Islamic Republic of Iran TV: Women can’t be shown eating pizza thumbnail

Islamic Republic of Iran TV: Women can’t be shown eating pizza

By Robert Spencer

This kind of thing is based on the principle of ihtiyat, precaution: avoiding things that are technically not violations of Sharia provisions so that one doesn’t even come close to violating actual Sharia provisions.

No Pizza for Women. Men Can’t Serve Women Tea. Iran’s TV Censorship Gets Weirder

by Amir Hossein Miresmaeili, Iran Wire, September 29, 2021:

On Monday, September 27, two separate items were shared by Iranian state-controlled media that brought the regime’s ridiculous censorship of women back to the fore. Amir Hossein Shamshadi, head of PR at Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, no less, disclosed on his personal Instagram page that according to a recent “audit” of the organization, directors were no longer permitted to depict men pouring tea for women in their workplaces.

Women, Shamshadi went on, were also not to be shown consuming any red-coloured beverages, sandwiches or pizza, or wearing leather gloves. Images of men and women in domestic environments were also to be specially reviewed by IRIB directors before broadcast.

The IRIB is also responsible for licensing and overseeing Iranian home theatre and streaming platforms, via a subsidiary called Satra. Also on Monday, the latest episode of the Iranian talk show Pishgoo, which airs each week on the Namava streaming site, shied away from showing its own guest’s face. Actress Elnaz Habibi had come on the program to talk to presenter Pejman Jamshidi, but only her voice was heard for the entire, surreal duration.

Viewers were understandably baffled, and veteran actor Amin Tarokh took to Instagram to complain. “I wish the guest’s name had been subtitled, at least,” he lamented. “Because we didn’t see her face at all, had the host not mentioned it [at the beginning], we’d have no idea which artist was being talked about! What pleasure is derived from getting a close-up look at the creators of the program, and a far-off one at the guest, just because they’re a woman? Especially a lady like this who’s very decent. All you get from the IRIB is a voice and no picture.”

Coincidentally, on the same day the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) published the results of its latest survey on Iranians’ overall interest in the IRIB. Some 1,581 citizens aged 18 and over had the question put to them: “How do you follow the news of the day?”. Just 42 percent cited the IRIB as their preferred source of news, with another 41 percent opting for the internet and social media in the first instance. Smaller numbers preferred other satellite networks, word of mouth or “other means”. Based on ISPA’s previous published surveys, this suggests Iranians’ overall reliance on the IRIB for news has decreased by a full 15.6 percent since March 2019….

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Since 2018, Islamic groups have assassinated or abducted at least 300 leaders in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso

Afghanistan: Islamic State claims responsibility for mosque bombing that targeted Shi’ites, says perp was Uyghur

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

Cornflakes for Jihad: How the Jihad Terror Group Boko Haram Began, and how the U.S. Helped thumbnail

Cornflakes for Jihad: How the Jihad Terror Group Boko Haram Began, and how the U.S. Helped

By Robert Spencer

A question that is not asked frequently enough is how jihad groups are able to amass so much wealth. This extraordinary article pulls back the curtain on how one such group, Boko Haram in Nigeria, was able to get started. This article is full of illuminating revelations of all kinds. Be sure to read it all.

by David Hundeyin, West Africa Weekly, October 2, 2021:

In May 2021, a 96 year-old businessman died in Rome, Italy. In his lifetime, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin might have amassed a personal fortune of close to half a billion dollars, but the death of NASCO Group’s multimillionaire founder barely made the news. At first glance, the only extraordinary thing about his life story was that it embodied the African entrepreneurship dream.

Nasreddin was an Eritrean who moved to Jos in Nigeria’s Plateau State, and grew his father’s small manufacturing business into a $460 million conglomerate involved in everything from breakfast cereal and confectionery to pharmaceuticals, real estate and energy. After many years of growth and success, he eventually handed his sprawling business empire over to his son Attia Nasreddin, and retired at an old, satisfied age.

In an official statement released after Nasreddin’s death in May, Plateau State governor Simon Lalong said:

“NASCO has over the years remained a major employer of labour in Plateau and continues to contribute to the economic prosperity of the State and Nigeria at large through tax revenue and corporate social responsibility.”

Well that was the cover story, anyway.

In reality, as is so often the case in Nigeria, the gap between the facts and the information released to the public is so wide as to be scarcely believable. What on earth could this shrewd, respectable businessman who looked like he could not hurt a fly have done, to put him in the same article as a story about the world’s deadliest terrorist organisation? Why would the brand he built, which to many Nigerians evokes memories of a beloved childhood breakfast staple, appear in the same sentence as Boko Haram?

To answer these questions, our story begins on another continent in 1955, some 8 years before his father would move to Nigeria and establish NASCO Group.

A Scholar From Zamfara

The year is 1955, and a 33 year-old Islamic scholar from Gummi in modern day Zamfara State has made his way to Mecca for his first Hajj pilgrimage. Alongside him is a certain Ahmadu Bello, who is the Premier of Northern Nigeria. During this trip, the scholar impresses both Ahmadu Bello and the Saudi King Sa’ud with his Arabic translation skills. He rapidly makes a big impression on many locals and clerics in Mecca.

These relationships will later become his most valuable asset following the events that take place after his subsequent return to Nigeria. Upon returning to Nigeria, he takes up positions teaching Arabic Studies at Islamic schools in Kano and Kaduna. His style of teaching focuses on educating his students about the differences between Islamic religious doctrine and local customs. Based on his strict Sunni understanding of the Qur’an, he teaches his students to adopt a ‘pure’ Islamic identity at the expense of practises that he considered bid’ah (roughly translated as ‘innovation’ or ‘corruption’).

He also becomes the first Islamic scholar to translate the Qur’an from Arabic into Hausa, which puts him in a uniquely influential position comparable to that of Ajayi Crowther in 19th century southwestern Nigeria. Using this leverage, he becomes an increasingly powerful figure in Northern Nigeria, with his essentialist views on Islamic doctrine gaining popularity. To him, the existing Sufi orders of Northern Nigeria are polluted with bid’ah and unfit for purpose. He becomes well known for attacking the Tijaniya and Qadriyya brotherhoods during his appearances on Radio Kaduna, while advocating for a ‘return’ to ‘Islamic purity.’

Following the death of his friend and benefactor Ahmadu Bello, the scholar finds himself in a precarious situation. The new Nigerian federal government led by soldiers has a motive to crack down on anyone who is outspoken and influential. He may be a giant in Northern Nigeria, but he is a giant with feet of clay. His solution is to seek financial, doctrinal and political help from his friends in Mecca. The Saudis, as always, are ready to help.

His Saudi backers are keen to use him to espouse the Saudi Arabian state’s official interpretation of Islam, which is based on the work of 18th century Islamic scholar Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab. This fundamentalist doctrine, often known as Wahabbism fits very closely with the teachings of our hero in Northern Nigeria, and he enthusiastically sets about gathering support for this new Saudi-funded project. In the 2009 book ‘The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia,’ historian David Commins says:

“The [Saudi-funded Muslim World] League also sent missionaries to West Africa, where it funded schools, distributed religious literature and gave scholarships to attend Saudi religious universities. These efforts bore fruit in Nigeria’s Muslim northern region with the creation of a movement (the Izala Society) dedicated to wiping out ritual innovations. Essential texts for members of the Izala Society are Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s treatise of God’s unity and commentaries by his grandsons.

Reaching out to his erstwhile students across Kaduna and Kano over the course of the 1970s, the scholar-turned-politician slowly builds a coalition of strategically-aligned individuals who will someday become very powerful people in Northern Nigeria. In 1978, one of his prominent students, Sheikh Ismaila Idris takes charge of this increasingly powerful but somewhat unofficial movement, and calls it Jama’atu Izalatil Bid’ah Wa Iqamatus Sunnah (Society of Removal of Innovation and Re-establishment of the Sunnah), also known as JIBWIS.

Based in Jos and known colloquially as the Izala Movement, this organisation will go on to become the most influential Islamic body in Nigeria over the next few decades. Its members will become some of Nigeria’s most revered Imams and clerics. They will achieve high ranks in the Nigerian Armed Forces.

They will sit on the Federal Executive Council.

JIBWIS will come to exert a level of influence over Nigeria’s national politics and governance that is unprecedented for a religious body in Nigeria. Soon, it will become almost impossible to achieve power in many parts of Northern Nigeria without identifying with the Izala Movement.

Among other things, the scholar states that Muslims should never accept a non-Muslim as ruler, which can be interpreted as a call for insurrection against a Christian Nigerian president. He is never held to account for this statement. In any case, he no longer believes that writing books or teaching people about Islam will on their own, lead to an Islamic renaissance in Northern Nigeria. Now he is all about partnership and politicking. He maintains his membership in Northern Nigeria’s legacy Islamic group, Jama’atu Nasril Islam (“Group for the Victory of Islam”), but he is unmistakably the beating heart of the new Izala Movement. To all intents and purposes, this is the birth of modern Salafist Islam in Nigeria.

Without firing a shot or winning an election, this Islamic scholar has become one of the most powerful men in Northern Nigeria

His name?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi is the son of Abubakar Mahmud Gumi….

A Wikileaks cable from 2002 hints at American hesitancy on the subject of freezing NASCO’s Nigerian assets due to the economic implications for Plateau State and political implications in Nigeria.

The real proof of Nasreddin’s double life however, comes from the US Treasury Department which publishes a comprehensive account of how he launders and moves money around the world for terrorist entities. Want to hear the real kicker? Nasreddin has been funding and laundering money for none other than GSPC – the Algerian terrorist group which Yakubu Katsina and Shahru Haruna are also involved with at the exact same time.

The Nigerian jihadis being trained in Algerian camps in 2002 will later return to Nigeria and make up the core of what will later become known as “Boko Haram.” And – what a coincidence – NASCO is also based in Jos, which so happens to be the headquarters of the Izala Movement and its many North African dalliances.

Using money made from selling market-leading FMCGs to Nigerian consumers, a cross-border network of terrorism is being nurtured that will someday kill the very kids eating NASCO cornflakes every morning.

And it’s all thanks to this nice gentleman from Eritrea.

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

New York: Muslim Uber driver convicted of attempting to join Taliban and kill Americans thumbnail

New York: Muslim Uber driver convicted of attempting to join Taliban and kill Americans

By Robert Spencer

“Hossain, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Bangladesh native, took pains to not appear to be a religious extremist to authorities, according to prosecutors. He trimmed his beard and hair, switching from traditional garb to American clothing.”

“The Prophet said, ‘War is deceit.’” (Bukhari 4.52.269)

N.Y. Uber driver who wanted to join Taliban convicted on terrorism-related charges

by Shayna Jacobs, Washington Post, October 8, 2021 (thanks to Darcy):

NEW YORK — An Uber driver who saved his earnings to travel to Afghanistan, where he hoped to join the Taliban and kill Americans, was convicted Friday after less than two days of deliberations on two charges related to his plan to support and serve the terrorist organization.

Delowar Mohammed Hossain, 36, was found guilty of attempting to provide material support for terrorism and attempting to make a contribution of resources to the Taliban. Combined, he faces up to 35 years in prison when he’s sentenced. A sentencing date was scheduled for early next year….

The Bronx resident who worked as a driver for the ride-sharing app was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July 2019 when he was expecting to fly to Thailand — a stop prosecutors argued was part of his protracted route to Taliban territory….

Hossain, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Bangladesh native, took pains to not appear to be a religious extremist to authorities, according to prosecutors. He trimmed his beard and hair, switching from traditional garb to American clothing….

His true objective was intercepted by a pair of FBI informants whom he believed were his recruits to join him in “jihad,” or a holy war….The FBI learned about Hossain through one of the informants — a Bronx bodega owner who encountered him at a mosque….

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Cornflakes for jihad: How the jihad terror group Boko Haram began, and how the U.S. helped

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

Halloween [All Hallows’ Day] Isn’t About Monsters, It’s All About Christian Martyrs thumbnail

Halloween [All Hallows’ Day] Isn’t About Monsters, It’s All About Christian Martyrs

By Dr. Rich Swier

“The Bible doesn’t teach us to pray to the saints (Matt. 6:6), through the saints (1 Tim. 2:5) or for saints who have already gone to heaven. Instead, we remember the saints and to allow the memory of their faith spur us on to deeper worship and greater service to the Lord. All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day, or Hallowmas, is a Christian celebration in honor of all the saints from Christian history.” – Alex Crain from Christianity.com.


As a Christian I have witnessed how religious observances have been replaced by corporate created “holidays” to sell their products. Easter is not about chocolate bunnies, Christmas is not about Santa Claus’ reindeer or Rudolf with his red nose and Halloween (all Saints Day) is not about monsters, vampires and ghouls.

Alex Crain from Christianity.com wrote this about All Saints Day, a.k.a. All Hallows’ Day:

What is All Saints Day?

There’s a yearly reminder of our connectedness as Christians to the church. It’s called “All Saints Day” and is commemorated every November 1st. Perhaps, you were taught to think of saints as statues in a church building. But the Bible teaches something completely different. Who is a saint? You are. That is if you’re a follower of Jesus. God calls a “saint” anyone who trusts in Christ alone for salvation (see Acts 9:13Acts 26:10Romans 8:271 Corinthians 1:2).

All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day, or Hallowmas, is a Christian celebration in honor of all the saints from Christian history. In Western Christianity, it is observed on November 1st by the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church, and other Protestant denominations. The Eastern Orthodox Church and associated Eastern Catholic churches observe All Saints Day on the first Sunday following Pentecost.

The Christian festival of All Saints Day comes from a conviction that there is a spiritual connection between those in Heaven and on Earth. In Catholic tradition, the holiday honors all those who have passed on to the Kingdom of Heaven. [Emphasis added]

Read more about All Saints Day.

FR. William Saunders in an article titled “The Origins of Halloween & All Saints Day” asked the following the question,

What are the origins of All Saints Day and All Souls Day? Are these linked with paganism and Halloween?”

FR. Saunders wrote:

Both the feast of All Saints and the feast of All Souls evolved in the life of the Church independently of paganism and Halloween. Let us first address the feast of All Saints. The exact origins of this celebration are uncertain, although, after the legalization of Christianity in A.D. 313, a common commemoration of the saints, especially the martyrs, appeared in various areas throughout the Church. For instance in the East, the city of Edessa celebrated this feast on May 13; the Syrians, on the Friday after Easter; and the city of Antioch, on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Both St. Ephrem (d. 373) and St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) attest to this feast day in their preaching. In the West, a commemoration for all the saints also was celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost. The primary reason for establishing a common feast day was because of the desire to honor the great number of martyrs, especially during the persecution of Emperor Diocletion (284-305), the worst and most extensive of the persecutions. Quite simply, there were not enough days of the year for a feast day for each martyr and many of them died in groups. A common feast day for all saints, therefore, seemed most appropriate.

Read more.

Conclusion

It is critically import to teach our children and grandchildren that there is no Easter bunny, ghosts, goblins and monsters and most importantly that there is no Santa Clause (although there was a Saint Nicholas).

The only thing that matters is God and His Son Jesus. You see the greatest gift of Easter is life everlasting, the most important lesson of All Saints Day is religious persecution is wrong and finally we must teach our children and grandchildren that Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The greatest of great gift to mankind, ever.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

Sadly, today in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and other Middle Easter countries, we see Christians being persecuted, tortured and martyred.

Pray for them on All Hallows Day.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Is It Time for a Tenth Crusade? thumbnail

Is It Time for a Tenth Crusade?

By Dr. Rich Swier

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams from a letter to the Massachusetts Militia, dated 11 October 1798

“Man is not a creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.” – Benjamin Disraeli, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me, declares the Lord.” – Isaiah 54:17


A 2021 nationwide poll found a growing number of citizens support having their state succeed from the United States. There is a growing discontent amongst the people today.

However, these seeds of discontent were sown decades before the 2020 election.

There have been rising calls for the Red States to succeed from the Blue States, potentially leading to a new civil war. Some have said that we are in WW III, with patriots verses the Marxists. Clearly the nation is deeply divided and has become more so since the election of the current administration.

QUESTION: Are we in a political war or in a war for the very soul of our nation?

I believe we we are in a war for our souls as we battle the forces of evil that have been spreading across the globe since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, His death and His rising from the dead. Just as Jesus fought the forces of evil, Rome and those who controlled Israel, so to must every Christian continue His fight!

We are in a battle that began in the Garden of Eden, when Adam turned his back on God, the creator, and was cast out of paradise. Like Adam, more and more Americans are turning their collectivist backs on God. This has led to a “moral vacuum” where government is replacing God.

