Facebook caught ‘not just hosting,’ but creating pages for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda thumbnail

Facebook caught ‘not just hosting,’ but creating pages for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda

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By Jihad Watch

While Facebook shut down dissenting opinions regarding the COVID vaccine and continues to censor patriotic conservatives who reject the Left’s agenda by supporting Trump and free societies, the Big Tech giant has shown us who it thinks is deserving of its platform. Facebook has been caught creating pages for the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. According to a watchdog group Tech Transparency Project (TTP): “The company [FB] could potentially be held responsible for these pages as Facebook not just hosting but actually creating them.”

BOMBSHELL: Facebook Caught Creating Pages for ISIS, Al-Qaeda

United with Israel, February 20, 2023:

Facebook is no stranger to controversy, permitting Jew-hatred to fester and giving a free pass to anti-Israel lies and antisemitic propaganda.

The social media giant is now in hot water due to the technology it uses to promote content, which a watchdog group called the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) says automatically creates home pages for U.S.-designated terror groups.

Among the TTP report’s bombshell findings is evidence alleging that Facebook created over 100 pages for ISIS (Islamic State), as well as pages for other terror organizations, including the group behind the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., Al-Qaeda.

TTP reported that Facebook creates the pages based on its algorithm, automatically generating them when users add the terror groups to their profiles. The platform’s so-called ban on the groups apparently did little to prevent the automatic process that generated the terror group pages.

“Some of these automatically generated pages have been living on Facebook for years, racking up likes and posts with terrorist propaganda and imagery,” reported the Jerusalem Post in its coverage of the TTP’s findings. “The company could potentially be held responsible for these pages as Facebook not just hosting but actually creating them.”

This is only the latest chapter in Facebook’s struggles to keep hate off its platform.

Over the last several years, Facebook has been a hotbed for anti-Israel lies and antisemitic propaganda.

At the end of 2022, a post with tens of thousands of likes on Facebook claimed that the Palestinians aren’t playing in the World Cup because Israel is “murdering” their players. The claim was demonstrably false and had zero basis in reality….

Read more.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

GOP Primary Voters Want Candidates to Embrace Cultural Issues, Poll Finds thumbnail

GOP Primary Voters Want Candidates to Embrace Cultural Issues, Poll Finds

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By Family Research Council

A new poll reveals that the overwhelming majority of Republican primary voters want future GOP presidential contenders to embrace hot button issues like gender transition procedures for minors and implementing restrictions on pornography.

The survey, conducted by OnMessage Inc., found that 93% of respondents want candidates to confront parents rights issues, including increased transparency with school curriculums and school activities. A full 76% also want candidates to ban gender transitions procedures for minors, such as surgeries to remove healthy organs, puberty-blocking drugs, and cross-sex hormones.

The poll also found 86% of respondents saying they are more likely to support a candidate that advocated for requiring age verification in order to access pornographic websites.

In response to issues that are considered less contentious, voters showed less enthusiasm, with 59% saying they want a candidate who will push for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and 50% saying they want an emphasis on supporting Ukraine through military aid.

“The fight against the woke issues … that’s where the intensity really was,” said Jon Schweppe, director of Policy and Government Affairs for the American Principles Project, during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last week. “Ultimately, voters are looking for someone who’s going to defend the family, who’s going to fight the woke Left, who’s going to fight to stop these horrific sex change procedures that are being performed on kids. … I think a Republican candidate who emerges from this presidential primary is going to have to be strong on all those issues.”

Perkins pointed to a particularly notable result in the survey indicating less than expected support for protecting women’s sports from men who identify as transgender women. “Sixty-nine percent [who support prohibiting males from competing in girls sports], that’s still a good number. But what was surprising was that it’s even stronger when it comes to these sex change medical procedures. People understand what’s going on and what really matters.”

Schweppe, whose organization released the results of the poll, concurred.

“When you’re talking about puberty blockers as young as seven, eight years old, that’s where voters are really animated,” he observed. “They see it as an issue of life and death because it is. Women’s sports is important and we want to protect these opportunities for girls, but I think it’s a little bit lower stakes. [Gender transition procedures] are a horrific thing that’s being perpetrated on these kids. And it really, really animates Republican voters. And what we’ve found is that in our polling of the general electorate, it’s actually really important to independents and even some Democrats too. It’s a great issue for Republicans to lead on and hopefully do the right thing as we try to stop this from happening across the country.”

The survey’s results appear to rebuke the strategy taken by some Republican candidates and strategists ahead of 2022’s midterm elections, which was to steer clear of divisive social issues. That strategy did not appear to pan out in the midterm results.

The poll also found that GOP primary voters prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over former President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, with DeSantis garnering 53% and Trump receiving 38%.

Schweppe asserted that the growing rivalry between the two men will benefit conservative voters in the end.

“The encouraging thing, especially for social conservatives, is that as Trump and DeSantis fight each other, they’re going to continue to try to outflank each other on all of these issues. [Even with] the Big Tech issue today, they’re kind of outflanking each other with that, trying to do a digital Bill of Rights to make sure censorship doesn’t happen online.”

“I think folks should be excited about the primary. Let’s make sure that we get a strong candidate that can finally take Joe Biden out of office and make sure we can save this country,” Schweppe concluded.

Matt Carpenter, director of Family Research Council Action, was also encouraged by the message voters appear to be sending to presidential candidates through the latest poll results.

“GOP primary voters want to hear their presidential candidates address cultural issues,” he told The Washington Stand. “Many of these voters are motivated by what their children are exposed to in the classroom, or the obsession of the current administration to fund abortion through all stages of pregnancy. They want their nominee to provide a clear contrast to the radical anti-family, anti-faith, anti-life agenda of the current administration.”

“Americans, in general, have opted to vote with their feet and their wallets, by leaving liberal states in favor of more conservative ones and by cancelling subscriptions or deciding to shop elsewhere in order to avoid woke corporations,” Carpenter concluded. “It follows that the GOP would see a similar pattern emerge among their likely primary voters in the upcoming presidential primary.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

French clothing manufacturer offers ‘anti-knife neck guards’ and other safeguards against beheading thumbnail

French clothing manufacturer offers ‘anti-knife neck guards’ and other safeguards against beheading

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By Jihad Watch

Sign of the times.

“When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4)

Celebrate diversity! It is France’s commitment to that alleged virtue that has given rise to this line of clothing. If your nation and civilization is being destroyed, you might as well make a profit off its destruction.

Get your anti-knife neck guards and other Islamophobic gear here.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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Islamic Republic of Iran to reward jihadi who stabbed Rushdie with farmland, says attacker made Muslims happy

Pakistan and Norway agree to work together to prevent incidents of ‘Islamophobia’

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

University of Arizona: Muslim killed prof he thought was Jewish, antisemitic aspects of killing were downplayed thumbnail

University of Arizona: Muslim killed prof he thought was Jewish, antisemitic aspects of killing were downplayed

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By Jihad Watch

In this article about how the antisemitic aspects of the killing were denied or downplayed, the far-Left Forward doesn’t dare consider the question of what made Murad Dervish so violently antisemitic. That kind of investigation might end up being “Islamophobic.” Can’t have that.

by Arno Rosenfeld, Forward, February 15, 2023:

Here are some facts. On Yom Kippur, a former University of Arizona graduate student named Murad Dervish stormed into the earth sciences building on campus. Dervish believed Thomas Meixner, the hydrology department head, was leading a Jewish conspiracy against him. “Kikes should not be allowed to exist anywhere, ever,” Dervish had previously told one faculty member. Dervish allegedly shot and killed Meixner. It was the only such murder in 2022, a year full of antisemitism. It escaped widespread attention until after Thanksgiving.

But there are other facts, too. Meixner wasn’t Jewish. Dervish’s original grievance was over a bad grade. The 46-year-old had a long history of violence, including against his parents, and scared some faculty to the point they had avoided campus. His antisemitism didn’t become public until weeks after the murder, when it was revealed alongside a tirade against Asians. And the national spotlight that Jewish groups eventually shined on the Tucson school? Some local Jews say it made things worse.

Many outside the region came to see the murder of Meixner, a beloved teacher and father of four, as a blatant act of antisemitism. It landed on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of worst antisemitic incidents of the year, and was widely covered by Jewish media in the United States and Israel. It required — and received — a Jewish response. Yet many Jews on campus saw something more layered and grew frustrated when outsiders began to publicize the case without acknowledging its complexity.

Abigail Simon, a Jewish engineering student, noted that the story went national at a time when Jews are increasingly nervous about antisemitism on campus, and surmised that they might draw conclusions about fresh incidents without much thought.

“I hate to make it seem like people were jumping on a bandwagon,” Simon said. “But I think it was just another drop in the bucket that, ‘Oh, there was a murder on campus,’ and, ‘Oh, the shooter was antisemitic.’”

Though Dervish’s antisemitism, and the location of the shooting, across the street from Hillel, prompted a rapid and thorough response from Tuscon’s Jewish community, their efforts drew little attention as the news of the murder spread. Local Jews also understood that the part of the tragedy that most upset faculty and students was that Meixner and others had repeatedly warned school officials that Dervish posed a threat and they had failed to act. Focusing on antisemitism, some feared, might overstate the role it played in Meixner’s death, and present Jews as more endangered than they actually were.

Outside Jewish groups that tried to draw attention to the case countered that there was nothing subtle about Dervish’s bigotry — no matter what role other factors played in his violence — and point out that antisemitism can operate in strange ways: Its victims often aren’t Jewish.

A grand jury indicted Dervish on seven charges, including first-degree murder, in October. Dervish has pleaded not guilty and his trial is scheduled for September. Judge Howard Fell declined his attorney’s request to ban media from the courtroom.

“Justice grows the best in the full light of day,” Fell said.

A murder, and a revelation
When the shooting first took place, Simon and other students gathered at the campus Hillel for High Holiday programming only knew that something very bad had happened. The scream of police sirens had interrupted a text study. And, a different student recalled, what seemed like the entire campus police department came to a screeching halt outside the academic building across the street.

It turned out that the police had responded too late, allowing Dervish to escape. Hillel went into lockdown. Simon remembered feeling grateful that Hillel had hired armed security guards for the High Holidays. Everyone gathered in the lounge. “We were all sitting in this one room trying to act like things were normal, but obviously nothing was,” said Jordyn Morris, another student present that day.

Dervish was arrested several hours later on a highway outside of Tucson with knives, machetes, guns and extra ammunition. Another bombshell would come two weeks later, when a local newspaper columnist published an interview with Eyad Atallah, a lecturer in the hydrology department, who — the headline said — “prepared to be shot on campus and barely avoided it.”

Tim Steller, the Arizona Daily Star columnist, revealed that Atallah and other faculty members had been hounded for months by Dervish, who was convinced that a bad grade he received was the result of a Jewish conspiracy against him.

