Geert Wilders on Trial, Lars Hedegaard Opines

Daniel Pipes: Why I Stand with Geert Wilders

Who is the most important European alive today? I nominate the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I do so because he is best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent.

He has the potential to emerge as a world-historical figure.

That Islamic challenge consists of two components: on the one hand, an indigenous population's withering Christian faith, inadequate birthrate, and cultural diffidence, and on the other an influx of devout, prolific, and culturally assertive Muslim immigrants.

This fast-moving situation raises profound questions about Europe: will it retain its historic civilization or become a majority-Muslim continent living under Islamic law (the Shari'a)?

Wilders, 46, founder and head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), is the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic identity. That's because he and the PVV differ from most of Europe's other nationalist, anti-immigrant parties.

The PVV is libertarian and mainstream conservative, without roots in neo-Fascism, nativism, conspiricism, antisemitism, or other forms of extremism. (Wilders publicly emulates Ronald Reagan.) Indicative of this moderation is Wilders' long-standing affection for Israel that includes two years' residence in the Jewish state, dozens of visits, and his advocating the transfer of the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem.

In addition, Wilders is a charismatic, savvy, principled, and outspoken leader who has rapidly become the most dynamic political force in the Netherlands. While he opines on the full range of topics, Islam and Muslims constitute his signature issue. Overcoming the tendency of Dutch politicians to play it safe, he calls Muhammad a devil and demands that Muslims "tear out half of the Koran if they wish to stay in the Netherlands." More broadly, he sees Islam itself as the problem, not just a virulent version of it called Islamism.

Finally, the PVV benefits from the fact that, uniquely in Europe, the Dutch are receptive to a non-nativist rejection of Shari'a.

This first became apparent a decade ago, when Pim Fortuyn, a left-leaning former communist homosexual professor began arguing that his values and lifestyle were irrevocably threatened by the Shari'a. Fortuyn anticipated Wilders in founding his own political party and calling for a halt to Muslim immigration to the Netherlands. Following Fortuyn's 2002 assassination by a leftist, Wilders effectively inherited his mantle and his constituency.

The PVV has done well electorally, winning 6 percent of the seats in the November 2006 national parliamentary elections and 16 percent of Dutch seats in the June 2009 European Union elections. Polls now generally show the PVV winning a plurality of votes and becoming the country's largest party. Were Wilders to become prime minister, he could take on a leadership role for all Europe.

But he faces daunting challenges.

The Netherlands' fractured political scene means the PVV must either find willing partners to form a governing coalition (a difficult task, given how leftists and Muslims have demonized Wilders as a "right-wing extremist") or win a majority of the seats in parliament (a distant prospect).

Wilders must also overcome his opponents' dirty tactics. Most notably, they have finally, after 2½ years of preliminary skirmishes, succeeded in dragging him to court on charges of hate speech and incitement to hatred. The public prosecutor's case against Wilders opens in Amsterdam on January 20; if convicted, Wilders faces a fine of up to US$14,000 or as many as 16 months in jail.

Remember, he is his country's leading politician. Plus, due to threats against his life, he always travels with bodyguards and incessantly changes safe houses. Who exactly, one wonders, is the victim of incitement?

Although I disagree with Wilders about Islam (I respect the religion but fight Islamists with all I have), we stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the lawsuit. I reject the criminalization of political differences, particularly attempts to thwart a grassroots political movement via the courts. Accordingly, the Middle East Forum's Legal Project has worked on Wilders' behalf, raising substantial funds for his defense and helping in other ways. We do so convinced of the paramount importance to talk freely in public during time of war about the nature of the enemy.

Ironically, were Wilders fined or jailed, it would probably enhance his chances to become prime minister. But principle outweighs political tactics here. He represents all Westerners who cherish their civilization. The outcome of his trial and his freedom to speak has implications for us all.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Daniel Pipes

Honor Killers: Prosecuted in Europe, Seen as Psychiatric Victims in America

When it comes to honor killings and honor-related violence, America had better start learning a few things from Europe.

On October 20, 2009, near Phoenix, Arizona, Noor Al-Maleki’s father, Iraqi-born Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki, ran over his 20-year-old daughter with a two-ton jeep.

He struck down her female companion and protector as well. His daughter died. Although she was seriously wounded, Amal Edan Khalaf, the other woman, survived. Just like Yaser Said, who fled Dallas after honor murdering his two daughters (and who has not yet been found), Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki also fled, first to Mexico, and then to England.

However, he was captured, extradited back to Arizona, and charged with first-degree murder.

Well done!

The case has been described, correctly, as an “honor killing.” Poor Noor did not want to remain in an arranged marriage and dared to find a fiancée on her own. When she died, she had been living with her fiancée and with her future mother-in-law. Now comes Arizona lawyer Billie Little, who is Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki’s lawyer.

Guess what Mr. Little told the judge? According to Arizona Central, because Andrew Thomas, the prosecutor in the case, is a Christian, Mr. Little actually wrote: “An open process provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs.”

Let me understand this. Mr. Little does not want the judge to view a murder as a murder because a Muslim committed that murder? Or because only a Muslim was murdered—and that somehow counts for less? From my own research, published in Middle East Quarterly, it is clear that honor killing is primarily a Muslim-on-Muslim crime. After all, Noor was a Muslim too. And, an honor killing is not like Western domestically violent femicide. Western fathers do not kill their young daughters. (And, by the way, does Noor have a mother? If so, where is she? Why is she so silent?)

Clearly, Al-Maleki became judge, jury, and executioner when he took the law into his own hands to punish his daughter because, in his view, she was too western and therefore not a good Muslim. What does that make him? A good Muslim? Or a really bad Muslim?