Donald J. Trump said at his inaugural address:

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

Since January 20th, 2021 power has been slowly but surely transferred from the people back to Washington, D.C.

So now what?

We must now all become Church Militants

The Holy Catholic Church, the Universal Church, is divided into three supernatural missions:

  • The Church Militant
  • The Church Suffering
  • The Church Triumphant

The Church Suffering comprises the souls of the righteous suffering in purgatory as they are purified for Heaven.

The Church Triumphant comprises the souls of the Saints who have been glorified in Heaven.

The Church Militant comprises the souls on Earth engaged in battle against the forces of evil.

It is the moral duty for all Church Militants to stand together and fight that greatest force of evil, big government.

There are some “christians (with a small c)” who believe the faithful should only look vertically, upward toward God, and not horizontally, at the world we live in. I believe we as Christians, and especially Church Militants, must look both horizontally and vertically. We must see the evil surrounding us and fight against it, as we continue to pray to the Lord as our savior and redeemer.

Not to stop evil is evil itself.

It is time for a Tenth Crusade?

History Crunch reported:

The Crusades are one of the most significant events in the history of Europe and the Middle East.  They were a series of religious wars carried out by Christian crusaders from Europe during the timeframe of the Middle Ages.  Beginning in 1096 CE, the Crusades saw European knights and noblemen travel to the Middle East in an attempt to capture the Holy Land away from Muslim people that had controlled the region for the previous centuries.  The term crusade means ‘cross’.  Therefore, the Europeans that became crusaders viewed themselves as ‘taking up the cross’.  In fact, many of the crusaders wore crosses on their clothing and armor as they made their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. [Emphasis added]

Is it time to “take up the cross” once again to free our people from the bondage of government slavery? Is it time for every Christian and Jew to join together to shed the shackles of government dependence and embrace, once again, the founding principles of this nation which guarantee each and every one of us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

It is time to make America Strong Again, make America Wealthy Again, make America Proud Again and make America Safe Again?

Ronald Reagan said,

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Today more than ever we must fight for, and protect the futures of our children and grandchildren. We must be a free nation or cease being a Constitutional Republic.

Ephesians 6:11-17:

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Choose. Do you want to truly save America? Then take up the cross and become a Church Militant, a Christian crusader for freedom.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

An Afghanistan Grows In Wisconsin thumbnail

An Afghanistan Grows In Wisconsin

By Pamela Geller

Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America. And you won’t like what comes after America.

Muslims are the only immigrant group who come to the West with a ready made model of society they believe to be superior to Western law and they work tirelessly and by all means, to impose it. Under Islam, shariah (Islamic) law supersedes Western law. Anywhere Western law and Shariah law conflict, it is always Western law that must give way. What those of us working in defense of freedom did not expect, was the craven capitulation and cowardice by Western left elites to Islamic supremacy.

I don’t worry about the fanaticism of the enemy, I worry about the treachery on our side.

Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America.

By: Daniel Greenfield,  FPM, Oct 6, 2021

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

The skies over Sparta have never been as busy as when the Biden administration decided to dispatch 13,000 Afghans, including at least one pedophile, to Wisconsin.

Sparta, a small town of less than ten thousand souls, whose claim to fame is being the “Bicycling Capital of America”, could only watch as a population of Afghans outnumbering its own population created a new Afghanistan on the premises of Fort McCoy.

None of the Afghans at Fort McCoy have a Special Immigrant Visa. Biden left the SIV visa holders behind in Afghanistan. The Afghans who have overrun the Wisconsin base are the ones whom the Taliban, for their own reasons, decided to allow through their checkpoints.

And they’re living up to the high cultural standards of the Taliban.

The problems began with the toilets. Then there were issues with the rice, the sexual abuse of young boys, and Afghans simply leaving on their own despite promises of taxpayer cash.

“Afghans were confused and upset by hygiene practices,” a Wall Street Journal article described. “Every toilet on base was Western style, with a seat and toilet paper. But a number of Afghans are accustomed to restrooms that allow them to squat so they don’t have to physically touch the toilet. It led to some cases of Afghans relieving themselves outside.”

This shouldn’t have surprised anyone after two decades in Afghanistan. But political correctness has mostly suppressed accounts of even the most basic facts about the beneficiaries of our great nation building project leaving Americans confused by the behavior of the new arrivals.

A Czech journal article from the Department of Military Hygiene noted that Afghan “people in rural areas were found to defecate almost everywhere according to convenience. It is important to observe that particularly the rural population does not know or does not use toilet paper.”

More accurately, Islamic law is held by some authorities to ban the use of toilet paper.

“You should consider very carefully shaking hands during the contact with the local population,” the journal article warned. Unfortunately their local population is now our local population.

An account of the toilet practices of the defunct Afghan National Army described how our soldiers were forced to “share their toilet with the ANA, as they had been ordered to do by their commanding officers” to win their “hearts and minds”. Unfortunately “it was the custom of the ANA to wipe themselves with their hands, smear their excrement on the walls of the toilet, and rinse their hands in the sink, which left the sinks reeking.”

While great care is taken by Muslims to keep their clothes clean so that they are not “impure” during prayers, bathrooms can be left in a horrifying state because they’re already unclean.

Muslim tradition teaches that toilets are possessed by demons and as a result followers of the religion may be reluctant to make contact with them because they have been taught that “Satan plays with the backsides of the sons of Adam”. Islamic teachings encourage squat toilets and forbid men to urinate standing up because Mohammed “only ever used to urinate sitting down.”

At Kandahar Air Base, the toilets were segregated because, as an officer noted, “When they use our port-a-potties, they stand on the seats and it causes quite a mess. I think it’s just a cultural thing.” There are a lot of these cultural things. Many of them far worse than the toilets.

Although when dealing with a group where “90% of the population are infected by a parasitic disease” and which routinely goes around with fecal matters on its hands, it is an issue.

Democrats insist that 2-year-olds should wear masks, yet invite in a population that doesn’t understand the concepts of toilets, toilet paper, or disease transmission.

But the toilets were the least of the problems at Fort McCoy.

The Afghans, who had supposedly just been saved from death, didn’t like American food.

American rice was “swapped for basmati rice. New spices, hummus and dates were added to the chow hall’s menu” which was entirely Halal. Basmati rice is one of the most expensive varieties of rice available, but nothing was too good for the endlessly complaining arrivals.

While the Afghans were complaining to reporters about “hard rice”, personnel at Fort McCoy were complaining about “multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families.” This wasn’t too surprising since the child marriage in Afghanistan stands at 57%. Like the toilets, it’s a “cultural thing”.

While no action was taken on those cases, Bahrullah Noori, an Afghan refugee, was arrested for trying to undress a 14-year-old boy and behaving inappropriately with a 12-year-old boy.

Mohammad Haroon Imaad was also arrested after his wife accused him of choking her. He had also allegedly threatened to “send her back to Afghanistan where the Taliban could deal with her” and also told her “that nine women have been killed since getting to Fort McCoy and that she would be the tenth.” An estimated 87% of Afghani women face domestic violence.

Like the toilets and the child rape, choking women is just another Afghan cultural thing.

General Glen VanHerck however visited Fort McCoy and assured reporters that the enlightened Afghans were much more law-abiding than the racist Americans.

I’ve done some research and how that compares to populations across the United States,” VanHerck declared. “For example, in six weeks in Operation Allies Welcome, in a population of 53,000, there have been eight reported cases of robbery and theft.”

VanHerck neglected to Google the statistics for assaulting children and women. Or to note that this isn’t a measure of Afghans having lower crime rates than Americans, but a much lower willingness to report crimes to infidels who don’t resolve problems with the use of Islamic law.

“And how long are the Afghans going to be on U.S. military bases?” the FOX News correspondent asked.

“We’re prepared to be here as long as we need to conduct this mission,” VanHerck replied. “We’ll be ready if we need to support through the winter months and into the spring.”

If only there had been the same sort of commitment to getting Americans out of Afghanistan.

Forget the ‘Forever War’ and get ready for the ‘Forever Refugees’.

VanHerck claimed that the Afghans at Fort McCoy “are appreciative of our support and eager to begin their lives in America.”

They’re so eager that they’re just leaving.

Some 700 Afghans have left bases like McCoy despite promises of free taxpayer cash if they just stay and wait to be resettled. The deserting Afghans are upsetting the Biden administration, not because it’s concerned about potential terror threats from the refugees, but because it makes it harder for its refugee resettlement allies to cash in on every single Afghan. And it interferes with their plot to alter demographics in red states by resettling Afghans in the South.

Meanwhile Fort McCoy is near capacity. American soldiers are back to patrolling Afghan streets and trying to win their hearts and minds by asking them to use toilets and not to abuse their women and children. But the scenes of American soldiers trying to keep the peace among Afghans and communicate American values to them are no longer taking place in Kandahar, but in Wisconsin, and in other states with the misfortune of housing Afghans.

It’s almost as if we never actually withdrew from Afghanistan.

Americans are funding three Halal meals a day for tens of thousands of Afghans, our bases are full of mosques, our soldiers are trying to keep Afghans from killing and abusing each other, and we are on the hook for every dollar in welfare spending lavished on the Afghans while Americans struggle. As the Afghans leave Fort McCoy, the occupation of America will begin.

Biden didn’t withdraw from Afghanistan. He brought Afghanistan to America.

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

France at Forefront Battling Political Islam – a discussion with Nidra Poller thumbnail

France at Forefront Battling Political Islam – a discussion with Nidra Poller

By Jerry Gordon

In this wide-ranging discussion with ex-pat journalist, and commentator Nidra Poller, we cover recent developments on the horizon of the April 2022 presidential election: the US withdrawal from Afghanistan; the controversial AUKUS deal and last minute cancellation of a the $35.5 billion contract for purchase of French diesel submarines , the ongoing criminal trial of sole survivor Salah Abdeslam and accomplices to the November 13, 2015 ISIS – inspired attack in Paris that killed 130 and wounded more than 416 civilians at the Stade de France, various cafés and the Bataclan concert hall. Nidra Poller gives us insight into the parliamentary investigation into the court decision on the Islamist antisemitic murder of Sarah Halimi. She provides background on the recent crackdown, by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, on radical mosques, associations, and publications. France also announced a 50% reduction in visas granted to Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco after “they refused to take back nationals whose visa requests had been refused.”

The issues of political Islam, uncontrolled immigration, security and national identity have been brought to the forefront weeks before the official kickoff of the presidential campaign by the maverick candidate Eric Zemmour, a Paris-born intellectual of Algerian Jewish Berber origin, nationally known as a journalist, best-selling author, and TV personality. Not yet officially declared as a candidate, Zemmour has surged to 15%  in the polls as figures for Marine Le Pen have plummeted.

We will follow these issues in monthly conversations with Nidra Poller, reporting from Paris in a democratic nation that has been thrust onto the frontlines in the confrontation with political Islam.

What follows is our discussion of these issues with Nidra Poller.

Jerome Gordon:  I am Jerry Gordon, a senior editor at the New English Review and former producer and co-host for Israel News Talk – Radio Beyond the Matrix. I’m here with a very dear friend of long-standing, Nidra Poller, an accomplished author, journalist, writer, speaker, and an American expat living in an undisclosed location within the precincts of Paris.  Nidra, there are a lot of things going on right now. I would  like to start off with something that you are aware of, and I am as well, because there’s a personal connection. And that’s the Bataclan massacre trial.

Nidra Poller: Yes.

Jerry Gordon: The reason for that is that in November of 2015, my oldest granddaughter was studying at Sci Po. She was away on a trip to Amsterdam that weekend when everything broke loose. I recall having written about it, you did as well.  It was perhaps Paris’s 9/11 in many ways.

Nidra Poller : Oh, yes.

Jerry Gordon:  Tell us a bit about what is going on currently and the rather strange outburst that occurred in French court by Salah Abdeslam, the leader of the Jihadi gang‘s murderous attack that killed 130, wounding over 416 people.

Nidra Poller : Yes, there is a lot of coverage. The trial is being filmed, but we won’t be able to see it now. The only people present in the courtroom and in the annexes are the families that are affected, and authorized journalists. Not someone like me. You must have special court reporter’s accreditation. The media report on the trial at length. They invite survivors who give their memories of what happened. Of course, you can’t forget the comparison with the 9/11 commemoration, and eyewitness reports from people that tell you what they experienced.  You realize that this Islamist ideology is ready, willing, and eager to impose the most horribly cruel punishments on people in free countries or free people in their own countries. The presence of this trial is very strong, and it will continue for nine months, so there will be countless talk shows with survivors, families of victims, and lawyers discussing all the elements.

I would like to share with you something from a broadcast I saw, where journalists were discussing the difference between the way the Americans reacted to 9/11, and the French to the November 13, 2015, massacre. They were a bit too proud of themselves, saying that the Americans are bold, they went to war, you can understand that. Then they had Guantanamo and a military tribunal, and we have a democratic criminal trial. Unfortunately, you can’t have a democratic trial of someone that is making war against you. Salah Abdeslam is the only living survivor of the team that came in and did those massacres and believe me, it comes alive again. It is terrifying. He is in jail at public expense. He has three cells, including a workout room. He receives visits from the family, letters from girls that are in love with him and so on. Now, they apparently don’t cut off his mike, so he is free to expose his Islamic ideology in court. These jihadists will never atone for what they did, and they have nothing more to explain. We know already, you can read endless documents and recognize their motivation. But what I find to be a serious mistake is to consider their acts as criminal. It isn’t crime, it’s war.

This is the kind of confusion that prevails in our democracies, Afghanistan, the longest war, or the massacres of November 13, a war? And what about the “lone wolf attack?” We are constantly in a situation of mistaken vocabulary…  out of focus. So that’s the good and the bad side of the trial now underway. However, I can assure you of one thing: in the media I follow, there is no apology for Islam, no stuttering about “this isn’t the real Islam.”  No, it’s not hijacked Islam, it’s a massacre in the name of Islam. Abdeslam’s opening statement was the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith. He said it in French. I’ll keep you informed because the trial will extend over a long period of time, and we’ll see what develops.

Jerry Gordon: There is another trial that has begun, but it’s in a military court setting in Guantanamo; it is with the architect of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that has been delayed for well over a year and a half, 506 days.

Nidra Poller.  I can’t justify everything, and I don’t know all the details, but the point of Guantanamo is that you don’t give a civilian trial to someone that made a military jihad attack on your country, because they don’t have the same rights as a criminal and they don’t have the same purpose. Criminals have evil in them, they commit evil harm, but they’re not trying to exterminate your population. There is a difference. I find that it is extremely important for our democracies to understand clearly and make these distinctions and not get caught in the traps of our own democratic free systems where liberty is one of our highest values.  This question of our high values is often raised. For instance, on the question of deporting criminals that are dual citizens. I say “No, our highest value is not refusing to deport criminals that are dual citizens, our highest value is protecting decent citizens.” Someone who breaks the alliance with a country that gave him citizenship, he wasn’t born into it, they gave it to him …  It should be taken away. We must stop confusing our highest values with our terrible, most dangerous mistakes.

Jerry Gordon: Speaking of forever wars, what has been the French reaction to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan?

Nidra Poller: Moderate. We withdrew at the same time.

Jerry Gordon: Right.

Nidra Poller: It was underplayed.  We don’t have anything near the same coverage of the French withdrawal. You do know that of the 1300 Afghans that were evacuated, they found five Taliban.  Maybe they were very quick about that. French security and intelligence services are pretty good. While underplayed, they showed people coming back, they reported human interest stories, the French are welcoming the refugees.  There is not some kind of enormous campaign of hatred against the way that the US withdrew and of course, the French were involved, and they were just as helpless as the Americans under the circumstances.

Jerry Gordon: And this brings up the question of why there’s a movement in the EU, whether it’s Macron, or the Germans under Merkel who’ is leaving government, about possible formation of an EU Army, placing less reliance on the US?

Nidra Poller: Yes.  One of the themes that’s treated in coverage of the withdrawal is the idea of the end of American power. Ever since I’ve lived here, I’ve seen that the Europeans would like to be a great power militarily, not just economically and diplomatically. But I don’t think you can’t improvise the kind of military infrastructure that has been created by the United States. You can’t throw it together quickly. You can’t bring together independent nations each with its own history and suddenly make them one army, you can’t.  But each European nation, individually, is too small to be a military power. Aside from the French and the British, the other countries are practically non-existent militarily.

