Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
Hat tip Algemeiner
Isn't it odd that every time Israel goes into a period of fighting against Hamas in Gaza or Hizbollah in Lebanon, Western journalists are there and are recording all those scenes we see of civilians who have been killed and injured in the fighting, but we rarely, if ever, see scenes of Hamas or Hizbollah fighters in action? Of course, as we know, that would involve showing them fighting from pockets of civilian populations or launching rockets from schools, mosques or hospitals. Why is it we never see that? We don't even see scenes of these guys in the streets firing away at Israeli troops. Why not? The journalists are there.
Maybe this report from Algemeiner will help shed light on that question.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/31/spanish-journalist-on-why-hamas-never-photographed-in-action-if-ever-we-dared-point-our-camera-on-them-they-would-simply-shoot-at-us-and-kill-us/
Isn't it time that the Western media come clean about how Hamas is fighting this war-as they have fought previous wars- from the middle of their civilians? Why is it that our own leaders cannot publicly acknowledge that fact? Today, President Obama's new press secretary, Josh Earnest, condemned Israel for the latest rocket that killed civilians even before we know who actually fired the rocket. Where is the condemnation of Hamas using its people as shields for their fighters and weapons? Why does our government and media try to make a moral equivalence between our democratic ally and a terrorist organization? Why is it that in Western counties that enjoy freedom of the press and speech, we can't get an honest accounting of the circumstances that lead to civilian Palestinian deaths?
Maybe the Spanish journalist has provided the answer as to why we never see images of the Hamas fighters in action.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Beheadings Of Infidels, Halal Sex Products And "Muslims Don't Like Dogs"
A Month of Islam in Europe: June 2014
Austria accused Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of stirring up trouble on June 19, when he urged thousands of cheering supporters in Vienna to reject "assimilation."
Erdogan was rallying support for his candidacy ahead of Turkish presidential elections in August, and expatriate Turks have become a significant bloc of voters after changes to the electoral system now allow them to cast votes abroad.
Around 268,000 people of Turkish origin live in Austria, according to government figures, of whom nearly 115,000 are Turkish citizens.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who had expressly warned Erdogan not to undermine efforts to integrate Turks into Austrian society, criticized the latest comments:
State prosecutor Hansjoerg Bacher said that the imam is thought to be behind the radicalization and recruitment of eight Chechens resident in Austria, four of whom have died in fighting in Syria.
In Bulgaria, the Kardjali District Court on June 16 rejected a property claim lodged by the office of the Chief Mufti, the spiritual leader of Bulgaria's Muslims, to be awarded ownership of the building housing the Regional Historical Museum. The court found that there was no basis for the claim, and ordered the representatives of the Muslim community to pay 91,062 leva ($63,000) in costs to the state.
This case was the latest in a series of lawsuits by the Chief Mufti's office, filed under the Religious Denominations Act, which allows applications by recognized religious denominations to be awarded property believed to be historically theirs.
The building was originally intended to serve as a Muslim religious school, and it was funded in part by donations from the local Muslim community in 1920s and 1930s. However, the building was never used as a madrassa. Instead, it was nationalized during Bulgaria's communist era and became a museum.
Lawyers for the Kardjali district administration argued that the Chief Mufti's office is not the heir to the local Muslim community because at the time there was no such registered legal entity.
In the southern Bulgarian town of Peshtera, residents are angry over the local mosque's powerful loudspeakers, which are blasting the Islamic call to prayer, the adhan, several times a day.
According to Radio FOCUS, the town is a model of multicultural tolerance, but residents are increasingly irritated by the adhan; the "silent discontent may escalate to petitions and protests," the radio said.
In Britain, a new television channel aimed exclusively at British Muslims, British Muslim TV (BMTV), was launched in early June. The channel, operating under the slogan "Confidently Muslim, Comfortably British," is airing on the British Sky digital platform; the programming content is being exclusively funded and made in the UK.
BMTV will compete with other channels, such as Islam Channel, one of the UK's most prominent and popular English language Muslim satellite channels; Noor TV, Peace TV and Iqra TV, all of which have a South Asian focus and are usually broadcast in Urdu or Bangladeshi; and to Shia Muslim focused channels such as Hidayat TV and Ahlebait TV.
Speaking to Al Arabiya news, the marketing director for BMTV, Wasim Akhtar, said that BMTV aims to be different from the other Muslim channels by being "inclusive of all different views and open to all different types of Muslims. So the channel isn't just about issues of faith, it's about practical Muslim life here in Britain."
In a trial at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales [Old Bailey], a jury heard how police found 38-year-old Tahira Ahmed after she was decapitated in her west London home, allegedly by her husband, 41-year-old Naveed Ahmed. Tahira had been stabbed, had both her arms broken, and her head cut off. The couple, who have two children aged six and 12, had been married for 14 years.
Also in London, police launched an investigation into the origins of a sign telling dog owners to stay out of a park because it is "an Islamic area now" and "Muslims don't like dogs."
Meanwhile, it emerged that taxpayer money could be used to help fund a new mosque for the Muslim community in Belfast, according to Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. The move came after a local pastor named James McConnell denounced Islam as "Satanic" and a "doctrine spawned in hell."
McGuinness said he and First Minister Peter Robinson, who visited the Islamic Centre in south Belfast in June, "absolutely accepted" that the 4,000-strong Muslim community "is entitled to a mosque, if a proper site can be found which is suitable for them."
McGuinness said McConnell's remarks were "shameful" and could affect investments in Belfast. "This will impact, if not handled correctly by us, on our prospects of attracting foreign direct investment," McGuinness said. "The story travelled all round the world, and I think that it was very damaging."
In a bid to reverse negative stereotypes of Muslims in the UK, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Devon and Cornwall in southwestern England launched an advertising campaign in June to promote "positive awareness of Islam."
The campaign involved banners displaying Muslim messages of peace on a fleet of more than 100 city buses. Under the slogan of "loyalty, freedom, equality, respect, peace" the community also launched a website: LoveForAllHatredForNone.org.
A regional president of the group, Muhammad Noman, said: "A true Muslim can never raise his voice in hatred against his fellow citizens, nor against the ruling authority or government of the time. He should remain loyal and fully abide by the laws of the land of which he is a subject."
More news about Islam in Britain during June 2014 can be found here.
In Cyprus on June 3, Turkish Cypriot mufti Talip Atalay recited a prayer at the reopening ceremony of the Taht-el kale mosque in Nicosia, which had been closed for more than 50 years. Atalay visited the mosque after an invitation from the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II as part of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process promoted by the Swedish government.
In the Czech Republic, President Miloš Zeman refused to apologize for comments he made during a speech at the Israeli Embassy in Prague on May 26 at a reception to celebrate Israel's Independence Day.
Quoting several verses from the Koran that call on Muslims to kill Jews, Zeman said that Islam was to blame for the attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels that killed four people. He also said:
An OIC statement said:
The Gates of Vienna blog summed it up this way: "As far as I am aware, Miloš Zeman is the first Western head of state ever to tell the OIC to go jump in a lake. So this is an historic occasion."
In Denmark, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) revealed that at least 100 Danish jihadists (both male and female) have left Denmark to fight in Syria, and that at least 15 of them have been killed.
The information was made public during a June 23 seminar entitled, "Syria and the Danish Prevention Model," organized by the PET's Center for Terror Analysis (CTA). Some 100 representatives from the Danish police, civil society and the media attended the event.
According to the CTA, the majority of Danish jihadists are young Sunni Muslims (aged 16-25), including Danish converts to Islam. The CTA said most of the jihadists have links to Islamic communities in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense.
On June 5, Denmark issued an international arrest warrant for four jihadists who were filmed shooting at effigies of six prominent Danish critics of Islam.
In the video, which was recorded in Syria and first surfaced in August 2013, the men fired their guns at effigies of former PET secret agent Morten Storm, free speech advocate Lars Hedegaard, former MP Naser Khader, the imam Ahmed Akkari, former prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
Danish authorities said that under Danish anti-terror laws the shootings are illegal; they also conceded that some of the jihadists may already be dead.
Meanwhile, Denmark's largest mosque opened on June 19 in the Rovsingsgade district of Copenhagen after receiving a 150 million kroner (€20.1 million, $27.2 million) endowment from Qatar.
Not a single Danish politician of note attended the inauguration ceremony of the 6,700-square-meter (72,000-square-foot) complex, which houses a mosque, a cultural center, a television studio and a fitness center.