“As Arabs we’re supposed to stick together and I trusted you, and instead you’re a filthy kike lover,” Dervish had texted Atallah last winter.

It wasn’t the point of his article, but based on those messages, Steller was the first to suggest that Meixner’s murder was driven by bigotry against Jews. “Although Meixner was Catholic, his killing could be considered an antisemitic attack,” Steller wrote on Oct. 22.

The column emphasized that university officials were aware of the threats. They had expelled Dervish and banned him from campus, but he kept returning with impunity. And nobody thought to tell Jewish leaders on campus, or in Tucson, that a man who had menaced faculty — to the point several had started working from home out of fear — was blaming his problems on Jews.

After the column was published, Jessica McCormick, director of the campus Hillel, emailed Robert Robbins, the university president. Why, McCormick asked, had the administration failed to notify Hillel of Dervish’s antisemitic comments? Why hadn’t law enforcement protected the Hillel building while Dervish was on the loose? Why hadn’t any school officials reached out after the shooting?…

Dervish had been a volatile presence on campus since he enrolled at the school in the fall of 2021. He screamed obscenities at a professor in the middle of class, and after he lost his graduate assistant teaching job as a result, he sent threats that terrified hydrology faculty so much that they moved classes to Zoom. Expelled and banned from campus last February, he kept coming back, and accosted a professor at a nearby CVS. Dervish threatened an employee at the dean’s office: “I don’t think you have any clue who you are dealing with but you are about to find out and I really don’t think you’re going to like it,” he wrote. Meanwhile, he was sexually harassing a female undergraduate student — the same thing he was accused of in San Diego — contacting her more than 30 times….

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved,

Is Allah a real God?—A Historical and Biblical Analysis thumbnail

Is Allah a real God?—A Historical and Biblical Analysis

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By Dr. Rich Swier

W.O Williams did a review of the New York Times best selling author Nabeel Qureshi’s No God but One: Allah or Jesus? in his book Tawhid or Trinity: Is Allah a Real God?

According to BookBeat,

Nabeel Qureshi [in No God but One: Allah or Jesus?] takes readers on a global, historical, yet deeply personal journey to the heart of the world’s two largest religions. He explores the claims that each faith makes upon believers’ intellects and lives, critically examining the evidence in support of their distinctive beliefs. Fleshed out with stories from the annals of both religions, No God but One unveils the fundamental, enduring conflict between Islam and Christianity—directly addressing controversial topics like Jihad, the Crusades, Sharia, the Trinity, and more.

W.O. Williams in the introduction to Tawhid or Trinity: Is Allah a Real God? wrote,

Qureshi was a very unusual, very talented man. An ardent Christian apologist, he traveled widely, speaking on behalf of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. He attended Eastern Virginia Medical School where he earned and MD, had an MA in Christian apologetics from Biola University, an MA in religion from Duke University, and a Master in Philosophy in Judaism and Christianity from Oxford University.

He was challenged in 2001, by David Wood, a college Christian friend, to study Christianity and compare it with Islam…This inspired Qureshi to launch a years-long research effort to find the truth. Four years later, despite all efforts to resist it, he converted to Christianity.

W.O. Williams’ book presents 11 key questions answered by Nabeel Qureshi in No God but One: Allah or Jesus?:

  1. False presumptions about the Crusades. Qureshi states, “The narrative of an offensive crusade against peaceful Muslims, along with the overtones of Ridley Scott’s The Kingdom of Heaven and John Esposito’s ‘five centuries of peaceful coexistence, ‘turn out to be fanciful slants based on motivations other than history. The reality is that the Crusades were launched in defense of the Byzantine Empire after two-thirds of the Christian world had been by centuries of Muslim attacks, Muslims understood this and held no grudge against crusaders until modern times, when postcolonial narratives came into vogue.
  2. Grace vs Works. Islam preaches that Muslims must follow Sharia, Islamic law, to find salvation. Christians, on the other hand, are found acceptable to God and are saved for eternity only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, (Ephesians 2:8,9). Qureshi found that the Christian way addresses our universal spiritual need. Sharia law does not.
  3. Allah vs the Trinity. Qureshi presents a sophisticated argument defending the triune nature of God. Muslims challenge the idea, asking if the Christian God is one person, how can He at the same time be three? Qureshi responds that person is distinct from being. A being is what we are. A person defines who we are.
  4. Is the Quran Eternal or Created? Qureshi asks how can the Quran be eternal if it includes events from Mohammad’s life, for example the Battle of Badar, and was only written in Arabic. He points out that Quran, Sura 43.3 states “verily We have made it an Arabic Qur’an that you may understand.” This suggests the Quran was only created for Arabs.
  5. Allah Depends on His Creation to Be Allah. [T]he most important concept in Islam is the tawhid, the oneness of Allah. In reciting the shahada, this oneness of Allah is affirmed. Allah is monad, i.e. a complete, self-contained unit that needs nothing outside of itself. As such Allah remains aloof from man, and we only learn of him through his messenger, Muhammad.
  6. Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? Christians worship Yahweh, the Trinity, and one God in three persons…Muslims worship Allah – a monad who is not relational and neither a father or son.
  7. The Quran Denies Jesus’ Resurrection and Godhead. He [Qureshi] believed that the veracity of each religion’s claims could be confirmed through study of history. Was Jesus God? Did He die, and was He resurrected? Despite his strong belief in Islam and the Quran, his four-year study forced him to reassess his beliefs, and he was ultimately led to “reluctantly embracing the gospel.” He said, “The evidence in favor of Christianity was so strong I had no choice.”
  8. Was Mohammad Foretold in the Bible? A common claim heard from Muslims is that Muhammad was prophesied in both the Old and New Testaments. Qureshi writes that as a Muslim he did whatever he could to read Mohammad into the text by ignoring the counter evidence that simply did not allow it.
  9. Were There Scientific Insights in the Quran? Qureshi relates that in fact, much to his dismay, he found that Aristotle had published a scientific treatise 1,000 years before Mohammad’s time that discussed the stages of embryonic development in great detail. Five hundred years after Aristotle another Greek scientist, Galen, describe the same process, again in much more detail that the Quran.
  10. Is Muhammad Really a Prophet? The review of his [Mohammad’s] character leads Qureshi to the following conclusion: “Though other Muslims and I often said that Muhammad ought to be followed because of his excellent character, I could not sustain that argument in the face of counterevidence. Although Muhammad gave plenty of moral teaching and exhibited merciful and peaceful character at times, there are many other accounts of Muhammad’s brutality and exultation in war, his spiritual shortcomings, and his troubling treatment of women, among other concerns.”
  11. Is the Quran the Word of God? Muslims claim the Quran has to be read in Arabic to understand its beauty, but Qureshi asks why would Allah want a book only accessible to those who spoke Arabic? Qureshi argues further that it really does not matter if the book contains beautiful language. It does not mean it was inspired by God. He notes that Stradivarius built the most perfect-sounding violins, but those instruments were not divinely made.

W.O. Williams concludes with these insights,

Nabeel Qureshi sought throughout this study to be unbiased, even to the point of giving Islam the benefit of the doubt in certain circumstances. He said, “Even though my heart’s deepest desire was to defend Islamic faith and remain Muslim, the truth became unavoidable: There was no argument I could use to defend Muhammad’s prophetic status, and there was no compelling reason to believe the Quran was from God.”

We highly recommend reading W.O. Williams’ Tawhid or Trinity: Is Allah a Real God?

The truth will set you free.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Chinese Communists ‘Hope to Erase’ Christianity: Report thumbnail

Chinese Communists ‘Hope to Erase’ Christianity: Report

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By Family Research Council

Last August 25, several faithful gathered around one of the largest churches in China’s Shanxi province to watch it dissolve into dust. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities had planted explosives inside Beihan Catholic Church, bringing its 131-foot-tall bell tower crashing to the ground. In a bout of déjà vu, the 10-year-old church had been built on the site of another church, which the CCP demolished in 1990.

Many Chinese religious systems believe in reincarnation — but in Communist-controlled China, a cycle of destruction repeats itself for Christians, according to a comprehensive, 63-page report from ChinaAid.

The Chinese Communist Party has continued to destroy churches, arrest and abuse Christians, forcibly “disappear” clergy, prevent believers from expressing their faith online, and attempt to coerce Christians into proclaiming Marxist principles from the pulpit in place of the Holy Bible. The report’s “partial list of persecution cases in 2022,” broken down by province, takes up 20 pages.

“The CCP implemented various strategies against Christians in 2022. By using the new measures against religious content online and the infamous zero-COVID policy, authorities limited or eliminated Christian gatherings,” recounted ChinaAid President Bob Fu. “By using charges of ‘fraud,’ the Chinese government financially suffocated the house church movement.”

The report details the forcible disappearance of 10 clergy from Hebei prince’s Xuanhua diocese — including two Roman Catholic bishops — and another 10 priests in the province’s Baoding diocese. Those allowed to remain in the country may be forced out of their ministry by government interference. Fengwo Township Religion Bureau showed up at a church last January to tell parishioners the bureau deemed their pastor, Huang Yizi, unfit to preach sermons, because of his arrest record — for refusing government orders to remove public crosses.

The government has told Christians not to evangelize, preach, print, proselytize, or in some cases pray — especially in the name of Jesus. While preventing many registered churches from worshiping in person, allegedly to stop the spread of COVID-19, Jiangsu province also made it a crime “to illegally preach online, give sermons, interpret scriptures, chant,” etc. Police visited churches that persevered. “Village cadres came to me yesterday and asked me not to preach religion on WeChat. Now we are not even allowed to say the word Jesus in our prayers, or ‘trust in the Savior,’” one Chinese citizen told her U.S.-based family.

The government also tried to prohibit Christians from carrying out their scripturally mandated duty to pray for those in authority. “Our church has received orders from government officials. Now when we pray in WeChat groups, we’re not allowed to say, ‘We pray for those in power,’ let alone pray for President Xi Jinping by name or ask God to make him repent. These are all forbidden now. Some of us used to pray for China’s top government leaders, but that’s not allowed anymore,” another believer told a family member who had emigrated. “We don’t know if we can still pray together in WeChat groups after this March.”

To stifle the growth of house churches, the government has treated tithing and other standard Christian economic activities as a form of “fraud.” In July, police arrested Pastor Qin Sifeng and coworker Su Minjun of Beijing Lampstand Church for “illegal business activities” when it printed hymns for the church to sing. Officials have repeatedly postponed their trial, originally scheduled for last November, effectively imprisoning them indefinitely. Others received swift, crushing punishment. Officers arrested a believing couple, Chang Yuchun and Li Chenhui, in December 2021 for printing Christian books; last May, a court sentenced them to seven years in prison and a fine of nearly $37,000 (U.S.).

The report notes the heart of the persecution campaign: the determination to follow through with what the CCP called the “Sinicization of Religion” at the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th national Congress last October 16. The party demands churches teach Communist principles and revise religious dogma in light of socialism.