Perhaps Islam is not and should not be on trial here but Muslim customs, Muslim behavior surely is. It is the proverbial elephant in the room. How can the prosecutor not mention it? And, once mentioned, how easy it will be to gain pity for the poor, allegedly “racially profiled” murderer.

In addition, Mr. Little is demanding that his client be psychiatrically evaluated because “he does not understand basic court proceedings.”

I wonder: Is Mr. Little consulting with Muzzammil Hassan’s lawyer in Buffalo? He’s the Pakistani-born charmer who severely battered and then beheaded his lovely wife Aasiya. Hassan’s lawyer is arguing “extreme emotional disturbance.”

This is rather ironic since this kind of defense has been used, often unsuccessfully, on behalf of battered women.

More at Chesler Chronicles

Germany: Lebanese drug trade financing Hezbollah

German police suspect the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, of using drug trafficking in Europe to fund part of its activities, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.

According to the report published on the magazine's website, German police arrested two Lebanese citizens living in Germany last October after they transferred large sums of money to a family in Lebanon with connections to Hezbollah's leadership, including the Shiite group's Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah.

Suspicion was first raised in May 2008, when police found 8.7 million Euros in the bags of four Lebanese men at the airport in Frankfurt.

Police searched the men's apartment in Speyer, Germany, and found an additional half a million Euros.

According to the report, police suspected the men were selling cocaine in Europe and sending the profits back to Lebanon.

The report added that the two suspects went through training at a Hezbollah camp. The suspects deny the charges against them.


(more)

With thanks to Islam in Europe

U.S. Requests Pat-Downs on All Flights From 14 Nations

American authorities announced that as of Monday, anyone traveling from or through nations regarded as state sponsors of terrorism — as well as "other countries of interest" — will be required to go through enhanced screening techniques before boarding flights.

The Transportation Security Administration said those heightened security measures would include full-body pat-downs, carryon bag searches, full-body scanning and explosive detection technology.

The U.S. State Department lists Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism. The other countries whose passengers will face enhanced screening include Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

The new measures followed the arrest of a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to set off an explosive device on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.

Germany announced increased security at all airports following the failed Christmas Day attack, but authorities on Monday said no further measures have been taken since.

U.S. officials in Washington said the new security measures would be implemented Monday but there were few visible changes on the ground in Europe, which has thousands of passengers on hundreds of daily flights to the United States.

Large hubs such as London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt alone account for 20-30 trans-Atlantic flights a day each.

In Britain, a major international transport hub, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation said he was still trying to decipher the practical implications for Britain of the new U.S. rules. He refused to give his name due to the sensitivity of the subject.

In Switzerland, authorities were studying the new U.S. security measures, but so far the old controls were still in place, said Jean-Claude Donzel, spokesman for Swiss International Air Lines.

And a security official in Spain, who spoke on condition on anonymity in line with agency rules, said U.S.-bound passengers from countries on the new watch list were not being singled out for body frisks.

Muslim advocacy groups bristled at the new TSA rules and urged the agency to consider alternatives. “It comes pretty close to across-the-board profiling of Muslim travelers,” said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic relations, adding that it would unfairly single out not just foreigners but Muslim Americans traveling to see their families in the selected countries. “It only serves to alienate those whose hearts and minds we’re trying to win.”

Alejandro Beutel, government liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said the ruling would cast such a wide net as to ultimately be ineffective.

“We do see this as profiling, and profiling is very poor policing,” he said.

Elsewhere in the world, there has been a general ramping up of security since Christmas.

In Jordan, a key U.S. ally, security was beefed up at Amman's main international airport since the Christmas Day bombing attempt. An official at Queen Alia International Airport said "enhanced techniques" were being applied, especially in screening passengers bound for the United States. He declined to elaborate.

Pakistan's national airline said it was intensifying security checks for U.S.-bound passengers, even though there are no direct flights to the States from Pakistan. Screening was also stepped up for those flying to the U.S. from other parts of Asia and the Middle East.

"It is beyond my imagination what more they could do," said Nadim Umer, 40, a Karachi-based linen merchant who said he was subjected to a strip search when he arrived in New York last June. "Those who are dying to go to America at any cost can put up with all this inhuman behavior, but I cannot."

A spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines said the company began applying the new security standards Jan. 1 on U.S.-bound passengers.

Sultan Hasan said the passengers are subjected to special screening, including full body searches, in a designated area of the departure lounge. He said the airline had run advertisements in newspapers to warn prospective passengers of the increased safety measures. maintaining strict security standards at all airports for all flights.

"We are already carrying out all possible security arrangements at our airports which can be compared with any Western airport," Pervez George, spokesman for Pakistan's Civil Aviation Authority. "Safety of the airliners and passengers as well as security at the airports is a top priority and we are maintaining it irrespective where the flight is going."

In South Korea, an official at Seoul's Incheon International Airport, Lee Ji-hye, said U.S.-bound passengers are now required to go through additional security before boarding their flights, and security officials also compile lists of "suspicious" passengers to monitor based on their nationalities, travel patterns and ticket purchases.

Australian Transport Ministry spokeswoman Moksha Watts said all passengers flying to the U.S. would continue to be patted down and have all their cabin luggage searched.

Baghdad's International Airport already has extremely tight security, with passengers having their luggage sniffed by dogs and getting patted down before entering the airport.

"Our security procedures at the airport are more intensified than that in any other airport in the world," said security official Umran Idris.