In Finland, the Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) on June 19 said it was investigating a suspected Finnish female jihadist who posed with weapons and published threats against Shia Muslims on Facebook.
The photo uploaded to Facebook shows a burqa-clad figure posing with an assault rifle, and brandishing what is claimed to be a suicide bomb. A comment on the page—written in Finnish—says the woman has come to Syria because "there are lots of Shias to kill."
On June 12, a spokesman for SUPO revealed that around 40 people have travelled from Finland to Syria to join Islamist groups there. He also said that around 200 individuals in Finland are believed to be at risk of radicalization.
On June 9, Finnish media reported the death of a 23-year-old jihadist from Espoo, the second-largest city in Finland, who had been fighting in Syria since December 2012. The man, of Somali background, had moved to Finland at the age of two. If the death is confirmed, he would be the third Finnish citizen to die in the fighting in Syria.
In France, Prime Minister Manuel Valls on June 3 increased the government's estimate of the number of French nationals fighting in Syria to 800, including about 30 who have died in the conflict.
Valls told BFMTV that these jihadists pose an unprecedented threat to France. "We have never before faced a challenge of this kind," Valls said. "It is without any doubt the most serious threat we face. We have to ensure the surveillance of hundreds and hundreds of French or European individuals who are today fighting in Syria."
In Iceland, the head of the Muslim Association of Iceland, Ibrahim Sverrir Agnarsson, on June 2 said that final preparations are being made for the design of the country's first mosque, set to be built on a plot of land in the Sogamýri district of Reykjavík.
The future of mosque has been in doubt since May 23, when the leader of the Progressive Party in Reykjavík, Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörnsdóttir, said she wanted to reverse the city council's controversial decision to grant the plot of land to the Muslims free of charge. She now says the issue should be voted on in a public referendum. After her remarks, support for the Progressive Party in Reykjavík increased and the party secured two seats in municipal elections that were held on May 31.
The founder of the Muslim Association, Salman Tamimi, said he would file a lawsuit against individuals who left anti-mosque comments on an online article about the mosque controversy published by the newspaper Visir on June 1. Tamimi's lawyer, Helga Vala Helgadóttir, said it was important to take a stand against hate speech.
In Italy, authorities on June 17 said the Italian Navy had rescued almost 600 migrants from boats in the Strait of Sicily between Italy and Africa as part of the Mare Nostrum ["Our Sea"] search and rescue operation, launched in October 2013.
On June 9, roughly 1,300 migrants were ushered to safety at the merchant port of Taranto after being rescued at sea off the coast of Sicily.
More than 50,000 migrants crossed to Italy during the first six months of 2014, more than the total for the whole of 2013.
A jihadist from Luxembourg who died in Syria in December 2013 was claimed as a martyr for ISIS on June 17. A tweet from ISIS described a man identified as "Luxembourg national Abu Huthaifa" as the "first martyr for ISIS from the second richest country in the world."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn confirmed in May 2014 that two people from the Grand Duchy had joined militants in Syria. One of them was originally from Kosovo, and another was of North African origin. Both were killed, including Abu Huthaifa. Why ISIS was just now claiming his martyrdom remains unclear.
In the Netherlands, the Dutch intelligence service AIVD on June 30 released a new report entitled, "Transformation of Jihadism in the Netherlands," which states that about 130 Dutch jihadists have travelled to Syria, and that nearly 30 have since returned. Approximately 14 Dutch jihadists have died on the battlefield. Most of the Dutch jihadists have joined up with ISIS.
On June 21, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, accused the government of being "asleep" and "naïve" for failing to understand the size of the threat posed by Muslim radicals in the Netherlands. "The threat to the Netherlands is now greater than ever, even more than ten years ago with the Hofstad Group [an Islamist terrorist organization of mostly young Dutch Muslims of mainly North African ancestry], Wilders said. "We now have hundreds of jihadists and thousands of sympathizers. This naïve Cabinet's inaction is inviting an attack in the Netherlands."
Foreign Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans on June 16 told the Dutch Parliament that the government was taking "various measures," both in terms of criminal law and administrative law, to prevent Dutch nationals joining up with groups such as ISIS.
Also on June 16, the newspaper Volkskrant reported that AIVD had given the Turkish government the names of more than 100 young men and women who Dutch authorities believe may be planning on going to Syria. The paper said Turkey has agreed to detain and deport them if they attempt to cross the Turkish border en route to Syria.
On June 19, Abdoe Khoulani, a member of the Party of Unity (PvdE), a fundamentalist Muslim political party based in The Hague, expressed support for ISIS on his Facebook page. He wrote: "Long Live ISIS. And insha'Allah [Allah willing] on to Baghdad to fight the riff-raff there."
Khoulani's message was spread on Twitter by Arnoud van Doorn, a former member of the Dutch Freedom Party who converted to Islam and is now a member of the PvdE. Van Doorn said Khoulani was—like John the Baptist quoting the words of Isaiah—a "voice of one crying out in the wilderness" [to prepare the way for the Messiah].
In response to the backlash, Khoulani said his words were simply a call to justice. He added that ISIS is not a terrorist group, but a resistance organization.
Meanwhile, a Dutch company selling halal sex products on June 4 announced an alliance with Europe's largest erotic retailer in an effort to tap into the lucrative Muslim market, potentially worth billions of euros.
The founder of Amsterdam-based El Asira, Abdelaziz Aouragh, said the deal with Frankfurt-listed Beate Uhse came four years after his company first launched a range of erotic products that do not contravene Sharia law.
El Asira, which means "Society" in Arabic, launched its range of products in 2010 to massive acclaim from the local Muslim community. Beate Uhse, based in Flensburg, Germany, approached El Asira in 2012 with a business proposal to sell products jointly in Muslim markets.
"We will take 18 of our Islamic branded products to the market through Beate Uhse," Aouragh told Agence France-Presse. "Considering we're targeting a global market of around 1.8 billion people, the potential is huge."
The two companies are also looking into the possibility of opening a store for halal sex products in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, Aouragh said.
In Norway, the country's first-ever Shia Muslim mosque was inaugurated in Oslo on June 1. One of the main purposes of the Tauheed Islamic Center is "to provide an opportunity to non-Muslims to learn about the universal teachings of Islam." The first official event held at the mosque was a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the death of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution.
Separately, Nemat Ali Shah, the Pakistani imam of the Central Jamaat Ahle-Sunnat mosque, the main Sunni Muslim mosque in Oslo, was recuperating in the hospital after a masked assailant repeatedly hacked him with a small axe or knife in the center of the Norwegian capital on the evening of June 16. Muslims were quick to condemn the attack as an Islamophobic hate crime, but on June 30, Oslo police arrested a fellow Pakistani who allegedly attacked the imam due to a power struggle within the mosque, which has more than 5,000 members mainly of Pakistani origin.
In Slovenia, the local Islamic Community on June 4 announced that construction work on the first Slovenian mosque was about to begin in the capital of city of Ljubljana, nearly ten months after the symbolic ground-breaking ceremony took place in September 2013.
Mufti Nedžad Grabus confirmed that Qatar would cover 70% of the cost of the project. "Without Qatar, the Islamic community [of Slovenia] would not be able to continue with the project," Grabus said.
The mosque and Muslim cultural center, 44 years in the making, will be built north of the city center, on a plot of land that the Muslim community bought from the City of Ljubljana, at a projected cost of €21 million ($28.5 million).
In Spain, the Union of Islamic Communities in Spain (UCIE), a Madrid-based Muslim umbrella group, and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Education (ISESCO), a Morocco-based arm of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), held a four-day conference in Madrid aimed at promoting the development of Koran institutes in non-Muslim countries. The event, which was held from June 18-21, was attended by Muslim leaders from Europe and North Africa.
On June 17, the Halal Institute of the Junta Islámica de España, a competing Muslim umbrella group based in Córdoba, held a conference aimed at promoting the "normalization of halal" in European countries. The official conference title was: "Possible Similarities and Differences between European Standards Compared with Halal Standards Demanded by the Arab Countries."
Conference attendees called on the Spanish government to sponsor an official study aimed at finding ways to bring European food standards into compliance with Islamic Sharia law.
Meanwhile, municipal officials in Barcelona denied reports that Qatar had offered to pay €2.2 billion ($3 billion) to convert the city's La Monumental bullring into a forty thousand capacity mosque. The building would include a 300-meter (985-foot) minaret. The mosque would be the third largest in the world, after those in Mecca and Medina.