So, you have opinion pieces and policy statements saying we can’t rely on the Americans. Behind it stands the reality: we have no choice. As a European, which I am now, I would say we have more to offer as an influence on American thinking than in trying to improvise a military might that the Americans have and that we cannot wield. The military might of the United States can be terribly misused, underused or not used.  Europeans have a sense of history and a very vibrant intellectual activity that could be useful. There should be more exchange. As you know, when Trump was President, he alienated the Europeans and NATO. As soon as Biden took over, NATO and the European countries started consulting each other and working together much more. So, they’ll talk about trying to make a European Army. But it won’t happen

Jerry Gordon: You don’t think that there is a reality behind that, other than what you just talked about, that the US still is a superpower that probably needs a complete remake of how it uses that power.

Nidra Poller : Absolutely, I agree. I think the Europeans know that.

Jerry Gordon:  I listened  recently on a webinar, to a famous Canadian Islamism analyst and friend of Israel and the Jewish people Dr. Salim Mansur. Mansur was suggesting that one of the implications of this withdrawal is the focus has changed from the Middle East to Asia and that means geopolitically dealing obviously with the rise of a powerful China.

Nidra Poller : I beg to differ. As expressed in the US Foreign Affairs Committee Hearings with Secretary of State Blinken on September 14, 2021, the focus must be everywhere. You can’t be a great power and then look at a small part of the world, and it’s never been more interrelated than it is today. This is fascinating to me because I never exercised that kind of power. The slightest shift, the slightest retreat of power from one side immediately calls in power from another side, immediately. It’s like shifting sands. Like if you make a hole in the wet sand on the ocean’s edge, immediately it fills with water. Any responsible government… I think the European governments know that too, and they have their eyes everywhere, they must.

And if China and Russia think that they’re going to have a playground in Afghanistan, I don’t think that’s the case. Nobody can have a playground there.  I don’t think that it marks a shift.  That is what the Biden administration said, “We can’t have boots on the ground anymore.” Because after all, the United States is a democracy. Do you think American voters would like to send tens of thousands of troops to every single trouble spot? They wouldn’t accept it. Any president who did that, would be out. They must have their eyes everywhere … somehow. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, perhaps staying there forever would have been a good thing, but that was no longer possible. Look at who signed the Doha Agreement on February 4, 2020. I will wager that not many people have read it. In case any of our listeners haven’t read it, here’s the heading: “An Agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America.” That is followed by the dateline. They give the date according to two Hijri calendars, the Lunar, and the Solar.

This statement about the “Emirate that is not recognized” is repeated.  Andrew McCarthy counted 16 times in a three-page document. This document is incredible. You cannot believe that the State Department of a modern democratic civilized country drew up a document like this. You cannot believe it, and it’s there. Once the document was signed by President Trump, and Biden was elected, having promised to pull out, how could he not do it?  Those are the circumstances he had.

Let’s take the case of Israel vs Gaza. People can say all kinds of things: Why don’t they just go in and smash them? Or why don’t they just get out and leave them, don’t discuss anything with them? Take away the money. No, you must give them money. Let them starve. Shoot them. These are inextricable situations.

Jerry Gordon: Before we began this discussion, you and I were talking about the US treatment of a truly valued ally, the Kurds.

Nidra Poller: Yes.

Jerry Gordon: The contrast with Afghanistan, is the Kurds were willing to commit their lives and fight for what they perceive was their geopolitical legacy that was taken away from them after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919  by the Treaty of Lausanne  in 1923 with Turkey that ended the Ottoman empire.  Yet when the Kurds were our valued ally fighting against the Islamic State, we rushed to the exit. We said we cannot depend on being there anymore and we left with a very small footprint in the area.

Nidra Poller: And terrible atrocities were immediately committed.

Jerry Gordon: Correct.

Nidra Poller: Look at the whole region. There is Israel, Lebanon as it used to be, and Kurdistan that doesn’t exist.  There are three non-failed states of civilized values and inclusive governments. All of that would have to be fabricated out of shoddy material to make the Palestinian state that they’ve been talking about for several decades. And it isn’t happening. The question is how you can create healthy tissue in a region where you have mainly tyrannical failed states.  Whenever you try to help them, as in the case of Afghanistan, you pour in money. Your soldiers die, their soldiers die, their civilians die, you prop up a government and you discover 20 years later that everything was so corrupt that it just falls apart at the first touch. Versus the Kurds, everybody knows they’re such brave fighters.

The Kurdish women are fighters, the Kurds are not ideological fanatics, and they don’t get a shout. The people that are shouting now, trying to hang the Administration for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, didn’t say a word about the Kurds.  I talked to people that had been my anti-Jihad allies, asked them what was going on. You know the answers we got when the Kurds were abandoned, “Oh well, they were in it for their own reasons. We can’t stay there forever.” You must look at the present situation in that context.

Jerry Gordon: That also raises the question about what the position is of Israel in the wake of this Afghanistan withdrawal. The reality is, as Lee Smith and others have written about it recently, is that Israel continues to be a growing force in the Middle East, especially following the signing of the Abraham Accords. That is one major contribution of the Trump  Administration.  However, it was the culmination of Israel’s leadership and particularly Mossad.

Nidra Poller: Over a 25-year period.

Jerry Gordon:  That culminated with the signing of the Abraham Accords with majority Muslim Arab states in the Gulf and Africa.

Nidra Poller:  But let’s give credit to the Trump administration, because we can grant that it came together and yes, it was a good thing.

Jerry Gordon: That appears to be continued with the Bennett-Lapid government in Israel.

Nidra Poller: Yes.

Jerry Gordon: Witness the recent trip by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to Cairo to sit with President Al-Sisi, which was strategic. Al-Sisi wants to do a makeover from being an autocrat to someone who appears to be a democratic leader. It was confirmation that the two countries despite a so-called “cold peace” which I don’t think is the case. Egypt  contended with the Muslim Brotherhood,  they’ve isolated Hamas in Gaza since 2014.  Israel is in a rather unique position to be finally recognized.  I credit Canadian Salim Mansur in a recent webinar about Afghanistan withdrawal  saying that Israel is now part of the mosaic of the Middle East.

Nidra Poller:  In an article published in French by Menora , I came to conclusion that we don’t know how to defeat 21st century Jihad. When you read the history of the original Islamic conquest, the non-Arab countries in the region in the 7th Century C.E. didn’t know how to defeat it.  Those were very highly developed civilizations, destroyed by a band of marauders coming out of their tents on the Arabian Peninsula. Those developed nations were defeated, one after the other. We must contemplate that. We must learn. One of the things that must be done is to change the configuration and put Israel in its rightful place. The Abraham Accords are part of that, and the Kurds are part of that.  We can’t even lose patience with those that don’t understand it.

I think today we can defend Israel much better by showing how it fits into that configuration. Because Israelis don’t have the option of ending the longest war.  They don’t have the choice to say, “Well, we withdrew because it wasn’t worth it anymore.” They must fight.  We know…our friends in Israel … their sons and daughters go to war, and they have no choice. It has taken forever, but I can tell you that opinion… the vision of Israel in France … has changed radically in the last 20 years.  9/11 and the massacres in 2015 are a very important part of that. Sometimes people continue to say the same thigs about something that has changed.  Instead of saying, “Wait a minute, things are changing, how can we go with it?”

Jerry Gordon: Correct. Moving on, has President Biden apparently taken a leaf out of the book on how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic that, ironically, President Macron of France has been successful in implementing? It is a contrast with the welter of accusations, court cases saying that we cannot apply mandates for workers, we cannot apply mask mandates because it’s taking away our freedom. The reality is that under Macron, something approximating 70% of the population has been inoculated at this point.

Nidra Poller: I’m terrible at numbers, but I know the vaccination rate is much higher than the United States, a bit lower than Israel, but very high. I’ll tell you a few things about that. France is a small, centralized country, so the government has been able to manage COVID in a centralized way. The criticism is not as virulent, and you don’t get the court cases.  The whole pandemic is a subject that would take several books, analyzing it as a phenomenon of society. So, the criticism in France has gone a bit like this:  “What is going on? They don’t have masks. What is this? They’re telling us we must wear masks. They said we didn’t and now we do, is it any use?”  The best argument I like, because of my age is, “Why can’t we just put the old people away, keep them out of the path of the virus and let us go on with our lives?” Then what happened? The old people got vaccinated, the virus is hitting the young people, because apparently this Delta virus, said, “Well, I can’t munch on old people anymore, let me get these young ones.” What happens is that now with our “passe sanitaire”, the old, vaccinated people like me, can go anywhere and the young unvaccinated can’t sit on the cafe terrace, can’t go to the restaurant, take the train or the plane.

Early in the COVID- 19 pandemic, the criticism in France was, “What? They don’t have enough vaccines. This is a disgrace. How come they didn’t take care of it?” Then the next thing you know, there is enough vaccine for everybody, and then you have the anti-vaxxers talking about their liberty. It’s just comical as an argument. I said there were no court cases as in the U.S. , but Agnès Buzyn, who was the Health Secretary when COVID-19 started to break out here, is being accused now of “non-assistance to people in danger.” I think that it’s a sign of the kind of craziness that comes with the pandemic.  But it has gotten  much better here. Our death rate is much lower. Much lower than in the U.S. For example, in France now, the worst figures of daily COVID fatalities is 100. How many are dying in the States? A thousand?

Jerry Gordon: Has France begun to inoculate children?

Nidra Poller: I think it just started … from the age of 12. They kept the schools open in France. They had all kinds of ways of dealing with it, masks and then vaccination, and they kept the schools open. I have friends in other countries where the kids didn’t go to school for one year.

Jerry Gordon:  I gather that Macron has popularity in France relative to the other candidates who are running for office there. At least that is what we read.

Nidra Poller : Yes. These polls and predictions are very worrying. I really don’t even pay attention because they keep saying, “Yes, it’s going to be Macron, Marine Le Pen.” Well, I can’t vote here, I’m not French. The 2022 Presidential election is in its early days.  We must see what candidate the parliamentary Right will come up with. Now, there’s a lot of shifting and playing around.  Marine Le Pen, as usual is trying to find some fantastic new project. Last time around it was, we should get out of the EU and go back to the French Franc. This time she wants to nationalize the highways and privatize the media.

Jerry Gordon: What are the Macron government relations like with Israel at this point?

Nidra Poller: Not bad at all. It’s nice to report that in France, with some exceptions–extreme left or the Greens–that obsession with Israel or against Israel or with the Palestinians, all of that has dissipated. There is tremendous cooperation between France and Israel. ELNET, the organization I work with, took 40 French legislators to Israel last month. Some had never been there before. We don’t get this situation where every time you say Israel, they say two-state solution. They’re not invested in any way in the peace process, they’re not trying to be the ones you go to solve the problem. They don’t act anymore as if it is the big problem in the Middle East. Relations are good.  The new Israeli government and the new American government have made good relations with the Europeans.

Jerry Gordon: Interesting. What has happened with the Sarah Halimi matter?

Nidra Poller: Those that are fighting for justice for Sarah never give up. At present there is a parliamentary investigation, which is rather unusual. It is not like the United States, where Congress has so much power and uses it. We have a lot of rubber stamp legislators here. Thanks to certain members of parliament who are fighting to defend this case, there is going to be an investigation. I’ll let you know how that develops.

Jerry Gordon:  What has been the pattern of anti-Semitic attacks against Jews in France recently?

Nidra Poller: I don’t want to give a rosy picture, that’s not the point, but these things are shifting. The focus of domestic terrorism or domestic Jihad shifts from country to country and from time to time. After the Israeli Guardians of the Wall Operation, the last operation in Gaza, there was a bit of a flare in opinion. And it went right down., You don’t hear about it anymore, there’s been no aftermath.

Whereas in the United States, in the UK, and many other countries, there are still relentless attacks on Jews. We have antisemitic slogans in those demonstrations by the French Anti-vaxxers that are a sort of fruit salad of anti-this, anti-that confusion.  The more you have confusion, the more there’s a chance for antisemitism, resentment, ugliness … The problem today is more centered on attacks on the police and elected officials. Attacks on Jews are way down, compared to earlier times. It is the obsession that has shifted a bit. Now it is the attack on the nation.  Which was what we said would happen. You start to attack the Jews, you create an opening and little by little, you attack the French nation. There is more implicit solidarity with the Jews because the nation knows it’s being attacked and is trying to find a way to defend itself.

Jerry Gordon What has been the reaction in France given Australian reneging the submarine deal with France that looks like it may have been orchestrated by the Biden Administration?

Nidra Poller: I would say three things. One type of reaction is: “There you go, we’re nowhere, we’re nobody, the French have just slipped back in world influence and people can treat us any old way.” Another reaction is– this is the sign, among others, that we must get together and provide a European defense system, because this insult isn’t only to France but to Europe. The other reaction is: “You don’t treat allies that way.” That was the reaction of Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president. This was because Australia had been secretly dealing with the other partners, hid that from the French, and announced it at the last minute.

For my recent weekly review– in French–of English-speaking media. I chose an article that gave inside information about the Australian aspect of this: on the Australian side there were many domestic considerations. For example, Australian deputies from the southern part of the country wanted to protect jobs in ship building; there were different Australian Prime Ministers over time, between the first negotiation and the “knife in the back”. Perhaps the most interesting thing is this: the Australians wanted diesel electric submarines, whereas the French are specialists in nuclear-powered submarines. The Australians said, “No, no, no, we can’t handle that.” So, the French did a special model for them. When they turned the French down at the last minute, they said, “Yes, we think that the diesel electric is not really up to par for our region.”  I think that there was a lot of shallow and domestic squabbling involved in this. But then, the French are selling some frigates to Greece, and I think they’ll get over it and sales will pick up again. But there was a lot of browbeating and saying, “Well, no, we don’t count for anything anymore.” The reality is, I think, France is still one of the biggest arms exporters worldwide

Jerry Gordon:  Contrast this with what Israel has done now for nearly two decades, building its own submarine fleet, as part of reparations from Germany, the so-called Dolphin subs. They are almost as quiet as nuclear subs and can remain loitering at the sea bottom for any length of time, and they can perform multi-missions.

Nidra Poller: Yes. You know some of the finest submarine construction is coming from Japan, but they can’t sell arms. They have been in competitions where their submarines were the best. And now that the Australian submarines are going to be built in Adelaide in 2040 …  Can you believe it?

Jerry Gordon: It’s not going to help them defend themselves against China.

Nidra Poller: To defend against China, maybe you need Japanese submarines.

Jerry Gordon:  Another development in the 2022 Presidential race in France is Mr. Eric Zemmour, who is a Parisian-born Jew of North African Berber heritage. There are commentators who think that he could be the French version of former President Trump or, of someone I knew from being on the same weekly media panel, Nigel Farage, who was the father of Brexit in the UK. We know how that turned out. Tell us about what the story is with Mr. Zemmour, because even though he hasn’t declared, apparently, he’s polling  at  13%.

Nidra Poller: No, 15%.

Jerry Gordon: As high as 15.

Nidra Poller: I think it’s as high as 15 percent now. He is right behind the conservative LR candidate who hasn’t been declared yet.  Marine Le Pen lost 10 points last month. That is one aspect of the Zemmour phenomenon: Marine Le Pen set out to de-demonize her party that bore the trademark of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was always making outrageous remarks against immigrants and against Jews. She said, “I’m going to show that we’re a normal political party.” Last time she ran for president, she campaigned on a platform of getting out of the EU and going back to the French Franc. She is not capable of running a presidential campaign, not capable of being president. Her party is not capable of governing. This has been shown to be the case repeatedly. Her original talking point was opposition to uncontrolled immigration and political Islam.  But, to avoid being de-demonized, she dropped that. Her voters were disoriented. Eric Zemmour, who is a commentator, a journalist, author of books, is a very intelligent man. He doesn’t put himself forward in public as Jewish., but people who know him personally say he keeps kosher, goes to the synagogue, etc. Zemmour puts forward his French identity.

Suddenly, there was a grassroots movement encouraging him to run for president. That brought him into the forefront and started to attract interest from voters that normally would be for Marine Le Pen but have lost interest in her.  Because, first, they know she can’t win. Second, she dropped the issues they like. Zemmour suddenly started to rise. Many commentators say they were tired of talking about COVID, now everyone’s talking about Eric Zemmour. I’ll give you a funny sideline. Eric Zemmour comes out with strange off-the-wall projects.  For example, the idea that immigrants, to show they really want to be French, shouldn’t give their children foreign names …  like Muhammed. Or at least should give a French name and follow it with the other. So, Muslims might call their son “Jean Phillipe Mohammed.” Eric Zemmour doesn’t seem to know that in the United States, Jews changed their family names to not be identified as Jews. Zemmour is not a French name. He would have to change it to Demour to show that he really wants to be French.