Maayan Malkin, spokeswoman for Israel Airports Authority, declined to discuss security arrangements. The Ben-Gurion International airport is considered one of the safest in the world.

FoxNews

Europe's looming demise

By Pamela Geller

"The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents or friends is on the verge of collapsing," Geert Wilders said in a speech in the United States last year.

The leader of the Netherlands' populist Party for Freedom added: "We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the Continent in what Ronald Reagan called 'a thousand years of darkness.' " And not just Europe, but America as well.

Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by President Obama, nailed the coffin shut on national sovereignty in Europe. The people of Europe fought it, but were overwhelmed by their political elites and the lack of American leadership in this age of our rather Marxist, collectivist U.S. president.

Come Jan. 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Europe/Mediterranean) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media.

Why should Americans care about this? Americans have to care because this global gobbledygook is coming to our shores, thanks to our globalist president.

The European human rights group called Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership.

A statement on the SIOE Web site criticizes the secrecy of the process: "It was shocking to hear about the plans and at the same time knowing that Danish politicians and a [cowardly] Danish press - who is otherwise proud to be critical - has told nothing to the Danish people about this project which begins in January.

This also showed clearly at the conference. Only very few politicians showed up and no media. Those politicians who showed up had obviously never heard about the Euro-Mediterranean project.

The goal of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is to create a new Greater European Union encompassing both Europe and North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea becoming a domestic Eurabian sea. The goal is to establish a "comprehensive political partnership," including a "free trade area and economic integration"; "considerably more money for the partners" (that is, more European money flowing into North Africa); and "cultural partnership" - that is, importation of Islamic culture into post-Christian Europe.

According to the SIOE, in the Euro-Med plan "Europe is to be islamized. Democracy, Christianity, European culture and Europeans are to be driven out of Europe. Fifty million North Africans from Muslim countries are to be imported into the EU."

Skeptical? It's already happening. The British newspaper the Daily Express reported in October 2008 on "a controversial taxpayer-funded 'job centre' " that opened in Mali at that time as "just the first step towards promoting 'free movement of people in Africa and the EU.' Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will 'need' 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the 'demographic decline' due to falling birthrates and rising death rates across Europe."

To offset this decline, a "blue card" system is to be created that will allow card holders to travel freely within the European Union and have full rights to work - as well as the full right to collect welfare benefits.

A Muslim population from Africa moving freely into Europe threatens America. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian Muslim flew from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to explode a bomb on the plane - after he was allowed to board the plane without a passport.

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership will make jihad attacks like this one all the easier.

And once in Europe, Muslims have already begun demanding special privileges and accommodations. IslamOnline reported on Dec. 21 that "Muslims activists from 26 European countries have come together to launch the first rights council to enlighten European Muslims about their rights, monitor rising Islamophobia and defend Muslim rights in European courts of law."

Ali Abu Shwaima, a Muslim leader in Italy, explained: "We think European human rights groups are not doing enough to defend the rights of Muslims. Therefore we thought that we need this new council, especially that all laws and constitutions in Europe respect freedom of religion and oppose all forms of discrimination and racism."

"Islamophobia," "discrimination" and "racism" are all terms Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Mr. Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands, instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting against. It has to be this way, to increase harmony among the Muslim and non-Muslim member states of the Euro-Med Partnership.

This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Mr. Obama seems to want to do the same to America.

Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs Web site. She is the author (with Robert Spencer) of the forthcoming book "The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America" (Simon and Schuster, July 2010).

Washington Times

H/T: Atlas

Europe: Al-Qaeda practiced passing explosives through airport security

A central intelligence source says in response to the additional scanning equipment at Schiphol airport that al-Qaeda have their own scanning and x-ray equipment with which they practice making bombs as much as possible.

More than that: al-Qaeda practiced in the past in passing body-scanners at major European airports.

"Al-Qaeda is being constantly under-estimated. They have at their disposal high-quality technical equipment and train with it.

They undertook 'test-runs' in European airports in order to deceive the inspections," according to the intelligence source, who was active in the Dutch military security service for years.

Schiphol purchased in recent years fifteen body-scanners, which looks at the bodies of passengers through their clothing using sound waves. they also see non-metallic objects and materials.

Due to strict European privacy regulations, the body-scan can only be used now in trials on internal European flights and for inspecting airport personnel.

Schiphol doesn't guarantee that the body-scans would have detected Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab's explosive powder.

Al-Qaeda says on a website that Friday's unsuccessful attack was a retaliatory operation for an American attack on the group in Yemen and calls to kill workers in Western embassies in the region.

Source: Telegraaf (Dutch)

See also: Netherlands: Airport guards cheered 9/11

With thanks to Islam in Europe

Battling Against the Islamification of the World

The other day, a twenty-year-old woman was sold at an open auction in Badani Bhutto, Pakistan. Her brothers divided up the money. No one condemned this shameless and abominable act.

It is an act that haunts me.

For a long time now, similar kinds of people (yes, mainly Muslims) have invaded—no, immigrated to—Europe, where they have continued to engage in polygamy, arranged child marriage, forced veiling of women, honor-related violence, including honor murders (17,000 honor-related crimes of violence have been estimated to occur annually in the UK alone), and female genital mutilation.

According to my new (and about to be published) study, honor murders in Europe are especially savage—even more so than in developing Muslim countries.

According to the Telegraf,

“Dutch and foreign intelligence services are at high alert due to a five-day international Islamic conference in Eindhoven, starting today. The intelligence services fear that the congress participants will secretly collect funds for armed Islamic battle. It’s also feared that the speakers in the conference will reverse the integration of Muslims in the Netherlands.” (Thanks to Esther’s Islam in Europe blog for this information).