“Their goal is not only to curate a ‘socialist-friendly’ church; they hope to erase it,” said Fu. “Previously, they asked for sole allegiance to the Communist Party, but since the 20th National Party Congress, they shifted their emphasis to aligning with Xi Jinping.”

To this end, government officials insist the church cede the education of children to the secular, socialist state. Last May, CCP officials reminded college graduates and students of their official policy: “No one may use religion to carry out activities that obstruct the national education system.” They have effected this policy by shutting down church-operated schools, including the Wenzhou Bowen Bible School and Wenzhou Bible School in Zhejiang province last August, or fining those who hold religious education conferences nearly $21,000 (U.S.). Fined people who rented out facilities to a church school and illegally held a human rights lawyer who represented Christians under house arrest.

These measures likely violate the wording of the Chinese constitution, which states Chinese citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief” and the right to attend “normal” services — but the document, written by Communists, does not define normal services.

The problem of religious persecution is as old as Marxism itself. Karl Marx considered religion the opiate of the masses. Yet suppression of Christians appears to have intensified as China has gained economic and military strength over the last two decades. The U.S. State Department has classified the People’s Republic of China as a “Country of Particular Concern” since 1999.

The CCP faces credible and consistent charges of committing “deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, disappeared, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced labor and forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, and harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices,” noted the State Department’s most recent report on Chinese religious freedom, published last June.

Despite their oppression, Chinese Christians remain resilient. Last February 20, “Christian activist Zhou Jinxia held up a sign to preach the gospel to Xi Jinping,” knowing it would result in arrest.

China Aid’s new report coincides with an emboldened China that has increasingly begun saber-rattling, provocatively sending spy craft to hover over the U.S. mainland. While the CCP has begun “brazenly pushing the limits, to see how far they can go,” said the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn. “President Biden’s administration has consistently demonstrated weakness, showing a willingness to act against adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party only after the public outcry was so deafening that they could not ignore it,” Rep. Green told The Daily Signal.

This overseas aggression has bled into the CCP’s treatment of Christians, as officials have attempted to reach beyond its own shores to harass or kidnap ethnic Chinese living in the United States. They also sanctioned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

“The international community needs to know about these trends and developments” of Beijing’s persecution of Christians “as China continues to rise on the global stage,” said Fu. Unless Western Christians stand up for their brethren, Chinese Christians believe the cycle of destruction will continue.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Demonstrable Totalitarian Potential thumbnail

Demonstrable Totalitarian Potential

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By The Catholic Thing

David Carlin: Today’s atheists and sexual revolutionists have outdone their mid-Victorian age predecessors. They have made it so that if you do not laud them, you have harmed them.

It is now about 350 years that the war against Christianity commenced in the English-speaking world.  It began with Deism during the reigns of King Charles II (the “Merry Monarch”) and his brother James II.  Newton and Locke were still alive in England.  Cotton Mather was living in Boston.  Benjamin Franklin had not yet been born.  William and Mary were waiting in the wings.

Deism was a mild form of anti-Christianity.  It allowed you to hold onto many of your Christian beliefs (e.g., the existence of God, the rationality of nature, the Ten Commandments, life after death) while dropping all of its miraculous elements (e.g., the divinity of Christ, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection).

The next great attack began in England during the mid-Victorian age.  It reached America soon after the Civil War.  It was made up of three parts.  (i) Agnosticism, a theory of knowledge according to which it is impossible for humans to know whether or not God exists.  (ii) The “higher criticism” of the Bible, according to which many of the traditional questions of authorship along with much of the content of the Bible were thought to have been demonstrated to be historically erroneous.  (iii) Darwinism, which, according to its anti-Christianity enthusiasts, refuted the idea that the vast and complex world of organic nature had been created by an immensely great Intelligence.

The most recent great attack has been atheistic.  During the 1800s, atheism had flourished in continental Europe among a limited number of intellectuals, mostly in Germany (e.g., Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Haeckel), and in the early 20th century, it was a popular thing in Europe among Socialists and Communists, especially in Russia.

But for the first half of the 20th century in the Anglosphere, atheism remained a very limited thing, mainly confined to a small number of intellectuals (e.g., Bertrand Russell in Britain and John Dewey in the United States).  Atheism’s great breakthrough in the English-speaking world came in the second half of the 20th century, thanks mainly to the so-called sexual revolution, a thing of atheistic provenance and atheistic consequences.

If atheism is a common thing in America today (which it is, even though many de facto atheists call themselves by the softer name “agnostics”), and if atheism today has a great number of semi-atheistic fellow travelers among people who think of themselves as religious liberals or progressives, this is largely due to the sexual pioneers of the 1960s and 1970s who, teaching by both word and example, convinced younger generations that there is nothing morally objectionable about sexual freedom.

The chief argument deployed in support of sexual freedom has been, “Behavior between consenting adults is wrong only if it does harm to a third party; but consenting-adult sex harms no third parties; therefore, it is morally unobjectionable.”

To this day, this “does no harm” argument remains popular among advocates of an ever-expanding sexual freedom – despite the obvious fact that the sexual revolution has done an immeasurable amount of harm to third parties – beginning with children in the womb – and  fourth and fifth (and nth degree)  parties.

On at least one recorded occasion, Jesus – who, we should always keep in mind, did not have the good fortune to be acquainted with the wisdom of the 21st century, and thus on some questions, especially those pertaining to sex, lacked the good sense routinely possessed by today’s typical college sophomore—reduced all moral commandments to two: love God and love your neighbor.

Today’s atheists and sexual revolutionists have done better than that (who can be surprised?).  They have reduced all rules of morality to one fundamental rule: Do no harm.

This explains, I suggest, the ferocity exhibited by moral progressives in defending, not only an unnatural phenomenon like homosexual intercourse, but also a downright weird phenomenon like transgenderism.

If you (an orthodox Catholic) express your moral or metaphysical disapproval of homosexuality or transgenderism, progressives reply with an indignation that is so great that it may remind you of the outrage an ancient Jew would have expressed at a Roman attempt to set up a statue of the Emperor Caligula in the Holy of Holies.

The trouble is, your disapproval has hurt the feelings – very delicate feelings – of gays and lesbians and transgenders (not to mention the hurt feelings of sophomores who deeply sympathize with homosexuals and transgenders).  You have violated the One Great Commandment.

In his famous book On Liberty (first published in 1859), John Stuart Mill also enunciated a “do-no-harm” rule.  But he limited the categories of potential harm to three: (i) bodily harm, (ii) harm to property, and (iii) harm to reputation.  Mill mentions nothing about hurt feelings.  The discovery of this fourth category of forbidden harm may well turn out to be the most significant contribution to civilization (or should I say “civilization”?) made by the LGBTQ+ movement.

There is a striking contrast here between the two principal sections of the sexual revolution – the pro-abortion section and the pro-LGBTQ+ section.

The pro-abortion people don’t demand that you (an old-fashioned Catholic) approve of abortion.  You are free, as far as they care, to disapprove to your heart’s content.  Just don’t interfere with those who wish to receive or perform abortions.  Don’t enact anti-abortion legislation, and don’t hand down anti-abortion judicial rulings.  Just get out of the way – and “getting out of the way” involves among other things allowing your taxes to pay for abortions.

By contrast, the LGBTQ+ people demand that you approve of the behaviors that are the definitive characteristics of LGBTQ+ people.  Tolerance is not enough; they demand that you stand up and applaud.  They demand that your approval be more than lip service; you must feel it in your heart of hearts.  For if you don’t, you have hurt their feelings.

I have recently been reading an instructive biography of Stalin by Robert Conquest.  As was well known, if you stopped applauding Stalin a moment too soon, you stood in danger of being shot.

LGBTQ+-ism has demonstrable totalitarian potential.

*Image: The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah by John Martin, c. 1852 [Laing Art Gallery, England]

You may also enjoy:

David G Bonagura, Jr.’s The Sexual Revolution and the Fall of ‘Roe’
David Carlin’s LGBTQ-ism

AUTHOR

David Carlin

David Carlin is a retired professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America and, most recently, Three Sexual Revolutions: Catholic, Protestant, Atheist.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

After Biden Sent $1,000,000,000 to PLO, Israeli Deaths Rose 900% thumbnail

After Biden Sent $1,000,000,000 to PLO, Israeli Deaths Rose 900%

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By Jihad Watch

It cost $10,000 to kill a 6-year-old boy and the terrorists have the money. 

When Secretary of State Blinken met with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas, he boasted of the over billion dollars in aid that the Biden administration had programmed for the terrorist territories.

That aid has come with a very heavy price.

In Feb 2019, President Trump’s total cutoff of aid became official. That year, 10 Israelis or people in Israeli controlled areas were killed in stabbings, shootings, rocket and other attacks, down from 12 the previous year, and 15 in 2017, and 16 in 2016.

In 2020, however, only three Israelis were killed.

These numbers reflected the diminished capacity of the Islamic terrorists. The reduction in numbers was not due to the pandemic. 2020 still saw attacks, including firebombings, rocket launches and stabbings, but the success and lethality rates for these attacks were lower.

The numbers turned around dramatically once again in 2021.

In April 2021, the Biden administration restored aid to the PLO. Terror incidents, reflecting attack attempts, shot up sharply from 91 in February and 89 in March to 130 in April.

By May, major fighting resumed with 13 Israelis, including two children, killed.

By the time the year was over, 17 people in Israeli areas had been killed. The over 400% increase in deaths was only the beginning. In 2022, 31 Israelis or people in Israeli areas were killed, up from only 3 in 2020, for a massive 900% increase in casualties since the restoration of foreign aid to the terrorists. This was the worst death toll since 2015 under Obama.

But in January and the first half of February of 2023, 10 Israelis have already been killed, including a 6-year-old boy and an 8-year-old boy.

Three times as many have been killed in a month and a half of 2023 as in all of 2020. That’s a 233% increase over 2020 in just a fraction of a year, but it’s also a marked month-to-month escalation from 2022 which featured no attacks at all in January or February. More people have already been killed by terrorists in 2023 than through most of March in 2022.

What a difference a billion dollars makes.

While the media has tried to portray the terrorism as “lone wolf” attacks, they’re crowdsourced violence of the kind that Al Qaeda and ISIS helped innovate. But the PLO’s version is unique through its ‘Pay-to-Slay’ program which rewards terrorists, regardless of their formal affiliation, including ISIS and Hamas members, with salaries and payments for their families.

Terrorists are paid based on the length of their prison sentence. That means successful killers can earn $2,000 to $3,000 a month in a part of the world where the average salary is around $700 a month. It’s five times more profitable to be a terrorist than a teacher.

The Palestinian Authority calls for the murder of Jews, praises it and then rewards it.