That’s just an example of this kind of hobby horse … it doesn’t go very far. More seriously, perhaps Eric Zemmour saw a chance to influence the debate in the coming election and to make sure that two issues that are important to him–political Islam, and uncontrolled immigration–would be heavily defended by any candidate that wants to win. I think he’s doing well on that score. He wouldn’t be elected in any case. If he runs against Macron, Macron will be president. But I don’t know …  He doesn’t have any political party. Marine Le Pen has sort of one, but Zemmour doesn’t have any political party, and zero experience. I mean, he doesn’t even have experience running a commercial enterprise. He’s a commentator … like me.  Which is very useful in society, but we don’t know how to run countries.  I’ll keep you informed. We’ll do this regularly up to the elections, and I’ll  about how it goes. Marine Le Pen says she’s not worried.  But she looks very worried.

Jerry Gordon: There was a development almost to a year following the horrific beheading of Samuel Paty. It was an announcement by the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin.  There were several aspects of the announcement that indicated pushback against extremist mosque leaders, news services and black Muslim groups. What was interesting to me is, who should pipe up on the rejection of so-called anti-Islamophobia groups in France, but the Congress of American-Islamic Relations, which of course is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood here. They said, “This is a violation of human rights in France.”  What are your views about the timing of this announcement and what does it mean in terms of Macron’s pushback against political Islam?

Nidra Poller: It means that is the direction it is going.  That is a primary issue for French voters, and they want every aspect of it to be handled. I’ve often written about this: Europeans, and especially Latin Europeans, want to be free to come and go in their cities’ streets. The fact that this is being restricted all these years because of political Islam and its side effects is extremely important. French people are not like Americans. French people do not go around in cars, and they wouldn’t accept a life where you move to the suburbs, have gated communities, you go out in your car, roll up the windows and lock the doors when you go through neighborhoods that are like another planet. French people don’t live that way in our cities … and even in our countryside.  We are mixed.

Muslims, whether first or fourth generation, are everywhere in France. They are not only in the banlieue or slummy parts of the cities. Thus, the government must do something about it. This is going to be the issue of the campaign. In which case, Zemmour has an influence.

I would like to add something.  Since our earlier part of this conversation, I’ve been able to read newspaper accounts of testimony of survivors from the terrorist attacks of November 13th, 2015. It is horrifying. The people that survived are totally demolished.

What they experienced is so far beyond anything that a newspaper account has ever given. This is coming out within months of the election.  This is what changed French public opinion. Public opinion in France is far more realistic about political Islam. You don’t get the cover-ups that occur in the United States about 9/11. The 13th of November in France was an attack by political Islam. Salah Abdeslam, the only living survivor of the team that committed that series of attacks, is shouting his mouth out in court. When a Muslim woman testified that her sister was killed–they were together on one of the cafe terraces– he said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, that was a mistake. We don’t try to kill Muslims. We only kill the miscreants, the unbelievers.” He dared to say that in a French court!  This trial will go on for nine months. It has profoundly marked the French political debate going into the 2022 election. When they started to kill Jews in France, we said it wouldn’t stop there. Now, the testimony from the trial has affected the entire population of this country. It has changed, entirely, the spirit of this country and the attitude to political Islam. Members of law enforcement that were involved … who testify in the November 13th trial … they’re in tears. When you read it, you cry.

Jerry Gordon: Gut-wrenching.

Nidra Poller: Yes.

Jerry Gordon:  Thank you for this incisive analysis of what France is doing to push back against political Islam. We will continue doing that because you have some rather important insights, not only from where you’re situated in France, but also, you are a keen observer of activities both in Israel as well as in the United States.

Nidra Poller: Yes. If I have something to offer, it’s that triangle between the United States, Europe and Israel and the fact that I was always more European than American by my heritage. But I haven’t lost touch with my native land, though I’ve been in Paris for 49 years. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, we share so many things along the way, and we watch the developments with the same trepidation and hope. So, we’ll keep in touch and thank you for these discussions.

©Jerry Gordon. All rights reserved.

THE DEATH OF CONSCIENCE — See and Resist thumbnail

THE DEATH OF CONSCIENCE — See and Resist

By Church Militant

The current tendency of governments to mandate vaccines at the expense of basic freedom of choice while batting aside serious objections of conscience is crossing the threshold of dictatorial insanity.

Government authorities are penalizing innocent people because of their refusal to take an abortion-tainted, experimental vaccine. There are threats of fines and of being fired with the consequent loss of livelihood. Vaccine passports are also becoming increasingly required in order to travel, attend places of amusement and even to attend church services.

Some people in positions of authority condescendingly remark that anyone is free not to be vaccinated but will have to find another job. Really, after the same governments have closed down the economy? This vaccine is to be the only treatment, they claim, and nothing else is allowed. What other options are there for families?

The number of deaths associated with the vaccine is large, and attempts to cover up statistics are there for all to see. But there is a more important death to notice that has been inflicted on the people: the death of conscience.

Care for human bodies and for the material world are both important, but the Church has never placed the care of bodies over the salvation of souls.

All of us, vaccinated or not, will still die. No one disputes that. And at death, we will be judged on our fidelity to God and to our God-given conscience. We’ll be judged according to God’s law, not according to the laws passed by Congress or a state’s governing assembly. And when man-made laws trample on God-given ones, citizens must stand up and conscientiously oppose them. The right of choice must be respected in an authentic republic such as the United States of America.

Soon there may be a governor who’ll impose segregation on the people, separating those who take the jab from those who don’t. Even radical forms of imposition can now be expected.

The scandal of scandals is when a bishop or the pope opens the local church or the Vatican only for the vaccinated. Since when did Jesus ever do that or allow that to be done? When did He ever chase the sick away?

‘Moral Obligation’ Criteria

Some bishops even say there is a moral responsibility to take the vaccine, but this is absolute nonsense! Before taking the vaccine could ever become a moral obligation, several conditions must first be met:

  1. The vaccine must present no ethical objections in its development
  2. It must be shown to effectively do its job
  3. It must safe without causing serious or life-threatening side effects
  4. It must be the only option of protecting ourselves and others
  5. It must be proven that a real danger comes from not being vaccinated

None of these conditions concerning the so-called COVID vaccines have been met with certainty. Not even one. The most common objection of conscience against the novel gene therapy is that its development involved the use of stem cells from the organs of aborted babies. Moreover, in order to obtain these organs intact, abortionists had to dismember the little bodies while the babies were still alive.

We’re not talking about human remains being salvaged after someone died in a car accident or from natural death. This form of harvesting entailed deliberately killing the most defenseless of human beings. It involved stealing the organs from babies while they were still alive so they could be used for research in making gene therapy drugs. This double crime of theft and murder constitutes a heinous criminal act of utmost perversity.

This crime was perpetrated with the blessing from governments of so-called “civilized countries,” and even — horresco referens (I shudder to say) — with the blessing from some of Christ’s apostolic successors.

All of the COVID vaccines currently available were developed with the use and abuse of innocent babies. It’s astounding that anyone, especially Catholics, should see these jabs as a “blessing” from God.

For conscience to be well-formed it must be properly informed. But the lackadaisical attitude of irresponsible church authorities in forming consciences for the past 50 years has led many Catholics, even pro-life ones, to take abortion, and thus abortion-tainted jabs, rather lightly. The five moral qualifiers mentioned above, therefore, are all but completely ignored.

Exercise Your Moral Duty

If you sincerely believe there are medical alternatives to combating the virus without resorting to abortion-tainted shots, then you have a moral duty in conscience to use the ethical alternatives and to refuse the unethical ones. If you are convinced the abortion-plagued shots violate your conscience, then be faithful to your conscience: Do not take the jab!

Doctors and fathers of families have the moral duty to seek moral alternatives to the unethical jab and to pressure politicians to provide ethically developed vaccines while putting up legal opposition to the development of abortion-tainted ones.

It is necessary that we who oppose abortion-tainted vaccines have solid moral and civil grounds on which to stand. We need to be strong as pressure mounts against the moral choices of our consciences. We may be locked out of public places and even denied entrance into our own churches by officials, who refuse to obey God and their conscience in order to obey men.

So be it!

Christ told his disciples, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” He further warned: “Anyone who wants to save his life, will lose it. And anyone who loses his life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel will find it.” (Matthew 16:24–25).

Like St. Thomas More, we will never accept the false, amoral principle that the end justifies the means. Neither will we be securely led by blind guides. We can see and discern. We must resist!

COLUMN BY

Raymond de Souza, KHS, KM, KofC

Raymond de Souza is a knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, a knight of the Sovereign and Military Order of Malta, and a fourth-degree Knight of Columbus. He has given in person, on radio and on television over 2,500 talks on apologetics and pro-life issues. He has also assisted religious education programs in dioceses, parishes, schools and lay organizations in 38 countries of the six continents in four languages (English, Spanish, French and Portuguese). He writes weekly articles for the oldest national Catholic paper, The Wanderer. He is the delegate for International Missions for Human Life International, the largest Catholic pro-life and pro-family association in the world, having affiliates in over 100 countries.

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

An Important Church and State Battle in Seattle

We have all seen the horrible violence in Seattle in the last year or so. But now there’s a new battle, virtually under the radar.

In 1932, the Union Gospel Mission began serving the poor and downtrodden in Seattle. But now this ministry which has been serving millions of meals through the years and providing many other services may have to shut its doors because of a decision by the Washington Supreme Court.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is defending the mission. They write:

“A Washington Supreme Court decision forces a religious nonprofit, Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, to hire employees who do not share the organization’s religious beliefs.”

The mission chose not to hire a potential candidate to work for them, who by his own profession does not share their beliefs. He is not a Christian. So he sued. Yet, Christianity is at the core of what they do.

Scott Chin, the president of the mission, told Virginia Allen of Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal (9/27/21):

“We are 89 years old and [at] Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, we exist to love and serve and share the Gospel with our homeless neighbors. We do that by providing food and shelter, addiction recovery services, job placement services, and legal services.”

For example, their website explains one aspect of their mission:

“11,751 of our neighbors in the greater Seattle area are homeless. Every night, Search + Rescue vans drive to the darkest places in the greater Seattle area to hand out life-saving supplies and care to men and women.” Who knows how many homeless they might have spared from freezing to death?

But all of their good works for Christ might grind to a screeching halt because the Washington Supreme Court is ignoring the true meaning of the First Amendment.

On June 12, 1788, James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, declared:

“There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion.”

The founders did not intend for the state to run the church, nor did they intend for the church per se to run the state—however, that’s a far cry from saying the church would have no influence in the state.

A month after he was sworn in as our first president, George Washington wrote a group of Baptists: “If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it.”

In short, if you believe that the Constitution allows for government to interfere with religious organizations, you’ll find no support from the father of our country.

The legal battle is an important one, says Chin: “And so we’ve asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on this critical issue, ‘Does the government have the power to punish religious organizations for living and operating consistently with their faith in this way?’”

Appealing to the U. S. Supreme Court is always a long shot. But the irony is that the Supreme Court has even spoken on this type of issue.

Imagine a Supreme Court decision in which both the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the late Antonin Scalia agreed upon. Ginsburg was as far left as they get, and Scalia was far right. But they both agreed on this: A religious organization has the autonomy under the Constitution to hire according to its religious beliefs.

This was a 2012 case out of Missouri involving a Lutheran school, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC.

In the unanimous decision (9-0), Chief Justice Roberts wrote:

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.”

Jeremy Dys—Special Counsel for First Liberty Institute, which fights for religious liberty—told me:

“No one should be surprised when a religious organization acts religiously. It is only surprising—and unconstitutional—when the state insists a religious institution shed its faith commitments or be punished.”

If the mission loses this case, imagine the potential impact on the hungry and downtrodden of Seattle. But for the Left, this isn’t about suffering people. Despite First Amendment protections and clear Supreme Court rulings, these dedicated secularists are wholly devoted to undermining the influence of religion and religious organizations in America—and we see the results as our society comes unglued around us.

©Jerry Newcombe. All rights reserved.

Worldview is Central to Determining Views on Abortion

The month of October kicks off “Respect Life Month” in the Catholic Church, and with the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to hear the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case on December 1, Christians across the country have begun praying in earnest for the case that could overturn Roev. Wade. How will Americans react to the possibility of the Court altering the long-standing Roe ruling concerning abortion?

Many Americans wonder why abortion remains such a high-profile issue after all these years. The explanation is simple. Almost 50 years ago, seven appointed—not elected—justices decided that killing unborn babies should be a constitutionally-protected act. Since that time, more than 62 million unborn babies have been killed in our nation.

Rest assured, that fact has not gone unnoticed by the God who knitted together those babies in the wombs of their mothers.

Recent worldview research provides helpful insight into Americans’ views about abortion. The annual American Worldview Inventory undertaken by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University shows that after a half-century of energetic public debate about abortion, the abortion perspectives of millions of Americans remain surprisingly tenuous and pliable.

Keep in mind that very few adults are capable of applying a biblical worldview to this (or any other) issue. Although 51 percent of Americans think they have a biblical worldview (according to a Center for Biblical Worldview survey), the American Worldview Inventory reveals that only six percent of Americans actually have one. Since most Americans (88 percent) are driven by a Syncretistic worldview—an inconsistent, unpredictable combination of elements originating in various competing worldviews—the nation’s thinking about the morality and permissibility of abortion is more likely to be based on current emotions and popular thought, not on biblical principles related to life.

Indeed, the American Worldview Inventory underscores the morally wayward thinking of Americans. Not quite four out of 10 adults (39 percent) believe that life is sacred. An equal proportion of Americans argue that life is what we make it or that there is no absolute value associated with human life. The remaining two out of 10 adults possess a variety of other views about life, including outright uncertainty as to whether or not life has any intrinsic value.

Views about life are closely related to worldview and faith commitments. For instance, more than nine out of every 10 adults (93 percent) who have a biblical worldview believe that human life is sacred. Eight out of every 10 (81 percent) SAGE Cons (i.e., the Spiritually Active, Governance Engaged Conservative Christians) possess that view as well. Surprisingly, only six out of 10 theologically-determined born-again Christians (60 percent) say that human life is sacred. Those proportions dwarf those among people associated with non-Christian faiths (25 percent) or those who are spiritual skeptics (15 percent).

Many people are surprised to discover that Millennials are not a pro-life generation. Less than one-quarter of them (22 percent) believes that human life is sacred. Meanwhile, twice as many in Gen X and a slight majority of Boomers and their elders contend that human life is sacred.

Americans’ views about abortion continue to shock many observers. For instance, two out of three adults (64 percent) either say that the Bible is ambiguous in its views about abortion or that they don’t know what those views are. For a nation where roughly seven out of 10 adults call themselves “Christian,” that represents a mindboggling degree of biblical ignorance concerning one of the most high-profile social issues of the past half-century.

Not everyone falls into that vacuum of wisdom, though. More than nine out of 10 people who have a biblical worldview—a group known as Integrated Disciples—reject the notion that the Bible contains ambiguous ideas about abortion. Similarly, eight out of 10 SAGE Cons reject that position as well.

But the idea that the Bible is ambiguous about abortion is held by a variety of population segments. More than 70 percent of people who draw heavily from non-biblical worldviews—specifically, Marxism, Secular Humanism, Modern Mysticism, Postmodernism, and even Moralistic Therapeutic Deism—believe the Bible can be interpreted multiple ways regarding abortion. At least seven out of 10 adults aligned with a non-Christian faith or spiritual skeptics also embrace that point of view. And two-thirds of adults under the age of 50 harbor that misconception as well.

Given these perspectives, then, it should not shock us to find that nearly six out of 10 adults (57 percent) believe that a woman who chooses to have an abortion because her partner has left and she believes she cannot reasonably take care of the child is making a morally acceptable decision. Again, the survey shows that such a decision is a direct reflection of one’s worldview. Just two percent of the Integrated Disciples support abortion under such circumstances. In contrast, more than eight out of 10 who are adherents of other worldviews support that decision. That includes 89 percent of those who often draw their worldview from Postmodernism; 88 percent who often rely upon Secular Humanism; 82 percent who draw frequently from Modern Mysticism; and 81 percent who lean heavily upon Marxist philosophy.

Previous research by the Cultural Research Center also revealed that national opinion is roughly equally divided as to whether the Supreme Court should overturn its disastrous Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. The subgroup numbers line up similarly to the segmentation patterns related to the responses to the other abortion-related questions described earlier. In general, those most desirous of the Court overturning the 1973 ruling are led by Integrated Disciples (67 percent consider a reversal of Roe to be a priority) and by SAGE Cons (74 percent). Those who want the Court to affirm Roe are led by groups that are not favorable to Christianity.

The Court’s ultimate decision, whatever it may be, will not satisfy everyone—or, perhaps, even a majority of Americans. But for biblically informed Christians, the abortion issue is not about pleasing a majority of the public or persuading a majority of jurists; it is a matter of understanding and obeying God’s principles and standing for His truth.