In addition, just the other day, perhaps in response to the defacing of a mosque, a British war memorial was defaced with the slogan “Islam Will Dominate the World.”

But some of us–Christians, Jews, Muslims, ex-Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs–are fighting back.

Yesterday, for the first time ever, the American criminal justice system indicted a father for the “honor murder” of his daughter in Arizona. According to the Arizona Republic,

“An Iraqi immigrant accused of slaying his daughter in an “honor killing” has been charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Monday…Prosecutors have labeled Noor Almaleki’s death an “honor killing,” saying the elder Almaleki killed his daughter because she dishonored the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values.”

In Texas, Sarah and Amina Said were also honor-murdered; however, the climate of political correctness had a chilling effect on how this murder was portrayed both in the media and on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Rather late in the day, perhaps too late, Europe has begun to fight back against its inevitable Islamification.

Bat Ye’or, Bruce Bawer, Christopher Caldwell, Oriana Fallaci, Carol Gould, Melanie Phillips, Jean Raspail, Ibn Warraq, Geert Wilders, and I, among others, have all suggested that this is indeed the case.

But prithee pause: There are stirrings of resistance yet in the Old World.

In addition to the highly significant convictions of honor murderers in England, Holland, and Denmark, which I wrote about last week, did you know:

That a man in Holland has just been refused welfare benefits because he refused to shorten his beard or to shake hands with women on the jobs that the government found for him?

That a refugee from Afghanistan was about to get married in Denmark when the police broke up the wedding and arrested him? Apparently, his visa had been denied and the police did not want to allow him to gain Danish citizenship in this underhanded way. Indeed, Denmark may consider deporting immigrants who interfere with police work in the so-called “no go” zones. Apparently, the one thing that Muslim immigrants fear is being deported.

That Denmark is offering to pay Muslim immigrants who do not really want to integrate to leave the country?

That calls for the banning of either headscarves or burqas or both have rung out (like church bells, dare I say) all across France, Belgium, and Germany?

I love Europe. I want it to remain European. It was the land of my bohemian dreams when I was young. I grew up reading poetry, novels, plays, and philosophical treatises by British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Greek authors. I listened—I still do—to music most divine written by composers from all these countries and by Austrian, Polish, Norwegian, Hungarian, and Russian composers too. I have spent many happy hours viewing French, Dutch, Spanish, British, and Italian paintings.

I used to love the Islamic world as well. I once traveled and lived within it. It called to me.

The light, heat, color, sounds, smells, foods, history, music, stories, poetry, exotic charm, and human as well as geographic beauty held me in thrall. That world is now gone. I will probably never again travel to a Muslim country in this lifetime. It, too, has been fundamentalized, Islamified in the worst way. Whatever tolerance may have once existed (and granted, it was not much) is either long gone or is now under siege.

Today, many Muslims are also fighting over who controls their countries and their religion. In Iran, the bravest of pro-democracy and anti-regime activists are marching, marching, to their deaths.

All over the Islamic world, in groups and as individuals, Muslims are also marching against tyranny and for women’s rights, secular rights, and homosexual rights. Of course, many Muslim dissidents and feminists have also fled to Europe and America where they now live, write, and teach.

I am glad they are here. I hope the “Europe” and the “America” where they sought asylum does not betray them and end up looking and acting like the countries they left behind—the kind of country that would sell a young woman at an open auction.

Phyllis Chesler

The man behind the Swiss Minaret ban speaks out.

By Eeyore

First, thank you to Proud Kafir who sent me this excellent interview. But secondly, I am really sick and tired of European media referring to this man and his party, as well as Geert Wilders and frankly anyone who stands in the way of Islamic fascism as “far right wing”.

This man like Geert is clearly a classical liberal. Someone who wants to defend women’s rights as people. Someone who believes that all should be equal before a secular and rational law, for which there is machinery in place where it can be amended as needs be. Machinery such as for example, the direct democracy that was used to create the minaret ban.

Banning a minaret is not racist as minarets are not a race. Muslims are not a race for that matter. Islam is a political philosophy of violent global conquest. A minaret is a symbol of that conquest. It should be banned along with political Islam.

Minaret vote was a “lesson in civic spirit”

Two weeks after voters approved a ban on minaret construction, the rightwing Swiss People’s Party deputy Oskar Freysinger gives his reading of events.

In French-speaking Switzerland Freysinger became the voice of the yes side. He recently defended the minaret ban, accepted by 57.5 per cent of voters on November 29, in a debate on the Arab television channel al-Jazeera.

Freysinger rejects outright the argument that the yes vote stemmed from fear and ignorance and he deplores the fact that people have used the result to attack direct democracy.

swissinfo.ch: The anti-minaret vote has provoked a huge amount of comment and criticism both in Switzerland and abroad. What struck you most from what has been said and written on this subject?

Oskar Freysinger: What stays with me, is that the focus slipped very quickly from minarets to direct democracy. Two camps emerged: the elite who said that direct democracy was anti-democratic and against human rights, which is a total paradox, and the defenders of popular rights, who, while recognising that it is not ideal, nonetheless think that the system is the best possible, because it allows people to feel involved and to have an outlet of expression.

In Europe, people envy us. I’ve received a huge number of emails from France and elsewhere. People regret that they do not have the instruments to allow them to express their will. In fact Switzerland, at the heart of Europe, has just given an incredible lesson in civic spirit, against the politically correct, against the elites, against the media and against the monumental pressure of uniform thought. That could give ideas to the people who surround us, and that is feared by the European intelligentsia.

swissinfo.ch: But are the people truly always right? Can they not also make mistakes?

