PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: ‘We’ll Never Stop Pay-For-Slay, [Mass Murdering] Terrorists Will Get Their Salaries’

But it is the Democratic state of Israel that Ben & Jerry’s decides to boycott. All to appease the far-Left, who support the anti-Semitic BDS Movement. Check out how “woke” the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is with their own people. Shame on Ben & Jerrys.

The “Biden” administration is plundering your hard earned tax dollars, stealing it right out of your childrens’ mouths and into the hands of genocidal mass murderers. Biden is illegitimate.

PA: ‘We’ll never stop pay-for-slay, terrorists will get their salaries’

“We must continue to pay and to ensure the allowances of the prisoners and their family members,” said a PA official.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The Palestinian Authority’s pay-for-slay policy, in which it pays salaries to prisoners convicted of terror offenses against Israeli citizens, has drawn international ire.

Israeli law permits the Jewish State to deduct terror payments from the taxes it collects on the behalf of the PA and freezing accounts linked to prisoners, putting a serious economic strain on Palestinian banks.

In 2018, former president Donald Trump cut off aid to the PA, stating that financial support would only be resumed if they agreed to abandon the pay-for-slay practice.

And as the PA seeks to strengthen ties with the Biden administration, officials have publicly downplayed the practice and suggested that a solution could be found to end the practice.

But according to a report from watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch, what the PA is telling the international community is in stark contrast to promises it’s giving to its constituents.

“Our position regarding the payment of the salaries and allowances of the prisoners and their families is firm,” read a July Facebook post from the PLO’s Prisoner Affairs Commission.

“This is their right, and it is anchored in all the international conventions and treaties, because our prisoners are prisoners of a liberation movement and freedom fighters.”

“Since [the start of] the Israeli threats and pressures on the banks that are active in Palestine, the position has been clear: We must continue to pay and to ensure the allowances of the prisoners and their family members,” read a July statement published in the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.

On an official PA TV news broadcast, Minister of Communications and IT Is’haq Sidr explained that there was a new system in place via private ATMS not linked to specific banks, which would allow the families of prisoners to collect payments.

“We have activated an entire banking mechanism here that is a cash management system that transfers data between us and the ATMs,” he said.

“We have installed 20 ATMs in the residential areas where the beneficiaries of these services are located, and Allah willing we will reach 30 ATMs in the coming days.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

Biden gives another $135M to UN Palestinian agency

Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister To Demand U.S. Enforce Anti-Boycott Jews Laws Against Ben & Jerry’s

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

What She Didn’t Say: WCC Church Sends Members To Sabotage Israel

Islam is a totalitarian ideology, its laws believed to be the literal word of Allah and, therefore, immutable in every respect through eternity. Their adherents are under obligation to “rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. Any nation or power that gets in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy.”  Among the many methods of warfare is lying.  War is deceit, Allah is the “master of all scheming,” and deception has become an artform in Islam. Further, because lying is permissible in Islam, lies are not discernible because the deceiver bears no conscious guilt.

Although it is true that deception within Islam is subtle and sophisticated, it is only effective on willing subjects, those who already have a root of bitterness toward Israel, the Jews and/or Western civilization.  Islam serves to formulate their contempt and justify it.

With this as background, an internet acquaintance sent an Israeli video to a friend who had taken a Holy Land tour years before.  The friend replied she had been to the West Bank (ancient Israel’s Judea and Samaria) and had “nothing but contempt for Israel.” Her statements are presented in bold face, and I will provide the backstory – what she didn’t say.

“We went to a Christian Palestinian school and heard how the Israeli soldiers terrorized the school children.  The IDF constantly goes into the West Bank to arrest and terrorize Palestinians, especially the young children.”

She was already deceived.  What she didn’t say was why soldiers would spend their time entering the area to arrest children.  Does she choose to be oblivious of the many countries that use their children in armed conflict, 14 noted, 7 in Africa.  Closer to home,  America’s left is using our school children against our country, and encouraging groups like BLM and Antifa to burn cities and harm our protective forces, the police.  Children do commit crimes worthy of arrest, in the West Bank and worldwide, and those not arrested in America may be our own undoing.

In Islam, the entire family unit is compelled to further the cause of Allah and the Palestinians are notorious for putting their women and children in harm’s way, at rocket launches or on roofs of building where explosives are stored, so that their deaths, whether self-inflicted or caused by retaliatory fire, will increase the casualty count for world pity. Older children are used to discharge ignited kites and incendiary balloons over Israel, while smaller children are placed on road embankments with a supply of rocks to throw at passing cars, often causing crashes and death.  They are also used in tunnel construction, expendable should the tunnels collapse. The children are raised without interests in reading, music, or Little League games, but with an obsession for Mohammed’s 1400-year war against the Jews, willing to accept martyrdom should they go up in smoke.

The silence of the Christian schools and of the World Council of Churches (WCC) amounts to complicity in the ruination of the Palestinians’ children and the murder of Israeli’s.

The friend attached a film that showed the IDF handling themselves in exemplary fashion, with one speaking calmly to the five-year-old boy, not harassing or brandishing weapons, while the other five or six were standing at a distance, unmenacingly, not looming over the child.  Questioning is not harassment, and the boy was holding the hand of another, in his late teens, perhaps an older brother.  Of course, the child is frightened because he did something wrong, but had he been terrified, he’d have tried to hide behind his brother.  He may have caused a fatal crash and knew he was being reprimanded – or feared worse, depending upon the lies that permeate their culture.  There is no doubt that the soldier would be stern to make him understand that he’d caused irreparable harm, perhaps killed a child like himself.  He was escorted to the IDF car calmly with his brother, presumably heading for headquarters.  Although he would be lectured about right and wrong, there is no doubt that he would be given a chocolate bar.

The IDF take their representation of Israel very seriously and see themselves as goodwill ambassadors. The Israeli soldier understands that this could be the difference between a child who recalls a reasonable outcome or one who will seek jihadi revenge.  Research shows that there is a total disconnect between the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) accusations against Israel and the reality on the ground.

“The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) is now present in the small village of Yanoun,” wrote the person with contempt for Israel, implying that their presence was necessary to keep an eye on Israeli abuse.

What she didn’t say is that Yanoun is one of many Bedouin encampments, often with camels, that settle illegally on Israeli land that is impermissible to all because it lacks infrastructure – electricity, sewage, water, health and welfare services.  America has many areas not zoned for housing, and all sovereign countries are justified in granting or withholding building rights.  The Israel High Court approved the order to demolish the village, according to laws that apply to all, and Israel usually offers alternative housing to the nomads, but they refuse.  The EAPPI, founded by the World Council of Churches, has been maintaining a round-the-clock presence in Yanoun since 2003, working with the Palestinians against Israeli law.  They maintain an antisemitic, adversarial position toward the State of Israel, which includes lying about a mismanaged, Palestinian-caused water shortage.  They appear to be trained in Islamic lies.

One frequent accusation is that the IDF soldiers rape Arab women, a familiar act of violence by Arab men worldwide – again, this is projection.  It is documented that one anti-Israel activist, a professor, asked an Israeli soldier if he knew how many Palestinian women were raped by IDF forces.  The soldier replied, “none,” as far as he knew.  She triumphantly responded that he was right, because, she said, ‘You IDF soldiers don’t rape Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you won’t touch them.’”

“Jewish people have come into Yanoun and burned down their olive trees.  The people have been so terrorized that there are only about 50 Palestinians left,” she continued.

What she didn’t say is why Israelis raze certain homes and destroy trees.  Families of murderous terrorists lived in those homes and constructed terror tunnels under the groves to penetrate Jewish villages and murder the residents.  This is an all-too-familiar theme in Palestinian children’s propaganda stories.  Any destruction, therefore, becomes necessary as security as well as a means of punishment and deterrence.

According to Regulation 119 of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations that Israel inherited from the British Mandate (1947), the military commander may order the destruction of any house, structure or land suspected of being the source of “any firearm fired illegally, bomb or hand grenade or any explosive thrown, blown up or detonated.”  Did no one tell the woman that immediately after the Six-Day War, Israel offered to negotiate land for peace with Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, but was refused each time?  Israel did not want the responsibility of administration over the area, but while it was thrust upon her, she improved infrastructure, schooling and life expectancy for the Palestinians.  Nevertheless, Israel began the destruction of terrorists’ homes after the first Intifada of violent riots (1967).  By 1994, Israel began turning over administration to the Palestinian Authority.

“We went to a Christian Palestinian school . . .,” she said, and spoke negatively.

What she didn’t say is that the ecumenical accompaniers serve the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Palestinian areas.  They report of soldiers who search teachers, harass residents, and close the schools, but never reveal the causes – the Palestinians’ daily violence, tear gas and riots.  Apparently, it breaks the hearts of those reporting that Palestinian children are escorted in and out of their communities, but there is no comparable sympathy for Israeli children escorted in and out of their shelters or hospitals after the Palestinians explode their weapons or themselves in a crowd.

EAPPI fears for the West Bank children who are harassed, but not for the Israeli children who are blown up in school buses by Palestinian terrorists, or for such as the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped on June 12, 2014, and killed, their  bodies found in the West Bank field on June 30, 2014 – and other similar events.

The WCC, which trains volunteers to promote boycotts of Israel and engage in antisemitic rhetoric, is funded by several Western governments, the EU, and the UN.  Their EAPPI program, which consists of 350 member churches in 110 countries and 500 million Christians worldwide, has been in place for 15 years, with a stated mission of “Christian unity,” which shamefully includes anti-Israel advocacy.  Their activism has explicit antisemitic overtones, as they have repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany, accused Israel of apartheidism, and continue to instigate a broad-based boycott, divestment and (total) sanctions (BDS) on Israel.  Their numerous lies and accusations include blaming Israel for planting knives in Palestinians who were shot after attempting to stab Israelis, and for attempting Palestinian depopulation.  While the WCC claims not to “countenance” Israel with Nazi Germany, they do not discourage their representatives’ denunciations, and continue to favor boycott products of Jewish “settlements.”