On June 16, Spanish police in Madrid arrested ten individuals (eight Moroccans, one Argentine and one Bulgarian) on allegations that they were members of an international network that recruited jihadists for ISIS.
The ringleader was a 47-year-old Moroccan national named Lahcen Ikassrien, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and released after three-and-a-half years in Guantánamo. In July 2005, the U.S. government handed him over to Spain, where he faced charges of cooperating with al-Qaeda. In October 2006, the Spanish High Court acquitted him on the grounds that no firm evidence existed of his ties to the terrorist group.
Ikassrien, who lives in Madrid, was part of a cell led by Abu Dahdah, a Syrian-born Spaniard who was sentenced to a 27-year prison term in Spain for his part in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and for being one of the founders of al-Qaeda in Spain. In February 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah's penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the 9/11 conspiracy was not proven. He was released in May 2013.
In Sweden, government health inspectors said they found some 60 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Norrköping in eastern Sweden since March, with all 30 girls in one school class found to have undergone the procedure.
FGM has been illegal in Sweden since 1982 and can be punished with up to ten years in prison. Since 1999 it is also a criminal offense under Swedish law if the procedure is performed in a different country.
Most girls who undergo the procedure are between the ages of 4-14 years, but the operation is also carried out on infants. There are no official statistics detailing the extent of FGM in Sweden, or of how many girls are taken to have the procedure conducted abroad.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Parliament on June 17 approved changes to the country's immigration law to "facilitate moving to and from Sweden." The changes reduce the requirements for obtaining permanent residence for students and workers. In addition, individuals whose application for asylum has been rejected now need to wait only four months to become eligible for a work permit. Moreover, immigrants who have already obtained permanent residence in Sweden can retain that status for up to two years after they leave the country.
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) rejected the proposal. "We should have mobility, but these suggestions give evidence that the government has dropped all reason when it comes to immigration policy," David Lång (SD) wrote in the party's motion.
In Switzerland, the Islamic Cultural Center in Lausanne received a $140,000 donation from the Government of Kuwait to fund the construction of a center for raising awareness about Islam. On June 20, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported that the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Switzerland, Bader Al-Tunaib, presented the donation to head of the Complex Culturel des Musulmans de Lausanne (CCML), Dr. Mohammad Karmous. A Tunisian with a French passport, Karmous has multiple ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Vatican failed in an attempt to cover up the contents of a prayer by a Muslim cleric at an interfaith "Prayer for Peace" service held in the Vatican garden on June 8. Departing from a pre-approved script, the imam recited verses 284-286 of Sura 2 from the Koran, the latter part of which calls on Allah to grant Muslims victory over non-Muslims.
Most non-Muslims non-Arabic speakers did not understand what the imam had said, but that changed when a former Muslim who speaks Arabic translated the full prayer on the indispensable blog, Gates of Vienna. The Vatican initially denied that the imam had said what he said, but then it doctored the video to edit out last part of Verse 2:286.
Gates of Vienna posted a complete video of the imam's prayer, which does indeed (3m54s into the video) ask Allah to "make us victorious over the tribe of the unbelievers." In an interview with Radio Vatican, a German-speaking Jesuit priest named Felix Körner remained unbowed.
Körner defended the imam, saying Verse 2:286 fully accords with Roman Catholic doctrine and is wholly peaceful in intent. "If one hears something in a skewed manner, one is going to have a mistaken understanding of it," he said.
Meanwhile, the Vatican partnered with the Emir of Sharjah (one of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates) to present an "unprecedented" art exhibition entitled, "So That You Might Know Each Other," a verse from the Koran. The four month exhibit, which ended on June 14, was designed to serve as a "sign of openness and cooperation between religions."
The 70 exhibits on display at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization included textiles, musical instruments, jewelry, rudimentary weapons, books and manuscripts, many of which were on loan from the Ethnological Museum of the Vatican.
The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle summed it up this way: "The fact that Rome is lending its works for the first time is an act of diplomacy in line with Pope Francis's current policies. While Pope Benedict XVI had distanced himself from other religions, his successor is pursuing a different policy."
Austria accused Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of stirring up trouble on June 19, when he urged thousands of cheering supporters in Vienna to reject "assimilation."
Erdogan was rallying support for his candidacy ahead of Turkish presidential elections in August, and expatriate Turks have become a significant bloc of voters after changes to the electoral system now allow them to cast votes abroad.
Around 268,000 people of Turkish origin live in Austria, according to government figures, of whom nearly 115,000 are Turkish citizens.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who had expressly warned Erdogan not to undermine efforts to integrate Turks into Austrian society, criticized the latest comments:
"These show very clearly that the Turkish premier has brought the election campaign to our country and created unrest with this. We reject this. And I can only say that respect for a host country looks clearly different."In Graz, the second-largest city in Austria, police on June 5 arrested a 41-year-old Islamic preacher from Chechnya who is believed to be involved in efforts to send Austrians to war in the Middle East.
State prosecutor Hansjoerg Bacher said that the imam is thought to be behind the radicalization and recruitment of eight Chechens resident in Austria, four of whom have died in fighting in Syria.
In Bulgaria, the Kardjali District Court on June 16 rejected a property claim lodged by the office of the Chief Mufti, the spiritual leader of Bulgaria's Muslims, to be awarded ownership of the building housing the Regional Historical Museum. The court found that there was no basis for the claim, and ordered the representatives of the Muslim community to pay 91,062 leva ($63,000) in costs to the state.
This case was the latest in a series of lawsuits by the Chief Mufti's office, filed under the Religious Denominations Act, which allows applications by recognized religious denominations to be awarded property believed to be historically theirs.
The building was originally intended to serve as a Muslim religious school, and it was funded in part by donations from the local Muslim community in 1920s and 1930s. However, the building was never used as a madrassa. Instead, it was nationalized during Bulgaria's communist era and became a museum.
Lawyers for the Kardjali district administration argued that the Chief Mufti's office is not the heir to the local Muslim community because at the time there was no such registered legal entity.
In the southern Bulgarian town of Peshtera, residents are angry over the local mosque's powerful loudspeakers, which are blasting the Islamic call to prayer, the adhan, several times a day.
According to Radio FOCUS, the town is a model of multicultural tolerance, but residents are increasingly irritated by the adhan; the "silent discontent may escalate to petitions and protests," the radio said.
In Britain, a new television channel aimed exclusively at British Muslims, British Muslim TV (BMTV), was launched in early June. The channel, operating under the slogan "Confidently Muslim, Comfortably British," is airing on the British Sky digital platform; the programming content is being exclusively funded and made in the UK.
BMTV will compete with other channels, such as Islam Channel, one of the UK's most prominent and popular English language Muslim satellite channels; Noor TV, Peace TV and Iqra TV, all of which have a South Asian focus and are usually broadcast in Urdu or Bangladeshi; and to Shia Muslim focused channels such as Hidayat TV and Ahlebait TV.
Speaking to Al Arabiya news, the marketing director for BMTV, Wasim Akhtar, said that BMTV aims to be different from the other Muslim channels by being "inclusive of all different views and open to all different types of Muslims. So the channel isn't just about issues of faith, it's about practical Muslim life here in Britain."
In a trial at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales [Old Bailey], a jury heard how police found 38-year-old Tahira Ahmed after she was decapitated in her west London home, allegedly by her husband, 41-year-old Naveed Ahmed. Tahira had been stabbed, had both her arms broken, and her head cut off. The couple, who have two children aged six and 12, had been married for 14 years.
Also in London, police launched an investigation into the origins of a sign telling dog owners to stay out of a park because it is "an Islamic area now" and "Muslims don't like dogs."
Meanwhile, it emerged that taxpayer money could be used to help fund a new mosque for the Muslim community in Belfast, according to Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. The move came after a local pastor named James McConnell denounced Islam as "Satanic" and a "doctrine spawned in hell."
McGuinness said he and First Minister Peter Robinson, who visited the Islamic Centre in south Belfast in June, "absolutely accepted" that the 4,000-strong Muslim community "is entitled to a mosque, if a proper site can be found which is suitable for them."
McGuinness said McConnell's remarks were "shameful" and could affect investments in Belfast. "This will impact, if not handled correctly by us, on our prospects of attracting foreign direct investment," McGuinness said. "The story travelled all round the world, and I think that it was very damaging."
In a bid to reverse negative stereotypes of Muslims in the UK, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Devon and Cornwall in southwestern England launched an advertising campaign in June to promote "positive awareness of Islam."