O.F.: Let’s say it’s like the dogma of papal infallibility: the pope is always right in questions of faith, not in the absolute. The people are always right because the system makes them right. Determining who is right and wrong is always complex.

As a politician I have lost plenty of votes with the electorate. You have to accept it and deal with the situation, even if that is extremely difficult, as with the free movement of people [between the EU and Switzerland] today.

swissinfo.ch: A lot has been said about this being a vote based on fear. What is your take on that?

O.F.: Based on the thousands of messages and reactions I received, I can detect the tendencies. Throughout the campaign, it was not fear that dominated but a cool reflection, relatively specific and neutral in tone about what Islam is and its doctrinal incompatibility with our state based on law. On this subject I also received some information that was useful to me during the debate. It is not therefore a purely irrational and ill-informed vote, as has often been said.

As for the yes voters, some of them are proponents of self-determination who believe that our identity should be protected during this time of open borders which make it impossible to regulate migration flows. There was also the yes vote of the Catholics who did not follow their leaders, as well as a yes vote by women. Many of them told me that they never vote for the People’s Party, but that on this subject, they felt the threat of a particularly patriarchal religion.

swissinfo.ch: Several recommendations have been made, the creation of a constitutional court, a new article on tolerance, in a effort to ”correct” this vote. What do you think of that?

O.F.: The decision of the people acts as law. If we want to change this article in a few years’ time because Islam no longer presents a problem, the people alone will be able to modify the situation. Replacing the vote by an article that covers everything, which would have the disadvantage of penalising all religions would be superfluous because tolerance is already enshrined in the Constitution and Swiss laws.

As for a constitutional court, it is a system imaginable in a country where the parliament alone determines the laws. But in Switzerland the people are sovereign. Introducing a system like that would go back to muzzling the people. In any case, what makes lawyers better able to distinguish what is for the best or worst for the citizens?

swissinfo.ch: What would you say to those who reproach you for having taken the risk, with this initiative, of destabilising the peaceful integration of Muslims in Switzerland, most of whom are non-practising, and making them turn inwards to their community?

O.F.: This complaint does not hold up. I distinguish three categories among Muslims. The non-practising, who, by definition, are free from religion and therefore indifferent to the presence or not of a minaret or even a mosque. The there are those who live the religion as a personal choice and a private affair. These are the ones who pay today for the damage inflicted by the third category, that is those who do not accept that civil law should be placed above religious dogma. Financed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, this fringe, the most demanding, also bears a responsibility in this vote.

swissinfo.ch: The day after the yes vote, several extreme right parties in Europe welcomed your initiative. What are your ideological affinities and differences with these movements?

O.F.: I’ve heard this confusion with the extreme right and fascism for a long time. But the differences are substantial. The first is that the People’s Party defends democracy and the state of law absolutely without restriction. Another difference, we do not believe you should reject the other simply because he is different, that is racism and xenophobia.

On the contrary, the behaviour of a person who comes to Switzerland is not irrelevant. What gets us branded as racists is that we attack the dysfunctional behaviour imported through immigration. But it is the behaviour that we denounce, and not the colour of the skin or where the person comes from.

Carole Wälti, swissinfo.ch (translated by Clare O’Dea)

With thanks to Vlad Tepes

Islam keeps house in a sympathetic Britain

By Grace

Latent Islamophobia in Europe may not be the only reason Muslims are flocking to Britain. Muslim convert Francesca Walker lives in a 2.6 million mansion and is neighbour to Elle Macpherson, David Cameron and Hugh Grant, courtesy of the British taxpayer. There’s no place like home.

"There are a lot of people who defraud the system and abuse it – it’s not difficult to take advantage of it." Francesca Walker.

Britain’s tolerance to Islam results in more than 1m Muslims setting up home here.

From The Telegraph U.K.

By Daniel Martin

More than a million Muslims have migrated to Britain because it is more sympathetic towards Islam than other European countries, a study has found.

Latent Islamophobia in Europe means that many of those who move to the continent eventually end up in Britain, because it is seen as more tolerant.

There are now some 1.1million Muslim immigrants in the UK, according to the report by IPPR, the Blairite think tank. It means around 46 per cent of Britain’s 2.4million-strong Muslim population were not born in this country.

Migration: There are now 1.1m Muslim immigrants in the UK, which means about 46 per cent of Britain’s Islamic population were not born in this country.

Meanwhile another study has found that Muslims in this country are the most patriotic in Europe: with more than three-quarters identifying themselves as British.

The report, funded by billionaire George Soros, found that just 49 per cent of French Muslims and 23 per cent of Germans identified with their home country.

However, the IPPR report concludes that the influx of different religions is having a massive affect on faith in Britain.

Some 4.5million of the UK’s foreign-born population claim to have a religious affiliation. Of these, around a quarter are Muslim while more than half are Christian – with Polish Catholics and African Pentecostals among the fastest-growing groups.

While traditional churchgoing is on the decline in the UK over the past decade, the latest immigrants mean Christianity is becoming more charismatic and fundamentalist.

The figures are based on interviews carried out for the annual Labour Force Survey by the Office for National Statistics.

The IPPR report found that over the past decade, there has been an increase of 275,000 in the number of British residents born in Pakistan or Bangladesh – twice the population of Oxford.

The number of Somali-born residents has also shot up, from fewer than 40,000 in 1999 to 106,700 this year.

The report says that many of the new immigrants are migrating here after first settling in other European countries, where they are subject to ‘latent homophobia’.

‘Migration has caused an increase in the proportions of the population affiliated to non-Christian faiths,’ the report concludes.