Muhammad Al-Lahham of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, which runs the political movement behind the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority, was caught on video praising the “patriotic conscience” of a terrorist who had killed a rabbi taking his 2-year-old son for a walk in 2022.

The Trump administration cut off aid to the PLO’s Palestinian Authority and Congress passed the Taylor Force Act banning funds from going to finance Pay-to-Slay.

Throughout all this, PLO leadership have been consistent in refusing to stop financing terrorism.

“We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners,” Abbas had bragged. By “martyrs”, he meant those Islamic terrorists who were killed while carrying out terrorist attacks.

Despite this, the Biden administration had restored aid and rebuilt diplomatic relations. Biden and Blinken have met with Abbas. And while they have attacked Israel over everything from letting Jews pray on the Temple Mount (due to Jewish prayers offending Muslim sensibilities) to democratic judicial reform that will limit the unilateral authority of pro-terrorist judges, Biden and Blinken have had nothing to say to the terrorists about the program funding the murder of Jews.

America First Legal, under Stephen Miller, filed suit against the Biden administration on behalf of the parents of Taylor Force: a non-Jewish Afghanistan war vet murdered in Jerusalem.

“The Biden Administration is well aware that the PA pays Palestinian terrorists to injure or kill innocent Americans and Israelis in Israel. Yet, in blatant violation of  the Taylor Force Act, a federal law that prohibits the government from sending American taxpayer dollars to the PA until it stops supporting terrorism, President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have resumed payments to the PA after the Trump Administration had stopped these payments in compliance with the Taylor Force Act,” America First Legal declared..

“The Taylor Force Act, named after our son, was passed by Congress and signed by President Trump to stop this Pay to Slay. Yet the Biden Administration has resumed payments to the PA notwithstanding its Pay to Slay program,” Stuart Force, Taylor’s father, said.

The Biden administration’s decision to fund the Palestinian Authority has consequences beyond Israel. Islamic terrorism is a global threat and has been a reliable killer of Americans abroad.

“Robbi and I call upon President Biden to stop sending fungible taxpayer dollars to the PA that will end up funding terrorism,” Stuart Force appealed.

And the latest wave of violence shows just how ‘fungible’ that money is.

The massive uptick in successful terrorist attacks is not a coincidence. The numbers become more significant when we distinguish between so-called “lone wolf” attacks which are most directly impacted by ‘Pay-to-Slay’ and rocket attacks by other terrorist groups. 14 people were killed in direct terrorist attacks in 2018. That number dropped to 5 in 2019, the year Trump cut off aid to the PLO. By 2020, it fell to 3, in 2021, the year Biden restored aid, it rose to 4 and then shot up to 32 in 2022 reflecting the ‘slow burn’ effect of fungible aid money being taken away and then restored within a government bureaucracy even if it’s run by and for terrorists.

As the Biden administration continues pumping money into the terrorist entities occupying parts of Israel, the violence is drastically increasing. 2023 is already on track to top 2022 which had the worst numbers since 2015. The level of Islamic terrorism is returning to that of the Obama administration and that means that we can expect an even higher death toll in Israel.

The billion dollars in aid is a factor, but an even bigger factor is that the Biden administration, like its Democrat predecessor, has made no secret of its support for the Palestinian Authority. And the Biden administration has gone even further with its diplomatic support for the PLO regime and its pressure on Israel. The latest murders are the work of a terrorist group that knows that Washington D.C. has its back and will intervene to protect it from Israel.

The Biden administration’s decision to appoint Hady Amr, an open supporter of Islamic terrorism and opponent of the Jewish State, as its key liaison to the PLO, who was inspired by the intifada, has consequences, and dead bodies in Jerusalem are among the most obvious ones.

Islamic terrorism runs on money and foreign support. The Biden administration has provided both. The Palestinian Authority spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on Pay-to-Slay.

The pipeline of terror may end with a 6-year-old boy lying dead on a Jerusalem street but it begins with cash coming out of Washington D.C. The attacks of September 11 cost Al Qaeda about half a million dollars. The cost to the PLO of killing that little boy, his brother and a newly married man going to spend the Sabbath with his wife’s family probably comes out to about $30,000 a year. Or $10,000 per dead Jewish person. That’s a fraction of the millions of dollars in foreign aid which could be used to finance hundreds and thousands of more murders of Jews.

$10,000 to kill a six-year-old boy, another $10,000 to kill his 8-year-old brother. Thanks to the financiers of murdering Jews in the Biden administration, the terrorists have the cash.

And we’re the ones providing it.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Biden Admin Is Making It Easier For Illegal Immigrants To Roam The US Without Tracking Them thumbnail

The Biden Admin Is Making It Easier For Illegal Immigrants To Roam The US Without Tracking Them

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By The Daily Caller

  • Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is employing methods to reduce tracking of illegal immigrants released into the country, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.
  • Under the Biden administration, ICE has increased its reliance on a phone application that only knows the location of an illegal immigrant at certain times, while lessening its reliance on GPS monitoring, which tracks illegal immigrants at all times or most of the time, according to ICE data.
  • “What’s happening is that the Biden administration is trying to move away from any form of serious monitoring under ATD to instead use this program as a way to provide services to illegal migrants to make them more comfortable while they’re here,” Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Jessica Vaughan told the DCNF.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been quietly adopting a model for tracking illegal immigrants that is becoming less restrictive, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.

ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program has been in place since 2004 to track those awaiting years-long court proceedings not in physical detention using GPS monitoring, phone applications and other forms of technology to track illegal immigrants released into the interior of the U.S. In recent years, the program has relied more on less restrictive and more expensive technology, according to ICE data and experts and foreign and current government officials who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In fiscal year 2019, ICE was tracking 55,918 illegal immigrants using GPS monitoring and 5,706 illegal immigrants using SmartLINK, which is a phone application that only knows the location of a participant if and only when they check in periodically. In fiscal year 2020, the agency was tracking 36,647 illegal immigrants using GPSs and 18,915 illegal immigrants with SmartLINK.

The monitoring changed following those fiscal years.

In fiscal year 2021, ICE tracked 79,480 illegal immigrants with SmartLINK and 29,557 with GPS monitoring. In fiscal year 2022, ICE tracked 257,454 illegal immigrants using SmartLINK and only 9,324 with GPS monitoring.

Fiscal year 2023 was consistent with the previous year. ICE says its tracking 280,089 illegal immigrants with SmartLINK and 5,757 with GPS trackers. Currently, SmartLINK costs taxpayers $268,885.44 a day, while GPS monitoring costs taxpayers $15,774.18 a day.

“What’s happening is that the Biden administration is trying to move away from any form of serious monitoring under ATD to instead use this program as a way to provide services to illegal migrants to make them more comfortable while they’re here,” Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Jessica Vaughan told the DCNF.

“This is not an enforcement program at all. It is a social services program for recently arrived illegal migrants. And it’s costly to taxpayers, and it’s undermining the integrity of our immigration system. It’s in effect the next step after giving all these illegal arrivals parole, make it easier for them to get in and make it easier for them to stay. It’s like come for parole, stay for the wraparound services,” Vaughan said.

Vaughan and a current ICE agent, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak, say the reliance on less restrictive tracking is part of ICE’s move towards appeasing anti-enforcement advocates, told the DCNF.

“Since ATD relies on ISAP [Intensive Supervision Appearance Program contractors] to monitor non-citizens, ISAP does not have the staffing to continue to conduct home visits and keep track of the GPS monitoring. Therefore, the app is the most efficient and least cost-effective way to monitor. With humanitarian groups complaining about how inhumane GPS monitors are for people who are asylum seekers, ICE found the alternative to move forward to expanding the use of the Smartlink app. That allows ISAP to efficiently keep up with the rising number of ATD enrollments,” the ICE agent told the DCNF.

In a Wednesday letter to Texas Republican Rep. Pat Fallon, ICE Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Tae Johnson said that the agency has had success with ATD compliance. The data Johnson presented as evidence of success, however, is misleading at best, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the DCNF.

Of the 507 hearings illegal immigrants enrolled in ATD with GPS monitors, 500 appeared in court in the first three months of fiscal year 2023, Johnson wrote, adding that there’s a more than 99% hearing appearance rate during that same time frame for those tracked with other forms of technology or no technology at all.

Scott argued that the data only accounts for an illegal immigrant’s initial hearing while an illegal immigrant is enrolled in ATD, which is when they typically can get work authorization, and doesn’t account for the following court appearances and/or after they’ve been taken out of the program.

The average length an illegal immigrant is enrolled as an ATD participant is 380.7 days, while it takes an average of 1,621 days.

“I think it’s very misleading,” Scott said. “If you follow the full lifecycle, it’s not working. Only 6% of the people that are ordered deported at the end of the process actually leave the country. The main reason everybody shows up to the first hearing is so that they can get work authorization and they can get benefits in the United States because they basically just show the judge, ‘hey, the system is so backed up, It’s going to take years to finish this process. So how am I supposed to live here?’ They get work authorization, they live happily ever after. Even if they’re deported later, they don’t care because they’re not leaving, and no one’s looking for them,” Scott said.

ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The big problem with all this is you’re dealing with someone who has already shown that they’re more than willing to violate U.S. law to get away. Also, if you follow the process all the way through, even when a judge orders people deported at the end, less than 6% ever leave the country. The real issue is transparency through the whole process, not just picking a random spot in the middle,” Scott said.

Antonino Cambria contributed to this report.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

DECEIT: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Caves to Woke Disney, Pushes Bill to Quietly Restore Special Tax Breaks thumbnail

DECEIT: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Caves to Woke Disney, Pushes Bill to Quietly Restore Special Tax Breaks

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By The Geller Report

Ron DeSantis is restoring the special tax breaks Disney enjoyed after posturing and preening publicly against the woke corporation.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is folding to woke Disney, pushing a bill in the state legislature to quietly restore their special tax breaks after posturing publicly against the megacorp.

By: Shaee Prejo, Big League Politics, February 1, 2023:

DeSantis is making the capitulation even as he and RINO Republican leaders in the state claim that they are punishing Disney – the exact opposite of what is happening.

“The bill maintains the current tax-exempt status of property of the district and bonds issued by the district,” the analysis of DeSantis’ measure states.

DeSantis is using sleight of hand to claim he is cracking down on Disney when he is really giving them what they want and enabling Disney’s campaign contributions to fill Republican coffers in the years to come.

DeSantis’ Disney punishment bill advances.

Proponents say it’ll “even the playing field” for other companies.

I asked the House bill sponsor what would change in what Disney’s special district is currently doing.

He said, “That I can’t answer.”https://t.co/XPa91SM32C

— Douglas Soule (@DouglasSoule) February 9, 2023

So Ron DeSantis is letting Disney keep all its Reedy Creek-related tax breaks. (See screenshot from a staff analysis of the legislation.)