The campaign involved banners displaying Muslim messages of peace on a fleet of more than 100 city buses. Under the slogan of "loyalty, freedom, equality, respect, peace" the community also launched a website: LoveForAllHatredForNone.org.
A regional president of the group, Muhammad Noman, said: "A true Muslim can never raise his voice in hatred against his fellow citizens, nor against the ruling authority or government of the time. He should remain loyal and fully abide by the laws of the land of which he is a subject."
More news about Islam in Britain during June 2014 can be found here.
In Cyprus on June 3, Turkish Cypriot mufti Talip Atalay recited a prayer at the reopening ceremony of the Taht-el kale mosque in Nicosia, which had been closed for more than 50 years. Atalay visited the mosque after an invitation from the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II as part of the Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process promoted by the Swedish government.
In the Czech Republic, President Miloš Zeman refused to apologize for comments he made during a speech at the Israeli Embassy in Prague on May 26 at a reception to celebrate Israel's Independence Day.
Quoting several verses from the Koran that call on Muslims to kill Jews, Zeman said that Islam was to blame for the attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels that killed four people. He also said:
"There is a term, political correctness. This term I consider to be a euphemism for political cowardice. Therefore, let me not be cowardly."The new Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], Iyad Ameen Madani, condemned Zeman's speech, saying, "It is only appropriate that President Miloš Zeman apologizes to the millions of Muslims worldwide for his deeply offensive and hateful anti-Islam statements."
An OIC statement said:
"The Secretary General reiterated that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and that terrorism should not be equated to any race or religion; a stance upheld by all major UN texts on the subject of countering terrorism. He added that the OIC countries share a profound respect for all religions and condemn any message of hatred and intolerance."On June 10, a spokesman for the Czech government said Zeman would not be apologizing for his statements. "President Zeman definitely does not intend to apologize. For the president would consider it blasphemy to apologize for the quotation of a sacred Islamic text."
The Gates of Vienna blog summed it up this way: "As far as I am aware, Miloš Zeman is the first Western head of state ever to tell the OIC to go jump in a lake. So this is an historic occasion."
In Denmark, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) revealed that at least 100 Danish jihadists (both male and female) have left Denmark to fight in Syria, and that at least 15 of them have been killed.
The information was made public during a June 23 seminar entitled, "Syria and the Danish Prevention Model," organized by the PET's Center for Terror Analysis (CTA). Some 100 representatives from the Danish police, civil society and the media attended the event.
According to the CTA, the majority of Danish jihadists are young Sunni Muslims (aged 16-25), including Danish converts to Islam. The CTA said most of the jihadists have links to Islamic communities in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense.
"Those returning from the conflict have been trained in military skills that can be used to carry out a terrorist attack in Denmark or against Danish interests abroad," CTA said. "They can also use their status to recruit new members to the group and new warriors to the conflict."On June 14, Danish police raided a mosque in the Vibevej district of Copenhagen after a passerby allegedly saw weapons being carried into the complex. Four men were arrested during the operation.
On June 5, Denmark issued an international arrest warrant for four jihadists who were filmed shooting at effigies of six prominent Danish critics of Islam.
In the video, which was recorded in Syria and first surfaced in August 2013, the men fired their guns at effigies of former PET secret agent Morten Storm, free speech advocate Lars Hedegaard, former MP Naser Khader, the imam Ahmed Akkari, former prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
Danish authorities said that under Danish anti-terror laws the shootings are illegal; they also conceded that some of the jihadists may already be dead.
Meanwhile, Denmark's largest mosque opened on June 19 in the Rovsingsgade district of Copenhagen after receiving a 150 million kroner (€20.1 million, $27.2 million) endowment from Qatar.
Not a single Danish politician of note attended the inauguration ceremony of the 6,700-square-meter (72,000-square-foot) complex, which houses a mosque, a cultural center, a television studio and a fitness center.
In Finland, the Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) on June 19 said it was investigating a suspected Finnish female jihadist who posed with weapons and published threats against Shia Muslims on Facebook.
The photo uploaded to Facebook shows a burqa-clad figure posing with an assault rifle, and brandishing what is claimed to be a suicide bomb. A comment on the page—written in Finnish—says the woman has come to Syria because "there are lots of Shias to kill."
On June 12, a spokesman for SUPO revealed that around 40 people have travelled from Finland to Syria to join Islamist groups there. He also said that around 200 individuals in Finland are believed to be at risk of radicalization.
On June 9, Finnish media reported the death of a 23-year-old jihadist from Espoo, the second-largest city in Finland, who had been fighting in Syria since December 2012. The man, of Somali background, had moved to Finland at the age of two. If the death is confirmed, he would be the third Finnish citizen to die in the fighting in Syria.
In France, Prime Minister Manuel Valls on June 3 increased the government's estimate of the number of French nationals fighting in Syria to 800, including about 30 who have died in the conflict.
Valls told BFMTV that these jihadists pose an unprecedented threat to France. "We have never before faced a challenge of this kind," Valls said. "It is without any doubt the most serious threat we face. We have to ensure the surveillance of hundreds and hundreds of French or European individuals who are today fighting in Syria."
In Iceland, the head of the Muslim Association of Iceland, Ibrahim Sverrir Agnarsson, on June 2 said that final preparations are being made for the design of the country's first mosque, set to be built on a plot of land in the Sogamýri district of Reykjavík.
The future of mosque has been in doubt since May 23, when the leader of the Progressive Party in Reykjavík, Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörnsdóttir, said she wanted to reverse the city council's controversial decision to grant the plot of land to the Muslims free of charge. She now says the issue should be voted on in a public referendum. After her remarks, support for the Progressive Party in Reykjavík increased and the party secured two seats in municipal elections that were held on May 31.
The founder of the Muslim Association, Salman Tamimi, said he would file a lawsuit against individuals who left anti-mosque comments on an online article about the mosque controversy published by the newspaper Visir on June 1. Tamimi's lawyer, Helga Vala Helgadóttir, said it was important to take a stand against hate speech.
In Italy, authorities on June 17 said the Italian Navy had rescued almost 600 migrants from boats in the Strait of Sicily between Italy and Africa as part of the Mare Nostrum ["Our Sea"] search and rescue operation, launched in October 2013.
On June 9, roughly 1,300 migrants were ushered to safety at the merchant port of Taranto after being rescued at sea off the coast of Sicily.
More than 50,000 migrants crossed to Italy during the first six months of 2014, more than the total for the whole of 2013.
A jihadist from Luxembourg who died in Syria in December 2013 was claimed as a martyr for ISIS on June 17. A tweet from ISIS described a man identified as "Luxembourg national Abu Huthaifa" as the "first martyr for ISIS from the second richest country in the world."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn confirmed in May 2014 that two people from the Grand Duchy had joined militants in Syria. One of them was originally from Kosovo, and another was of North African origin. Both were killed, including Abu Huthaifa. Why ISIS was just now claiming his martyrdom remains unclear.
In the Netherlands, the Dutch intelligence service AIVD on June 30 released a new report entitled, "Transformation of Jihadism in the Netherlands," which states that about 130 Dutch jihadists have travelled to Syria, and that nearly 30 have since returned. Approximately 14 Dutch jihadists have died on the battlefield. Most of the Dutch jihadists have joined up with ISIS.
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| The Dutch-Turkish jihadist known as Yilmaz is one of about 130 Dutch jihadists who have traveled to Syria. |
Foreign Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans on June 16 told the Dutch Parliament that the government was taking "various measures," both in terms of criminal law and administrative law, to prevent Dutch nationals joining up with groups such as ISIS.
Also on June 16, the newspaper Volkskrant reported that AIVD had given the Turkish government the names of more than 100 young men and women who Dutch authorities believe may be planning on going to Syria. The paper said Turkey has agreed to detain and deport them if they attempt to cross the Turkish border en route to Syria.
On June 19, Abdoe Khoulani, a member of the Party of Unity (PvdE), a fundamentalist Muslim political party based in The Hague, expressed support for ISIS on his Facebook page. He wrote: "Long Live ISIS. And insha'Allah [Allah willing] on to Baghdad to fight the riff-raff there."
Khoulani's message was spread on Twitter by Arnoud van Doorn, a former member of the Dutch Freedom Party who converted to Islam and is now a member of the PvdE. Van Doorn said Khoulani was—like John the Baptist quoting the words of Isaiah—a "voice of one crying out in the wilderness" [to prepare the way for the Messiah].
In response to the backlash, Khoulani said his words were simply a call to justice. He added that ISIS is not a terrorist group, but a resistance organization.