Catholicism has also seen a resurgence, thanks to the arrival of almost 600,000 from Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia; while there has also been a rise in evangelical churches which tend to have less liberal views on issues like homosexuality.

‘Perhaps the most significant change has been the growth of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity within migrant populations, particularly those from Africa and Latin America,’ the report found.

‘In Lewisham, there are 65 Pentecostal churches serving the Nigerian community, and others serving the Congolese, Ghanaian and Ivorian communities.’

Professor Mike Kenny of IPPR said: ‘The research shows that recent waves of inward migration have given a boost to some of the UK’s established faith communities at a time when Britain’s society and culture are generally more secular, and smaller numbers of the indigenous population are regularly attending churches.

‘Recent migration trends are altering the faith map of the UK. Their biggest impact is being felt in some of our largest cities: London above all, where a rich mosaic of different faith communities has come into being.’

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: ‘The rapid rise in the Muslim population is just one way in which mass immigration promoted, even encouraged, by this Government has affected the whole nature of society.’

George Soros’s report found that, while British Muslims are the most patriotic in Europe, more than a quarter in some parts of the country still do not feel British.

Levels of patriotism are higher among second-generation Muslims. In Leicester, 94 per cent of UK-born Muslims felt British, compared to 72 per cent of those born abroad.

Patriotic pride

The percentage of Muslims in each European city who identify with their country of residence:

Leicester – 82.4%

London - 72.0 %

Amsterdam – 59.0 %

Marseilles – 58.0%

Antwerp – 55.1%

Paris - 41.0%

Stockholm - 41.0%

Copenhagen – 39.6%

Berlin – 25.0%

Hamburg - 22.0%

With thanks to Vlad Tepes

Book Review: A State Beyond the Pale - Europe's Problem With Israel.

Robin Shepherd's Robust Defense of Israel.

Why should a secular non-Jew support the Jewish State of Israel? Foreign policy expert, Robin Shepherd convincingly answers this and related questions in his important new book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem With Israel.

Shepherd is a non-Jew whose defense of Israel led to his dismissal from a prominent British policy institute. But despite this set back he continues to be a vigorous defender of the Jewish State.

Shepherd is an effective advocate because he is not a knee-jerk Zionist ideologue.

In Beyond the Pale he explores why European elites have turned from advocates for Israel to vociferous critics. His analysis is based on facts, not emotions, and he counters their bias with rational reasoning.

Shepherd understands that Europe's turn against Israel is part of Europe's turn against itself.

Europe no longer believes in its own values so why should we expect it to come to the defense of Israel, the West's outpost in the Middle East?

Europe is allowing foreign cultures to profoundly change its own societies. Europe refuses to defend its own values as it bends over backward to accommodate the most outrageous demands of its Muslim immigrants.

If, for example, Europe had any strong beliefs in its Western values would it have made excuses for the violent reactions to the Mohammad cartoons?

Would Europe be creating systems of Sharia finance that compete with its established financial systems? Would Europe be ostracizing Israel (the latest being the labeling of West Bank products being sold in the UK) while tolerating the inhuman actions of Iran's dictatorial regime? Why does Europe side with terrorists who attack innocent Israeli civilians?

Europe's identity crisis (and a tinge of anti-Semitism) coupled with its belief that international institutions like the United Nations can solve all the world's conflicts are major influences on Europe's policy toward Israel.

For the Europeans, negotiations are central to relations among adversaries. They are not shaken from this belief by adversaries (like Iran and North Korea) who use negotiations to buy time not to come to mutually beneficial agreements.

Shepherd's reasoning is impeccable and his writing is wonderful. This is not a dull intellectual tome. It is a pleasurable and an important read. Every friend of Israel will benefit for buying and reading A State Beyond The Pale.

One Jerusalem

Palestinians Boycott Goods Made in Israel's West Bank Settlements

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian government announced Tuesday that it is enforcing a boycott of goods made in Israel's West Bank settlements and has confiscated more than $1 million in merchandise from shops and companies.

Israeli products, including those made in settlements, are commonplace in the West Bank, either for lack of a Palestinian-made alternative or because consumers prefer them to local goods. As a result, previous Palestinian efforts to stem consumption of Israeli-made goods have failed.

The confiscation of settlement products, which began in November, marked the most serious government effort to date to enforce a boycott. Palestinians consider Israel's continued settlement expansion as the biggest obstacle to eventual independence and say Israel's recent pledge to curtail construction is insufficient.

About 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements and another 180,000 in east Jerusalem — land the Palestinians seek for their state.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said a boycott is counterproductive.

"I don't think by concentrating their efforts on boycotts they will achieve any of the political goals, if these still include reaching a peace agreement with Israel," Palmor said.

Palestinian Economics Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said the boycott of settlement products is long overdue.

"Consuming settlements' products is wrong, nationally, economically, politically, and must stop right away," Abu Libdeh told a news conference at the Information Ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

He said about $1 million worth of merchandise were seized in November, another $66,000 on Monday evening and that the campaign would continue. Targeted items include juice, canned goods and cosmetics.

A ban of goods made in Israel would violate interim peace accords, but the international community agrees with the Palestinians that Israel's West Bank settlements are illegal. Several European countries are also making efforts to boycott settlement products.

In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, the territory's Hamas rulers further restricted the movement of its 1.4 million residents. Gaza has been virtually cut off from the world since a violent Hamas takeover in 2007, with border closures enforced by Israel and Egypt.

Hamas recently announced that even the few still able to travel — university students, top business people, patients with life-threatening illnesses — need to get permission from Hamas to leave the territory.