COLUMN BY

George Barna

EDITORS NOTE: This FRC-Action column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

France Aghast After a Huge Report on Sexual Abuse in The Catholic Church

But not everything in the report adds up.


France is reeling after yesterday’s release of a report on child sexual abuse. An estimated 216,000 victims suffered abuse between 1950 and 2020, according to the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE).

“The church failed to see or hear, failed to pick up on the weak signals, failed to take the rigorous measures that were necessary,” Jean-Marc Sauvé, the president of the commission, told the media in Paris. For years, the church showed a “deep, total and even cruel indifference toward victims.”

“The Catholic Church is thus, with the exception of family and friendship circles, the environment in which the prevalence of sexual violence is by far the highest,” the report said.

The report is massive – about 2,500 pages of background, analysis, and testimony from victims – so even the French will have difficulty in assessing it. However, an executive summary – which has also been published in English – makes available the report’s principal conclusions and recommendations.

To the eternal shame of the Catholic Church, there have been a number of reports on sexual abuse around the globe and their findings are always the same: a large number of priests abused children in the decades after World War II. Bishops covered it up, sometimes with the complicity of the police. This has been the story in Australia, Ireland, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.

However, it’s always helpful to look at the fine print and not just the headlines. Is this report fair?

I don’t want to be misunderstood. As I wrote about the report of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse, these are “horrifying stories of abuse by men (they are nearly all men) and women consecrated to God. They are deplorable and inexcusable and cry out to the Almighty for redress. The lives of many innocent children have been ruined.”

The only decent response to the testimony of the victims is rage. Perhaps barbaric punishments, like stoning to death, should be revived for these barbaric crimes.

But we live in a civilised society. The guilty must be punished, but they must first be proven guilty. They have a right to an advocate to speak in their defence. And guilt is not proven simply by citing a few headlines.

Unfortunately, media coverage of the French report, in my estimation, has been very poor. Journalists have plucked a few startling figures from the executive summary with very little critical sense. If French Catholics want to reform their Church, they have to work with facts, not emotions.

Here are a few issues that call for further explanation.

(1) The report’s executive summary is headed: “Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church France 1950 – 2020”. One would assume that all the statistics relate to these seven decades. But this is not the case. It appears the statistics also include the years 1940 to 1949 (pages 125 and 151 of the Report). At one point it states that “the period 1941-1969 accounted for 55.9% of the violence committed against minors by clerics and religious — i.e. approximately 121,000 minors.”

It’s not clear how much abuse happened in the 1940s, but including it in the figures for 1950 to 2020 inflates the total abuse significantly.

(2) The horrifying headline figure of 216,000 is an estimate, according to the New York Times, “ a projection based on a general population survey, archival analysis, and other sources”. In short, it is an informed guess. When studying clerical abuse of children, any number greater than zero is infinitely too much. But readers of the report need to understand that the figure of 216,000 is an extrapolation. Like all such figures, it has its limitations – especially considering that many of the perpetrators and victims must have died decades ago. Only an experienced historical statistician is capable of assessing whether they are realistic.

(3) The report says that between 2,900 to 3,000 priests and religious were perpetrators of sexual violence. Since there were 115,000 clergy in France during this period, the rate of offending is roughly 3 percent. This, the Commission noted, is much less than corresponding figures for other countries, which range between 4.4 percent and 7.5 percent. Perhaps it is even less, given that the data includes the 1940s.

(4) The most damning allegation in the report is that the Catholic Church is the most dangerous place for children in France. What evidence is there of this? Not much.

A bar chart on page 233 of the report depicts the incidence of abuse: in the family (3.7%), unknown (2.1%), friends of the family (2.0%), friends (1.8%), clergy (0.82%), lay Catholic employees (0.4%), holiday camps (0.38%), and public schools (0.34%).

However, the figure for public schools excludes public boarding schools, although this is only disclosed in a footnote. If abuse in this setting is included, the percentage for public schools rises to 0.49%. Why was it excluded?

In any case, the figure for public schools is simply not credible. While the public eye is currently on the Catholic Church, France’s public schools have a scandalous record for sexual abuse.

In 2015, the minister for education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, was forced to admit that 16 teachers had been allowed to continue working in schools even though they had convictions for paedophilia on their record. Homayra Sellier, founder of Innocence en Danger, an NGO dedicated to child abuse victims, told the media that this was just the tip of the iceberg. “The ministry of education has covered this up for years. The government has never been inclined to listen to these stories.” She estimated that there were “thousands” of cases in public schools.

As I pointed out above, the figures in the report are rubbery, but in the 50 years from 1970 to 2020, 75,000 children were allegedly abused by clergy – that’s 2,500 a year. Is that more or less than the number in public schools? It is far from clear.

(5) The report states starkly that “The Catholic Church is the place where the prevalence of sexual violence is at its highest, other than in family and friend circles.” This invites two questions. First, how does the Commission know this if Protestant and Muslim communities have not been investigated with the same rigour? How about the French military, whose soldiers were alleged to have been involved in horrific abuse of children in the Central African Republic a few years ago. How about sporting associations?

Second, the report uses the present tense, “is”. It fails to analyse the abuse by decades, but it does indicate that more than half of the abuse (55.9%) happened before 1970 and that it declined up until 1990. Thereafter the picture is murkier. Less than half the abuse (44.1%) happened in the 50 years to 2020. It appears that things did improve. Perhaps in the 1960s the Catholic Church might have been the worst place, but is that still the case? Like many of the startling allegations highlighted by the media, this withers under closer scrutiny.


The report is grim and depressing. If one act of sexual violence on a child is enough for the earth to open beneath a clerical perpetrator – how about 216,000? However, it’s important for the French Church to demand the full truth. The Commission’s analysis is surprisingly imprecise; it’s not necessarily accurate.

And a lot is at stake. The report’s recommendations, for instance, include a revision of how priests observe the seal of confession.

In the United States, a newspaper columnist concluded after a similar report in Pennsylvania that “It is time to face the horrible truth: The Catholic church is a paedophile ring … Like a criminal syndicate, it is time for the Church to be broken apart and cleaned out.” France has a long, long history of anti-clericalism and its enemies could try to use this report to écrasez l’infâme, in the words of Voltaire, to crush the loathsome beast.

It’s absolutely necessary to get the facts right. The victims of clerical sexual abuse deserve justice, but justice must always be based on truth.

COLUMN BY

Michael Cook

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. More by Michael Cook.

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

Betrayal in The Jewish Community by The Leaders of The Jewish Community

It is obvious from the articles posted below that California’s ethnic studies requirement bill, AB-101, is an atrocious example of state sponsored racism against the Jewish community. This is an absolute statement that admits to no moral relativism and cannot be applied on a sliding scale.

One of the most disheartening and disgusting aspects of this vexed issue is how the L.A. Jewish Federation, the ADL and the AJC have failed to rally to the defense of their own community with anything resembling a moral argument let alone a vigorous protest.

This dismal reality is not surprising.

For several years now due to the left-wing leadership of Jonathan Greenblatt, one of Barack Obama’s choir boys, it is no longer possible to take the ADL seriously as a Jewish advocacy organization.

The AJC barely moves the needle on any issue but is always ready to demonstrate its impartiality when Jews are attacked. In his epic poem, “Inferno”, Dante reserved the most scorching parts of Hell for those who tried to remain neutral when faced with a moral dilemma. The AJC did not exist in the 14th. century otherwise we would know exactly where to find its leadership.

After the Pico Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue pogrom in May 2020 the L.A. Jewish Federation relinquished what was left of its depleted moral authority when it called for the police to be held accountable instead of demanding the members of BLM and Antifa be held directly responsible for looting and destroying Jewish businesses, vandalizing synagogues, committing acts of brutal violence, destroying 52 police cars and on video can be seen and heard screaming, “Kill the police, Fuck the Jews!.” Jay Sanderson, CEO of the L.A. Jewish Federation, sets very low standards for himself and always fails to meet them.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/06/la-jewish-federation-boss-worries-attacks-daniel-greenfield/

By now anyone who has been following the star of these organizations must have concluded that it is made of tinsel. They are gimcrack structures whose main value has been to give us a glimpse into the past and demonstrate how so many Jewish elders betrayed their own people on the way to the Holocaust.

As for all the Jewish organizations that shamefully failed to sign the letter to Governor Newsom urging him to veto the “revised” ethnic studies program, they have shown the level of Jew-hatred they are prepared to tolerate so that they can go on being tolerated.


This link directly above has a letter to Governor Newsom and one can see who signed it- and who did not.

74 Jewish and Education Groups Join Thousands of Petitioners in Demanding Newsom Veto Ethnic Studies Requirement Bill

Letter with list of the 74 organizations.

Thousands call on California Gov. Newsom to veto ethnic-studies bill ahead of deadline

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

The Parents’ Rebellion

Robert Royal: Politicians are backing Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ initiatives in schools. If you’re still sending your kids to such schools, either get them out or get involved.


Terry McAuliffe, the once and (possibly) future governor of Virginia, said something during a campaign debate last week that surprised many of us who thought we couldn’t be surprised anymore by American politics: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Now, in America, States and specific locales run schools. The Constitution gives the Federal government no authority over education (despite Jimmy Carter’s creation of a Department of Education, which spends almost a quarter trillion dollars annually).

You could argue that parents and other voters in a given jurisdiction have already expressed their preferences by selecting mayors, school boards, etc. But as in any democratic context, that doesn’t mean those authorities then exist in a realm beyond criticism – or even removal – if parents who are voters and taxpayers are outraged by their performance.

Catholic Social Teaching also maintains that “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church,  2223) McAuliffe graduated from Bishop Ludden High School in Syracuse N.Y., the Catholic University of America, and the Georgetown Law Center. But, it appears, he remains untouched by that principle.

He wasn’t really speaking of American practice or Catholic principle in the recent debate. He was trying to signal to several progressive constituencies that he’s with them. The politics of the schools in Virginia have become so toxic lately that explosions were inevitable. And he’s made clear which side he’s on.

Two issues in particular have given rise to heated – almost insurrectionary – Virginia school board meetings in recent months. First, an entirely Democrat board in Fairfax Virginia (where this column is being written) has been vigorously promoting Critical Race Theory (CRT). Not exploring, not debating, promoting.

It went so far as to pay $20,000 to Ibram X. Kendi, one of CRT’s architects, for a mere 45-minute Zoom lecture followed by 15  minutes of questions. Over $300 a minute as critics pointed out – while schools constantly plead poverty. Kendi is famous for arguing that past discrimination against blacks can only be remedied by present discrimination against whites, a stance he and others call “anti-racism.”

No surprise, then, that parents, including some black parents, were furious about this reverse racism masquerading as justice, schools teaching children that they are “racist” merely because they are white.

More recently, controversy broke out over two books – Lawn Boy and Gender Queer­ – that portray sexually explicit “homoerotic” acts, one showing a boy about to fellate an older man. The Fairfax board temporarily removed the books from school libraries and appointed a committee to study whether the material is “pornographic.” The politics may force the committee to do the right thing, but today’s librarians are not the bluenoses of yesteryear. The American Library Association “honored” both books as having “special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.” (Is 12 “young adult” now for sexual purposes?)

Democratic politics is a process by which we debate how to order our lives together. As such, it demands a commitment to certain basic principles, not least that we respect the opinions of others even as we try to live with one another. And that means often not pushing conflicts into public spaces, where live-and-let-live then becomes impossible.

For all the talk these days of “diversity,” the term does not really mean tolerating the widest possible range of people. It more typically means privileging favored liberal groups – gays, trans, “people of color” – even if impartiality has to be discarded to do so. The most radical division, of course, is between the roughly half the nation that still follows Christian precepts and the half who see those precepts, in varying ways, as biased and even as hate speech.

Still, any sane person can see that racism – including reverse racism – and homoerotic pornography – like heterosexual pornography – are outside of true civic dialogue, however politically correct they may be in how they present themselves. It’s best to keep them out of the state’s hands – just as we don’t want the nightmare of the state teaching religion.

McAuliffe was appealing to those constituencies who want the current emphasis on CRT and LGBTQ interests to prevail in schools. Parents who oppose this imposition are not trying to tell schools “what they should teach.” That’s a red herring. Parents know quite well – it’s why they send their children to government schools – that teachers there know better than they do themselves how to teach students at various grade levels about mathematics, science, geography, reading and writing, and many other subjects. That’s their prerogative.

The protest stems from their teaching a reverse racism instead of the older American ideal of equality before the law. And, at an even more fundamental level, it arises from not just a discussion of current sexual mores, but a deliberate challenge to religious traditions.

I don’t know if the recent parents’ rebellion will succeed. Terry McAuliffe is clearly betting that it won’t. He signaled the other day to progressive school boards, teachers, diversity consultants, and media that he’s their guy, not his opponent, Glenn Youngkin.

If he prevails, it will be the parents’ fault. Over two decades ago, my own two oldest children were in a Fairfax high school. The county began a sex-ed program that was objectionable – but parents could opt out. We did. But in an area of the country with a highly educated and politically engaged population, and many conservatives as well as liberals, only two students opted out: my daughter and the son of one of Chuck Colson’s vice presidents at Prison Fellowship. Most parents, I’m afraid, just want their kids to fit in.

The stakes are even higher now and parents are motivated in several states. But the rebellion will have to become orders of magnitude larger to succeed. If you’re still sending your kids to state-run schools, for whatever reason, either get them out or get involved. If you don’t, you can’t complain that the sexual revolutionaries, anti-racist consultants, and other radicals are ruining our children and our lives.

COLUMN BY

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and currently serves as the St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair in Catholic Studies at Thomas More College. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

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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.

Biden’s ‘Evacuation’ Was a Taliban Human Trafficking Scheme

The Biden administration is covering up its final crime in Afghanistan.

After Biden evacuated tens of thousands of Afghan “translators”, refugee resettlement groups are desperately looking for translators to translate to the translators.

Why do Afghan translators, who were supposed to be able to translate from English to their native language, need help from translators?

It’s because they’re not translators.

In the last two years, Front Page Magazine ran multiple articles like How the ‘Interpreter’ Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America and ‘Saving Afghan Interpreters’ is a Scam That Would Bring 100,000 Afghans to U.S. exposing the “translator” scam. Now tens of thousands of Afghans are arriving in this country and they need translators because they don’t speak English.

As I previously pointed out, there were more Afghan “translators” applying for visas than there were American soldiers for them to translate for. But the vast majority of SIV visa applicants were never translators. The number of actual translators, Afghans embedded with U.S. forces who risked their lives by working in the field, was miniscule and was its own special category.

But by the end, almost any Afghan who worked for any U.S. organization could apply for a visa.

Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat made that existing scam so much worse because he didn’t evacuate the approved SIV visa holders who might have actually worked for the U.S.

State Department sources have said that the majority of SIVs were actually left behind.

The Biden administration claims to have evacuated 124,000 people, of them only 5,500 Americans, from Afghanistan. 60,000 have been brought into the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted that only 1,800 are SIV holders, another 8,000 are citizens or have green cards.

That leaves over 50,000 Afghans who were just brought here with no legal basis.

And there are tens of thousands of “evacuated” Afghans who might still be brought here.

According to Mayorkas, the “balance of that population are individuals whose applications have not yet been processed for approval who may qualify as SIVs and have not yet applied, who qualify or would qualify—I should say—as P-1 or P-2 refugees who have been employed by the United States government in Afghanistan and are otherwise vulnerable Afghan nationals, such as journalists, human rights advocates, etc.”

Mayorkas describes bringing a whole lot of people who “might” qualify as SIVs, if they were to apply for them, who “would” qualify for P-1 and P-2 visas: categories that took the existing translator scam and turned it into a free-for-all and allowed virtually anyone to qualify.

The Biden administration evacuated all these planeloads of “journalists” and “human rights advocates” who immediately began sexually assaulting some of the girls they were trafficking.

Two Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy have already been charged, one for sexually assaulting two minors, and another for beating his wife who alleged that he “beat me many times in Afghanistan to the point I lost vision in both eyes.”

The wife also told a translator “that nine women have been killed since getting to Fort McCoy and that she would be the tenth.” There’s been no confirmation of this, but even well before these two criminal cases, anonymous officials at Fort McCoy were warning that “older men were admitted together with young girls they claimed as ‘brides’ or otherwise sexually abused.”

That’s strange behavior for “human rights activists”.

The human rights activists that the United States funded in Kabul were largely middle-aged women who didn’t wear burkas. We’ve seen and heard almost nothing from any of them at Fort McCoy or anywhere else in the resettlement system. Some have remained in Afghanistan and are risking their lives by courageously organizing protests against the Taliban.