This warrants an additional note about “settlements.”  The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007, by a majority of 144 states in favor, 4 votes against, and 11 abstentions, recognized that indigenous people (also known as first people, aboriginal people or native people) have the right to the lands, territories and resources, which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired and that the exercise of these rights shall be free from discrimination of any kind.  According to international law, the Jews are the indigenous people of the lands referred to as Judea, Samaria, Palestine, Israel, and the Holy Land, and therefore fulfill the criteria required by international law. The Jews are the original ethnic group that settled Judea and Samaria 3,500 years ago, when the land was bestowed upon the Jews by the Almighty.  Statements to the contrary are political, not legal.

What she didn’t say was that the Arabs from the neighboring states, who now call themselves Palestinians, are the invaders, interlopers, and aspiring conquerors, and the WCC is a blight on America for not supporting one of America’s most dedicated allies.

One final word about the woman who has “nothing but contempt for Israel.”  We would give her the benefit of the doubt to suggest that she doesn’t know the facts, but the reality is more likely that she visited the West Bank under the auspices of the WCC in support of their anti-Israel agenda.  Once ripe for deception, she is now a zealous missionary of outright lies and half-truths.

©Tabitha Korol. All rights reserved.

Antisemitism in America: What would Émile Zola say?

Eerily, the hatred of French Jews during the Dreyfus Affair foreshadowed the antisemitic slogans that now fill the American landscape.


Though hate-crimes against Jews appeared to spike during the recent Gaza hostilities, the escalation was actually part of an antisemitic trend that began more than a decade ago and steadily worsened with the complicity of politicians, academics, and journalists.

Long blamed exclusively on the political right by the liberal establishment, antisemitism today is being instigated on college campuses, in the press, and in the halls of Congress by progressives and radical Democrats who seized control of their party and hijacked its moral compass. Under the guise of cultural diversity, woke liberals are demonizing Jews and Israel with the same vehemence exploited in nineteenth-century France to falsely convict Alfred Dreyfus of treason and unleash the kind of racial antisemitism that would later fuel Nazi genocide.

The lone voice of reason then was Émile Zola, who penned the essay “J’accuse” (“I Accuse”) in defense of Dreyfus and French Jewry.

The current trend began during the Obama administration, when more than seven-thousand bias incidents and hate-crimes were reported, including vandalism, arson, and violent assaults against Jews and their institutions. Though President Obama did not call for these outrages, neither did he denounce the Jew-hatred that permeated his political base. He said nothing when antisemitism raged through college campuses and minority communities, he obfuscated his relationships with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, and he validated the odious Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement. He also extended White House hospitality to people with anti-Jewish baggage – including Al Sharpton, who logged more than sixty visits during Mr. Obama’s tenure.

When forced to address specific acts of antisemitism, Obama’s remarks were often restrained to the point of irrelevance. In addressing the deadly assault by Islamic terrorists on a Parisian kosher market in January 2015, for example, he characterized it as a “random attack” to obscure the Jewishness of the victims. Likewise, when he mentioned the subsequent Har Nof synagogue massacre, he did not acknowledge the terrorists’ antisemitic motivations and seemed to imply equivalence between the murder of Jewish worshippers and the deaths of Arabs killed while attacking Israelis. Conversely, he never missed an opportunity to downplay Muslim antisemitism, disparage former PM Netanyahu, or diminish Israel’s historical integrity.

His failure to condemn Jew-hatred within his political base or acknowledge the Jews’ ancestral connection to and presence in their homeland since time immemorial created fertile ground for antisemitism to flourish – and flourish it did. And the problem was subsequently exacerbated by Democratic ambivalence whenever progressives legitimized ancient slanders or radical mobs turned against Jews, their synagogues, schools, and businesses.

Despite his own culpability, Mr. Obama blamed Donald Trump for laying the groundwork for today’s antisemitism. There is a bright line between irony and dishonesty, however, and this revisionist claim certainly crossed it.

The reality is that Trump had a far better record of condemning antisemitism (and supporting Israel), as demonstrated by his remarks after the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, which showed greater empathy for Jews and their history than was ever expressed by Obama. Within hours of that atrocity, President Trump tweeted: “All of America is in mourning over the mass murder of Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We pray for those who perished and their loved ones…” He further commented: “This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst… [and] through the centuries the Jews have endured terrible persecution.”

Unlike his predecessor, Trump did not equivocate or analogize antisemitism to all other forms of bigotry. Nor did he conceal the victims’ Jewishness or usurp the incident as an opportunity to lecture about the evils of Islamophobia.

And how did Joe Biden and other Democrats react? They either attempted to blame Trump for the massacre or called it an act of “gun violence,” thereby masking the killer’s antisemitic intentions. In co-opting the Pittsburgh tragedy to promote partisan goals, moreover, they acted with calculated opportunism that should have offended decent people of all political persuasions.

Progressive Jew-hatred has become even more ubiquitous since the Obama days, as illustrated by the election of radical Democrats who spout antisemitic rhetoric without fear of meaningful reprimand. Over the last few years, members and fans of “the squad” in Congress have accused Jews of “hypnotizing” the world, being disloyal Americans, and controlling foreign policy and global finance. Instead of being disciplined by party leadership, however, Congressional radicals are rewarded with influential committee appointments and popular acceptance.

During the latest Gaza war instigated by Hamas, progressive Democrats falsely accused Israel of genocide for defending herself. They also incited anti-Jewish violence with inflammatory rhetoric, openly supported terrorist aggressors, and screamed about ending US aid to the Jewish State. Biden condemned the growing violence against Jews only when he could no longer avoid doing so; but his words were generic – and hollow for their failure to castigate those progressives whose hatred for Jews and Israel made it possible. And anyway, how could his admonitions be taken seriously considering his appointment of Israel-haters and BDS advocates to work in his administration?

In a questionable display a month or so ago, the New York Times published a frontpage article with the headline, “More Than 250 Dead, Mostly Civilians…,” implying that Israel killed hundreds of Arab civilians during the Gaza conflict (which Hamas started by shooting hundreds of missiles at Israeli men, women, and children). Intelligence reports, however, showed that approximately half the dead (and perhaps many more) were terrorist fighters; and that many civilian deaths were caused by misfired Hamas rockets. The Times issued a partial correction eleven days later stating it could not confirm the number of civilian deaths but saying nothing about the dubious credibility of casualty data provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Such biased reporting resembles yellow journalism from the late nineteenth century, when journalists sacrificed objectivity for political and ideological sensationalism. And these lapses are not limited to mainstream venues but are employed by social media to promote bias and sow discord.

Despite their disingenuous denials, social media platforms provide safe harbor for classical antisemitism masquerading as social justice advocacy. Only in a morally warped media universe would it be possible for Google to hire a “diversity chief” who previously wrote that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing…” Or for Facebook to allow antisemitic posts while blocking pro-Israel messages for violating community standards. Or for the prevalence of hateful tweets to prompt the ADL to issue a report entitled, “Quantifying Hate: A Year of Anti-Semitism on Twitter.”

The implications of such behavior are far-reaching, particularly as the media’s constitutional role of government watchdog erodes with its fawning adoration of progressive radicals. Instead of exposing them with critical reporting, the press validates their prejudices and excoriates their detractors. It seems ironic that words no longer seem to have objective meaning for a profession once based on the ability to communicate truth.

And perhaps it was such moral ambiguity that finally caused some Democrats to break rank.

When Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recently maligned Israel yet again – likening it (and the US) to Hamas and the Taliban – twelve Jewish Congressional Democrats responded with a letter asking her “to clarify her words…” Not the strongest of condemnations perhaps, but at least they said something. The question is why hostile rhetoric from party progressives was tolerated for more than two years before eliciting meaningful pushback. Moreover, of thirty-seven Jewish Democrats in Congress, why did only twelve speak out?

It could be that political partisans value party loyalty and ideology more than Jewish history and ancestral values, regardless of whether party doctrine denigrates Israel or legitimizes those who incite or rationalize antisemitism. Or maybe they are afraid to speak out.

Whatever the reason, we have seen this play before – and if Émile Zola were here today, he might well say, “J’accuse à nouveau.”

©Matthew Hausman. All rights reserved.

Patricia Crone: ‘There is no doubt that Mohammed existed.’ Here’s why she’s wrong.

People who disagree with the historical investigations discussed in Did Muhammad Exist? have not infrequently sent me this 2008 article by Patricia Crone (who died in 2015), who was one of the pioneering scholars of historical revisionism regarding the standard account of Muhammad’s life, and yet in this article seems to retreat from her previous views and accept the canonical Islamic depiction of Muhammad and Islam’s origins. Since Crone appears to present a formidable case against the points raised in Did Muhammad Exist?, it seemed prudent to me to answer them. Here is the first part of her article, followed by my response. More to come.

Order the new revised and expanded version of Did Muhammad Exist? here.

What do we actually know about Mohammed?

by Patricia Crone, Open Democracy, June 10, 2008:

It is notoriously difficult to know anything for sure about the founder of a world religion. Just as one shrine after the other obliterates the contours of the localities in which he was active, so one doctrine after another reshapes him as a figure for veneration and imitation for a vast number of people in times and places that he never knew.

In the case of Mohammed, Muslim literary sources for his life only begin around 750-800 CE (common era), some four to five generations after his death, and few Islamicists (specialists in the history and study of Islam) these days assume them to be straightforward historical accounts. For all that, we probably know more about Mohammed than we do about Jesus (let alone Moses or the Buddha), and we certainly have the potential to know a great deal more.