The ruling has further complicated the already obstacle-ridden travel of those seeking treatment in Israel.

At Gaza's Erez crossing into Israel, medical workers said that Hamas police on Tuesday held up an ambulance carrying a baby boy for about an hour, demanding that his parents first get a travel permit. The boy had swallowed a battery and was headed to Israel for urgent treatment.

Dozens more patients were returned to Gaza and told to apply for permission, in line with the new policy, the medical workers said.

Hamas government spokesman Hassan Abu Hashish said the new policy was meant to minimize "chaos." He did not elaborate.

FoxNews

Italy Says Terrorism Ring Is Broken

ROME -- Investigators have broken up an international terrorism ring in a series of raids in Europe, according to Italian officials.

Seventeen people were arrested in a sweep that targeted a terrorism group allegedly involved in raising funds to finance terrorist activity, Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told a news conference. He didn't provide details on the nature of the alleged operations.

Six of the arrests were made in Italy on charges of criminal association and falsifying documents, police said. Two other arrests were made in Austria in an operation coordinated between investigators in the U.K., France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Algeria, authorities said. None of the people arrested were charged with attempted terrorism.

"An important ring has been dismantled," Mr. Maroni said. The conservative government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been under heavy public pressure to crack down on foreign terrorism. Mr. Maroni said the arrests on Thursday "confirmed that surveillance and constant operations on the terrorism front in Milan are very relevant."

It wasn't immediately clear why the suspects were not charged with attempted terrorism.

Italy created tough laws aimed at combating international terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Charges of attempted terrorism, however, have proved difficult to prosecute in court. As a result, some anti-terror investigators have at times decided to arrest suspected terrorists on charges of criminal association, a charge traditionally used to combat the Mafia.

Italian police said the group raised about €1 million over a three-year period by carrying out muggings, burglaries and other thefts. The funds were sent to Algeria, police said, without disclosing details on how the money was used. The group also created fake identification documents that allowed members to travel between North Africa and Europe, police said.

Mr. Maroni said the group operated in cells that he described as "terrorist franchises," gathering funds for potential attacks outside of Italy. He didn't disclose the names of any people involved in the alleged terrorist ring.

Source: WSJ

Report: Iran Began Building Uranium Enrichment Facility 7 Years Ago

Iran's recently revealed uranium enrichment hall is a highly fortified underground space that appears too small to house a civilian nuclear program, but large enough to serve for military activities, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Iran began building the facility near the holy city of Qom seven years ago, and after bouts of fitful construction could finish the project in a year, the diplomats said.

Both the construction timeline and the size of the facility — inspected last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency — are significant in helping shed light on Tehran's true nuclear intentions.

Iran says it wants to enrich only to make atomic fuel for energy production, but the West fears it could retool its program to churn out fissile warhead material.

One of the diplomats — a senior official from a European nation — said Thursday that the enrichment hall is too small to house the tens of thousands of centrifuges needed for peaceful industrial nuclear enrichment, but is the right size to contain the few thousand advanced machines that could generate the amount of weapons-grade uranium needed to make nuclear warheads.

The pauses in construction may reflect Tehran's determination to keep its activities secret as far back as 2002, when Iran's clandestine nuclear program was revealed.

Citing satellite imagery, the diplomats said Iran started building the plant in 2002, paused for two years in 2004 — the same year it suspended enrichment on an international demand — and resumed construction in 2006, when enrichment was also restarted.

Since then, Iran has defied three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions aimed at forcing it to again freeze uranium enrichment.

All of the diplomats have access to information compiled by the IAEA, and demanded anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential matters with the AP.

Iran informed the IAEA only in September that it was building the facility near Qom, leading the U.S., British and French leaders to denounce Tehran for keeping its existence secret. IAEA inspectors visited the plant last month.

Iran says it fulfilled its legal obligations over when it revealed the plant's construction, though IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said Tehran was "outside the law" and should have informed his agency when the decision to construct was made.

Read more,,,,

Source: FoxNews

Iran's Moves Reveal Leadership Rift

One month after the U.S. launched a great diplomatic experiment by talking directly with Iran, the pressure of the effort is opening up some stress fractures.

Some small fractures are showing up in the wall of solidarity the U.S. and its partners have tried to show in confronting Iran over its nuclear program -- specifically over how long to give diplomacy a chance before turning to new economic sanctions.

A month after the U.S. began direct diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program, the effort appears to have opened fissures within the Iranian regime. WSJ's Executive Washington Editor Jerry Seib explains.

But the more meaningful stress fractures are showing up within Iran itself. There, the unwillingness to follow through on a nuclear deal the country's own negotiators worked out -- or even to offer a straight explanation of why Iran isn't following through -- has laid bare serious fissures within the country's ruling establishment.

If that continues to be the case, the U.S. and its partners will be heading in coming weeks toward a fundamental question: Are these splits within Iran more likely to be widened by the pressures generated through continued diplomacy, or by the pressures generated by tough new economic sanctions?

That's the picture that emerges from conversations in recent days with both American and European officials familiar with the diplomatic engagement with Iran. None pretend to have perfect knowledge of what is happening within the Byzantine world of Iranian decision-making, which has been made all the more complicated by the divisions opened up amid protests over what is widely seen as a rigged presidential election there during the summer.

But the bizarre back and forth from Iran in the aftermath of a nuclear negotiating session in Geneva on Oct. 1 has only confirmed the sense that the regime, always thought to be split by factionalism, is now only more so. "I think what we are seeing here is everything we know about Iranian decision-making" taking hold, says Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and an expert on Iran.