They’re not raping children in Wisconsin.

The Afghan evacuees lean heavily toward “military age males” and older men with young girls. The women in those families that have come through tend to wear burkas and appear fearful.

Whoever the hell these people are, they’re not “human rights activists” and “journalists”.

Nor are they translators since most of them need translators and few have SIV visas.

The question no one asked Mayorkas is why the vast majority of SIV visa holders never got on board those planes, but people who he thinks “might” qualify did.

What process could have possibly resulted in such a strange outcome?

The answer comes in two damning parts.

Kabul embassy personnel had tainted the pool of applicants by sending out “electronic credentials”. State Department officials claimed that the passes were widely distributed by the applicants and that soon everyone had them and was demanding access to the airport.

“Within an hour, everyone in the crowd had that pass,” a senior official claimed.

He noted that, “every credential we tried to provide electronically was immediately disseminated to the widest possible pool,”

And while that might explain why a lot of people showed up who weren’t qualified, but were waving credentials, it doesn’t explain why so few of those who were actually qualified made it into the airport and onto a plane. The only explanation is that they were deliberately kept out.

The Biden administration outsourced security to the Taliban, which passed it along to checkpoints manned by the Haqqani Network which is allied with Al Qaeda. Biden officials provided the Taliban and Haqqanis with lists of qualified people they were supposed to admit.

And yet the Taliban repeatedly prevented some Afghans from getting to the airport while allowing others to make it through. They did so regardless of the official credentials.

The media reported on this behavior but treated it as random sadism or malice. It’s not.

The Taliban were experts at cashing in on the American presence in Afghanistan. At one point the Jihadis were making more money from “taxing” contractors working for us than they did from opium. There was no chance that the Taliban would leave all the money to be made from providing access to the evacuation flights on the table. And there’s no reason to think they did.

An Australian Financial Review columnist reported that, “Taliban fighters are allowing people to pass through if they pay thousands of dollars in bribes.”

That was likely only the tip of the iceberg.

The distribution of electronic credentials was deliberately tainted in the pipeline and the Taliban controlled access to the Kabul airport to keep out legitimate SIV visa holders while allowing the tens of thousands of Afghans who were illegitimately evacuated to bribe their way in.

This wasn’t an evacuation: it was a massive Taliban human trafficking scheme.

The Taliban didn’t just cash in on all the reconstruction projects and the weapons left behind, they undoubtedly made a fortune from every seat in Biden’s Kabul airlift.

Now that tens of thousands of Afghans are here, they won’t be leaving. They can’t be deported and whether or not the “parolees” qualify for an SIV or P-2 visa is a mere technicality.

The truly explosive question is whether the Taliban just cashed in on the usual corruption in Afghanistan, or if they got any Al Qaeda or ISIS terrorists into the evacuation pipeline?

Did any of the Taliban grab the chance to get their own family members into the airport?

Probably.

Sources have said that 0.5% of Afghan evacuees have been flagged for terror ties. That’s a high percentage for “translators” and “human rights activists”. Some of the flags were reportedly triggered by terrorist family ties. In a tribal and clan society, Taliban and Al Qaeda family members are extremely unlikely to be working as translators or human rights activists.

Beyond just getting family members into the evacuation pipeline, did the Taliban get actual terrorists into the United States. Probably. But it’ll take us years and bodies to find out.

Biden and his administration have treated the Kabul airlift as a massive triumph, when it was actually the final act of a disaster that has brought rapists and terrorists to America.

The “translators” need translators, children are being sexually assaulted and women are being beaten before the refugees have even left Fort McCoy. Afterward things will get much worse.

Untold billions in taxpayer money will be squandered on resettling the beneficiaries of the Taliban’s human trafficking scheme. The Afghans will be signed up for every possible welfare program and a fortune will be spent just on translating for the “translators” at resettlement agencies, government agencies, schools, hospitals, and the local police.

More money will be spent on dealing with their abuses through the criminal justice system.

The SIV holders and their families who were left behind in Afghanistan, but who manage to eventually make it over here, will also have to be resettled, doubling our refugee load.

And then the terrorist plots will begin.

The Kabul airlift wasn’t heroic: it was a bleak farce in which the Biden administration allowed the Taliban to select who got on the planes. And then it’s shocked that the Afghans whom the Taliban chose are not the SIV visa recipients that were on the list, but a whole other crowd.

It will take us decades to discover exactly who are the Afghans that Biden brought to America.

The Biden administration will cling to the myth of its heroic airlift by retroactively legitimizing the tens of thousands of Afghans to cover up the final installment of its humiliating disaster. And the Taliban, once again, will have the last laugh as their human trafficking scheme pays off.

Human trafficking isn’t only for Mexican cartels, the Taliban likely made a fortune trafficking rapists and terrorists, and anyone who could pay, to Kabul airport. The old men raping young girls, the military age men scowling at the camera, and all the best of Afghanistan is here now.

And the Biden administration will cover up its final crime in Afghanistan.

COLUMN BY:

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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

Hunter Biden and the Muslim Brotherhood

Only a Biden could bring Communist China and the Brotherhood together.

While Vice President Joe Biden was in the White House, his son Hunter was allegedly trying to cut a huge deal with a $2 million payment and a possible 5% success fee as high as $750 million. All it would take was bringing together Communist China and the Muslim Brotherhood.

And who but a Biden could pull that off?

The UN Security Council sanctions that had been slapped on the Libyan Investment Authority during the civil war between Gaddafi and the Islamists were still in place years later because the Arab Spring had left the country in the throes of a permanent civil war with the Islamists.

The LIA’s wealth fund, now worth an estimated $68 billion, had been part of a deal cut between the Libyan dictator and the Bush administration. When Gaddafi abandoned his WMD program, and sanctions were dropped on Libya, the LIA quickly became one of Africa’s largest wealth funds, and bought big, investing in American companies, banks, and bonds.

Including billions in treasury bills.

When Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood stabbed Gaddafi in the back and went to war to support the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of Libya, tens of billions in LIA assets were frozen. And as the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists have continued to battle the remnants of Libya’s military for power, the sanctions have remained in place costing the LIA some $4 billion.

When Sam Jauhari, a Democrat donor, sent the email, indicating that Hunter wanted $2 million to lobby on the deal, his father had long been seen as the gateway to all that wealth.

Jauhari, who had plowed $80,000 into the Obama campaign, and tens of thousands more into the Democrat machine, was allegedly an associate of Imaad Zuberi, a Pakistani who had been working on Libya with Biden’s body man and close friend. Earlier this year, Zuberi was sentenced to 12 years in prison for funneling foreign money into political campaigns in the United States. Among his alleged employers was the Qatari Islamic terror state and a prosecutor alleged that “U.S. policy was changed to align with Qatar’s interests.

Prosecutors say that Zuberi received $9.8 million from the Qatari state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood. He had also allegedly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Saudi Muslim tycoon to the Obama inauguration. His WhatsApp messages have him mentioning, “I need to get the 5 to 6 Clinton donation done by tomorrow” and “You want billions unfrozen. This is nothing. Iranians spent $150 to get $25 billion released.”

His recipient complains, “I spent 2.6 million before. What did I get?”

The names of the Libyan officials have been censored, but the deal appeared to involve the Tripoli government. At the time the deals were being discussed, the Tripoli government was largely dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Control over LIA had been a top Muslim Brotherhood priority and the LIA allegedly includes at least one Brotherhood board member.

The first email about retaining Hunter Biden was sent in January 2015. In 2012, a Muslim Brotherhood alliance had conspired to take power through fraudulent elections in Libya. In 2014, the Brotherhood alliance, after repeatedly using Islamist militias to terrorize its rivals in Tripoli, lost new elections and declared that it would continue to govern anyway.

When the Hunter Biden emails were being sent, Libya had two rival governments, the Muslim Brotherhood in Tripoli and a more moderate coalition in Tobruk. The rival governments also staked their own claims to Libya’s wealth whose crown jewel were the LIA’s investments.

While the released court documents of Zuberi’s WhatsApp chats were censored to remove the names and identities of any of the players, he asks at one point, “Does the Libyans want me to introduce them to Turkish president?” Turkey was a strong backer of the Tripoli regime. It’s highly unlikely that political figures in the Tobruk government would have been looking for an introduction to their worst enemy. The Muslim Brotherhood however was backed by Turkey.

The Biden email however provides an even bigger clue when it notes that Hunter “said he has access to highest level in PRC, he can help there.”

The Muslim Brotherhood had gotten Obama and Hillary Clinton to intervene in Libya. That illegal invasion enabled them to take power, but as part of the crisis, sanctions had been imposed by the United Nations. And Obama and Hillary were not able to unilaterally lift those sanctions.

The sanctions had been imposed by the UN Security Council. And could only be lifted by it.

The People’s Republic of China had been a major player in Libya. When the civil war arrived, it sided with Gaddafi and once he was overthrown, Chinese oil companies were frozen out. Getting China to support lifting some sanctions would require a quid pro quo arrangement that would let the PRC’s oil companies and other businesses back into Libya.

Hunter Biden’s ties to CEFC China Energy and the gift of an eighty thousand dollar diamond have already been widely reported. A CEFC executive would later be accused of plotting to provide weapons to Qatar and Libya. Qatar was a major backer of the Brotherhood.

Even without Hunter’s diplomatic talents, China and the Islamist government came to terms.

But the China factor explains why the Libyans considered Hunter Biden as an intermediary at all. The Biden family was a perfect halfway point between the Muslim Brotherhood and the People’s Republic. Both the Islamists and the Communists had invested in the Biden clan.

What was really at stake here was a quid pro quo oil deal in exchange for the LIA lockbox of billions that had to be negotiated through the White House and UN Security Council members. It was a thorny problem which the Libyans still don’t seem to have cracked, and it’s unlikely that Hunter Biden could have managed to appease all the different interests if he had gotten the job.

The Zuberi messages mention that, “the negotiation is towards 3.5 to 4% or it will not fly… they said that they have 190 billion outside and they will not give 5%.” It’s not clear whether Hunter would have seen any part of that 5%, or whether the WhatsApp messages refer to any deal involving him at the time, but either way there was a whole lot of money at stake.

The Libyan civil war was not just ideological, but economic. The Arab Spring had become a vehicle for not only Islamist theological ambitions, but the economic agendas of its backers.

“Hey read the book Clinton Cash,” Zuberi told an associate. “This is how America work. How Washington work.”

It’s certainly how the Bidens work. In an already fetid swamp, the Bidens added a new layer of treasonous greed. Only the Bidens could have been up for potentially being hired by the Muslim Brotherhood to cut a deal with Communist China.

As long as the money from America’s enemies was right.

COLUMN BY

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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

A.R.T. for All & Sundry: Sterile Social Progress and Sexless Equality

This article is translated from the original French by the author. The article is a response to the debate in France on legislation that will extend access to PMA, Procréation Médicalement Assistée (or ART, Assisted Reproduction Technology) to lesbian couples and single women in France.


Isn’t it heartless to block the flow of such tender desires? Where is the “why” strong enough to answer the “why not?”

Society is about to assume divine powers to compensate for the stinginess of a God who’s lost His glory. Enthusiasts only count the positive side of the calculation: the 1 + 1 = 2 love of the same-sex couple + their love for the wanted child cancels the minus-one of the father. And the absent mother of the child born by gestation pour autrui, known as GPA (inevitable authorization of surrogate motherhood) will be compensated by the sweet tale of the sperm-donator and the womb-lender, venerated like the mythical genitors of an ancient people.

How should we calculate the deliberate deprivation for the child born of these equations, of splendid male/female dynamics? Militants of the cause write it off as a sustainable loss. The father or mother of a “conventional” couple can disappear by accident or by choice, n’est-ce pas? So, it’s doable. No room for old-fashioned sexual differentiation hang-ups. Move over, buddy!

Transgenderism helps erase the father + mother = child formula by positing a range of possibilities that denies the essential difference between a man and a woman. An ill-defined aberration—dysphoria—becomes a sort of state of mind that will be soothed by “medical treatment” (that has nothing to do with healthcare), boosted by a proselyte ideology that seeps into society as a whole.

In one of the more grotesque variations on the theme, we have the “man” that claims to be the father and/ or mother of the child carried in the uterus she kept, at least temporarily, during the male-to-female transition.

A man has a miscarriage in a Boston hospital. He comes to the emergency room complaining of stomach pain, identifies himself as a trans, is left waiting for two hours, and gives birth to a dead child. Guardian journalist Freddy McConnell comes out better, and uses his communication skills to celebrate the happy ending in text and video, exploiting to the hilt his appearance as a man dressed as a man proud to be a man about to give birth. But that’s not all. He is now fighting a legal battle to be recognized as the father of the child born of his womb.

The Washington Post publishes an interminable love—comics-style— account of the materpaternal adventure of Braiden Schirtzinger who fulfilled two cherished dreams: to be a man, to be a mother. We learn that they (that’s the fabulous Braiden’s preferred pronoun) got together with an old boyfriend to conceive the child. Unfortunately, they (still Braiden) couldn’t breastfeed but they are relieved to be able to resume the testosterone injections and antidepressants. The author of the saga proudly remarks that The Washington Post began, 15 years ago, to use the pronoun “they” for non-binaries on the male-to-female continuum.

As for ART for single women who didn’t want or couldn’t find a partner, why should society be responsible for artificially satisfying the maternal desire without addressing the sequence encounter / love / fertility / survival of the species as in the old days, since the first days, everywhere and always? Is it less progressive or more outlandish than the illusory gender transition? Hah! They’ll laugh in your face if you say government agencies should find husbands for the hundreds of thousands of women yearning to be loved.

In fact, the “bioethical” progress about to be imposed on us relates to a tiny minority of the population: lesbians or single women seeking maternity plus a minute contingent of transgenders. Whereas hoping to be beautiful, handsome, seductive, agile in love, attractive, satisfied, fulfilled, fertile and stable is shared by the vast majority of our fellow women. What medical treatment, what legislation will bring them miracle solutions like those offered to dysphorics by the wizards of transition?

Erasing the name of the father

Fortunately, ramshackle social engineering by politicians under the influence won’t wipe out the family. But private life is also influenced by religious, sociological, literary and commercial fads & fashions. We’re told “it’s no skin off your back” when, in fact, “rights” granted to a very small minority entail a radical change in the narrative of love / marriage / procreation / filiation. We get aberrations like “parent 1, parent 2” [on official documents]. So as not to discriminate against the 1%, the 99% are deprived of the terms father and mother. It doesn’t make sense, especially when homocouples call each other husband and wife, and their children innocently recite, “I have two mothers” or “I have two fathers.” Unfair, illogical, but effective on the symbolic level.

If the female-male union absolutely necessary for procreation is deemed optional for ongoing family life, sexual identity also becomes free-wheeling. According to this ideology, being born a girl or a boy is just a hypothesis, to approve or reject. The twisted identity of a small minority is glorified by a marketing spiel that rebounds in the public mind. Transgenderism, still marginal in France, has assumed catastrophic proportions in the United States, comparable to the crises of collective hysteria that gripped adolescents in the old days.

The better to defend ART, surrogate pregnancy, or transgenderism, complex realities are reduced to simplistic caricature. The wish for sex change (now called “gender-affirming” surgery) is accepted as a healthy clear cut decision deserving of a high-tech solution. Fortunately, it’s possible … because that’s what they say: a bit of hormonal, surgical, and aesthetic touching up turns a man into a woman, a woman into a man; as if the Botox, silicone, plastic surgery cocktail ever turned an old woman into a young one. It’s sham. The human body won’t bend to such arrogance. A transitioned man is still a man, a woman doped up on testosterone will always be a woman. What’s the good of botching up a human being, mutilating her, giving in to his tragic intention? Her confused will? His misleading decision?

What corresponding desire will meet the transformed transgender? A “heterosexual” man that will choose a woman transformed from a man? A homosexual male who will finally get a real female/male, an improvement over an effeminate simpering parody? What becomes of the notion of homosexuality in this confusion, if same-sex partners, too, are seeking alterity? But not the real difference. The fake. Without delving into intimate details, without digging up statistics on all possible variations on the male-female theme, one might speak of perversion. But that is forbidden!