Meanwhile, a Dutch company selling halal sex products on June 4 announced an alliance with Europe's largest erotic retailer in an effort to tap into the lucrative Muslim market, potentially worth billions of euros.
The founder of Amsterdam-based El Asira, Abdelaziz Aouragh, said the deal with Frankfurt-listed Beate Uhse came four years after his company first launched a range of erotic products that do not contravene Sharia law.
El Asira, which means "Society" in Arabic, launched its range of products in 2010 to massive acclaim from the local Muslim community. Beate Uhse, based in Flensburg, Germany, approached El Asira in 2012 with a business proposal to sell products jointly in Muslim markets.
"We will take 18 of our Islamic branded products to the market through Beate Uhse," Aouragh told Agence France-Presse. "Considering we're targeting a global market of around 1.8 billion people, the potential is huge."
The two companies are also looking into the possibility of opening a store for halal sex products in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, Aouragh said.
In Norway, the country's first-ever Shia Muslim mosque was inaugurated in Oslo on June 1. One of the main purposes of the Tauheed Islamic Center is "to provide an opportunity to non-Muslims to learn about the universal teachings of Islam." The first official event held at the mosque was a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the death of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution.
Separately, Nemat Ali Shah, the Pakistani imam of the Central Jamaat Ahle-Sunnat mosque, the main Sunni Muslim mosque in Oslo, was recuperating in the hospital after a masked assailant repeatedly hacked him with a small axe or knife in the center of the Norwegian capital on the evening of June 16. Muslims were quick to condemn the attack as an Islamophobic hate crime, but on June 30, Oslo police arrested a fellow Pakistani who allegedly attacked the imam due to a power struggle within the mosque, which has more than 5,000 members mainly of Pakistani origin.
In Slovenia, the local Islamic Community on June 4 announced that construction work on the first Slovenian mosque was about to begin in the capital of city of Ljubljana, nearly ten months after the symbolic ground-breaking ceremony took place in September 2013.
Mufti Nedžad Grabus confirmed that Qatar would cover 70% of the cost of the project. "Without Qatar, the Islamic community [of Slovenia] would not be able to continue with the project," Grabus said.
The mosque and Muslim cultural center, 44 years in the making, will be built north of the city center, on a plot of land that the Muslim community bought from the City of Ljubljana, at a projected cost of €21 million ($28.5 million).
In Spain, the Union of Islamic Communities in Spain (UCIE), a Madrid-based Muslim umbrella group, and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Education (ISESCO), a Morocco-based arm of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), held a four-day conference in Madrid aimed at promoting the development of Koran institutes in non-Muslim countries. The event, which was held from June 18-21, was attended by Muslim leaders from Europe and North Africa.
On June 17, the Halal Institute of the Junta Islámica de España, a competing Muslim umbrella group based in Córdoba, held a conference aimed at promoting the "normalization of halal" in European countries. The official conference title was: "Possible Similarities and Differences between European Standards Compared with Halal Standards Demanded by the Arab Countries."
Conference attendees called on the Spanish government to sponsor an official study aimed at finding ways to bring European food standards into compliance with Islamic Sharia law.
Meanwhile, municipal officials in Barcelona denied reports that Qatar had offered to pay €2.2 billion ($3 billion) to convert the city's La Monumental bullring into a forty thousand capacity mosque. The building would include a 300-meter (985-foot) minaret. The mosque would be the third largest in the world, after those in Mecca and Medina.
On June 16, Spanish police in Madrid arrested ten individuals (eight Moroccans, one Argentine and one Bulgarian) on allegations that they were members of an international network that recruited jihadists for ISIS.
The ringleader was a 47-year-old Moroccan national named Lahcen Ikassrien, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 and released after three-and-a-half years in Guantánamo. In July 2005, the U.S. government handed him over to Spain, where he faced charges of cooperating with al-Qaeda. In October 2006, the Spanish High Court acquitted him on the grounds that no firm evidence existed of his ties to the terrorist group.
Ikassrien, who lives in Madrid, was part of a cell led by Abu Dahdah, a Syrian-born Spaniard who was sentenced to a 27-year prison term in Spain for his part in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and for being one of the founders of al-Qaeda in Spain. In February 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah's penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the 9/11 conspiracy was not proven. He was released in May 2013.
In Sweden, government health inspectors said they found some 60 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Norrköping in eastern Sweden since March, with all 30 girls in one school class found to have undergone the procedure.
FGM has been illegal in Sweden since 1982 and can be punished with up to ten years in prison. Since 1999 it is also a criminal offense under Swedish law if the procedure is performed in a different country.
Most girls who undergo the procedure are between the ages of 4-14 years, but the operation is also carried out on infants. There are no official statistics detailing the extent of FGM in Sweden, or of how many girls are taken to have the procedure conducted abroad.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Parliament on June 17 approved changes to the country's immigration law to "facilitate moving to and from Sweden." The changes reduce the requirements for obtaining permanent residence for students and workers. In addition, individuals whose application for asylum has been rejected now need to wait only four months to become eligible for a work permit. Moreover, immigrants who have already obtained permanent residence in Sweden can retain that status for up to two years after they leave the country.
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) rejected the proposal. "We should have mobility, but these suggestions give evidence that the government has dropped all reason when it comes to immigration policy," David Lång (SD) wrote in the party's motion.
In Switzerland, the Islamic Cultural Center in Lausanne received a $140,000 donation from the Government of Kuwait to fund the construction of a center for raising awareness about Islam. On June 20, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported that the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Switzerland, Bader Al-Tunaib, presented the donation to head of the Complex Culturel des Musulmans de Lausanne (CCML), Dr. Mohammad Karmous. A Tunisian with a French passport, Karmous has multiple ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Vatican failed in an attempt to cover up the contents of a prayer by a Muslim cleric at an interfaith "Prayer for Peace" service held in the Vatican garden on June 8. Departing from a pre-approved script, the imam recited verses 284-286 of Sura 2 from the Koran, the latter part of which calls on Allah to grant Muslims victory over non-Muslims.
Most non-Muslims non-Arabic speakers did not understand what the imam had said, but that changed when a former Muslim who speaks Arabic translated the full prayer on the indispensable blog, Gates of Vienna. The Vatican initially denied that the imam had said what he said, but then it doctored the video to edit out last part of Verse 2:286.
Gates of Vienna posted a complete video of the imam's prayer, which does indeed (3m54s into the video) ask Allah to "make us victorious over the tribe of the unbelievers." In an interview with Radio Vatican, a German-speaking Jesuit priest named Felix Körner remained unbowed.
Körner defended the imam, saying Verse 2:286 fully accords with Roman Catholic doctrine and is wholly peaceful in intent. "If one hears something in a skewed manner, one is going to have a mistaken understanding of it," he said.
Meanwhile, the Vatican partnered with the Emir of Sharjah (one of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates) to present an "unprecedented" art exhibition entitled, "So That You Might Know Each Other," a verse from the Koran. The four month exhibit, which ended on June 14, was designed to serve as a "sign of openness and cooperation between religions."
The 70 exhibits on display at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization included textiles, musical instruments, jewelry, rudimentary weapons, books and manuscripts, many of which were on loan from the Ethnological Museum of the Vatican.
The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle summed it up this way: "The fact that Rome is lending its works for the first time is an act of diplomacy in line with Pope Francis's current policies. While Pope Benedict XVI had distanced himself from other religions, his successor is pursuing a different policy."
Wednesday's Hero
This Post Was Suggested By Mike
WASP
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was a paramilitary aviation organization. In 1943 they were created when the Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) were merged together. The female pilots of the WASP ended up numbering 1,074, each freeing a male pilot for combat service and duties. They flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft. The WASP was granted veteran status in 1977, and given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. Some 25,000 women applied to join the WASP, but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath. Only 1,074 of them passed the training and joined. Thirty-eight died flying in the WASP
You can read more about WASP here
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look.
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
WASP
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was a paramilitary aviation organization. In 1943 they were created when the Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) were merged together. The female pilots of the WASP ended up numbering 1,074, each freeing a male pilot for combat service and duties. They flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft. The WASP was granted veteran status in 1977, and given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. Some 25,000 women applied to join the WASP, but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath. Only 1,074 of them passed the training and joined. Thirty-eight died flying in the WASP
You can read more about WASP here
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look.
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Go Israel Go!
Hat Tip to A Soldier's Mother
Click here if the video fails to load.
Wild Bill is telling it like it is.
Israel is finally giving Hamas the ass whooping they deserve!
Click here if the video fails to load.