There is no doubt that Mohammed existed, occasional attempts to deny it notwithstanding. His neighbours in Byzantine Syria got to hear of him within two years of his death at the latest; a Greek text written during the Arab invasion of Syria between 632 and 634 mentions that “a false prophet has appeared among the Saracens” and dismisses him as an impostor on the ground that prophets do not come “with sword and chariot”. It thus conveys the impression that he was actually leading the invasions.

Mohammed’s death is normally placed in 632, but the possibility that it should be placed two or three years later cannot be completely excluded. The Muslim calendar was instituted after Mohammed’s death, with a starting-point of his emigration (hijra) to Medina (then Yathrib) ten years earlier. Some Muslims, however, seem to have correlated this point of origin with the year which came to span 624-5 in the Gregorian calendar rather than the canonical year of 622.

If such a revised date is accurate, the evidence of the Greek text would mean that Mohammed is the only founder of a world religion who is attested in a contemporary source. But in any case, this source gives us pretty irrefutable evidence that he was an historical figure. Moreover, an Armenian document probably written shortly after 661 identifies him by name and gives a recognisable account of his monotheist preaching….

To say that “in the case of Mohammed, Muslim literary sources for his life only begin around 750-800 CE (common era), some four to five generations after his death” is to drastically overstate the case. There are Islamic accounts of early historians of Muhammad such as Urwa ibn al-Zubayr (who died in 712) and Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (who died in 741). Some Western historians, notably Gregor Schoeler, take this as evidence that material attributed to them is trustworthy and goes back to people who actually knew and interacted with Muhammad. The problem with this is that we actually don’t have the writings of either man; we only have ninth-century traditions that are attributed to them. There is no possible guarantee that material attributed to them did not undergo legendary elaboration in the intervening period.

As for the claim that “we probably know more about Mohammed than we do about Jesus,” there is virtually no doubt that the four Gospels date from the first century, that is, within 60 to 70 years of the life of Jesus. Within 60 to 70 years of the life of Muhammad, we have nothing about him except a few bare mentions of the name, which may not actually refer to him at all.

It is likewise false that Muhammad’s “neighbours in Byzantine Syria got to hear of him within two years of his death at the latest; a Greek text written during the Arab invasion of Syria between 632 and 634 mentions that ‘a false prophet has appeared among the Saracens’ and dismisses him as an impostor on the ground that prophets do not come ‘with sword and chariot.’” Crone here is referring to the Doctrina Jacobi, which speaks of an unnamed Arab prophet. One thing that can be established from this document is that the Arabian invaders who conquered Palestine in 635 (the “Saracens”) came bearing news of a new prophet, one who was “armed with a sword.” But in the Doctrina Jacobi this unnamed prophet is still alive, traveling with his armies, whereas Muhammad is supposed to have died in 632. What’s more, this Saracen prophet, rather than proclaiming that he was Allah’s last prophet (cf. Qur’an 33:40), was “proclaiming the advent of the anointed one, the Christ who was to come.” This was a reference to an expected Jewish Messiah, not to the Jesus Christ of Christianity (“Christ” is “Messiah” in Greek).

The Doctrina Jacobi could still be referring to Muhammad. Or it could be referring to a figure whose stories were incorporated into the Muhammad legend. The fact that the details of this unnamed prophet don’t coincide with what Islamic tradition says about Muhammad strongly suggests that it would be hasty to assume that a one-to-one identity between the Saracen prophet and Muhammad. If Muhammad existed and the stories about him recorded in the ninth-century hadiths were circulating in the 630s, why did the Doctrina Jacobi get it all wrong? Maybe he was just stupid, or ill-informed; or maybe many traditions were circulating, some of which became part of the Muhammad legend, and some did not.

The “Armenian document probably written shortly after 661” is a chronicle attributed to the Armenian bishop Sebeos. It portrays a “Mahmet” as a merchant and preacher from among the Ishmaelites who taught his followers to worship the only true God, the God of Abraham. So far, so good: that sounds exactly like the prophet of Islam. But other elements of Sebeos’s account have no trace in Islamic tradition. It depicts “Mahmet” as insisting on the Jews’ right to the Holy Land—in the context of claiming that land for the Ishmaelites, acting in conjunction with the Jews. Many elements in Islamic tradition do show Muhammad proclaiming himself a prophet in the line of the Jewish prophets and enjoining various observances adapted from Jewish law upon his new community. He even originally had the Muslims praying toward the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, before the revelation came from Allah that they should face Mecca instead. It is odd, however, that this account gives no hint of any of the antagonism toward the Jews that came to characterize Muhammad and the Muslims’ posture toward them; the Qur’an characterizes Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82).

Sebeos’s account is also wildly unhistorical. There is no record of twelve thousand Jews partnering with Arabians to invade Byzantine holdings, as he describes. And from Sebeos’s account, one gets the impression that as late as the 660s, the Muslims and the Jews were spiritual kin and political allies. This doesn’t correspond to anything in Islamic tradition or the conventional account, and the divergence suggests that Sebeos was writing about traditions that differed from those that coalesced into the canonical Islamic story. If Muhammad were a historical figure who said and did the things the Hadith depict him saying and doing, this divergence becomes hard to explain: either Sebeos had a wildly inaccurate view of those he was writing about, or the codification of Islamic tradition came later.

Find out more in Did Muhammad Exist?.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Islamic Reformer Claims ‘Islamism’ Arose Only with Afghan War, Dodges Question About Quran’s Violent Passages

Greece: ‘Islamic Police’ enforce Sharia rules in the center of Athens, ‘terrorize’ people

Uganda: Muslim converts to Christianity, his brother attacks him with a machete

UK: Mosque leader tells children ‘jihad is compulsory’ while making stabbing motions

UK: Muslim brandishing toy gun and screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ kicks in doors of London bank

Israel: Islamic party says Temple Mount is ‘solely the property of Muslims, and no one else has any right to it’

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

Social media and the fourth deadly sin

Modern life seems to be inextricably tied to certain classic sins in a way that defeats their separation.


In case you’re wondering, the fourth deadly sin in the classical lists of seven sins is envy. Sociologist Anne Hendershott has written a whole book about it—The Politics of Envy—and the editors of the Spring 2021 issue of The Human Life Review excerpted part of a chapter that shows how social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram leverage this particular deadly sin to their advantage.

But not always to the advantage of the users, it turns out.

First, let’s distinguish between envy and jealousy. Although the two words are now used almost interchangeably, envy originally meant the feeling of resentment or anguish one person has when faced with another person’s superior possessions or characteristics. Envy requires a specific person to be envied, while a jealous husband, for instance, may not be worried about any particular other man interested in his wife—he’s just suspicious of all of them.

Hendershott points out that while envy has always been a part of the human condition, in times past it was limited to people you knew or knew about. But in the digital age, there are as many targets of potential envy as there are people on Facebook, and the opportunities for envy are multiplied indefinitely.

Covetousness is related to envy, but in addition has the honour to be prohibited explicitly by God in Commandment No. 10 (or 9 if you’re Catholic). Advertisers have been exploiting covetousness for centuries, but until recently they had to do the tedious work of creating an artificially attractive and enviable portrayal for each ad: “Here’s this good-looking guy who just got the gal, and if you used his kind of toothpaste you could be where he is now.”

But with social media, all the Facebook techies have to do now is provide the proper tools, and people will naturally put their best faces forward in what Hendershott calls the “highlight-reel” version of themselves: the best-looking picture taken at the party, the most expensive vacation setting, etc.

And envy is a strong motivator for certain other kinds of people to go and look at the enviable types, eat their hearts out, and in so doing add advertising revenue to the coffers of big tech.

What does envy do to the envious?

One would not expect a lot of positive effects, and several studies bear this out. Hendershott says that a 2015 study carried out by a Denmark organization called the Happiness Research Institute found that people who take a break from social media report being happier.

Apart from studies that show a general inverse correlation between social-media use and happiness, another study of Danish teenagers found no strong correlation between the hours of social-media use and happiness. Digging deeper, the researchers did find that the way social media was used did influence happiness.

When they divided the users into active ones who posted a lot of material themselves, and passive ones who just poked around viewing the postings of others, then a big difference showed up. The active users tended to be happier than the passive ones who just looked at friends’ pages without posting much of their own lives.

Certain aspects of modern life seem to be inextricably tied to certain classic sins in a way that defeats their separation. Where would modern capitalism be without greed, for instance? Or advertising without covetousness? Does this mean we simply have to shrug our shoulders and accept the harm caused by media-induced sin? Or could something be done about it?

Just in the last week or so, I have read in different places some proposals to regulate social media, or at least the artificial-intelligence algorithms that are used to train users to be more reliable and complacent consumers of targeted advertising. And I have also read strong arguments against such regulation, based mainly on the idea that any regulation of social-media content beyond what the private platform operators do themselves violates the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

But when someone makes a one-to-one correspondence between, say, Patrick Henry making a speech before a crowd of fellow Virginians in 1774, and Cristiano Ronaldo, a professional Portuguese athlete who plays “football” (soccer in the US) and is currently, according to Wikipedia. the most-followed person on Facebook today with 149 million followers, I’d say we’re definitely in apples-and-oranges territory, or maybe even apples and geodes.

What the comparison leaves out is the incredibly sophisticated AI-based machinery that Facebook and company use to train and otherwise manipulate both followers and leaders in modern social media—machinery that was entirely absent in the days before the internet and electronic media in general.

The comparison that makes more sense to me is one between what the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does today and what might be done by a similar governmental entity in the future. The FDA came about largely because the sophisticated chemical adulterants used by manufacturers in the early 1900s were not something that your average consumer was even aware of, let alone could defend himself against. So the FDA was charged with using the same advanced chemical and biological science available to the manufacturers to make sure that the foods and drugs sold to the public were not harmful, using a negotiated and agreed-on definition of harm.

