been killed and about 430,000 left homeless in the region since 2017." — Barnabas Aid, Mozambique. For two months after kidnapping a deaf and mute Christian teenage girl her, five Muslim men repeatedly gang-raped and tortured her. All this time, police ignored the parents' pleas to intervene. It was only when a local authority took up the case, and only after months of court meetings, that the girl was located and returned to her parents. One of the kidnappers insisted the girl had willingly converted to Islam and married him. — British Pakistani Christian Association, Pakistan.
On November 15 in Iran, Zaman Fadaei, a convert to Christianity, was lashed 80 times because he sipped communion wine. He was whipped at Evin Prison, where he has been serving a six-year prison sentence for organizing a house church and "promoting Zionist Christianity." Pictured: Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran. (Image source: Ehsan Iran/Wikimedia Commons)
The following are among the abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of November 2020: The Slaughter of Christians Indonesia: On Nov. 27, Islamic terrorists beheaded a Christian priest and killed three other Christians by slitting their throats in Lembantongoa village. During the raid, a Salvation Army church and six Christian homes were also torched. While acknowledging that an Islamic militant group was responsible, authorities claimed that the attack was not "religiously motivated." One human rights researcher said that this "latest strike was a 'clear escalation' of violence against Christians." Democratic Republic of Congo: From November 20-25, in a number of villages, members of the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces slaughtered approximately 20 Christians. According to a clergyman who lost his family in the massacres:
Continue Reading Article
by Amir Taheri • December 27, 2020 at 4:00 am
One remembers lazy afternoons spent discussing the fate of mankind and providing answers to non-existent existential questions, and warm evenings visiting exhibitions of structuralist paintings with no structure, rounding up all that at sunrise with a generous bowl of onion soup in the fruit and vegetable market in Les Halles. Having nowhere to go and nothing interesting to do, being in Paris these days feels like being in Moscow in the 1960s when the only excitement was provided by rumors about the arrival of new supplies of potatoes or a one-day availability of hot chocolate in Cafe Pushkin. The roots of this unbelievable population control, something even Lenin could not dream of, may be found in the culture of dirgisme (overall control) that assumes the governments know best even when they admit they don't.
(Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)
"You are lucky to be in Paris at this time," says a friend phoning from New York. "Here, we are like rats in a box, going round and round." In the past few weeks I have heard similar lamentations from friends in London and Berlin, not to mention Beirut and Tehran. It must be the name of Paris that leads our interlocutors into imagining the rosy times that I am supposed to have in these dark and dreary days of the coronavirus pandemic in the City of Light. The image they have of Paris is the one depicted by countess movies, novels and travelogues of a bubbling city dedicated to generating joy. After all, Ernest Hemingway called it "a moving feast" while Henry Miller saw it as "an improvement on paradise". Iranian novelist Sadeq Hedayat believed Paris was the best place to live and die in. This was, perhaps, why he spent years there in exile before committing suicide.
Continue Reading Article
|
koobas.hobune.stream