Let me walk you through an example of just how valuable this is for Disney. pic.twitter.com/uNmGFRICyt

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) February 7, 2023

Now, the false claim: This bill puts Disney on a level competitive playing field with other private businesses.

But Disney will *still* have its own personal city government.

Other than changing the board, the bill leaves Reedy Creek pretty much untouched.

— Jason Garcia (@Jason_Garcia) February 9, 2023

Keep reading.

And Disney is still brainwashing our children:

They’re putting Robin DiAngelo “White Fragility” in Disney cartoons now. pic.twitter.com/lWMJCbLunl

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 10, 2023

Woke Disney cartoon promoting Critical Race Theory TANKS—11% audience ratinghttps://t.co/k0KcglUwTn

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 11, 2023

Disney is telling kids that it’s wrong for white girls to date black guys https://t.co/1BKHl8t8lp

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 12, 2023

Another scene from the Proud Family on Disney+

Zoey, who is white, gets berated by her friends for dating a black guy pic.twitter.com/UbyxSJ9dbj

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 12, 2023

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Is the Pope Catholic? thumbnail

Is the Pope Catholic?

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By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

The times are a bit weird when I know that I am going to get hammered by Catholics for supporting the Pope. But these are really weird times.

Here is the case against Pope Francis:

  • Promoting “synodality” (Google it)
  • Not supporting the underground Church in China and Cardinal Zen
  • Not promoting Cardinals from rich cities where his critics live
  • Sending confusing signals about LGBTQI+ folks
  • Pachamama (Google it)
  • The Vatican’s finances are in a mess
  • Lack of due process in Vatican trials
  • He insulted the late Benedict XVI by suppressing the “Latin Mass”
  • Those German bishops are batshit crazy

And more.

Attentive readers will notice that many of these accusations are drawn from a memo said to have been written by the late Cardinal George Pell, of Sydney. It was published under the pseudonym “Demos” on a vaticanista’s blog in March last year. I doubt that Pell was the author, although it does echo his thinking. Perhaps it should be attributed to Pseudo-George, like manuscripts of doubtful authorship from the Middle Ages.

Cardinal Pell did denounce the Synod on synodality in The Spectator as “a toxic nightmare”. So he is rowing in the same boat as Pseudo-George. Advising the Pope without fear or favour is part of a Cardinal’s job description, although publishing his advice in The Spectator is not above reproach.

Anyhow, I am poorly informed and unwilling to controvert these points. If there is a common thread, it seems to be that Pope Francis does not have the mind of a canon lawyer. Back in the day, when times were less weird, many Catholics thought that fewer pettifogging canon lawyers would be a jolly good thing. But we have learned, painfully, that respect for the strictures of canon law does have its plusses.

To respond to all this kvetching and bitching, murmuring and muttering, denouncing and disparaging, bellyaching and sniping, all these accusations and allegations, the best I can do is two words: NightRose Falea.

NightRose Falea was one of 60 pilgrims who walked 300km (190 miles) from the city of Rumbek to the capital of South Sudan, Juba, where Pope Francis celebrated Mass for tens of thousands. NightRose told the BBC. “My feet are sore, but I am not so tired. When the spirit is with you, you do not get tired. I would not have missed coming to Juba for anything. We are here to get the Pope’s blessings. I am confident that with his blessings things will change for this country,”

She walked. She did not sit in an air-conditioned bus. The villages through which she and her companions walked were too poor to feed them, so they had to bring their own food, cooking pots, fuel, and plates.

“When you have smelled and seen death and hopelessness, then you will search for peace with all the might that you have,” another woman told the BBC. “[Pope Francis] is a prophet and whatever he prays in the next few days, while on our soil, will come to pass. Things will be different. We are going to be one people.”

Naïve? Of course. Admirably naïve. There was a time when Catholics would have been ashamed not to be as naïve as NightRose Falea. Africa is the future of the Catholic Church – of most Christian churches – so these days are going to return.

In the meantime, back in a world of air-conditioned buses with tinted windows and wifi and working toilets, shouldn’t we ask what NightRose sees in Pope Francis? We can agree – he would agree — that, like all of his recent predecessors, he has faults. Does he have any compensating virtues?

Let me cite the authority of the unnamed woman in the BBC report. Pope Francis is a “prophet”. Not the future-is-rosy kind of prophet, but a John the Baptist “yield the acceptable fruit of repentance” kind of prophet. From the very beginning of his pontificate Fancis demanded that “good Catholics” be holy Catholics. A lot of lackadaisical Catholics, it seems, were not ready for the challenge of this simple message.

Francis spoke with all the harshness of John the Baptist. After a little more than a year on the job, he gave an astonishing Christmas present to the Roman Curia – the officials who work in the Vatican. It was a list of the spiritual diseases which can afflict clerical bureaucrats. Here are some of them:

  • thinking that they are immortal, immune or downright indispensable
  • excessive busy-ness.
  • mental and spiritual petrification
  • “spiritual Alzheimer’s disease”
  • rivalry and vainglory
  • the hypocrisy typical of the mediocre and of a progressive spiritual emptiness which no doctorates or academic titles can fill
  • gossiping, grumbling and back-biting
  • The disease of indifference to others
  • The disease of a lugubrious face.
  • The disease of closed circles, where belonging to a clique becomes more powerful than belonging to the Body and, in some circumstances, to Christ himself.

This excoriating speech never fails to come to mind when I read the latest rant against the Pope. Read it. It’s short and scary. It’s one for the ages.

You may have heard of “the Benedict Option” for handing on the Christian faith to the next generation by forming small God-fearing communities. There are lots of “options” for saving Christianity. The “Biden Option” of truckling to every woke demand. The “Pseudo-George Option” of kicking butt. The “Cardinal Hollerich Option” of rewriting the Ten Commandments.

Francis has an “option”, too, an option for holiness, prayer, and evangelisation. From the starting gate, he has reminded people that a living Christian faith is not a badge or a tribal allegiance. The signs that it truly exists are virtues – naïve virtues like honesty, cheerfulness, service, integrity, loyalty, discretion, or mercy. These are sought in prayer and spread in evangelisation. (Cardinal Pell exemplified these in his Prison Journals.) Admittedly, these qualities are not the only ones needed to govern 1.3 billion Catholics. But without them, there’s not much point to Christian living.

Apart from footnote 351 of Amoris Laetitia, I wonder if most of his critics have actually read anything at all that he has written on holiness. Seriously. Their complaints seem to be based on tweets and the 7pm TV news.

Most of his documents for the general public have been calls to prayer and evangelisation. There’s Evangelii gaudium (2013) on the joy of spreading the gospel; Amoris laetitia (2016) on holiness in marriage; Gaudete et exsultate (2018) on the universal call to holiness; Christus vivit (2019) on vocational discernment; and most recently Totum amoris est (2022) on having a heartfelt love for God. This doesn’t count his regular Wednesday addresses which, gathered together, make up several books on prayer, on spiritual discernment, on holiness in old age, on hope, on the Mass …

These seem to have gone unnoticed by most Catholics, certainly by most Catholic critics. But they are important. As I said, I am poorly-informed and naïve, but what else does the Catholic Church have to offer the world other than holiness?

Here’s my latest thought-bubble. Converting the world is a tough gig. But Pope Francis is not alone in this.

Consider the poor Prime Minister of Japan. He recently said that his country’s low birthrate means that “Our country is on the brink of being unable to maintain the functions of society.” Japanese politicians, journalists, public servants, and academics are all scratching their heads: they don’t know how to get young people to bring new life into the world. Same thing in China, Korea, and Taiwan. The toxic ingredients of post-modernity have poisoned the wells.

All these countries are desperate for a “conversion” of their young folks. And there are no signs that they will succeed. They face extinction.

The mark of a Christian is firm confidence that “He’s got the whole world in His hands”. Christians are not going to go extinct. But there are different options for making sure this happens. Pope Francis has his own distinctive option and it fills NightRose Falea with an infectious joy. Why don’t his “sourpuss” critics join her?

AUTHOR

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. He lives in Sydney, Australia. More by Michael Cook

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Of Grave Concern: Study Finds Rise of Anti-Semitism Among Youth in Holland thumbnail

Of Grave Concern: Study Finds Rise of Anti-Semitism Among Youth in Holland

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By Matthys van Raalten

This is not surprising news, but it could be helpful material in countering idealism about the multicultural paradise.

The Dutch Anne Frank Foundation has done research among teachers at Dutch high schools about incidents of anti-Semitism in their classrooms.

Anti-Semitism in the classroom is a persistent problem

February 8, 2023 — 42% of secondary school teachers witnessed anti-Semitic incidents in the classroom in the past year. Usually it concerns name-calling and insults that are not aimed at specific persons. This is evident from the report of research agency Panteia, which was commissioned by the Anne Frank House to conduct research into anti-Semitism in secondary education.

With the research, in which 432 teachers participated in 2022, the Foundation wants to gain an up-to-date picture of the nature and extent of anti-Semitic incidents among secondary school students. Similar research was also carried out in 2013 and 2004. In 2013, 35% of teachers experienced one or more anti-Semitic incidents in the classroom, compared to 50% in 2004. Anti-Semitism, as in society, is a persistent problem in the classroom.

Backgrounds

When we ask teachers about the backgrounds of the anti-Semitic incidents they have experienced in the past year, it turns out that football was the most common context in which students insulted Jews as a group. More than a third of all teachers mentioned this football context. This football-related anti-Semitism has its origins in rivalry between fan bases of different football clubs and therefore also manifests itself outside football stadiums at secondary schools. Anti-Semitic remarks also arise as a result of the Middle East conflict, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. This has been a known and recurring phenomenon for some time. One third of the teachers report insulting Jews in this context. Trivializing or denying the Holocaust is also common. The survey shows that 14% of teachers have been confronted with this in the past year.

Read more.

Matthys van Raalten. All rights reserved.

WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO: Anti-Regime Demonstrations In Baluchestan, Iran thumbnail

WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO: Anti-Regime Demonstrations In Baluchestan, Iran

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

Regime Security Opens Fire On Demonstrators, Arrest Citizens, Publicly Flog Man.

This clip is a compilation of footage from Friday demonstrations in Baluchestan on January 27 and February 3, 2023. The videos were posted on posted on Iranian dissident journalist Masih Alinejad’s Twitter account and other social media outlets. In the clip, demonstrators can be seen chanting such slogans as “Our tables are empty, Khamenei is a killer,” “Death to Khamenei!,” “Curse upon Khomeini!” “Death to the Basijis!” “Death to the IRGC!” “I will kill whoever killed my brother!” “Death to the oppressor, whether it is the Shah or the Leader!”

The clip also includes footage from a car driving through a street, where several citizens are seen arrested, some pushed into cars and footage from a demonstration, where security personnel open fire at demonstrators, and victims with gunshot wounds are seen being removed from the area. Another video includes footage from a driving car, in which a man with his hands tied above his head to a lamppost is flogged in front of dozens of bystanders on the curb of a busy street. One of the videos is recorded by a man who says he is in Surjah, Baluchistan. He tells the viewers that they are under siege and that there are close to 1,600 IRGC cars near the village of Suraj, and a helicopter could be seen flying in the sky.