The subject on which Iran is incapable of rendering a coherent decision is the deal that was struck -- or seemingly struck -- at that meeting in Geneva. Under that agreement, Iran would ship to Russia and France a large proportion of the low-enriched uranium it has managed to produce, so that the uranium could be refined into fuel for a Tehran research reactor and sent back to Iran.

The beauty of the deal for the U.S. and its negotiating partners -- the other members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany -- was that it would take a majority of the Iranian raw material that eventually could be further enriched into nuclear-bomb fuel and allow the international community to turn it into something else, under close supervision.

But since Iran's own negotiators seemed to agree to that arrangement, their leaders back in Tehran have pedaled backward, and then sideways, and then in circles, never embracing the deal but never exactly rejecting it either.

Read more here,,,,

Source: WSJ

Lieberman: Radical Islam abusing democracy

Roni Sofer

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent a warning Monday to European countries while visiting Denmark.

"Radical Islamic elements are abusing the democratic tools given to them by European countries in order to incite, escalate and worsen the relations within those countries and between those countries and other countries, and increase and encourage anti-Semitic incidents," Lieberman said during a meeting with Danish Minister of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs Birthe Rønn Hornbech.

Lieberman also met with Gitte Lillelund Bech, chairwoman of the Danish Parliament's Foreign Policy Committee. The two discusses the relations between the countries and global policy issues, as well as an upcoming visit by the Danish parliamentary committee to Israel.

The minister also laid a wreath at the memorial site for Danish Jews sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

He mentioned the fact that many Danish residents risked their lives in order to save Jews who were meant to be sent to the Nazis, saying that "Denmark will always have an important place in history and in the heart of the Jewish people."

Lieberman added, "Today we are once against facing those who want and threaten to destroy the Jews, not only those living in Israel. The Iranian regime funds the terrorist activity in the world in general and against Jews in particular.

"The State of Israel is responsible for all Jewish communities in the world, and all the Jewish communities in the world are responsible for the State of Israel. This cooperation is important to stop this threat. The battle against the Iranian threat is the biggest challenge the democratic world must to face today."

After meeting with the Danish foreign minister, Lieberman is expected to travel to Holland on Tuesday, where he will meet with Israel's ambassadors to Western European countries for a briefing on urgent diplomatic matters. He is expected to return to Israel on Thursday.

Source: YNet

I admire Islam, it's lefties I can't stand

By Ed West

A blog I wrote a couple of weeks back is still being debated on the internet, with one American lefty describing me in truly glowing terms:

There’s a truly awful piece in Telegraph blogs by, no not Damian Thompson, but Ed West, entitled “Here’s an inconvenient truth: the Islamisation of Europe”.

West tries to rationalize what is nothing more than a racist diatribe against Muslim immigration and Muslim citizenship in Europe. While he tries to couch his article in language that conveys anxiety over mass immigration and the costs to social cohesion, he betrays his barely concealed Islamophobia by singling out Islam and Muslims as the scourge of Europe.

Reading West, one would think the BNP and associated far right racist parties in Europe were merely filling the void left by mainstream parties unwilling to bring the debate on the effects of Muslim mass immigration to the centre stage. Perhaps because to do so would reveal one’s patent anti Muslim prejudice, Mr West?

The point of the article was that immigration into Europe is at historically unprecedented levels, and that this will at best make for less happy and less equal societies, and at worst cause serious unrest and violence.

I sat on that blog post for almost a week because I was worried about the reaction; it was an unpleasant truth and sometimes unpleasant truths attract unpleasant words and people, but someone had to say it.

I wanted to call it “Immigration, an Inconvenient Truth”, but that title had already been taken by Rageh Omaar’s non-hardhitting documentary last year.

Islam has become something of a scapegoat for both decent people concerned about immigration, and outright racists. This is primarily because the other problems associated with immigration – specifically the moral collapse of black culture and the crime caused by it – are utterly verboten: far easier to attack “the Islamics” since liberals also despise their culture and loonies like Anjem Choudary or Abu Hamza make such good pin-ups. But the title was still honest, 90 per cent of non-white immigration being Islamic.

Actually I admire Islam far more than most lefties do. I admire its respect for family and old people, I admire its sobriety and sense of charity and honesty.

I find Mohammed a strange character to follow and the Koran full of violence, but that doesn’t neccesarily produce violent societies. Mormonism is by far and away the dumbest-sounding religion in theory, based on the words of a convicted fraudster, but Mormons are overwhelmingly decent, upstanding people and Mormon areas have almost zero crime.

Islam and the West don’t necessarily have to clash forever, although they probably will – much depends on Turkey, the great secular hope.

But I also recognise that Islam fell behind Christianity a long time ago, and at the moment, far from catching up, it’s going backwards in terms of cultural and political progress. Religions are like viruses – they are often beneficial, but sometimes a strain will become dangerous, and many variants of modern Islam are a threat to world peace (and would still be if there was no Israel, no American interference, and no Indian occupation of Kashmir).

As well as the fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, which can justify all sorts of horror, Islam has become a lightning rod for all the world’s embittered, angry losers, anyone with a grudge against capitalism, America, the West, white people in general and Jews in particular.

Look at the pathetic specimens who convert to extreme Islam in England.

This, coupled with unrestricted levels of immigration to the West, is a dangerous combination.

I don’t hate or fear Muslims or Islam – in a more rational world I wouldn't even feel the need to say that – but I do despise the western liberals who want to whitewash Islam of all its faults and who, by so dishonestly calling it a “religion of peace”, only encourage many people to believe it is a religion of war.

Source: Telegraph