It seems to me that given enough political good will (always a scarce commodity, but especially so today), we could define objective levels of psychological harm: depression, anxiety, even rates of suicide. And we might be able to determine to what extent these conditions were attributable, not simply to the user posts on social media, but the sophisticated methods used to heighten their impact on certain people who are thereby harmed.

And then we could go in and say to the tech companies, “This set of algorithms is okay, but that set is off-limits, because it leads to X suicides, Y instances of depression, Z cases of porn-induced erectile dysfunction, etc.”

In order to do any good, the regulatory agency would have to have a cadre of sophisticated techie types just as smart as the ones the private companies have, and that might be hard. But only such types can see through the opaque fog of algorithms to tell what’s going on, and which ones are harmful.

Republished with permission from Engineering Ethics.

COLUMN BY

Karl D. Stephan

Karl D. Stephan received the B. S. in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1976. Following a year of graduate study at Cornell, he received the Master of Engineering degree in 1977… More by Karl D. Stephan

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

Alleged Iranian Kidnap Plot Targeted Iranian/American Dissident In Brooklyn

Connecting the immigration dots Biden ignores. 


On July 13, 2021 the Department of Justice issued a press release that announced, Iranian Intelligence Officials Indicted on Kidnapping Conspiracy Charges. The subtitle of that press release provides a bit more information: Iranian Intelligence Services Allegedly Plotted to Kidnap a U.S. Journalist and Human Rights Activist from New York City for Rendition to Iran.

The information contained in the DOJ press release reads like the plot of an international spy novel, but this case is not a fictitious novel.  The claims made in the press release detail a serious plot allegedly mounted by the renegade government of Iran to shut down any criticisms of the Tehran regime by kidnapping Iranian expatriates around the world to silence them and to intimidate any others who might consider speaking out against the Iranian government.

The DOJ press release also contained a ink to the superseding indictment and began this way:

A New York federal court unsealed an indictment today charging four Iranian nationals with conspiracies related to kidnapping, sanctions violations, bank and wire fraud, and money laundering. A co-conspirator and California resident, also of Iran, faces additional structuring charges.

According to court documents, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, aka Vezerat Salimi and Haj Ali, 50; Mahmoud Khazein, 42; Kiya Sadeghi, 35; and Omid Noori, 45, all of Iran, conspired to kidnap a Brooklyn journalist, author and human rights activist for mobilizing public opinion in Iran and around the world to bring about changes to the regimes laws and practices. Niloufar Bahadorifar, aka Nellie Bahadorifar, 46, originally of Iran and currently residing in California, is alleged to have provided financial services that supported the plot.

Every person in the United States must be free from harassment, threats and physical harm by foreign powers,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mark J. Lesko for the Justice Departments National Security Division. Through this indictment, we bring to light one such pernicious plot to harm an American citizen who was exercising their First Amendment rights, and we commit ourselves to bring the defendants to justice.”

As alleged, four of the defendants monitored and planned to kidnap a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin who has been critical of the regimes autocracy, and to forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victims fate would have been uncertain at best,” said U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York. Among this countrys most cherished freedoms is the right to speak ones mind without fear of government reprisal.

Additional important information about this case, including the identity of the intended target of the alleged Iranian operation, Masih Alinejad, is provided in the July 13, 2021 New York Daily News report, Iran plotted to kidnap dissident journalist and author from her Brooklyn home: feds.

The Daily News article began with this excerpt:

An Iranian intelligence officer and a network of accomplices tried to kidnap a prominent U.S. journalist and author from her Brooklyn home to silence her criticism of the Iranian regime, federal prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors allege a disturbing plot by the Iranian government aimed to grab activist Masih Alinejad and lock her up in an Iranian prison. Their plans included spying on her home for months and researching the best route to the Brooklyn waterfront — where they hoped to shove her in a military-style speedboat headed for Venezuela.

The Daily News report also included this excerpt:

Alinejad is known for her fierce activism against the law requiring women in Iran to wear a hijab, and in 2019, she sued the Iranian government in federal court, accusing it of harassing her family and imprisoning her brother. She fled Iran in 2009, and became a U.S. citizen in 2019.

I have 5 million followers on my Instagram… Im giving a platform to people inside, challenging the compulsory hijab, and challenging the religious dictatorship,” she told The News. All the years and years they called America the great Satan, the biggest enemy. But theyre scared of their own people. Thats why they sent officers from the intelligence service to Brooklyn to kidnap me.”

She said she was horrified by the news last year that the Iranian government had executed Ruhollah Zam, a dissident journalist living in France. Federal prosecutors said he was lured by Iranian intelligence services to leave France in October 2019, and captured him.

My heart was broken following the news of his execution, and I was like, Wow, theyre trying to exactly do the same to me.’ Its scary but it gives me hope. I give voice to the voiceless people inside Iran,” she said.

News coverage of this case has, however, ignored the immigration components of this case.  To begin with, while four of the defendants are fugitives and, at least for the present at large (likely outside the United States), the fifth defendant in this case, Niloufar Bahadorifar, aka Nellie Bahadorifar, is in custody and is charged with providing financial assistance to the plotters.

The obvious question is how she was able to enter the United States in the first place.  If, as it is alleged, she provided the financial resources necessary for the plot to be carried out, when did she first decide to help Iran with this nefarious plot?  Has she been involved in other such operations before she entered the United States?

Therefore I would hope that the U.S. Attorneys who are assigned to this case will dig into Bahadorifar’s apparent ability to secure a visa.  It is significant to know if she lied on her application for that visa and if anyone helped her to secure that visa.

Visa fraud was identified by the 9/11 Commission as the key method of entry and embedding for terrorists and was, in fact, the focus of the very first congressional hearing in which I participated back on May 20, 1997 on the topic, Visa Fraud And Immigration Benefits Application Fraud.

That hearing was predicated on two terror attacks carried out in the United States in 1993 by aliens from the Middle East, who had gamed the immigration system- the deadly shooting at the CIA in January 1993 and the bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993.

Because of the findings of the 9/11 Commission that visa fraud is an extremely serious crime with potential national security implications, under the provisions of 18 U.S. Code § 1546, an alien who commits visa fraud in support of terrorism faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Incredibly, as I noted in a previous article, Biden’s DHS: Department of Homeland Surrender, the current Director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas, has an abysmal track record on seeking to identify and ferret out fraud in immigration and visa applications.  I noted in my earlier article that an investigation conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) into Mayorkas’ practices, when he was the Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Obama administration, found that he acted improperly.

In my earlier article I provided links to several worrying news reports and an OIG report about Mr. Alejandro “Get to yes!” Mayorkas who admonished those under his command to approve virtually all applications.

Here are the appropriate links from my earlier article:

On March 24, 2015 a report of the findings of the investigation by the Office of the Inspector General was released.

The focus was on how applications for a particular visa category, the EB-5 Visa for aliens who invest between 500,000 and 1,000,000 in businesses that creates jobs for Americans in the United States, were wrongly approved.

ABC News published several in-depth articles about the troubling findings of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

On March 24, 2015 ABC News reported, Top Homeland Official Alejandro Mayorkas Accused of Political Favoritism Alejandro Mayorkas oversaw controversial $500,000 visa program.

The above-noted report was preceded by two ABC News reports that were published on February 3, 2015 which illustrate a clear nexus between these visas and national security:

Whistleblowers: US Gave Visas to Suspected Forgers, Fraudsters, Criminals Internal documents show feds ignored warnings from FBI.

Feds Investigating Iran Ties to Firm Involved in US Visa Program Documents: Iranian operatives may be abusing program to “infiltrate” U.S.”

Finally, the alleged Iranian plot sought to remove Masih Alinejad from the United States on a speedboat from along what is America’s longest border.  Not the U.S./Mexican border.  Not the U.S./Canadian border, but along America’s 95,000 mile coastline.  In this case, the shore line near her home in Brooklyn.

As I have noted ever so many times, the United States has 50 border states.  It is clear that the Biden administration is determined to erase all of America’s borders, thereby leaving America and Americans vulnerable to America’s enemies including spies, terrorists, transnational criminals, human traffickers and drug smugglers.

A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

©Michael Cutler. All rights reserved.

Austria Becomes the First European Country to Ban the Muslim Brotherhood’s Activities Outright

This won’t happen in the U.S., as long as Biden’s handlers are in power. They’re actively collaborating with Brotherhood entities in the U.S.

Austria Bans Muslim Brotherhood and Sets New Standard In the Fight Against Islamist Extremism

EU-Policies, July 13, 2021:

Last week, the Austrian National Assembly passed an act targeting the activities of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. Under the new law, released terror offenders will be monitored through electronic ankle bracelets, and imams leading religious services in the country will be required to register with the government. The new regulations also make Austria the first European country to ban the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities outright, as the country takes a firm stance against a growing phenomenon of political Islam.

The new legislation is only the most recent in a series of efforts by the conservative government of Sebastian Kurz to try and curb Islamist extremism in the country. While Austria is currently going further than any other government in Western Europe in targeting suspects, its model for preventing extremist activities might soon be taken up in other EU countries….

Founded in 1928 by Egyptian scholar Hassan al-Banna as an “Islamic revival” organisation, the Brotherhood came to worldwide prominence as a wave of Islamism rose up to challenge secular governments across the Arab World in the second half of the 20th century. Over the past several decades, the transnational constellation of organisations that make up the Brotherhood has also given rise to paramilitary wings which have engaged in campaigns of bombings and assassinations.

The movement’s primary goal has long been to create Islamist states ruled in accordance with sharia, or Islamic law. In the wake of the Arab Spring, branches of the Brotherhood emerged as a dominant political force in several countries, and even managed to obtain power in Egypt with the election of Mohammed Morsi to the presidency and in Tunisia through the Ennahda movement. After being democratically elected, Morsi took a sharp turn towards authoritarianism, acting to cement Islamist rule over Egypt until furious protesters and the Egyptian army forced him out of power a year into his term.