To view the clip of the anti-regime demonstrations in Baluchestan, Iran, click here or below:

“Our Tables Are Empty, Khamenei Is A Killer! Curse Upon Khomeini!”

Graffiti: “Death to Khamenei”

[…]

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Protesters: “Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!

[…]

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“Death to Khamenei! Death to Khameini!”

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[…]

Chant leader: “Our tables are empty, Khamenei is a killer!”

Protesters: “Our tables are empty, Khamenei is a killer!”

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Chant leader: “Death to Khamenei!”

Protesters: “Death to Khamenei!”

Chant leader: “Curse upon Khomeini!”

Protesters: “Curse upon Khomeini!”

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Chant leader: “Death to the Basijis!”

Protesters: “Death to the Basijis!”

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Chant leader: “Death to the IRGC!”

Protesters: “Death to the IRGC!”

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Read The Full Report

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI-TV video exposé is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Distinguishing Friend from Foe in Matters of Faith

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By Matthew Hausman, J.D.

There are multiple words for “enemy” in Hebrew, but two of the more intriguing ones in Tanakh are oyev (אוֹיֵב) and soneh (שׂוֹנֵא), each of which conveys a distinctive meaning and linguistic nuance. According to Rav Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the great eighteenth-century Torah sage known as the Vilna Gaon (or HaGra), an oyev seeks to cause physical or bodily harm, while a soneh inflicts spiritual harm by disrupting his victim’s relationship with G-d.

Though the oyev can bring physical ruin in this world, the Vilna Gaon sees the soneh (or hater) as the greater threat because he jeopardizes one’s standing as a Jew both on earth and in the world to come. And it is this latter term that perhaps best describes certain evangelical groups who profess great love for the Jewish People and Israel while simultaneously seeking their spiritual demise through missionary efforts that promote avodah zarah (literally ‘strange worship’), as defined in Torah and condemned by the Prophets.

It was easy to rebuke the Presbyterian Church (USA) when it falsely labelled Israel an apartheid state or Anglican and Catholic Church leaders for objecting to a UK proposal to move its embassy to Jerusalem last year. Church excoriation of Israel is but a modern iteration of the same doctrinal antisemitism found throughout Christian tradition, which laid the groundwork for ghettos, crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, and genocide.

Consequently, it seemed refreshing at first glance when the Assemblies of God (“AG”), one of the largest evangelical denominations in the US, issued a statement denouncing antisemitism in the wake of H.R. 1125, a Congressional resolution condemning Jew-hatred in all its forms. But are such expressions of this solidarity pure, or are they part of an agenda to spiritually corrupt the Jews and their nation?

Given the drastic uptick in missionary activity against Jews in the US, Europe, and Israel (and despite defections from some evangelical movements over doctrinal policy), the question is legitimate and timely.

Certainly, many Christians support Jews and Israel for reasons of history and justice, while others are motivated by guilt for generations of Church-inspired persecution culminating in the Shoah. Still, others are driven by a compulsion to convert Jews per the “great commission” in the Book Matthew (28:16-20), using “friendship evangelization” to ingratiate themselves and facilitate missionary activity. This tactic developed with the realization that 2,000 years of persecution failed as a conversionary strategy and was honed after Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967 by those evangelists who believed the Jews must return to Israel and accept Christianity to trigger the “second coming” (a Christian concept found nowhere in Tanakh).

And the role of this denomination of evangelicals in creating and promoting “messianic Judaism” as conversionary subterfuge cannot be ignored. Theologically, this movement is Christian, not Jewish, despite its deceptive use of Jewish traditions, symbols, and imagery; and its endorsement by those who claim to love us is perhaps an indicator of their true intentions.

Typically, these evangelicals’ knowledge of Hebrew scripture is superficial at best and completely at odds with original text and doctrine, and they often employ Jewish buzzwords and symbols for misdirection. They claim, for example, that accepting “Yeshua” is the most Jewish thing a person could do – though he fulfilled none of the messianic criteria set forth in Tanakh and belief in the divinity of any man constitutes idolatry according to Torah. Moreover, the trinity (which is not monotheistic), vicarious atonement, and eucharist all contravene Torah law; and belief in a supernatural “messiah” who absolves sin through his own death evokes human sacrifice and is inconsistent with the mortal nature and role of Moshiach as delineated in Tanakh.

Despite effusive declarations of affection, their missionaries seek to divorce Jews from their ancestral faith, often targeting those with limited Jewish education or understanding of the textual and doctrinal incompatibility between Christianity and Judaism. And this is something I’ve experienced personally.

I’m frequently confronted by missionizing evangelicals while walking to shul or on the internet – though I neither solicit these interactions nor believe in “Judeo-Christian” commonality. Whereas their approach is always friendly, the conversation invariably descends into a game of “stump the Jew,” and they become flustered when claiming to quote Torah – only to find that they don’t really know it, their translations contain fundamental mistakes and distortions, and the actual Hebrew text supports none of their assumptions.

They are surprised to learn, for example, that Isaiah 7:14 does not prophesy a virgin birth; the “suffering servant” in Isaiah 53 refers to the Jewish people collectively, not a persecuted messianic figure; Psalm 22 does not foretell a crucified savior who would be pierced through the hands and feet; and Psalm 2:12 does not admonish readers to “kiss the Son lest [G-d] be angry.”

Because they must concede the divinity of Tanakh, they are flummoxed when confronted with errors, mistranslations, and outright fabrications where their bible professes consistency with Hebrew Scripture. For example, although the Torah clearly states the Patriarchs are buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hevron, which is in Judea (Breishit, 23:1-20; 25:6-10; 35:28-29), Christian scripture incorrectly has them buried in Shechem (i.e., Samaria) together with Yosef. (Acts, 7.) The Torah, however, just as clearly states that Yosef’s bones – not the Patriarchs – were buried in Shechem. (Yehoshua, 24:32.) And then there are the “fulfillment citations” in the Book of Matthew, which purport to show where Tanakh references Jesus, but which utterly fail when matched against the actual Hebrew text. There are many other egregious examples, but the point becomes clear after parsing only a few.

The better a person is grounded in Tanakh, the easier it is to see through conversionary tactics. But even the observant community is not immune from risk.

In recent years, some some denominations of evangelicals have targeted Orthodox communities in the US and Israel by masquerading as rabbis, scribes, and kabbalists in a crusade of cultural deception. Not all observant Jews are well-versed in scripture, however; and consequently, some are ill-prepared to confront propaganda from theological charlatans who manipulate text to falsely claim Christian belief fulfills Jewish prophecy. Though a simple reading of Hebrew Scripture usually suffices to expose such dissimulation, the study of Tanakh for many ceases in grade school, leaving critical gaps in scriptural fluency.

Accordingly, the Jewish community must be vigilant in identifying the threat and educating those at risk. And this includes questioning the motives behind philosemitic declarations by Christian groups historically committed to Jewish conversion. Though some praised the AG’s statement against antisemitism, others were skeptical about a part of a denomination that (a) declares pro-Jewish sentiments while maintaining missions dedicated to Jewish evangelization and (b) posts content on its website about “witnessing” to Jews.

The evangelicals who approach me generally seem receptive to discourse with someone capable of reading original text and telling them what it really says. When, after a few conversations, one such gentleman informed me he no longer believed in evangelizing Jews and wanted to learn Hebrew, I cautioned him, “be careful what you wish for.” Understanding Hebrew, I said, would accentuate the errancies in his scripture and perhaps challenge his faith; but he said he wanted truth, not bias confirmation. So, I advised him to find a capable Jewish teacher and wished him well.

Though individuals can have respectful conversations interpersonally, we cannot expect the same from institutions and groups dedicated to corrupting the Jewish spirit. And no matter how strenuously missionaries might argue that a Jew must accept their savior to be “completed,” such claims violate the Torah’s explicit prohibitions against strange worship, false prophecy, and the adoration of alien deities and beliefs (e.g., the trinity, incarnation, deification of a man, etc.).

One need only read Tanakh to know the commandments are everlasting. Indeed, the Torah specifically states:

“Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Sefer Devarim, 4:2.)

“Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet…[and he] says, ‘Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them’…you shall not heed the words of that prophet…You shall follow the Lord, your God, fear Him, keep His commandments, heed His voice, worship Him, and cleave to Him.” (Sefer Devarim, 13:1-5.)

Like the soneh described by the Vilna Gaon, these missionary evangelists would have Jews abdicate their role as guardians of the commandments, renounce the faith of their ancestors, and compromise their holy obligations in this world and their place in the next. The strange worship peddled by missionaries serves only to profane Torah and alienate vulnerable Jews from their spiritual birthright – and it must be rejected accordingly.

©Matthew Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.

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Let’s Make This Clear: Jordan is Palestine

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By Matthew Hausman, J.D.

Listen, Palestinian Arabs, If you want to march, march on Jordan.

The “Jordan-is-Palestine” option for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict is an idea that, despite history and logic, was beaten into silence by Israel’s enemies and detractors. Critics denounced the concept as preposterous, reactionary and counterproductive.

And yet, the idea has been resurrected from within Jordan itself. There can be no dispute that Jordan was created in a sovereign vacuum on land that had comprised most of the Palestine Mandate. However, its creation as Transjordan in 1921 satisfied a geopolitical need unencumbered by a Palestinian national myth that had not yet been invented.

In contrast, the Oslo peace process was based on the false premise that an ancestral population was indiscriminately displaced by Israel’s establishment and now must be repatriated at her expense. Because Jordan embodies the concept of Arab self-determination as contemplated by the San Remo Conference and the Palestine Mandate, and because most Jordanians already identify as Palestinian, it is high time to recognize it as the Palestinian homeland and scrap the current peace process.

The Oslo Process was heavily weighted against Israel from the start because it demanded validation of the Palestinian narrative and, thereby, the delegitimization of Jewish historical claims. After cajoling the country into accepting the farce of Oslo, the Israeli left made it politically incorrect to assert traditional Jewish claims or to mention that the Palestinians have no ancestral connection to the Land of Israel. The peace process was focused on resolving the plight of Arab refugees and perpetuating the artifice that they originated in ancient Israel while the Jews were merely colonial interlopers.

The truth – that Jews have the longest history of continuous habitation, that they preceded the Arab-Muslim conquest by thousands of years, and that the Palestinians are largely descended from an immigrant population that grew during the late Ottoman and British Mandatory periods – was suppressed under layers of Freudian self-denial.