Gestation tabula rasa

In the brave new world of interchangeable genders, the airbnb / deliveroo womb is a means of bringing children to couples that are by definition sterile. Can the devotion of the “surrogate mother” compensate the shock of the infant that comes into the world as an orphan and refugee? To honor the generosity of the transport child-bearer, the intense, complete, sustained and infinitely rich complicity between the mother and the child in her womb is reduced to zero. Not to mention the intimate presence of the father—lover and genitor. The womb is nothing more than a handy container to deliver the baby to the purchaser. The contract signed on the dotted line is all that’s needed to deal with the issue of rupture between the woman and the baby she carried in her womb for nine months of deep intimacy. And, miraculously, children acquired that way always do well. Advocacy doctors, psychiatrists and journalists say so, so you have to believe them. I don’t. The newborn brutally torn from the body of his birthing mother is enlisted in a war against the truths of procreation. And, again, “it’s no skin off your back” in the service of tiny minority is an assault on carnal intelligence. The experience of gestation is reduced to zero. Tabula rasa.

A child when I want, if I want

Is it really a question of generosity? Inclusion? Bountiful medicine extending fertility to women (and soon to men) who want to be like everyone else while demanding respect for their difference? Is it the pride of our advanced society to alleviate a deficiency that afflicts a very small minority? To invent, out of the goodness of our hearts, a crypto-medical condition— “sterility due to a choice of sexual orientation?”

Militant feminism of the 60s came along with virtually 100% reliable hormonal contraception and abortion on demand. A world of professional and romantic possibilities opened to women liberated from biological fatality. Free to make love without getting pregnant, a woman can enjoy the promiscuity formerly reserved for men and tramps. Without the fear of unwanted pregnancy, a woman can study, train, and devote herself to a rewarding career. The results are there and all women, militants or not, have been able to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity. The difference is stunning! Women, too often confined to a narrow circumference, are able to flourish, become financially and intellectually independent, broaden their skills and master their emotions … there’s no question of backsliding to any “good old days.”

But we can ask how the slogan—a child when I want if I want—came to nest on the bosom of marriage and children for all. By a strange twist, maternity and feminine charm—vetoed by feminist leaders that were often closet lesbians—have been adopted by men and now carried all the way to the impossible transformation into women. You have to be blind to the infinite subtleties of a woman’s body, work of art and inspiration for artists, to believe it.

Why would a woman liberated from biological fatality and conventional practices, openly choosing a female spouse, want at all cost to have children? If the answer is that the maternal fiber is stronger than the choice of a partner incapable of satisfying it, then we can ask why militant feminism was able to stifle it where it was so strong … and often worked against our will.

On the individual level, on the level of intimacy, things are too complex to be encompassed by militant, journalistic, or common-sense rhetoric. But public policy can’t be based on individual cases. This male-male couple marvelously raises, we are told, children obtained by GPA, whereas we know of male-female parents that mistreat their 100% biological children. A woman married to a man might choose abortion to end a pregnancy that interferes with her professional ambitions while another, with no partner, would do anything to be a mother …

Society more or less smoothly manages universal impulses, defining normality and aberrations. Today in an overdose of generosity, it leans toward idolizing aberrations. The ravishing Valentina Sampaio, featured on the cover of Vogue France, is the first Victoria’s Secret transwoman model, chosen less than a year after Chief Marketing Officer Ed Razek dared to say that a trans wouldn’t appeal to the brand’s customers. Razek apologized profusely, the charming Brazilian took her rightful place and got her cover story. And yet, the photo of la Valentina in bikini reveals terribly masculine hips and thighs.

Perversion, sterility, and totalitarian thought

Setting aside the benefits promised to those directly concerned by ART-for-all and related forms of social engineering, we can recognize the obsessional nature of a trend that feeds on the distress of human beings faced with vital dilemmas of sexuality, love, family. A shift in focus from individuals to advocacy groups turns up some strange bedfellows. For example, this laundry list on a t-shirt sold online by the United States Campaign for Palestinian Rights: RESIST/ RACISM SEXISM ZIONISM HOMOPHOBIA TRANSPHOBIA ISLAMOPHOBIA ANTISEMITISM ABLEISM COLONIALISM. How about SPECIESISM? Not to worry, the UN’s GIEC preaches the no-meat orthodoxy that follows from its end of days ecologism.

Resist both Zionism and transphobia … under the auspices of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights? Believe in transgenderism and defend the rights of Palestinians … and homosexuals? Protect the planet, Palestinians, cattle, and the handicapped! Intersectionality is really bopping! You can proclaim yourself anti-Zionist and anti-antisemite on the same t-shirt. Advocacy gets an early start on the USCPR site, with newborn-size jumpsuits sporting the credo I Support Palestinian Human Rights.

What explains the articulation between ART for all and a totalitarian, antisemitic ideology? How are they related?

Two for one

 The social engineering measures vaunted today would seem to favor love, fulfillment, and fertility. In fact, the impact on the birth rate is worse than negligible because these measures are the end results of policies that weaken the family. We have to go back to the early days of ideological feminism to understand how this came about.

 Isn’t it about time to revisit and revise the liberated-woman kit, its excesses, unintended consequences, outdated methods, and conflicting career plans? In the 21st century, when artificial intelligence is developing in so many fields, we are still using a Stone Age club for birth control: hormonal pill and patch, IUD, abortion. The side effects of hormonal methods are minimized: harmful intrusion in physiological functions, problems of recovering fertility, effect on society of masculinized women, impact on children and their sexual identity. The IUD gently mistreats the reproductive apparatus month after month. Abortion is heartbreaking. Decreased fertility and long-delayed pregnancy all too often require medical assistance. More hormones, suffering and, too often, the famous two for one. The rate of twins in developed countries has doubled since 1970. Bearing twins, extremely difficult at any age, is particularly hard for a woman at the limit of the age of procreation.

 It is easier to nourish the ambitions of a female truck driver than to reorganize professional life to allow a woman to pursue a high-level career while interrupting it for childrearing at the propitious age. It’s more convenient to make them think that the biological clock adapts to fashion and the business world than to tell young women that there is a disconnect between the surface, miraculously intact, and the reproductive system, antique and eternal. The face is still smooth and luminous, the eggs grow old.

 Not to worry! (Performance enhancing) hormones prohibited for athletes, poured profusely into the veins of the trans in transition, are handed out like candy to women barely out of childhood and all the way to menopause, when the contraceptive formula is replaced by the eternal youth version. Rightfully wary of hormone-fed beef, we accept without a whimper hormone-fed women.

Deprived of the benefits of the lovely surprise, the modern couple has to squeeze the “have a child” rendez-vous into two overbooked agendas. How many of our compatriots in the 45-65 age group were, on the contrary, conceived by accident? Slamming the door in the face of those that would follow, these upstarts hand us a demographic crisis. Royally neglected. Or surreptitiously compensated by immigration. What’s to be done? Out of the question to go back to imposed maternity, agreed, but it’s not the ART that will keep us from shrinking.

Israel is the only developed country with an elevated fertility rate: 3.1. (Average fertility rate in OCDE countries: 1.7. Impossible to ignore the generous acceptance, in Israel, of the forms and reforms discussed here—LGBTQ+, ARTGPA, transgender … Israel has the highest per capita rate of vegans. How should we understand the progressivism of at least part of the Israeli population, in the light of the arguments above? Could this be a Trojan horse?)

Religion, nationalism, return of the repressed

Pedestrian crossings at the Gay intersection in the Marais, at the corner of rue des Archives and rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, are painted rainbow. The colors of the Gay nation adorn cafés where, on Gay national holidays, the flag flies and parasols dance. A huge billboard invites men to discover the Gay version of airbnb. Nationalism, communautarisme, clannishness, decried elsewhere, are coddled here. Trendy neighborhood restaurants offer vegan cuisine here, gluten-free, lactose-free meals there. The no-meat religion makes its way, hand in hand with climate change millenarians. These true believers who might make fun of a Jew who keeps kosher, these proud Gays who absolutely had to penetrate the orifices of Jerusalem, preach their fundamentalism as the sole path to salvation.

 Meat-eating will destroy the planet if toxic masculinity allied with white privilege doesn’t poison it first. The masculine, like beef, is rejected in its natural form: the New Man is a woman. The brain doesn’t need animal fats, a child doesn’t need a father, demographic survival doesn’t need fertile heterosexuality, civilization doesn’t need ancient values … and the Jews don’t need a sovereign nation. How strange to find these scattered elements combined in an armored configuration. Totalitarian.

At a recent Green Weekend in Paris, the director of a Greenpeace think tank recommended demographic chastity to the young adults gathered around him in a circle of admiration. Reproduction adds to the pollution of a dying planet. These are the same activists that aid and abet illegal—primarily African—immigration. Fertility rates for sub-Saharan Africa? 4.7.

Transgression/ antisemitism

Infanticide disguised as birth control—partial birth abortion, full-term abortion, authorized in at least seven American states—is defended tooth and nail by militants that consider the slightest restriction as an all-out attack against abortion rights. Heads, they kill the living, tails they make a business of assisted reproduction derivatives: an “Amazon catalogue” for ordering gametes, uterus-rental, expensive transgender mutilation of adolescents … or children. And the confusion spreads to pronoun madness, transgender public bathrooms, vegan orthodoxy … all wrapped up in the RESIST t-shirt.

If reproductive LGBTQ + militantism is largely imported from the United States, where it develops more rapidly and more radically than in France, the antisemitism that plagues us here since the turn of the 21st century is now spreading in the United States. The assault comes from all sides: academics, Islamists, Leftists, neo-Nazis, militant Blacks, antizionist Jews, and unaffiliated thugs.

This is happening in a context of crisis of American democracy, where bipartisan politics has given way to brutal, uncompromising tribal clashes. The president—Obama, Trump—is idolized by his supporters. Debate is stifled by political correctness, rational thinking is shaky, public discourse is degraded under the combined effect of an abiding anti-intellectualism and idiotic social networks.

We should understand that the misnamed antisemitism is not racism, not discrimination against the Other, not scapegoating; it is linked to the madness of transgression in a society in the grips of an existential crisis. Without examining here the deep and ancient roots of genocidal Jew hatred, we can recognize in today’s antisemitism the need to sideline or eliminate Judaism so as to revel, unfettered, in the demolition of civilization. Blur sexual identity, deny the male-female alterity essential to reproduction, concoct false filiations, weaken the taboo against incest, demean the fleshly reality of gestation, manipulate the language to make it say all that is normal … why? What the devil is going on? Tampering with language and reality just to “give” children to a few thousand people? Growing babies in heterosexual fish farms and offering them to adults who freely chose biological sterility?

What if this semi-divine generosity is just a pretext? Because we can’t understand it without looking at the antecedents of this artificial fertility—that is, the authentic sterility encouraged, almost imposed on the liberated woman. Unlike “primitive” forms of birth control—condom, diaphragm, rhythm—the IUD and hormones make a woman, temporarily, sterile. And, coincidentally, veganism decreases fertility and provokes precocious menopause. And apocalyptic ecologism adds its own pro-sterility arguments.

Compromising natural fertility only to fabricate artificial fertility… is perversion. To deny biological filiation and invent fictional filiation—e.g. “mother by intention” —is perverse. When we create confusion about corporal gender only to slop up our language with gender overkill—écriture inclusive, refusal of the masculine neuter, feminization of professions and trades—isn’t that perversion? AuteureEcrivaineFéminicide! [authoress, writeress, femicide,] Why not êtresses humaines! And what about the gender of common nouns that has nothing to do with their sexuality and, by the way, trips up foreigners like myself?

Can we look at the full picture?

Antizionism: geopolitical perversion

The womb is the keystone of our survival. Judaism is the foundation of our democracy. And Israel stands on the front lines of defense of the free world. Instead of anchoring progress to the foundations of civilization, our societies are adrift. The sirens of antisemitism sing at large and the soldiers of antizionism seduce idealistic youths, proud academics, true believing progressives, and tikun olamist Jews.

The genocidal violence that now strikes Jews in the United States comes as a surprise to many that thought the outburst of antisemitism in the early 2000s was the replay of a particularly European evil: The Shoah. But the origins are global. This time around it is happening in nations bent under the thrust of a multipronged jihad assault. Yes, as always, constructive and destructive domestic forces are at play, individuals and the collectivity are torn between tyranny and freedom, but these ongoing conflicts are exacerbated by a well-advanced project of Islamic conquest. “Terrorist” attacks, target immigration, infiltration, seduction, proselytism, deceit … Whether it’s a Parisian banlieue, the US House of Representatives, or Gaza in the Middle East, jihad strikes the Jews, Islamic conquest burns with Koranic Jew-hatred and genocidal fury against the Jewish state. Jews and their Judaism stick in the throat of Islamic conquest. The sovereign state that protects Jews everywhere in the world must be destroyed, support for this state has to be undermined in the free world, in the Diaspora. The Jewish obstacle must not block the path to conquest. Allahu akhbar.

 This is the nexus of a frightful diversion; a free world that can’t defend itself against jihad conquest is preoccupied by reforms on the fringes of the fringe, obsessed with unrealistic unrealizable desires, pushing transgression to the hilt, cherishing it, embracing it, favoring it to the point of erasing the bare biological minimum that ensures the survival of the species, mothballing the terms “father” and “mother,” meddling with filiation … all the while passively awaiting the eventual imposition of sharia law?

        To put it starkly: are we going to play children’s games, let it all hang out, faint in ecstasy at the feet of the beautiful transgender … until the whistle blows to announce the transition to Iranian style moral policing?

Table of Contents

©Nidra Poller. All rights reserved.

Kamala Harris Praises Student Who Accused Israel of ‘Ethnic Genocide’

Kamala Harris apparently does not believe in truth. She believes, rather, in many “truths,” and she thinks it’s important, and desirable, that those various truths, which often clash with each other, be expressed, be heard. A report on her relativism is here: “Harris praises student for expressing ‘your truth’ after anti-Israel rant,” by Dean Shmuel Elmas, Israel Hayom, September 29, 2021:

US Vice President Kamala Harris has come under fire for not condemning a student after she accused US policy of facilitating “ethnic genocide” of Palestinians.

Harris’ exchange with the student took place at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia on Tuesday [Sept. 27]. Harris could be seen nodding as the female student lambasted the US for its support of its allies in the Middle East.

I see that over the summer there have been, like, protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers,” the student, who identified as half-Iranian, half-Yemeni, said on the Palestinian protests during the latest Gaza flare-up in May.

“Just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this,” the student continued, referring to the special budget passed by the US House to support Israel’s air defense system, Iron Dome, accusing this and other such measures as “inflaming Israel and backing Saudi Arabia and what-not.”

The unnamed student — half-Iranian and half-Yemeni — has just accused Israel of “ethnic genocide and displacement of people.” Harris let this appalling lie pass. She did not utter a syllable of protest. She did not say, as she might have, this:

Just a minute, I cannot let your charge go unanswered. I find your statement that Israel commits “ethnic genocide” absurd and disgusting. There has been no “genocide” by Israel, either of Palestinians or of Israeli Arabs. There are no extermination camps, no mass roundups, no nothing. Genocidal threats have been made, but not by Israel. It is Hamas that carries on a nonstop campaign of terrorism against Israeli civilians, Hamas that lets loose arson balloons, Hamas that launches thousands of rockets into civilian areas, Hamas that in its very charter calls for the total destruction of the Jewish state. That sounds to me like a “genocidal” threat. And as for the Palestinian Authority, it continues its “Pay-For-Slay” program to reward past, and incentivize future, acts of terrorism against Israelis. Meanwhile, the IDF — the Israeli military – tries to minimize civilian casualties among the Palestinians by warning those in buildings where Hamas has hidden its rockets and its launching pads, to leave them when they are about to be targeted; the IDF uses telephone calls, emails, and its “knock-on-the-roof” technique to warn those civilians away.

And by the way, when you accuse Israel of “ethnic genocide,” It might interest you to know that both Mahmoud Abbas and the late Saeb Erakat of the P.A., and Ismail Hanniyeh and Yahya Sinjar of Hamas, have deliberately sought Israeli medical treatment both for themselves or for several of their closest relatives; apparently they were unconcerned with that “genocide” you bizarrely accuse Israelis of practicing.

Here’s a quick summary of the P.A. and Hamas leaders who clearly show they don’t believe in “Israel’s ethnic genocide.” Saeb Erekat, the P.A.’s chief negotiator, spent his life denouncing Israel and Israelis. But when he came down with COVID-19, he insisted on being treated at the Hadassah Hospital, where he received – as he knew he would – a standard care unobtainable in Palestinian hospitals.

His boss Mahmoud Abbas had an Israeli doctor come to Ramallah in 2018 to treat him at home for an undisclosed ailment. Abbas also has had his wife, his brother, and even his brother-in-law, Abu Louai (who lives in Qatar, which has excellent hospitals but Abbas still wanted Louai to be treated in Israel) treated in Israeli hospitals. He obviously did not worry about “genocide.” The Jerusalem imam Sheikh Ikrima Sabra for years spewed violent incitement against Israel from his pulpit. But when he needed heart surgery, Sabra insisted that it be performed at Hadassah Hospital. Jewish doctors saved his life; he then returned to defaming Israel and inciting violence and terrorism against Jews.