While mainstream branches of the Brotherhood often present themselves as democratising forces and compete in elections, their offshoots and sister organisations include a number of violent terrorist organisations such as Hamas or Liwa al-Thawra. For many years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been seen by scholars as a “gateway” organisation for religious extremists who are initially radicalised by its strong Islamist message and subsequently move on to more overtly extremist groups. No less than Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda, started out as a member of the Brotherhood….

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Did Muhammad Exist?’: ‘Intellectually exhilarating.’ ‘Leaves no stone unturned.’

New York Times covers Muslim stabbing rabbi a week late, claims hate crime charges based on ‘weak evidence’

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad summer camps train children for jihad

Nigeria: Kano State Sharia police say the use of mannequins is un-Islamic

Germany: ‘Islamist terrorism has developed…The number of terrorist actors and the danger they pose has increased’

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

VIDEO: The Vortex — Here’s the Proof

This is why the establishment doesn’t want you listening to Church Militant.


TRANSCRIPT

More and more, we are getting phone calls and emails from Catholics around the country who are saying things like, “My priest told us from the pulpit to not watch anything on Church Militant.”

One seminarian told us that while he was applying, the vocations director asked him, “So what do you think of Church Militant?”

Another faithful Catholic said he went into the sacristy after Mass and asked his priest about comments he made about “divisive” websites and wanted to know what he was referring to. “Church Militant” was his response.

We’ve been made aware for some time that most of the establishment hates what we reveal about them. Tough.

Stop denigrating the Faith and victimizing innocent souls and bodies, and we’ll happily return to our first mission here, which was helping instruct people about the glories of the Church — the one true Faith — which is made nearly impossible because of the corrupt hierarchy, who think they are some kind of medieval monarchs.

For example, here in Detroit (home to the beginning of the corruption in the Church in the United States, thanks to Cdl. John Dearden, who ordained the current corrupt archbishop, Vigneron), His Excellency wrote a letter to the faithful a few weeks ago saying we need to speak the truth in social media and various Catholic news outlets and do so in charity.

This is from a man who has made a career protecting homosexual clergy and workers in his chancery, allowed false reports about solid faithful clergy to be disseminated to secular media and who keeps prolific homosexuals in his employ until they are outed by Church Militant.

It’s beyond galling that he would even consider thinking that he is beyond reproach and should not be questioned and then turn around and condemn those among the faithful who want accountability from him for destroying faithful priests.

Practice what you preach, Abp. Vigneron. But then you’d have to resign. The only thing more frightening than the knowledge that you have two more years to go here is that Cupich will be pulling the strings when it comes to your replacement. Buckle in, faithful Catholics. Vigneron’s scheming and wheeling and dealing will look like child’s play in comparison with what’s coming.

We say all this to say that the corrupt bishops are feeling the heat and have now launched a war to discredit Church Militant and our reporting. They have tons of resources to do so — from paid chancery personnel who have to toe the party line or get fired, to those who get paychecks and believe the bishop is a good man because he’s so nice.

Nothing will ever convince some people of the truth of anything. Even Our Lord said that if someone were to come back from the dead, they would not believe.

So, yes, some people are beyond admitting the truth and dealing with it because there’s something in them deeply disturbed. That will have to be left to God. However, there are plenty of other people who are not willfully ignorant, or at least not as much so, who, when presented with absolute proof, will admit they were wrong and join the cause.

It’s why Church Militant does what we do by way of video, audio, document dumps, loads and loads of background vetting and so forth. Some people require an overabundance of proof to be swayed. Fair enough. Let’s go.

For years now, Church Militant has been warning not only of the obvious dangers to the Faith and stability of the Church because of James Martin and the homosexual cabal of cardinals and archbishops, but also the other crowd, the subtle destroyers of the Faith whom most people pass over because this crowd is much more sneaky.

A case in point is Cdl. Timothy Dolan of New York, who is as corrupt and lying as they come. But his constant appearances on Fox News help him to self-promote as a voice of reason and moderation in the Church, all while undermining all sorts of things.

So in chasing him down — and considering the pass that many are willing to give him — we knew we would need the proof. Well, we have it. We have secret audiotapes where his own personnel come right out and admit the cover-up Dolan lied about regarding one of the most notorious cases of homosexuality in the priesthood.

On multiple occasions, the cardinal archbishop stood in front of New York media outlets and lied through his teeth about a cover-up he knew was going on, claiming there was no evidence and that no one had come forward. He also lied about the extent of his own privately ordered investigation and his promise to release the findings.

Church Militant has been working on this case for over five years, compiling everything possible to expose this corrupt, lying leader in the Church, and now we have it and are ready to release the proof, the smoking gun.

Immediately following tonight’s Church Militant Evening News, which airs live at 6:30 p.m. ET, we will be releasing the biggest bombshell report on a member of the hierarchy ever produced: secret recordings from his own investigators who admit the cover-up and its scope.

They didn’t know Church Militant has the recordings — but they do now. So we invite you to tune in tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET for our Evening News, followed immediately by our Church Militant Spotlight: Cdl. Dolan Exposed.

But please don’t think Dolan is some lone outlier. He’s just part of a much larger network of corrupt men in robes, some homosexual, others covering it all up and all of them in the network of liars and cheats. Judas had nothing on these men.

Church Militant is completely dedicated to exposing this rot (which has been a hundred years in the making — not just since Vatican II) and inspiring you to take action.

On the point of exposing, this is why we gathered various priests in the studio last month to have them tell you their stories about how this corrupt network has maligned them.

This week, we gathered a group of former seminarians who can tell you about the rampant homosexuality and doctrinal corruption they either experienced or saw firsthand while they were in formation. We’ll be releasing that in the next day or so.

As far as taking action, this is why Church Militant is organizing the “Bishops: Enough Is Enough” rally on Nov. 16, 2021 (to coincide with the USCCB meeting in Baltimore), where the likes of Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos and Stephen Brady will let loose about this corruption and the need to expose it and bring it to an end.

We want 3,000 faithful Catholics from across the country to show up at this and make their voices heard. Please click here for details.

The Church has undergone various moments in Her life where corrupt men have seized power and attacked the Church from within, but this time in Her 2,000-year history may be the worst of all. That means a larger response and action are required of actual believers, a total dedication to expose the filth and demand action.

Think of what has happened to Fr. James Altman, who will also be at the “Enough Is Enough” rally. All he did was call out the evil of voting for abortion while still pretending to be Catholic and then slam the hierarchy for its willingness to shut the churches and deny the sacraments. He gets ripped by his bishop, but the child molesters, thieves, active homosexuals and so forth in collars and miters get a free pass, reassigned, promoted even.

No one is more sorry that it has come to this than us at Church Militant. This was never the intent of this apostolate. But these men and their corruption actually deprive souls of truth, peace and justice. They must be stopped.

That’s why you have to get involved, do whatever you can and keep doing it because the Church and souls are worth the fight, grueling as it may be.

This corruption is more than a century old, and it isn’t going to change in a short amount of time. Please click here and come to Baltimore, and tune into Church Militant Evening News every night — but especially tonight to hear the proof with your own ears. This is why the establishment doesn’t want you listening to Church Militant.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: The Many Faces of the BDS Movement

Omar Barghouti founded the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in July 2005 after becoming a founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004 (PACBI joined the BDS campaign in 2005). He also co-founded the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in November 2007.

The BNC leads and supports the BDS movement and, according to Barghouti, “sets the overall strategies, the objectives of the movement.” Barghouti has expressed support for terrorism, promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and regularly demonizes Israel. He opposes the Jewish right to self-determination and Israel’s existence, openly calling for its destruction as a Jewish state.

To learn more about Omar Barghouti click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Canary Mission video and column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

MISSOURI: Muslim Threatens to Blow Up and Shoot Up Factory Where He Works

Celebrate diversity!

The name “Yassine” is derived from “Ya Sin,” the 36th chapter of the Qur’an.

Versailles man charged with Making a Terroristic Threat

by Dan Claxton, KRCG, July 12, 2021:

NEW BLOOMFIELD — A Versailles man is in custody in the Morgan County jail charged with Making a Terroristic Threat by allegedly telling two co-workers on July 8 that he was going to blow up their workplace.

According to court documents, 33-year-old Yassine Bouyassine told a co-worker “when I come back I’ll blow it up.” Asked what he meant, he replied “Gates,” meaning Gates Corporation in Versailles, where Bouyassine works. He made a few more comments about “blowing up” and “shooting up” the facility, at one point asking co-workers how fast they thought he could do it.

The two employees who heard the comments then told their supervisor, who reported the incident to police.

Morgan County Prosecutor Dustin Dunklee charged Bouyassine with one count of Making a Terroristic Threat in the Second Degree. Missouri law defines that crime in part as communicating “an express or implied threat to cause an incident or condition involving danger to life.”…

RELATED ARTICLE: Boston: Antisemitic Muslim migrant who stabbed rabbi arrested for battery last year, sent to mental health facility

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

Islamic Republic of Iran Sent Goons to Kidnap Iranian Freedom Activist in NYC and Take Her Back to Iran

Meanwhile, they were sitting down with Biden’s handlers to demand the end of sanctions. The mullahs know that there is nothing they can do that will make Biden’s handlers not want to give them everything they want.

Iranian Operatives Planned to Kidnap a Brooklyn Author, Prosecutors Say

by Benjamin Weiser, New York Times, July 13, 2021:

An Iranian American journalist living in Brooklyn was the target of an international kidnapping plot orchestrated by an Iranian intelligence network, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

In an indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, four Iranians were charged with conspiring to kidnap the journalist and author, Masih Alinejad, who has long been a staunch critic of the Iranian government.

Ms. Alinejad was not identified by prosecutors, but confirmed in an interview that she was the intended target of the plot. Last year, Ms. Alinejad wrote in a newspaper article that Iranian government officials had unleashed a social media campaign calling for her abduction.