One need look no further than the operational definition of “refugees” employed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (“UNRWA”) to see past the façade of Palestinian nationality. Unlike relief organizations that seek to ameliorate the condition of wartime refugees through resettlement, UNRWA’s sole purpose is to maintain the statelessness of Arabs who became refugees in 1948, regardless of whether they now live in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon or Syria (and irrespective of whether their forebears came from Egypt, Algeria or elsewhere), and thereby to reinforce their stature as a people though they possess none of the ethnic, cultural or institutional hallmarks of nationality.

According to UNRWA, Palestinian “refugees” are those Arabs who established residency within the Mandate between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost their homes and means of livelihood during Israel’s War of Independence, and who now reside in areas where UNRWA services are available. To put this in perspective, no similar agency was created to serve the needs of the nearly 800,000 Jewish refugees who were summarily expelled from Arab-Muslim lands and dispossessed of whatever assets they owned in 1948, and who subsequently were taken in by Israel.

The improbable definition employed by UNRWA begs the question of how Palestinians could be designated as refugees based on a minimum residency requirement of only two years if they are truly descended from people who continuously inhabited the land for hundreds of generations.

These “refugees” clearly were not required to be native born or descended from indigenous ancestors, and in fact many were either immigrants themselves or the progeny of immigrants. Moreover, they were not expelled from an existing country with recognized borders that was innately “Palestinian” or that ever exhibited the trappings of sovereignty or national character. Indeed, no sovereign nation existed between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea from the time the Romans conquered the Kingdom of Judea until Israeli independence in 1948. There was, however, a continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, including Judea, Samaria and Gaza, dating back to antiquity, and a Jewish majority in Jerusalem for generations.

Given that the proponents of Oslo sought to suppress this history and ignore away the authenticity of traditional Jewish claims, the peace process from its inception was on a collision course with Israeli autonomy and national integrity. Moreover, the basic premise of Oslo, i.e., that the Jewish homeland should be further divided after much of its territory had already been taken to create an autonomous Arab state in Jordan, was repudiated by the Arabs when they rejected the U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 and launched a genocidal war against Israel and her people.

The peace process was doomed to failure because it demanded that Israel relinquish historically Jewish land, but did not insist with equal vigor that the Arabs recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation or take meaningful steps to eliminate antisemitic incitement. The conceit of Oslo was that it validated apocryphal Palestinian pretensions even as it denigrated verifiable Jewish claims and treated Israel as a colonial aberration.

The architects of Oslo paid lip service to the need for mutual recognition, but they never chastised the Palestinian Authority for failing to amend its charter calling for Israel’s destruction (which it had agreed to do as a precondition under the Oslo Accords), for continuing to engage in terrorism and antisemitic incitement, or for stating repeatedly that it would never recognize a Jewish State. Although American and European meddlers insisted that Israel consider hot-button issues like the Arab “right of return,” it became increasingly clear as the process wore on that matters of existential concern to Israel could not really be negotiated, and that she was expected simply to capitulate to all Palestinian demands – no matter how expansive or outrageous.

The improbable definition employed by UNRWA begs the question of how Palestinians could be designated as refugees based on a minimum residency requirement of only two years if they are truly descended from people who continuously inhabited the land for hundreds of generations.

It was assumed, for example, that Israel would give up Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem without question, although these were historically Jewish lands and though Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab or Muslim nation, and certainly not one called “Palestine.” Most galling was the continual promotion of the Palestinian Authority as moderate despite its oft-stated goal of the phased destruction of Israel, the starting point of which was to be the much ballyhooed two-state solution.

The inconvenient truth is that most Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza do not want two states living side by side, but rather a single state built on the ruins of Israel.

At its very core, Oslo constituted a rejection of established international precedent recognizing the Jews’ aboriginal connection to the Land of Israel. It ignored, for example, the import of the San Remo Conference of 1920 and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922, which recognized the right of close settlement and of the Jews to live anywhere in their homeland. The goal was unrestricted Jewish habitation west of the Jordan River. There was no discussion of a Palestinian homeland because there were no Palestinians at the time. Rather, Arab self-determination was addressed by the establishment of the French Mandate in Lebanon and Syria and the British Mandate in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Transjordan. In contrast, the San Remo Resolution and Palestine Mandate recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and … the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” Unfortunately, historical reality never fit the Oslo scheme.

The San Remo Resolution applied to lands designated for inclusion in Mandatory Palestine on both banks of the Jordan River. Nevertheless, before the Mandate was signed in 1922, the British gave Transjordan to the Hashemites after they were forced out of the Arabian Peninsula by the Saudi royal family. Indeed, the Hashemites were the ancestral rulers of Mecca, said to be descended from the tribe of Mohammed, and had no connection to that portion of the former Ottoman Empire that would become Jordan. But they were installed nonetheless as a foreign ruling class over a population that was composed largely of immigrants from other parts of the Arab-Muslim world who were complete strangers to Hashemite sovereignty.

Jordan today is governed by a Hashemite minority that engages in apartheid-like discrimination against the Palestinian majority. Though Palestinians are accorded nominal citizenship, they are effectively disenfranchised through electoral gerrymandering and are in many ways treated as aliens whose residency is only temporary. In addition, thousands have been stripped of their citizenship in order to perpetuate the fiction that they are stateless vagabonds whose rightful place is a country that never existed.

The Hashemites enforce the Palestinians’ separateness in this way to make them yearn for the liberation of “Palestinian Arab lands” from “the Zionists.” Nevertheless, there is growing recognition among them that they will never “return” to “Palestine”; and accordingly many now desire full citizenship and equal rights in Jordan.

There is also an increasing sense that whatever the Palestinian leadership’s ultimate strategy may be in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, it is not for the benefit those living in Jordan and elsewhere, even though they constitute the bulk of the Palestinian population.

There are roughly five million Arabs now living in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria and elsewhere who identify as Palestinian, compared to only 1.5 million in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Giving heed to this arithmetic reality, a growing number of Palestinians recognize that Israel will not accept an Arab “right of return” that would destroy her as a Jewish state, and instead believe their homeland should be established in Jordan.

Proponents of this idea include Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian-Jordanian expatriate writer who now lives in the UK.

Zahran has written extensively about the Palestinians and their place in the Mideast, and about how their present leadership – whether the PA in Judea and Samaria or Hamas in Gaza – has no interest in mitigating the conditions of Palestinians living elsewhere. He understands that this leadership will not accept a two-state solution or permanent peace with a Jewish nation. He also acknowledges certain demographic and historical factors militating in favor of a homeland in Jordan, including that it already has a predominantly Palestinian population and comprises most of the territory originally included in the Palestine Mandate.

The rest of the world should do the same.

©Matthew Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.

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Ohio: Muslim migrant tries to join the Islamic State, says he wants to help with ‘projects’ inside U.S.

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By Jihad Watch

Even though the Islamic State several years ago lost most of its territory in Iraq and Syria, and with it the appearance of enjoying the favor of Allah upon its claim to be the caliphate, that claim still has a potent appeal for jihad groups worldwide, as well as for many individual Muslims. In Sunni Islamic law, only the caliph is authorized to declare offensive jihad; in the absence of a caliph, jihad can only be defensive (although that can be and has been interpreted elastically enough to include 9/11). In my book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, I detail how the great Islamic caliphates of the past — the Umayyads, Abbasids, Ottomans, and others — pursued jihad relentlessly against Infidel states. Jihadis still think about those glory days, and want to relive them.

Where did Naser Almadaoji learn his understanding of Islam? Are authorities investigating the local mosque? Or would that be “Islamophobic,” and they’re content to wave away the question by trotting out the moldy oldie that he was “radicalized on the Internet”?

Ohio man gets 10 years in prison for trying to join ISIS

by Simon Druker, UPI, February 1, 2023 (thanks to Henry):

Feb. 1 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a man in Ohio to a 10-year prison sentence for attempting to join the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq.

Naser Almadaoji also will be subject to 15 years of supervised release following the prison sentence, the Justice Department confirmed in a statement.

The 23-year-old is an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen and in 2021 pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations….

He later admitted to investigators that he planned to smuggle himself into Afghanistan and join the Islamic State to receive military training, including how to make a car bomb, kidnap priority targets and break into homes. He would then return to the United States with the ultimate goal of starting an armed conflict between the federal government and anti-government militias.

Earlier in 2018, Almadaoji traveled to Jordan and Egypt in an attempt to join an Islamic State affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula. He was not successful and returned to the United States.

Almadaoji later told a man he believed to be an ISIS member that he was interested in assisting with “projects” in the United States…

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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World Hijab Day Celebrates Islamic Rape Culture

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By Jihad Watch

“If she was in her room, in her home, in her Hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

Wednesday, February 1, was World Hijab Day. The annual Islamic event commemorates the return of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the beginning of the mandatory ‘Hijabization’ of women in Iran.

While women in Iran are risking their lives to remove their hijabs, facing arrests, beatings and even death, the media in this country, much like the media in Iran, continues promoting the hijab.

The origins of the hijab are ugly and you won’t hear about them on World Hijab Day.

The Prophet Mohammed had to recruit a gang of rapists with promises of capturing and raping young girls.

Since the various rapists also had wives, and since Islam frowns on Muslim men assaulting each other’s wives (the wives of non-Muslims however are fair game, as Koran 4:24 states, “And all married women are forbidden unto you save those captives whom your right hand possess”), the hijab, the burka, the abaya and all the other exciting ways to repress women arrived to distinguish the women that could be raped from those who couldn’t.

“O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks all over their bodies that they may thus be distinguished and not molested,” Koran 33:59 states.

A commentator on the Koran adds, “It is more likely that this way they may be recognized (as pious, free women), and may not be hurt (considered by mistake as roving slave girls.)”

It’s always awkward when you confuse your wife, or somebody else’s wife with one of those roving slave girls.

Muslim women cover their hair and elbows to show that they’re the property of a Muslim man.

In response to a gang rape, the Chief Mufti of Australia said, “If she was in her room, in her home, in her Hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

By wearing the Burqa or Hijab, women participate in a narrative that gives rapists a pass for sexual assaults on women who don’t dress the way the Mufti or Imam says they should.

That’s what World Hijab Day is really about. Just ask the women of Iran or Afghanistan.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

RELATED VIDEO: This Week In Jihad with David Wood and Robert Spencer

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Speaker McCarthy, Leaders Gather for Prayer and Repentance

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By Family Research Council

On a snowy Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., hundreds of people made their way to the Museum of the Bible for a unique event: the National Gathering of Prayer and Repentance. Before dawn had even broken across the city, almost 60 speakers from different nations, organizations, political districts, and backgrounds responded to God’s call to humble themselves and seek His face.

“What you’re about to see,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said, “is something you won’t see on MSNBC, CNN, or even Fox — that is, members of Congress who are praying and crying out to God. … Know that God is answering your prayers, America,” Perkins urged, “by raising up leaders who love Him and fear Him.” Led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), 16 Republicans from across the country — Mary Miller (Ill.), Brian Babin (Texas), Rick Allen (Ga.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Robert Aderholt (Ala.), Tracey Mann (Kan.), Burgess Owens (Utah), Michelle Steel (Calif.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Randy Weber (Texas), Brandon Williams (N.Y.), Diana Harshbarger (Tenn.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Nathaniel Moran (Texas), and Mike Johnson (La.) — took turns confessing sin and asking for God’s wisdom in the days ahead.