Wild Bill is telling it like it is.
Israel is finally giving Hamas the ass whooping they deserve!
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Paris's Kristallnacht
The event brought together between 10,000 and 30,000 people -- not surprising in a country where "leftist" and Islamist organizations are strong.
The demonstrators shouted hateful and violent slogans against Israel and held Israeli flags on which swastikas replaced the Star of David -- also not surprising. Events organized by "leftists" and by Islamists usually carry such gear.
The demonstrators also shouted purely anti-Semitic slogans; the call for "Death to Jews" was picked up by the crowd. This was the first time since the end of World War II that explicitly anti-Semitic chants were shouted by a large crowd in Paris (During a demonstration in January, protesters shouted, "Jews, France does not belong to you").
Demonstrators shouted, "Hamas will win," in support of the jihadist terrorist organization. This was also the first time that slogans openly favoring a jihadist terrorist organization were shouted by a large crowd in Paris (During earlier demonstrations, protesters shouted "Palestine will win," but did not point to Hamas).
Demonstrators also shouted slogans in favor of a man who had murdered Jewish children: "We are all Mohamed Merah." Merah shot and killed a rabbi and three Jewish children at close range in a schoolyard in Toulouse in 2012; it was the one of the most serious anti-Semitic acts committed in France since the Vichy regime. This was the first time in France that a large crowd proudly identified with a murderer of Jewish children.
The demonstration started in the 18th Arrondissement of Paris (metro station Barbès Rochechouart), close to where Islamic preachers organized street prayers a few months ago; it ended near Place de la Bastille. Dozens of windows of Jewish shops and restaurants along the route were broken and covered with yellow labels saying, "boycott Israel". This was the first time that so many Jewish shops and restaurants were attacked during a demonstration in Paris.
In addition, several hundred protesters armed with iron bars, machetes, axes and firebombs, arriving Place de la Bastille, marched to the nearby Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue on rue de la Roquette. They shouted, "Let's slay the Jews," "Hitler was right," and "Allahu Akbar".
Only six police officers were on hand, who were quickly overwhelmed. Members of Jewish defense organizations protected the 200 Jews present inside the synagogue. Even after police reinforcements arrived, the synagogue was besieged for nearly two hours. The Jews, prisoners of a potentially lethal horde, were locked inside.
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| An "anti-Israel" mob attempts to smash through the front gate of the Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue in Paris, July 13, 2014. |
This was the first time since World War II that an anti-Semitic pogrom took place in France.
In an attempt to address the distress of the Jewish community, the French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, denounced anti-Semitism in general terms. He said he would strengthen the protection of "places of worship," synagogues and mosques -- although no mosque was attacked.
Although the government banned the next demonstration, scheduled for July 19, it took place anyway, and soon turned into a riot.
When thousands of protesters gathered again at the Barbès Rochechouart metro station, the presence of significant police forces prevented protesters from crossing Paris. Organized groups then attacked the police by throwing stones, Molotov cocktails and by using iron bars. Shops were looted. Garbage cans were burned. Bus stations, dozens of them, and billboards were destroyed. Protesters came with pickaxes and ripped the pavement on several streets to throw chunks of asphalt.
Demonstrators tried to burn down the largest textile store in Paris, near Barbès Rochechouart, because it carries a Jewish name, Dreyfus-Marché Saint Pierre. Clashes with police near this store were particularly violent.
Witnesses spoke of the atmosphere of a civil war, and photographers spoke of a "French intifada".
The slogans shouted by the rioters were the same as the previous week: "Death to Jews" mingled with "Death to Israel" and "Long live Hamas." Many who threw stones and Molotov cocktails shouted, "Allahu Akbar," just as the attackers of the synagogue on July 13 had done.
Even though there were no synagogues or Jews nearby, and no protester shouted, "Let's slay the Jews" or "Hitler was right," what happened in Paris on July 19 was as frightful as what had happened the week before.
This was also not the first time that a district of a French city was immersed in an atmosphere of civil war. In October 2005, entire neighborhoods in the suburbs of several major cities were set on fire. In 2010, two districts of Grenoble, in southeast France, were on fire for several days. In May 2013, the Trocadéro area in Paris was ransacked, and two months later, the city of Trappes, near Versailles, experienced hours of insurrection. Dozens of cars and shops were burned. The police precinct was attacked and under siege for hours.
The riots this month were, however, the first time that demonstrations resembling a civil war were carried by people who showed an explicit hatred of Jews and who said they identified with jihadi terrorists. This was the first time that riots in France looked like an Islamic uprising.
Although the events of July 13 and 19 had the support of "leftists" organizations, the vast majority of demonstrators and rioters were Muslims. The majority of the women wore Islamic headscarves. Most men wore a keffiyeh, the checkered Arab scarf, and used it to hide their faces the way Islamists do in the Middle East.
Many protesters on July 13 and 19 came with Palestinian flags, but the flags of Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda and Islamic State [IS], also present, were proudly waved.
The day after the riots, July 20, Prime Minister Manuel Valls again denounced the "danger of anti-Semitism". July 20th was also the anniversary of the "Vel d'Hiv Round-up" -- the mass arrest of Jews in Paris in 1942 by the French police under the supervision of the Nazis. But Valls said nothing about the anti-Semitic and jihadist dimension of the riots. Some conservative politicians criticized the lack of firmness of the government. Leaders of the rightist National Front said that the government was responsible for the violence and had undermined "freedom of expression."
At the exact moment Manuel Valls spoke, rioters started to ransack the suburb with the largest Jewish population on the outskirts of Paris: Sarcelles. All the Jewish stores and many cars were wrecked or set on fire. A group shouting "Allahu Akbar" again tried to burn the town's synagogue. Again, most rioters were Muslim. Again, most shouted, "Death to the Jews."
All French politicians are ready to condemn anti-Semitism in general terms (except members of the National Front); none are ready to call the anti-Semitism that is exploding in France today by its name: Islamic anti-Semitism.
All French politicians, left or right (except members of the National Front), have the same attitude about what happened on July 13, 19 and 20. This attitude can be summed up in one sentence, used by the French President, François Hollande: "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot import itself into France." No French politician would dare say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is already present in France, and that, among Muslim populations, Islamic anti-Semitism is inextricably mixed with an absolute hatred of Israel and Jews.
Almost all French politicians adopt an attitude of appeasement toward the enemies of Israel and Jews. They never define Hamas as an Islamic terrorist organization. They close their eyes to the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hate speech disseminated by the enemies of Israel in the Middle East, and to the irony that France finances that speech. They act as if they did not see that the hate speech France finances in the Middle East is now spreading throughout France.
The major French media have not said a word about the anti-Semitism and jihadism that permeated the protest of July 13 and the riots of July 19 and 20. All major French television reports of these events presented the protesters and rioters as people who had just wanted to support the "liberation of the Palestinian people". All reports major French television reports on Israel's war against Hamas are made from the point of view of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. No report speaks of Hamas's genocidal Jew hatred or of the use of Arab women and children as human shields. Journalists from major French media outlets act as if they did not know that by adopting a watered-down vision of the protesters and rioters in France, and by describing the war from the point of view of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, they are playing a dangerous game that could lead to more pogroms and even civil war.
The attitude of French politicians reflects the sorry state of French society. All the riots that erupted in France during the last decade were the result of minor incidents, but showed that France is on the verge of a large-scale explosion. French politicians want to avoid a large-scale explosion. They are scared and paralyzed.
French politicians also know that France's Muslim population now amounts to 15% of its total population and that radical Islamist organizations are particularly well established. The Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is the main French Muslim organization; it attracts tens of thousands of people in each of its annual meetings and openly lends political support to Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. French politicians do not want a confrontation with the UOIF.
French politicians also know that more than 750 neighborhoods in France are considered "no go zones" by the police, and that the authorities have lost control of them.
They also know that 70% of all inmates in the French prison system are Muslim , and that self-proclaimed imams and gang leaders have taken over many prisons. They know that these prisons have been transformed into recruiting centers for jihadists, and that regaining control of these prisons is an almost impossible task. Mohamed Merah and Mehdi Nemmouche, the Brussels Jewish Museum killer, became jihadists while in French prisons.
French politicians know, as well, that more than 800 French Muslims are being trained in the Islamic State, in Iraq and Syria.
They know that Muslims vote. Eight million Muslims clearly have greater political weight than do four hundred thousand Jews.
The major French media are also scared and paralyzed. Criticizing radical Islam on French television is now almost impossible. Organizations fighting "Islamophobia" are extremely vigilant and extremely well funded.