The four defendants all live in Iran, the prosecutors said, identifying one of them, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, as an Iranian intelligence official and the three others as “Iranian intelligence assets.” A fifth defendant, accused of supporting the plot but not participating in the kidnapping conspiracy, was arrested in California.

A federal indictment describes a plot that included attempts to lure Ms. Alinejad to a third country to capture her and forcibly render her to Iran. The intelligence official, Mr. Farahani, and his network used private investigators to surveil, photograph and video record Ms. Alinejad and members of her household in Brooklyn, the government said.

The extensive surveillance that Mr. Farahani’s network procured included the use of a live, high-definition video feed depicting Ms. Alinejad’s home, prosecutors said.

“This is not some far-fetched movie plot,” William F. Sweeney Jr., the head of the F.B.I.’s New York office, said in a statement.

In a 2018 essay in The New York Times, Ms. Alinejad described her decision to leave Iran a decade earlier.

“As a journalist in Iran, I often got into trouble exposing the regime’s mismanagement and corruption until, eventually, my press pass was revoked,” she wrote. “I was often threatened with arrest or worse for writing articles critical of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ultimately, I was forced to flee my homeland in 2009.”…

RELATED VIDEO: Jay Smith and Robert Spencer on the revised and expanded edition of ‘Did Muhammad Exist?’

RELATED ARTICLES:

Taliban say China is friend of Afghanistan, promise not to allow Uighur jihadis to enter the country

Missouri: Muslim threatens to blow up and shoot up factory where he works

Afghanistan: Taliban scream ‘Allahu akbar’ as they murder 22 Afghan commandos who were surrendering

Tennessee: After two-year investigation for criticizing Islam, DA cleared by Board of Professional Responsibility

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

IG REPORT: Islamic Terrorists Lead Religious Services in 25% of U.S. Federal prisons

Prisons are a notorious hotbed of jihad recruitment. Who better to target than the violent, broken and disenfranchised? Why would authorities give violent jihadis access to the general population? In no fewer than five states, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Muslims make up 1 out of 4 or 1 out of 5 prisoners. Overrepresentation may be partially a product of the success of Islamic dawah or missionary activity in prisons. Islamic prison dawah has produced many converts and at least some terror plots. And it may serve to explain high Muslim prison numbers in some states, but not necessarily in others.

Islamic terrorists lead religious services in a quarter of federal prisons: inspector general report

Audit found inmates affiliated with Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab allowed to lead services.

By: Just the News, July 9, 2021:

Inmates convicted on terrorism-related charges or with “known connections to terrorist organizations,” including the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab, were allowed to lead religious services at a third of the federal prisons audited by a federal watchdog, raising deep security concerns.

A recent audit by the Justice Department’s inspector general of the Chaplaincy Services Program in the Federal Bureau of Prisons found four out of 12 facilities in which terrorist inmates were eligible to lead religious services.

At three of the facilities, the prisoners were affiliated with Islamic terrorist groups, with at least two leading services “on a regular basis” or a “frequent basis.” One of them was chosen to lead services by other inmate coreligionists “due to his extensive faith knowledge and Arabic fluency.”

This wasn’t the first time the IG found terrorist inmates leading services, the report states, citing a March 2020 audit.

The July report blamed the absence of a “fully-staffed and diverse chaplaincy” for such lapses: The 236 chaplains are about 30 percent below BOP targets. This prompted many institutions to “turn to alternatives such as inmate-led services and heavy reliance on contract faith providers and minimally vetted volunteer faith providers to fill the gaps in the chaplaincy staff. These staffing shortages and alternatives present risks.”

BOP policies don’t restrict “certain inmates from leading services and appear to be inconsistent regarding the level of required monitoring,” the report states. It found only one chaplain who “reportedly took preemptive action to prevent a known terrorist from leading religious services.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

Alaska must pay $100,000 to Muslim inmates over Ramadan food options, TERROR ORG CAIR will give religious sensitivity training to Department of Corrections

Thousands of “radicalized” jihad inmates set to be freed from prisons

Nation of Islam receiving federal cash to teach federal inmates

Terror-Tied ICNA Solicits Donations for Prison Program

Scroll: Prison jihad

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

U.S. Islamic Scholar Blames the Jews for the Left’s War on America – Including Attacks on Jews

My latest in PJ Media:

The destruction of the United States is all a nefarious plot to aid Israel, you see. On July 3, Omar Baloch, whose YouTube channel describes him as “the Scholar in Residence for Al Furqaan Foundation,” a Chicago-based organization dedicated to spreading Islam in the United States, published a video entitled “San Francisco Goes into Chaos, Shoplifting & Shariah Law.” In it, Baloch advances the novel idea that the Left’s ever-escalating efforts to sow division and racial hatred in American society are all designed to advance, you guessed it, Israeli interests. Yes, he’s crazy. But people believe him, too.

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)’s partial transcription of Baloch’s words, he said: “It [the elite] creates racism. It creates local hatred. [It seeks to] break down the society, break down America, to the point that all the Jews will want to leave and go to Israel. And that is only one of the agendas, of course. They have to bring down this country, to get all the Jews to go to Israel, and in the meantime, cause chaos in America. That is the agenda of the elite. The agenda of the elite is to leave no group trusting another group. It is so unfortunate, because we, as Muslims, could be the harbingers that see through this facade.”

Baloch deserves credit for recognizing that there are indeed forces that want to “break down the society, break down America,” at a time when all too many people dismiss out of hand the possibility that such forces could exist. But Baloch claims that all this “chaos in America” is the work of Zionists, trying to “get all the Jews to go to Israel.”

Apparently Baloch wants us to think that all the recent anti-Semitic violence around the country was ultimately the responsibility of Zionists. So he would have his followers (21,600 of them on YouTube) believe that when a Muslim mob screaming “Allahu akbar” attacked a Jewish man in midtown Manhattan, they were acting at the behest of Zionists, in order to bring about the very result – the emigration of Jews to Israel – that had them so enraged. Baloch wants us to think that in another incident in Manhattan, when Palestinians threatened violence and screamed anti-Semitic slurs at Jews, they were sent by people from the very group they were threatening and screaming at. One threw a mini-firebomb – you just never know what those dastardly Zionists are going to do next. And when pro-jihad protesters stormed a restaurant and spat on Jewish patrons, while one of the thugs threw a bottle, it was all in the service of getting Jews to go to Israel. When a Muslim, Waseem Awawdeh, was arrested for viciously beating a Jew in Times Square, he really was hoping that more Jews would move to Israel, where they have been so graciously welcomed by Palestinian Arabs.

There is more. Read the rest here.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The earliest texts mentioning ‘Muhammad’: examined and found wanting

Pakistan: Council of Islamic Ideology halts Domestic Violence Bill, it’s ‘against teachings of Islam’

Abbas draws up list of demands for negotiations with Israel

Arab Member of Knesset: ‘If Israel fires on Gaza, I’ll topple the government’

Convicted terrorists, some linked to ISIS and al-Qaeda, lead religious services at a third of US federal prisons

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

VIDEO: The Tale of Two Cities — The World Builds Babylon

J.S. a reader sent us a link to this sermon by Eric Douma from the Gospel of Grace Fellowship. According to the Gospel of Grace:

In this third message about future Babylon, we examine how Babylon will be the headquarters of a false religion that most unbelievers will partake of in the last seven years (Daniel’s 70th week). I focus on both Pantheism and Marxism as major components of this future religion based in Babylon. I demonstrate that Pantheism began in Babylon, and that it will more than likely be centered in Babylon again in the final years of human history. I also prove that Marxism is really a religion based on the hatred of Christ and His people.

We also show how Marxist doctrine is in solidarity with the doctrines of Antichrist on many points. Come and equip yourself to understand the major issues of false religion plaguing the world today that may comprise the final Babylonian religion.

Please take the time to watch it.

©Gospel of Grace. All rights reserved.

Hamas Is Abusing Children And The World Is Complicit

Hamas continues to indoctrinate young children to hate and murder Israelis. And “Biden” is paying for it. Much of the mainstream media continues to scrub any information about this child abuse. Instead, they blame democratic Israel for the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Rep. Rashida Tlaib consistently slanders Israel as a murderous and racist state. If the mainstream media were honest and responsible, they would be asking Rep. Rashida Tlaib her feelings about Palestinian children being trained to kill Israelis by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas Is Abusing Children, and the World Is Complicit

By Algemeiner, July 10, 2021

Another summer, another terrorist training camp for Palestinian children.

Instead of pitching tents or playing guitar around a campfire, kids as young as 10-years old in Gaza will learn how to shoot weapons, “fight the Israeli occupation,” and “become a martyr and go to heaven.”

The immorality of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is unsurprising. Terrorist disregard for the welfare of children is nothing unusual. The real story is how the world will once again shrug its shoulders as children are taught to be hateful terrorists.

Their acquiescence makes them complicit.

Take, for example, the United Nations. At a press conference for the Hamas “Vanguard of Liberation” camps, the spokesperson defended teaching children “armed resistance” by referencing a 1990 UN resolution that explicitly justified terrorism.

The UN has since become more subtle. Perhaps it realized the awkwardness of being an organization supposedly committed to “peace and security” while also expressly justifying the deliberate bombing of pizza parlors full of children.

Yet, it still works to provide cover for those terrorists.

The UN Secretary-General produces an annual report on “children and armed conflict.” As the group NGO Monitor has ably demonstrated, the report finds ways to apply unique standards, used nowhere else, to slander Israel (read: Jews) as child killers.

All the while, the annual reports have been almost entirely silent when it comes to the Palestinian terrorist groups’ incitement and recruitment of children.

To be clear, lack of evidence isn’t the problem.

Research analyst Joe Truzman, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has been regularly posting the public statementsimages, and videos (including even music videos) from these summer camps.