“We have lost our way,” Congresswoman Miller admitted, “because we have rejected you as Creator, Lord, and Savior. Now we are adrift and foolish, calling evil good and good evil. …We most humbly ask you to intervene, deliver us here in Congress and in our country from going our own way and thinking our own thoughts. Please, Heavenly Father, take the scales off our eyes. Help us to acknowledge our need of You. Our need to weep and mourn over our pride, our immorality, child abuse, and idolatry. Draw us back to you and to your word.”

Rep. Bishop asked forgiveness for a nation that has failed to understand “our dependence on You — for imagining that our blessings have come by virtue of our merit, our entitlement, our intellect, our effort.” We repent, he continued, “for acquiescing in the status quo. Forgive us for our lack of courage, our resignation, our cynicism, our hopelessness, our narrow self-interest, and ambition. Forgive us for making our government an idol and then for turning a blind eye as its instrumentalities have accumulated power and turned it against the humanity, the dignity, and the rights with which you have endowed the people. You ask who will go for me and whom will I send? Lord, send me. Forgive us, Jesus, King of all nations.”

After Leader Scalise read Psalm 33, Speaker McCarthy turned to the audience and said he was also asked to share a Scripture, but decided he’d like to “pray and read, if that’d be all right.” He started by thanking God that “we can still honor Your word, study Your word, and teach the next generation.” He asked for the Lord’s blessing on the leaders of Congress who joined him on stage and those who weren’t there today. “I want you to open their hearts. I want you to help them be bold.”

Then, knowing the difficult debates facing both parties, the speaker prayed for the president. “Father, you know I will meet with him today. Father, I ask that you open both of our hearts … that our meeting [would seek] your truth and help for this nation. … [W]e continue to seek your guidance. We ask that you give us the patience of Job. We ask that you give us the intellect, the leadership that you gave David.”

Perkins, who co-hosted the event along with Pastor Jim Garlow, also welcomed Anne Graham Lotz, Ambassador Sam Brownback, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, former congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Pastor Carter Conlon, and 19-year-old Jacob Kersey, who recently resigned from his Georgia police department when he came under fire for posting a Bible verse about marriage.

Kersey pointed out how much we take for granted the privilege of coming before God in prayer. He lifted up the 800,000 “brave men and women serving in law enforcement,” many of whom are “excellent examples of strength, fortitude, character, and integrity.” “But Father,” he admitted, “we have problems too. We’re sinful human beings. And the events in Memphis and Minneapolis shed light on our brokenness and sin. … We need the Prince of Peace, Jesus. We need you.”

Too many believers, Brunson said — “many teachers of the church” — “have become ashamed of the clear teachings of Jesus Christ. Many care too much about maintaining respectability and social standing and … are not willing to stand against the mainstream of our society, to go against the current. There are all kinds of ways to rationalize compromise. We need to repent and love the truth.”

Luke wrote that “there would be times of distress with perplexities,” Bachmann explained, “meaning that the days would become so difficult that the problems would be humanly impossible to solve. That is our day,” she insisted. “And so it is altogether fitting and proper that we come to our Father with prayers and repentance. It is the only way. It is the best way. It is the right way. It is the healing way. It is the life giving way.”

To watch the National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance, click here.

AUTHOR

TWS Staff Report

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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No God, No Rights

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By Jerry Newcombe

When Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech on the 50th anniversary of “Roe v. Wade” about a week ago, she infamously left out the Creator—when talking about our rights. One wag told me, “Hey, at least Kamala didn’t say, we ‘are created by … you know, the thing,’” as did her boss on the campaign trail.

She also left out the “right to life.” But does this oversight matter? I addressed her “right to life” omission in a previous piece, but what about leaving out the Creator? Who cares?

We all should. The essence of America is self-rule under God. Leave out either part, and we end up with tyranny. Without God as the secure source of our rights, from whence come those rights?

Thomas Jefferson said, and you can see this quote in the Jefferson Memorial: “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?”

Why does God matter? The late Clay Christensen was a Harvard Business professor who hosted a 90-second video segment that brilliantly shows why He matters.

Christensen says that ultimately we must choose between internal versus external restraint. In explaining to a visiting student from China how religion benefits American society by bolstering morality, Christensen makes the point that we can’t hire enough police to make people good. But democracy has greatly benefited through the internal restraints that religion provides.

William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, would concur. He once noted, “If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.”

Within a few years of America’s revolt against British rule, the French had their revolution. Some like to compare the American with the French Revolution. They were totally different because of the God factor. The American Revolution was pro-God. The French Revolution was anti-God. That is the difference in a nutshell.

For the documentaries in my Foundation of American Liberty series for Providence Forum, I had the privilege to interview Dennis Prager, the founder of PragerU. At one point in the interview, he contrasted these two turbulent events.

He told me, “The American Revolution and French Revolution is the battle in the United States.  Which revolution will prevail? … They loathe the idea of God in the French Revolution; the secular republic was the ideal. In America, they believed in secular government, but in a God-based society, because rights come from God in America. And you can only have liberty if you have God.”

Prager pointed out that this was not a “faith statement” so much as a “logical” one: “People will either feel accountable for their behavior to God or the state. Those are your two choices. It is an absurdity to believe they’ll be good if they’re accountable only to themselves. If you’re only accountable to yourself, you will always justify what you do.”

And so he concludes, “God is the ultimate issue.”

Take the issue of the value of human life. When you remove God from the equation, life becomes cheap. Because we’re made in the image of God, human life has value.

Human beings are different than the animals, says the Bible. Recently I read portions of a great book, The Death of Humanity: And The Case For Life” by history professor Dr. Richard Weikart, who wrote the classic book, From Darwin to Hitler.

Dr. Weikart writes, “Western society is in deep trouble today. Once we identify some segments of humanity as ‘life unworthy of life’ or ‘sub-human,’ to use phrases commonly used before and during the Nazi period, we have jettisoned any basis for valuing humans as humans. We have effectively undermined all human rights, because now we can decide which humans have rights and which do not.”

In contrast, the founders of America said in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are the right to life.” The first right they listed is the right to life.

In the Declaration, the signers mention God four times, including their appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions,” referring to Jesus, whom God, the Bible says, has appointed to judge us all one day.

But if there’s no Creator, as some politicians seem to think, why should there be any human right? As retired Congressman Ron Paul once noted, “There is only one kind of freedom and that’s individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.”

©Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. All rights reserved.

Meet the Pro-Life Family Merrick Garland Tried to Rip Apart thumbnail

Meet the Pro-Life Family Merrick Garland Tried to Rip Apart

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By Family Research Council

“I’m George Bailey today,” were among the first words spoken by Mark Houck in the moments following his acquittal on Monday. The pro-life husband and father of seven had been subjected to months of torturous waiting under a looming prosecution by the Biden administration that could have resulted in a sentence of 11 years in federal prison. While the Department of Justice claimed that Houck had violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act outside of a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood, the Houck family and its faithful allies knew the Biden administration’s politically-motivated narrative was a far cry from the truth.

Houck was accused of pushing 72-year-old Bruce Love, an abortion facility escort, to the ground. Houck’s attorneys notified the DOJ that, though there was no legal foundation for a FACE Act charge, Houck would appear voluntarily if summoned. Rather than accept this responsible offer, Merrick Garland’s DOJ saw fit to arrest Houck in the most humiliating and traumatizing manner possible — by 25 federal agents, at gunpoint, in the early hours of the morning, in front of his terrified wife and crying small children, who will no doubt bear the psychological repercussions of this incident for years to come.

No objective observer could doubt the intentions behind the theatrical arrest of Mark Houck: Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Biden administration’s DOJ intended to make an example of the pro-life activist, no matter the cost to his life or family.

Unfortunately for the rabid abortion extremist in the Oval Office and his shameless henchman at the DOJ, the case against Houck rested on sinking sand. Houck’s attorneys with the Thomas More Society handily proved that the FACE Act did not apply in Houck’s case. Bruce Love had a proven history of such acts of aggression; the pro-life father was merely defending his son after Love aggressively harassed the 12-year-old boy with profanities while the father and son prayed together, far away from the entrance of the abortion facility.

After days of waiting, the jury pushed past deadlock to deliver a verdict: Mark Houck was not guilty of violating the FACE Act. Despite every effort from the federal government to paint Houck as a violent pro-life radical, the jury had seen the truth — Houck was not aggressing against an “enemy” for his beliefs about abortion. He was protecting his terrified child from an immanent threat, as any good father would do.

The Houck family’s prayerful defense against the oppression of an abortion-obsessed federal government is truly commendable. Houck’s 12-year-old son, whom Mark emotionally called the “star witness,” courageously took the stand during the trial to defend his father, truthfully setting straight the facts that adults had attempted to manipulate. May we all praise the Lord for empowering the Houck family to set an example for all pro-lifers who find themselves as the David facing down the Goliath of the abortion industry.

We must not forget, however, that, while God used for good that which men intended for evil, the suffering of the Houck family since Mark’s arrest in September 2022 was a needless perversion of the law to serve the Biden administration’s radical love of abortion. The DOJ has unquestionably been weaponized against the pro-life movement, even in the face of absurdly disproportionate violence against pro-life organizations, property, and people. Family Research Council has tracked at least 124 instances of such pro-abortion violence, harassment, destruction of property, and vandalism. So far, the DOJ has brought charges against only two pro-abortion activists under the FACE Act, compared to 26 pro-lifers.

Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) has previously stated in reference to the Houck case, “Attorney General Merrick Garland oversees an increasingly politicized FBI that seems hell-bent on making examples of average American citizens who don’t align politically with the administration. … Congress owes the American people transparent accountability for any and all wrongdoing by the FBI and Garland’s DOJ.” Garland has faced calls for impeachment on multipleoccasions.

The outcome of Mark Houck’s trial is a monumental victory for pro-lifers across the country, countless of whom regularly pray and sidewalk counsel outside of abortion facilities in hopes of sparing mothers and their children from the violence of abortion. However, Houck’s case should never have made it to trial in the first place. American citizens, regardless of their personal convictions and religious beliefs, should not be harassed or made examples of based on the radical whims of the federal government. The Biden administration’s abortion radicalism has gone too far — it is high time for accountability that brings justice for pro-life Americans.

As for Mark Houck, the pro-life movement’s George Bailey, no schemes of abortion radicals will keep him from sharing with moms and their unborn babies that it truly is a wonderful life.

AUTHOR

Joy Stockbauer

Joy Stockbauer is a policy analyst for the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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