Defending Israel on French television is also almost impossible. Members of the Israeli government are never interviewed on French television. Representatives of Palestinian and "pro-Palestinian" organizations are regularly invited and can lie without ever being contradicted.
Reports on right-wing anti-Semitism are abundant. Reports on Islamic Jew-hatred are non-existent.
The Global Anti-Semitism Index recently published by the Anti Defamation League shows that 37% of the French population can be considered anti-Semitic. It is likely that the proportion of anti-Semites among French Muslims is far higher.
A poll for the BBC in 2012 showed that 75% of the French have a negative view of Israel. It is likely that the proportion among French Muslims is, again, far higher.
The prevalent sentiment among French Jews is that a page has been turned. The French Jewish philosopher Shmuel Trigano wrote on July 16th that what is happening is a sign that Jews must leave France, fast. "Recent events are likely to play the role that such events have played in the past for the Jews in many countries: a strong symbolic event gives the signal that the Jews have no future in the country that was theirs".
The prevalent sentiment among French people in general was described by a survey published in January 2014: 74% of the French declared themselves "pessimistic" or "very pessimistic" about the future of the country. 63% said they believe that Islam is "not compatible with the values of a democratic society." 78% said they "distrust" all politicians. 77% said they consider that the information provided by the media is "unreliable."
The words of most of the French politicians could not have strengthened the confidence the French have in their politicians.
The behavior of most French journalists could not have increased the credibility the French have in their media.
And the events that took place in Paris on July 13, 19 and 20 could not have made the French less pessimistic and more confident about the compatibility of Islam with the values of democracy.
Most recently, on July 23, an anti-Israeli protest was organized in Paris. This time, the protest was not banned. It brought together 10,000-20,000 people. 15,000 police officers were present. Thirty socialist MPs were present among the protesters. The media said it was a "peaceful protest." People shouted, "Hamas, Jihad, Resistance." Nazi-era anti-Semitic cartoons appeared on large panels. Again, groups of protesters finished their day at the rue des Rosiers and attacked Jewish shops. Some "peaceful protest".
On July 21, Meyer Habib, a MP representing French citizens living in Israel, said that "an atmosphere of Kristallnacht" spreads over the country. Many French Jews agree.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
The Savagery is there for the world to see
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
From the horrors in Iraq and Syria to the violence in the streets of European cities, the burning of Jewish stores, the attacks on synagogues, and calls for Jewish blood, the world has been getting a steady diet of Islamic violence for years now, and it is only getting worse. The last remaining Christians are being killed or driven out of majority Muslim lands. The Jews in Israel are only safe from a second Holocaust because they are militarily strong enough to crush their Arab enemies. Jews in Europe are not so lucky. Their situation now is reminiscent of Europe in the late 1930s. It is not so much the native Europeans who are tormenting them as it is the large and restive Muslim populations, but the Europeans are guilty because they are tolerating the outrages.
Meanwhile, Muslim radicals like Anjem Choudary in the UK are loudly promising to establish an Islamic caliphate that will take over Europe and establish Islamic law under Sharia. Yet, much like Adolf Hitler in the 1920s and early 1930s, nobody wants to take these characters at their word. Political correctness is the order of the day. It is so much more comfortable to just maintain that they have hijacked their religion.
They have not hijacked anything. What they are doing is implementing Islam as a political ideology as it was always meant to be since the days of Mohammad. Islam was never designed to live in harmony with other religions at least after Mohammad was driven from Mecca to Medina. It was meant to conquer and to dominate. The so-called moderate Muslims cannot step up and challenge the Islamists head on. Why not?
For one thing, they know that they would lose the theological debate. When you delve into the Koran and the hadiths and the life of the Prophet, it is the Yusuf al Qaradawis of the world who have it exactly right.
Unlike our stealth jihadists and so-called moderate imams in the US like Muzammil Siddiqi, who hide behind a veneer of gentleness and inter-faith events, Qaradawi sits in Qatar and openly expresses his hatred for the Jews and his desire to die fighting the infidel, He openly says that Islam must continue to enforce the death penalty for apostates or it would not survive. Qaradawi is one of the most esteemed Islamic scholars in the Islamic world. He is also the spiritual mentor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, his native country. And since he does not live in the West, he doesn't have to worry about offending anybody.
Secondly, peaceful Muslims risk death if they really stand up and fight against the Jihadists and the Islamists. They risk being declared apostates and blasphemers if they argue against what is written in the texts.
Yet the Muzammil Siddiqis of the world keep telling us that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance not withstanding the daily horrors that go on around the world and the thousands of deaths that continue to pile up. As I have said repeatedly, most Muslims live their lives peacefully and can get along with non-Muslims at least in countries in which they are the minority. But if Islam is truly a religion of peace, which we would like to believe, why all the violence and hatred toward Jews and Christians?
Why are Sunnis and Shia killing each other over who should have been the rightful successor to Mohammad when he died in the 7th century?
Why is it a crime punishable by death to leave Islam or to criticize it?
At what point do we say, "Sorry all you decent peaceful Muslims, but we have to call it what it is."
We also have to call the current crisis in Gaza and the reaction to it for what it is. It is unbridled Jew hatred, no matter how much they deny it. Here in the US, they feel they have to deny it. Instead, they say they are "anti-Zionist". Hogwash. They will not accept Israel because it is Jewish.
And look at the protests we see all over the world. While pro-Israel demonstrators are peaceful and hold Israeli flags and their own national flags, the pro-Palestinian protesters hold Palestinian flags and even the flags of Jihad, Hamas or Hezbollah. In Berlin, they shout, "Jews to the Gas Chambers." And more often than not they are violent. They cannot control themselves.
I know there are so many decent and peaceful Muslims who are embarrassed by all this. However, they almost all remain silent. I fervently hope that they do not suffer backlash just for being Muslim. That is against what we stand for here in America. However, we cannot remain silent for risk of offending them. Their silence or their excuses and explanations have made them irrelevant to the issue that must be discussed. We must speak out against this savagery, and we must not be afraid to explain why these things are happening. We should not be tolerating this is our own countries. As far as those countries where Islam rules, they should be isolated by the rest of the world. No trade. No relations. No immigration. No aid. No nothing until the madness stops.
That would be truly protecting the human rights of our own people.
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
From the horrors in Iraq and Syria to the violence in the streets of European cities, the burning of Jewish stores, the attacks on synagogues, and calls for Jewish blood, the world has been getting a steady diet of Islamic violence for years now, and it is only getting worse. The last remaining Christians are being killed or driven out of majority Muslim lands. The Jews in Israel are only safe from a second Holocaust because they are militarily strong enough to crush their Arab enemies. Jews in Europe are not so lucky. Their situation now is reminiscent of Europe in the late 1930s. It is not so much the native Europeans who are tormenting them as it is the large and restive Muslim populations, but the Europeans are guilty because they are tolerating the outrages.
Meanwhile, Muslim radicals like Anjem Choudary in the UK are loudly promising to establish an Islamic caliphate that will take over Europe and establish Islamic law under Sharia. Yet, much like Adolf Hitler in the 1920s and early 1930s, nobody wants to take these characters at their word. Political correctness is the order of the day. It is so much more comfortable to just maintain that they have hijacked their religion.
They have not hijacked anything. What they are doing is implementing Islam as a political ideology as it was always meant to be since the days of Mohammad. Islam was never designed to live in harmony with other religions at least after Mohammad was driven from Mecca to Medina. It was meant to conquer and to dominate. The so-called moderate Muslims cannot step up and challenge the Islamists head on. Why not?
For one thing, they know that they would lose the theological debate. When you delve into the Koran and the hadiths and the life of the Prophet, it is the Yusuf al Qaradawis of the world who have it exactly right.
Unlike our stealth jihadists and so-called moderate imams in the US like Muzammil Siddiqi, who hide behind a veneer of gentleness and inter-faith events, Qaradawi sits in Qatar and openly expresses his hatred for the Jews and his desire to die fighting the infidel, He openly says that Islam must continue to enforce the death penalty for apostates or it would not survive. Qaradawi is one of the most esteemed Islamic scholars in the Islamic world. He is also the spiritual mentor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, his native country. And since he does not live in the West, he doesn't have to worry about offending anybody.
Secondly, peaceful Muslims risk death if they really stand up and fight against the Jihadists and the Islamists. They risk being declared apostates and blasphemers if they argue against what is written in the texts.