The UN’s silence isn’t unique, either. The websites of “human rights” groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch return no results when searching for condemnation of the summer camps.

The game played is particularly cynical, because it victimizes Palestinian children twice, and all just to continue blaming Israel (read: Jews) for the world’s wrongs. They are first victimized when Hamas robs them of a childhood, and places hatred in their hearts and weapons in their hands. They are then victimized a second time when “human rights” actors knowingly divert their gaze elsewhere, so as not to complicate the narrative of “Israel is bad.”

There is also the lame attempt of whataboutery. A favorite of anti-Israel social media users when videos and images of the terrorist camps begin emerging was to reuse old pictures of Israeli children examining weapons during an Independence Day celebration exhibit in 2016. The comparison is obviously silly.

I grew up nearby one of the largest airshows in the world, the EAA AirVenture. Every summer, many hundreds of thousands visit the airshow with their children, where they can get up close and personal with all sorts of military equipment exhibits. Just peruse the airshow’s gallery and you’ll find all sorts of children gawking at weapons as deadly as an F-35.

There’s obviously no moral equivalence between a summer camp that teaches kids how to use weapons and abduct Israelis on the one hand, and bringing children to a military exhibit fit for a history museum on the other.

But then again, it isn’t consideration for the welfare of children that invokes the absurd comparisons, the spreading of modern-day blood libels against Israel, and the willful ignorance towards Hamas’ crimes against children.

Rather, it is the hatred of Israel, and the “human rights” intelligentsia is seemingly more than willing to sacrifice the well-being of Palestinian children to score a few points against the Jewish State.

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

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail. Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

And if you can, please contribute to Geller Report. YOU make the work possible.

Race, Covenant, and Forgiveness

James F. Keating: Today’s racial “illuminati” see only guilt (whites) and innocence (blacks). Redemption and reconciliation through forgiveness are missing.


Sixty years after the Civil Rights Movement and ten years after the triumphant election of the first African-American president, the question of race has returned with urgency and fury. There is, alas, a group of Catholic intellectuals who scoff at the notion that the fate of the American nation ought to be of great interest to the faithful. Some might even take a bit of delight in pointing out how the most toxic aspects of our “racial reckoning” are a predictable outgrowth of America’s liberal founding.

That’s an argument for another time. For the moment, the more prudent path is to recognize that the universal Church exists within nations, and thus the “joys and hopes, the sorrows and the anxieties” (Gaudium et Spes 1) of each country are to be shared by its Catholic citizens. It’s incumbent, therefore, upon Catholic thinkers to examine this issue squarely and look for ways in which the wisdom of our tradition can heal and elevate the cause of racial reconciliation.

These are very choppy waters; only a fool sets out upon them without a plan for navigating their strong currents. The outline for such a plan is set out in Race and Covenant: Recovering the Religious Roots for American Reconciliation, (ed., Gerald R. McDermott). This collection represents a cross-section of leading scholars focused on the question of how the United States might better fulfill the covenantal promise embedded in the Declaration of Independence to uphold the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The basic idea of the book is that, in the words of Frederick Douglass, “nations, not less than individuals, are subjects of the moral government of the universe, and that. . .persistent transgressions of the laws of this Divine government will certainly bring national sorrow, shame, suffering, and death.” Lincoln framed his calling of a national fast with the question of whether the devastations of war were “a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People?”

Of course, that God deals with nations has solid biblical roots, even if a complicated and ambiguous history of reception. Divinely sanctioned patriotism has, and deserves, a bad reputation. The corrective offered here is to view America’s covenant with God in light of its failure to live up to its own promises when it comes to African Americans. National regeneration rightly requires a period of exile, not only in the form of domestic upheavals, but also the painful realization that the division between black and white persists.

Far from a reflexive patriotism, the authors emphasize the moral evil of slavery and the devastations of the nation’s long refusal to set race aside. If one is looking for something that treats America’s original sin as a thing wholly of the past, Race and Covenant will disappoint. Just as Dante the pilgrim learned that purgation begins only by accepting the justice of punishment, these authors refuse any resolution to the race problem apart from the dynamics of sin and gracious regeneration.

After a helpful introductory essay by the editor, the book divides thematically: national covenant in history, our current maladies, and strategies for restoration. The contributions are uniformly strong and of interest to a Catholic audience. To give a taste of the riches to be found, I shall highlight three essays.

The first concerns Martin Luther King Jr., the last public figure to speak of race in terms of America’s national covenant. The author is James M. Patterson, an historian at Ave Maria University and a scholar of the intersection of faith and politics.

Treating King as a Christian thinker, Patterson argues that King sought to navigate between the utopianism of the Social Gospel and the realism of Reinhold Niebuhr. Such a via media meant that racial reconciliation would require the coercive power of the state but not be complete apart from a change, a conversion, in the hearts of all Americans. Whites must repent of their racism and blacks must be ready to accept that repentance as Christ has graciously accepted their own.  Patterson depicts King as someone who came to admit his own need for forgiveness, seeing himself as a kind of Moses whose marital failures rightly barred him from the Promised Land he preached.

If Patterson emphasizes King’s Christian optimism, another contributor, Joshua Mitchell, takes stock of the secular mindset of today’s racial illuminati. They too employ the categories of guilt and innocence but apart from a conviction that God has dealt with universal guilt by the sacrifice of his innocent Son.

Thus the labels of sinner and innocent, oppressed and oppressor are not possibilities for every human being, but are rather attached to persons on the basis of their race. Whites are guilty because they are white; blacks innocent because they are black. Redemption and reconciliation through forgiveness is not on offer, only perpetual repentance on the part of one group. Mitchell contrasts this national dead-end with a theory of liberal competence, in which citizens rely upon each other across all racial divides to build a common world.

I conclude with a stirring passage from Derryck Green’s contribution that itself commends the book:

Blacks have been systematically targeted, attacked, hurt, and damaged. Slavery and segregation, while not unique to America, were evil. They were sins against the national covenant, and these sins have been massive impediments to the peace and unity which most blacks and whites seek. The residual of white racial chauvinism, though legally outlawed, continues to guide far too many hearts and minds. Some black anger and resentment are therefore understandable; some are not. But it doesn’t matter. Jesus was very clear that the obligation of his followers is to upend the normal cycle of reciprocating anger, antipathy, and hostility. As his disciples, black folks in the churches must initiate reconciliation, and that begins with forgiveness.

Biden’s handlers to ‘prioritize’ pushing Israel to stop demolishing jihad terrorists’ homes

Not prioritized: getting the “Palestinians” to stop paying jihad terrorists and their families.

Not prioritized: getting the “Palestinians” to stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians.

Not prioritized: getting the “Palestinians” to end their genocidal jihad rhetoric.

Not prioritized: getting the “Palestinians” to stop training their children to hate and murder Israelis.

US now to ‘prioritize’ pushing Israel to stop demolishing terrorists’ homes

by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, July 9, 2021:

The State Department will prioritize pushing Israel to end its controversial policy of demolishing the homes of terrorists, a spokesperson said Thursday, with the US’s top diplomat already bringing the issue up with senior officials in Israel.

The comments from State Department spokesman Ned Price came hours after the administration of US President Joe Biden leveled rare criticism at Israel for razing of the home of a Palestinian-American suspected in a deadly West Bank shooting attack, marking a likely point of friction amid efforts between Washington and Jerusalem to rehabilitate ties.

“We attach a good deal of priority to this, knowing that the home of an entire family shouldn’t be demolished for the action of one individual,” Price said when asked about the matter at a daily press briefing, adding that the US would continue to raise its concerns “as long as this practice continues.”

Price’s comment appeared to reflect a shift from previous administrations, which had not made as large an issue out of Israeli home demolitions.

“There is a critical need to lower the temperature in the West Bank. Punitive demolitions exacerbate tensions at a time when everyone should be focused on principally ensuring calm,” Price said.

Price said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior State Department officials had raised the issue with their Israeli counterparts ahead of the Thursday morning demolition of the West Bank family home of Muntasir Shalabi, who allegedly shot dead Israeli student Yehuda Guetta, 19, in May.

A Hebrew-language report Thursday indicated that Foreign Minister Yair Lapid had not been aware of the looming demolition.

Channel 13 reported that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett did not update Lapid before it moved forward, after days of delay attributed to US objections over the matter….

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘You can’t question Muhammad’s existence! That’s Islamophobic!’

Here’s the Real Reason for the Dire Situation in Afghanistan Today

Syria: Muslim family murders teen girl after she tried to run away with her lover and refused to marry her cousin

Saudi prince investigated over claims he kept seven women as slaves at his Paris apartment

New Jersey: Imam says Jews spread corruption, with help of Allah Muslims ‘will erase this filth called Israel’

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

IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT THE KIDS: Gay Men’s Choir Video Unvarnished

“You think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Just this once … you’re correct. We’ll convert your children, happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly. We’ll convert your children, reaching one and all. There’s really no escaping it. We’re coming for your children! We’re coming for your children! We’re coming for your children!”

Creepy or what? You’re probably wondering where I found this terrifying threat. An early episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The trailer to Blumhouse Productions’ latest horror blockbuster, perhaps? A dream journal lifted from an insane asylum?

Nope. These are song lyrics from an organization more sinister and frightening than any scary movie you had in mind: the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC), a crying circle for Bay Area pederasts. It’s what happens when clerical sexual abuse meets soullessness, joylessness and tunelessness. The song, which keeps disappearing from YouTube because even leftists are shocked by its accidental truthfulness, cannot be unseen. Musically, it is terrible, and of course boring — because ideas this ugly cannot be expressed in beautiful words or melodies. The singers look haunted — because they are. The message is unvarnished, explicit, unequivocal: It was always about the kids.