Ismail Haniyeh, the current leader of Hamas, arranged at various times to have his mother, his his daughter, and his sister-in-law all treated in Israeli hospitals. He obviously had no fears about genocide. Yahya Sinwar, another Hamas leader, was operated on by Israeli doctors for a brain tumor in 2007; this did not stop him from calling for more attacks on Israel, more killings of Israeli civilians.

These recipients of Israeli medical care were unembarrassed; they did not think of themselves as hypocrites; they knew that you could accept aid from Infidels and still want those Infidels dead.

But my main point is this: Not one of these Palestinians who sought medical attention for themselves or family members in Israeli hospitals, believed Israel was guilty of “ethnic genocide.”

That’s what Kamala Harris should have said. But she didn’t.

Back to the article on Harris letting the anti-Israel slander go unchallenged:

Harris did not directly address the student’s accusations but said she was “glad” that she was not afraid to come forward with her grievances. “This is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right? And one of the things we’re fighting for in a democracy, right?” Harris said. “Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity, right?” Harris stated. The vice president then added, “Unity should never be at the expense of telling anyone personally that, for the sake of unity, ‘Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let’s not deal with that thing.’ That’s not unity. True unity is everyone in that room has a voice.” She then touted once again that pluralism should be cherished, but once again did not take the opportunity to call out the accusations of genocide.

Not the truth, but “your voice, your your perspective, your experience, your truth” is what Kamala Harris wants. “Your truth.” But what if “your truth” is a monstrous lie? What if that “lie” — that Israel commits “genocide” — were to be believed, and revenge taken on Jews, both in and out of Israel?

The point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that,” she added.

I cannot make sense of this. It’s a mind in a state of deliquescence. We need “unity.” This “unity” comes when “everyone in the room has a voice.” It doesn’t matter, apparently, how idiotic and false that “voice”may be. Do you think if in her audience someone had expressed his views, as a member of the Proud Boys, or Q-Anon, or the American Nazi Party, Kamala Harris would have been quite so sanguine and encouraging? You know the answer to that. If a Proud Boy had offered his views on Black Lives Matter, or if a member of QAnon had described the “satanic, cannibalistic, pedophile ring” that was operating out of the basement of a pizza store in Washington, Kamala Harris would immediately have cut that Proud Boy or QAnon off, saying “there is no point in listening to such vile nonsense.” And if either one of them continued, she’d ask security to take them away. But she does not feel the same way about someone accusing Israel of “ethnic genocide.” Why not?

Harris says that “nobody’s voice should be suppressed.” But no one has asked for a voice to be suppressed, only that if what is uttered is a complete fabrication, then it should be answered, right then and there. Not to answer, as Kamala Harris did not, is to let the lies stand, unrebutted and thus likely to be believed by the ill-informed. Harris not only did not answer the girl’s vaporings, but instead praised her remark as part of a “healthy debate…about what is the right path” is for our country. Calling Israel guilty of “ethnic genocide” is not part of a “healthy debate.”

Presumably if someone asked ”how do we get the truth out when so much of our media is controlled by Jews” or “we all know that on 9/11 Jews didn’t go to work at the World Trade Center that day,” Kamala Harris would also let those statements go unanswered, and instead praising the remarks as contributing to a “a healthy debate.” A “healthy debate,” or the spreading of noxious lies that would not be out of place in the pages of Der Stürmer? On what theory does Kamala Harris think it just fine to have someone accuse Israel of “genocide,” and why did she not rebut such a charge? Doesn’t she have a responsibility to correct such malignant falsehoods at a meeting that she herself is hosting?

Kamala Harris has just given us her very own Preview of Coming Attractions. As she is, so shall she be, if she ever gets a chance to become, god help us, the President of the United States, she’s shown what we may expect. She doesn’t think she has a responsibility to step in and correct the record, when scandalous and meretricious accusations against Israel are made. She nods, she praises the accuser, she treats dangerous slander with respect. She does do one thing, however, for her boss, for which he must surely be thankful. She makes him look good.

COLUMN BY

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

Catholic Seeds Planted in Afghanistan

 

Ines A. Murzaku: We’ve had saintly examples of Catholic witness among Muslims before, and the results in Afghanistan may someday surprise us. 


As even the military leaders of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan are admitting their failures and after so much else has gone wrong in that perpetually troubled nation, it’s good to remember that, in its own quiet way, the Church has been at work and had a significant presence there. Various Catholic agencies have been helping the Afghanis in recent years, but one, in particular, deserves some attention.

This is how Barnabite Father Giovanni Scalese, superior of the missio sui iuris in Afghanistan, and the only Catholic priest in Afghanistan, announced his return to Italy after the American withdrawal:

I arrived this afternoon at Fiumicino airport with five sisters and fourteen disabled children, whom the sisters were taking care of in Kabul. We thank the Lord for the success of the operation. I thank you all that these days have raised to Him incessant prayers for us, prayers, which, evidently have been answered. Continue to pray for Afghanistan and for its people!

Accompanying Fr. Scalese were four Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order, who had served in Afghanistan since 2006, and a Pakistani Sister, Bhatti St. Shahnaz, of the Congregation of Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret. Sister Shahnaz ran a facility for children with mental disabilities established by the association Pro Bambini of Kabul. Unfortunately, those children were unable to escape. Fr. Scalese’s return to Italy marked the end of the 88-year-old Barnabite Afghan mission.

What were the results of this mission? Was anything “accomplished” The only Catholic missionaries in the country were forced to flee and the prospects for their return are dim.  But the Church has faced seemingly impossible odds since it first appeared in the mighty Roman Empire. And God has His own ways.

So, a little history is in order – and hope for the future.  In 1921, Italy became the first Western country to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. They agreed to exchange permanent diplomatic missions, and to the possibility of hosting a Catholic chaplain within the Italian embassy. At the time, Afghan King Amanullah was receptive to requests from foreigners living in Afghanistan for spiritual assistance.

A year later, he turned to the Italian government – probably the first time that a king ruling a majority Muslim country requested a Catholic chaplain to meet the spiritual needs of  Christian foreigners. There were two conditions. No proselytism of the Muslim population. And the Catholic chapel was to be erected within the Italian embassy (no Christian church could legally be erected on Muslim soil).

The Italian government turned to Pope Pius XI, who said: “A Barnabite is needed here [Kabul].” He chose the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, commonly known as the Barnabites, who include priests, religious women, and lay people – especially married couples.

The order, founded in 1530, draws inspiration from St. Paul. Fr. Egidio Caspani was Pius XI’s choice to start the mission. A second Barnabite, Fr. Ernesto Cagnacci, joined Fr. Caspani as a priest/official of the Italian embassy. The first Catholic Mass was celebrated there on January 1, 1933, the official beginning of the mission.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II elevated the Kabul Christian mission to a Missio sui iuris – an independent mission under the direct jurisdiction of the Church. Consequently, the mission and the church became official Christian presences in a Muslim country. The church, of course, did not have local faithful and local clergy, but with time, the mission and its clergy became part of the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The Barnabite Fr. Giuseppe Moretti in 2005 helped establish the Tangi-Kalay School of Peace, a school that received both state support and private donations.

The Barnabite mission to Afghanistan operated on the model of St. Paul’s Mission in Malta. (Acts 28, 1-10) His was a mission of presence, exchange, and gratitude. Paul’s presence and service to the islanders were Christ-like: Christ came to serve, not to be served – and Paul was imitating the Master. The Barnabite witness in Afghanistan was a witness to God: they were Catholic priests who became parish priests par excellence for the entirety of Kabul, and before the recent pull-out had been an almost a century-old presence among the Afghan people.

We’ve had saintly examples of such witness among Muslims before, and the results may someday surprise us. For example, Blessed Charles de Foucauld with his mystical imitation of Christ among North African Muslims resembles the Barnabite mission in Afghanistan. Foucauld’s life and death were a religious-prophetic witness. Similarly, for the Barnabites and other Christian missionaries, their lives in Afghanistan were a combination of prophecy, presence, and dialogue. The missionaries opted to live the hidden life of Jesus among the Muslim Afghanis.

Such efforts may seem, by human standards, meager. But instead of judging as the world judges, we would do well to pay attention to the words of St. John Henry Newman that authentic Christian prophets and mystics are those individuals who “live in a way least thought of by others, the way chosen by Jesus of Nazareth, to make headway against all the power and wisdom of the world. . . .They take everything in good part which happens to them and make the best of everything.”

The Barnabites did not go to Afghanistan to convert and proselytize the local Muslim population and openly proclaim the Gospel – conditions did not make that a possibility. But according to reliable reports, there is now a modest contingent of Afghanis who converted from Islam and practice their Christian faith in secret. As in other Muslim countries, these converts may be hidden now, but may lead to a surprising future.

Can we speak of the Barnabite Mission to the Afghanis as “Mission Accomplished”? No, not in the ordinary sense of the words. But is there hope for the mission’s future in Afghanistan? Afghanistan at present is in chaos. In Kabul, the witness the Barnabites have given has planted seeds that may lead to surprising growth in God’s good time among future generations of Afghanis.

You may also enjoy:

Michele McAloon’s A Christian Response to Defeat

Matthew Hanley’s The Strange Feminist Silence on Islam

COLUMN BY

Ines A. Murzaku

Ines Angeli Murzaku is Professor of Church History at Seton Hall University. Her extensive research on the history of Christianity, Catholicism, Religious Orders, and Ecumenism has been published in multiple scholarly articles and five books. She edited and translated with Raymond L. Capra and Douglas J. Milewski, The Life of Saint Neilos of Rossano, part of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Dr. Murzaku has been featured frequently in national and international media, newspapers, radio and TV interviews, and blogs. Her latest book is Mother Teresa: Saint of the Peripheries.

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.

How Homosexuality Harms The Church

David Carlin wishes the pope would re-state Church teaching about homosexuality but doubts it will happen, or that America’s bishops will do so.


One of the most common defenses of homosexual behavior is: “This does no harm to you or any other third parties.”  To which my response is: “No harm?  Well, it has pretty much ruined the Catholic Church in America.”

Homosexuality among priests, and sometimes among bishops; plus an attitude of tolerance towards homosexuals among non-homosexual priests and bishops, as if same-sex intercourse is no big deal; plus the colossal scandal of sexual molestation of teenage boys by homosexual priests; plus episcopal attempts to cover up this molestation; plus the widespread pretense among both lay and clerical Catholics that homosexuality had little or nothing to do with the molestation scandal; plus a pro-gay sentimentality found among many lay Catholics; plus Fr. James Martin, S.J. – all this has done immeasurable damage to the Church in the United States.

Anti-Catholics have been given a cudgel with which to beat the Church that is as good as, or even better than, the classic cudgels: the Spanish Inquisition and the trial of Galileo.  A thousand years from now, late-night TV will still be making jokes about Catholic priests molesting young boys.

Non-Catholics (Protestants and Jews and agnostics and atheists) who in these morally corrupt times might have considered joining a Catholic Church that stands for goodness and truth have been driven away by the thought that the Church is as corrupt as any other of our rotten institutions.

We are told that Cato the Elder used to end all his speeches in the Roman Senate, regardless of the topic under discussion, with the words, “Carthage, it seems to me, must be destroyed.”

If I were a Catholic parish priest, I would end all my homilies, regardless of the Scriptural readings of the day, and regardless of the main topic of my sermon, with words like these: “Allow me to remind you, dear friends, that the Catholic religion – the religion you and I profess to adhere to – has always condemned homosexual practice as a very grave sin.”

If any priest, Cato-like, actually says this, he will upset certain parishioners, not a few of whom will drift away to a parish they perceive as being more tolerant and up-to-date, and they will take their money with them.  And some parishioners will write to the bishop complaining about their “homophobic” priest.  More than a few bishops, I suppose, will recommend that the priest “cool it.”  Such bishops, in a paternal attempt to guide their over-zealous parish priests, will explain: “Look, the people of your parish know perfectly well – without your reminding them – what the Catholic Church teaches about homosexuality. Why irritate them by harping needlessly on this theme?”

But is my hypothetical bishop correct when he says that all Catholics know what the Church teaches about homosexuality?  To answer that we must realize that the average Catholic makes a distinction between two ways in which the Church teaches something.  Sometimes the Church is really serious in its moral teachings, e.g., when it tells us not to rob banks or not to beat our wives.  But at other times (many Catholics believe) the Church is not truly serious, e.g., when it tells us that contraception is a serious sin or that homosexual intercourse is a very grave act.

Given all this, I’m lucky not to be a Catholic priest.  My head would soon be served on an episcopal platter for the delectation of Catholics, both clerical and lay, who are far more humane than myself, far more respectful of the fundamental human right to engage in homosexual sodomy, a right almost universally acknowledged today by all right-thinking people outside of Africa, that “dark” continent where most people still don’t understand how progressive and ultra-modern homosexuality is.

Catholicism is a religion that asks of its adherents – nay, demands of them – that they believe a number of hard-to-believe things.  It tells us we must believe that one God is three Persons, that God has become human, that a virgin has given birth, that a crucified man has come back from the dead, that Jesus has atoned for our sins, that bread and wine routinely become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

If we can believe all that, why do we find it hard to believe that it’s a great sin for two men or two women to engage in sexual relations with one another?  Once upon a time almost everybody believed that.  And yet we actually do find it hard to believe – or at least many of us do.  For the world believes precisely the opposite.

And by “the world” I mean all the “best people,” that is, the social and cultural elites of North America and western Europe.  In America, the moral wisdom of these best people is communicated to the little people (you and me) by the journalistic mass media, by the entertainment industry, and by our best and most famous colleges and universities.  A little further down the line, our public schools even communicate this wisdom to school children.

In March of 1937, Pope Pius XI wrote two very interesting encyclical letters, one in which he denounced Nazism (Mit brennender Sorge), the other in which he denounced Communism (Divini Redemptoris).

I submit that a papal letter on homosexuality is long overdue.  The theory and practice of homosexuality, not to mention the great tidal wave of pro-homosexuality propaganda that is flooding the world – these things, it seems to me, are almost as grave a threat to the Church today as Communism and Nazism were in the 1930s.

I won’t be holding my breath till Pope Francis writes such a letter.  Nor will I hold my breath in hopes that the Catholic bishops in America will write a collective pastoral letter on the topic.

But is it too much for me to hope that some individual bishops here or there will address such an urgent pastoral letter to his priests and people?

You may also enjoy:

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky’s Confronting the Gay Priest Problem

Fr. Bevil Bramwell’s Homosexuality in Romans One

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.

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.

Hochul’s New Religion: God Gave Us the Vaccines, and He Wants Us to Be Vaccinated

My latest in PJ Media:

New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D-Planned Parenthood) is ostensibly a Catholic. When she was sworn in as governor in August, the Leftist Catholic America Magazine noted that she thanked her “big Irish Catholic” family, but her real religion was suggested in the next sentence of the America Mag report: “Her immediate family sat in the front row, wearing masks and spaced slightly apart.” Of course they did. For the secular, pro-abortion Left, the political agenda of the day is much more than just an array of policy imperatives and goals: it’s a holy faith, to be believed fervently and spread among the unenlightened masses. Hochul provided the latest example of this Sunday in a speech at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, where she preached her new gospel of faith and redemption coming at the point of a needle: the unvaccinated, she said, “aren’t listening to God and what God wants.”

Hochul spoke to the congregation as if she were a true believer, but given the likelihood that Hochul doesn’t actually share the faith of those who attend the Christian Cultural Center, her speech is less of an evangelical display than it is a nauseatingly condescending masterpiece of pandering. “God,” Hochul proclaimed, “let you survive this pandemic because he wants you to do great things someday. He let you live through this when so many other people did not and that is also your responsibility. But how do we keep more people alive?”

How indeed? Every religion is in one way or another a story of loss and gain, of sin and redemption, and the prophet Hochul’s new religion is no exception: she offered the Christian Cultural Center a parody of Christianity in which the coronavirus is the original sin, the vaccine is the means of redemption, and the vaccinated are the grateful saved community. “I prayed a lot to God during this time,” she claimed, “and you know what – God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers – he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. Thank you. And I wear my ‘vaccinated’ necklace all the time to say I’m vaccinated. All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know who they are.”

Hochul’s story is resonant of conversion stories down through the ages: I once was lost but now I’m found, I was wandering in sin and desolation but now – hallelujah! – I have seen the light and gotten the vaccine! Hochul continued her Christian parody by making her claim to be none other than the Lord himself, sending out His followers with the good news of salvation: “I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other.”

There is more. Read the rest here.

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