The ugliest hues in the gay rainbow are the nebulous pastels of transgenderism, because trans ideology compels mothers to sacrifice their own children, just as pagan cults promised fertility through blood sacrifice. At its heart, homosexualism is a form of demonic grasping for transcendence, a perversion of our natural longing for our Almighty Father, which follows naturally from these pagan origins. But gay men are nothing if not competitive, and this video represents male homosexuality’s attempt to reclaim the top spot of terror from the Korybantic priests of trans acceptance.

The “message from the gay community” 

The shabby, earthly cult of homosexualism has always been laser-focused on children because it is really a reimagining of a very old, pagan form of worship: blood sacrifice, especially of children by their own kin, in the hope of supernatural reward. It is also, as betrayed by the chillingly robotic performances from these spiteful Californian songbirds, an inversion of divine joy. Everything they do is a pathetic inversion of the good, the whole and the true — even their wretched rainbow, a reappropriation of the symbol of God’s covenant with Noah, explicitly associated with fertility because the ark was populated by heterosexual pairs of animals.

The immediate physical objectives of the LGBT movement are diabolical because they militate against human fertility. Sterile homosexual congress, castration and the corruption of children stand in defiant opposition to the fertility of Christianity. Believing in Jesus Christ requires an act of faith in a Holy Patriarch and a rejection of the demonic terror of transsexualism. Trannies are the castrated priests of Cybele whom Augustine saw dancing in the streets of Carthage, dressed like women but not women.

And yet, the blinding light of eternal truth makes man’s defiance look tiny. In Christianity, we embrace a longing for the “gender fluidity” of the incarnation, of the marriage of human and divine. This is a more dangerous ambition than anything the squalid bedwetters of trans Twitter can conceive: Our God became incarnate — wedding his divinity to our humanity in Mary’s womb — to become the sacrifice.

Against my Christian instincts, I want to summon hatred for the smug, gyrating malefactors of the SFGMC. But I can’t. These men aren’t pedophiles — though many of them were turned into homosexuals by pedophiles. For the most part, they are simply misguided, afraid and damaged children who have no clue how to behave or who to be because they have never experienced an authentic, platonic relationship with another man. They are hopelessly disconnected from their ordained purpose, seized by fear, sprinting as fast as their legs will carry them from their responsibilities and the growing suspicion that they were destined for leadership and fatherhood.

COLUMN BY

Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos is a New York Times-bestselling author, an award-winning investigative reporter, a reformed sodomite, a global political sensation, a free speech martyr, an accomplished serial entrepreneur, a hair icon, a penitent, and, to the annoyance of his many enemies, a happy person. Nicknamed the “pop star of hate” by jealous fatties in the media, Milo is the most censored, most lied-about man in the world, banned from entire continents for his unapologetic commitment to the sound of his own voice. His first book, Dangerous, sold over 200,000 copies despite never being reviewed in any major publication. Milo lives in Florida, where he is preparing to open a reparative therapy clinic for men plagued by same-sex attraction. He welcomes letters from readers, and can be reached at milo@churchmilitant.com.

RELATED ARTICLE: San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sings ‘We’re coming for your children’

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

On Not Being Thrown to the Lions

David Carlin: Catholic young people have generally abandoned the ancient teaching of their religion as to the sinfulness of homosexual practice.


A few weeks ago my wife and I spent an afternoon with some old friends, a retired couple who had just come back from their winter home in Florida.  The wife of this couple told us a story from her childhood that reminded me of the glory days of American Catholicism.

She grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, not far from Fall River. She went to a Catholic school in the 1950s. The nuns told their students about the Church’s early martyrs, saintly Christians who, rather than renounce their faith, consented to being killed by hungry lions in the Flavian Amphitheater. These martyrs immediately went to Heaven, where they met Jesus and commenced to enjoy eternal bliss. The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.

This was in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. And so the nuns, not content with giving edifying history lessons, reminded their charges that the need for Christian heroism had not vanished with the conversion of Rome to Christianity. The nuns gave their pupils a thought-provoking hypothetical.  Let’s suppose the Communists take over America, and let’s further suppose they confront you and other Catholic school-kids with the horrible option: “Renounce your faith or be shot dead.”

What will you boys and girls do?  You know what the right thing would be.  But will you have the courage to do the right thing when the moment arrives?  Will your faith be strong enough?

Our friend told us that this question provoked a great deal of anxiety in her child’s soul. Would she have the courage needed to become a martyr?  Or would her courage fail her?  Would her faith not be strong enough?  The question tormented her.

After weeks of mental suffering, she finally ended the torment by resolving: “When the moment comes, I will save my life by renouncing the faith.”  After making that decision, her mental torment vanished.

Well, the Commies never took over Massachusetts.  (Of course, some of my conservative friends will dispute that.)  Our friend remains a church-going Catholic to this day.  My guess is that God has long since forgiven her for her moment of weakness.

A hundred years ago the de-Christianization of Russia advanced with the help of guns pointed at Christian heads. But the present-day de-Christianization of America advances nonviolently. No guns are used, only persuasion and seduction.

For example, June was “Pride Month” – a month during which the nation, with something very close to unanimity, celebrated the goodness of all of the following: homosexuality and homosexual practice (both male and female), bisexuality, transgenderism, queerness (whatever that means), and a potentially unlimited number of other deviations from the traditional Christian idea of sexual propriety.

At least it seemed to be a virtually unanimous celebration of LGBTQ+.  I heard few if any dissenting voices (apart from the voice in my own head).  Major business corporations celebrated, TV networks celebrated, colleges and universities celebrated, the mainstream media celebrated, Silicon Valley celebrated, the NBA celebrated, major league baseball celebrated, and, perhaps most notable of all, President Biden (America’s second Catholic president) celebrated.  U.S. embassies around the world displayed the rainbow flag, and every big city in America had a PRIDE parade.  (I myself have seen two of these parades, one in Cleveland, the other in Louisville.  I confess that they entertained me even while they offended my moral conscience.  “This is bad,” I said to myself, “but it’s fun.”)

Just as Communism and Nazism were non-theistic “religions,” so LGBTQ-ism has become something of a non-theistic religion, providing meaning and purpose to the lives of many Americans (and not just Americans). What’s more, it is a missionary religion; it seeks converts, just as Christianity and Islam seek converts.

How does it win these converts?  In two ways.

In one way, by seduction. If a teenage kid has his or her first sexual experiences with a somewhat older person of the same sex, and if he/finds these experiences intensely pleasurable, there is a good chance that he/she will become addicted to such homosexual experiences – much the way young persons who “experiment” with strong opiates often become drug addicts.  This addiction to homosexual sex is especially likely if the young person has an antecedent leaning in that direction.

Hence, even though the official position of the LGBTQ+ movement is that gays and lesbians are not sexually interested in underage boys and girls, the fact is that many homosexuals are sexually interested in underage kids, and many act on that interest. A frequent theme of homosexual fiction is early same-sex experience. Many kids become addicted to this unnatural love and pretending they don’t know what really happened. They convince themselves that they were “born that way.”

The other mode of winning converts (and this is perhaps the more important mode) is by way of persuasion.  And so the LGBTQ+ movement has for some years now promoted a tremendous propaganda campaign urging, not just toleration, but strong approval of the conduct symbolized by the letters LGBTQ.  And not just approval, but strong disapproval of anybody who dissents, condemning such dissenters as moral reprobates.

Joining the LGBTQ+ movement in this propaganda campaign have been major corporations, colleges and universities, public schools, Hollywood, the entertainment industry generally, the mainstream media, liberal churches and synagogues, and the Democratic Party. As a result of all this, it’s now relatively fashionable (“cool”) among many young persons to “identify” as something other than strictly heterosexual, and it is almost universally un-cool to disapprove of such deviations.

Catholic young people have generally abandoned the ancient teaching of their religion as to the sinfulness of homosexual practice – and since these young people are more or less logical, this renunciation of one part of the faith will eventually lead to the renunciation of the entire faith.

American Catholicism, I fear, is like that building in Miami.  It’s on the verge of collapse.  Without a shot being fired.  Without lions.  No blood of martyrs.

COLUMN BY

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.

RELATED ARTILCE: Here’s What Is Happening Now That Transgenders Are Winding Up in Women’s Prisons

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2021 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.

Tlaib Calls for Defunding Border Protection, Immigration Enforcement and Department of Homeland Security

One might almost get the impression that she wants America defenseless before its enemies, if it weren’t for the establishment media and the political elites reassuring us of how patriotic she is.

Rashida Tlaib calls to defund immigration agencies amid border crisis

by Mark Moore, New York Post, July 8, 2021:

​Rep. Rashida Tlaib, original member of the progressive “Squad,” is calling for defunding immigration agencies like Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and even the Department of Homeland Security, because they “terrorize” migrant communities.

Tlaib (D-Mich) in comments released Wednesday from an interview with Just Futures Law was reacting to a question about her thoughts on President Biden wanting to increase technology at the border for CBP​, Immigration and Customs Enforcement​ and the Department of Homeland Security in response to the ongoing crisis of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants arriving in the US.

“Look, the simple answer to that question is we must eliminate funding for CBP, ICE and their parent organization, DHS,” Tlaib told the legal group that opposes deportation.

“Time after time we have seen it as advocates on the ground, as human services agencies on the ground continue to see over and over again, that these agencies are inept to humanely guiding migrants through our immigration system and instead they further continue to terrorize migrant communities located within our communities,” she said in the interview​ recorded last month.​…​

RELATED ARTICLES:

NYC: Muslim arrested for throwing a firework at a Jewish woman, leaving her with burns

Turkish Webinar Wages Anti-Israel Jihad (Part One)

Nigeria: Muslims kidnap 150 Christian schoolchildren from boarding school

Israel’s Medical Treatment of Leaders of Hamas and the PA, and CUNY’s Double Standard

Israel: Muslim former MK interrogated on suspicion of jihad incitement on social media

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