Yet the Muzammil Siddiqis of the world keep telling us that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance not withstanding the daily horrors that go on around the world and the thousands of deaths that continue to pile up. As I have said repeatedly, most Muslims live their lives peacefully and can get along with non-Muslims at least in countries in which they are the minority. But if Islam is truly a religion of peace, which we would like to believe, why all the violence and hatred toward Jews and Christians?
Why are Sunnis and Shia killing each other over who should have been the rightful successor to Mohammad when he died in the 7th century?
Why is it a crime punishable by death to leave Islam or to criticize it?
At what point do we say, "Sorry all you decent peaceful Muslims, but we have to call it what it is."
We also have to call the current crisis in Gaza and the reaction to it for what it is. It is unbridled Jew hatred, no matter how much they deny it. Here in the US, they feel they have to deny it. Instead, they say they are "anti-Zionist". Hogwash. They will not accept Israel because it is Jewish.
And look at the protests we see all over the world. While pro-Israel demonstrators are peaceful and hold Israeli flags and their own national flags, the pro-Palestinian protesters hold Palestinian flags and even the flags of Jihad, Hamas or Hezbollah. In Berlin, they shout, "Jews to the Gas Chambers." And more often than not they are violent. They cannot control themselves.
I know there are so many decent and peaceful Muslims who are embarrassed by all this. However, they almost all remain silent. I fervently hope that they do not suffer backlash just for being Muslim. That is against what we stand for here in America. However, we cannot remain silent for risk of offending them. Their silence or their excuses and explanations have made them irrelevant to the issue that must be discussed. We must speak out against this savagery, and we must not be afraid to explain why these things are happening. We should not be tolerating this is our own countries. As far as those countries where Islam rules, they should be isolated by the rest of the world. No trade. No relations. No immigration. No aid. No nothing until the madness stops.
That would be truly protecting the human rights of our own people.
Hamas Mega-Attack Planned Through Gaza Terror Tunnels
Hamas had apparently been preparing a murderous assault on Israeli civilian targets for the coming Jewish New Year Holiday, Rosh Hashanah, which begins on September 24, according anonymous sources in the Israeli security services, as reported today by the Israeli daily Maariv.
The Hamas plan consisted of what was to be a surprise attack in which 200 fighters would be dispatched through each of dozens of tunnels dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza to Israel, and seize kibbutzim and other communities while killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians.
Israeli soldiers already frustrated a surprise assault by Hamas through one tunnel from Gaza into the Eshkol district of Israel on July 19. The Hamas fighters escaped back into the tunnel, but the clash cost the lives of two Israel Defense Force [IDF] troops.
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| An IDF paratrooper officer emerges from a Hamas cross-border tunnel that his unit discovered, July 20, 2014. (Image source: IDF) |
Friday, July 25, 2014
Iron Dome - How ISRAEL Intercepts Air-To-Ground Rockets From GAZA STRIP
Hat Tip to Israel Matzav
Rafael is going to be selling thousands of these systems after Operation Protective Edge.
Click here if the video fails to load.
"Iron Dome", an Anti Missile system, developed by Rafael. This high-technology system can intercepts an enemy missile targeted to hit a civilian city, or any other ground area.
Rafael is going to be selling thousands of these systems after Operation Protective Edge.
Click here if the video fails to load.
"Iron Dome", an Anti Missile system, developed by Rafael. This high-technology system can intercepts an enemy missile targeted to hit a civilian city, or any other ground area.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Wednesday's Hero
This Post Was Suggested By SJ
The Forgotten 14
Samuel Gerald Dean, Edward Joseph Wolbers, Radamés E. Cáceres, Douglas Laurent Dauphin, Bert Garland Sauls Jr., Kenneth N. Markle, Louis Karp, James Henry Henderson, Douglas Vincent Schmoker, Howard George Sewell, George M. Durrett, Robert H. Watson, Harold Edwin Richards & James Dixon Fore
December 22nd, 1943
Three days before Christmas in 1943, two hours past midnight, 14 men climbed into an airplane and lifted into the dark sky over the slumbering hamlet of West Palm Beach. Their journey lasted but a few moments, and killed every one of them.
You can read more here and here
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Samuel Gerald Dean, Edward Joseph Wolbers, Radamés E. Cáceres, Douglas Laurent Dauphin, Bert Garland Sauls Jr., Kenneth N. Markle, Louis Karp, James Henry Henderson, Douglas Vincent Schmoker, Howard George Sewell, George M. Durrett, Robert H. Watson, Harold Edwin Richards & James Dixon Fore
December 22nd, 1943
Three days before Christmas in 1943, two hours past midnight, 14 men climbed into an airplane and lifted into the dark sky over the slumbering hamlet of West Palm Beach. Their journey lasted but a few moments, and killed every one of them.
You can read more here and here
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.
Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
How the Saudis Are Covering the War
Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
-Arab News
Protest in Berlin
The Saudi English news organ, Arab News has an article covering the fighting in Gaza, which unsurprisingly "tilts" to the Palestinian narrative, you might say. Note the accompanying photo which is from a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin.
http://www.arabnews.com/news/605446
As for the photo, this is not only an image that conjures up the old anti-Semitic canard that Jews kill and devour the blood of Gentile children, but it is also reminiscent of the notorious anti-Jewish weekly from Nazi Germany, "Der Stuermer", whose editor was none other than the infamous Jew-baiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher.
Well, somewhere the executed Nazi must be smiling to see an image like that back in Germany.
Images like that are commonplace in the Arab world even in the mainstream media. However, in Germany, Nazi or Nazi-like images are illegal. One would hope that the justice minister in Germany would take a close look at that image and compare it to the one immediately above.
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com
-Arab News
Protest in Berlin
The Saudi English news organ, Arab News has an article covering the fighting in Gaza, which unsurprisingly "tilts" to the Palestinian narrative, you might say. Note the accompanying photo which is from a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin.
http://www.arabnews.com/news/605446
As for the photo, this is not only an image that conjures up the old anti-Semitic canard that Jews kill and devour the blood of Gentile children, but it is also reminiscent of the notorious anti-Jewish weekly from Nazi Germany, "Der Stuermer", whose editor was none other than the infamous Jew-baiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher.
Well, somewhere the executed Nazi must be smiling to see an image like that back in Germany.
Images like that are commonplace in the Arab world even in the mainstream media. However, in Germany, Nazi or Nazi-like images are illegal. One would hope that the justice minister in Germany would take a close look at that image and compare it to the one immediately above.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
What If Hamas Had Military Superiority?
From the Gatestone Institute
Would Hamas have tailored its air targeting to avoid as much as possible innocents from becoming casualties? Would Hamas have dropped millions of leaflets to warn civilian residents before staging bombing runs? Or made tens of thousands of phone calls telling non-combatants to flee the areas which are to be attacked, or discriminated between combatants and non-combatants in a ground war, or abided by the Geneva Conventions' rules for the treatment of prisoners of war?
Would the group have arrested the Hamas operatives who murderer Israeli civilians, or investigated "mistakes" that resulted in civilian casualties?
BR> The American media, by drawing almost exclusive attention to the wide difference in casualties between Gaza and Israel -- a disparity that did not ensue from Hamas's lack of trying -- do a disservice to humane people on the front line of a global war between Islamic extremists and liberal-democratic civilization.
The media also does not mention that Hamas leaders have set up their military headquarters beneath hospitals and established arms storerooms in homes, mosques and even in an empty UNRWA school. Journalists do not discuss the Hamas tactic of regularly mixing their operatives with the women and children of their own families. This is the intentional use of innocents as human shields and as hostages, to serve their propaganda objective of casting Israel in the role of aggressor and villain. The media networks leave this narrative to Israeli diplomats and spokespersons.
But the faint rhetorical support of an ally from U.S. leaders is cowardly and a disingenuous insult to the intelligence of the American people who are not swayed by the phony handwringing of its so-called intelligentsia.
Would Hamas have tailored its air targeting to avoid as much as possible innocents from becoming casualties? Would Hamas have dropped millions of leaflets to warn civilian residents before staging bombing runs? Or made tens of thousands of phone calls telling non-combatants to flee the areas which are to be attacked, or discriminated between combatants and non-combatants in a ground war, or abided by the Geneva Conventions' rules for the treatment of prisoners of war?
Would the group have arrested the Hamas operatives who murderer Israeli civilians, or investigated "mistakes" that resulted in civilian casualties?
 | ||||||
| A children's health clinic in Ashkelon, Israel, that was hit this week by a rocket launched from Gaza. (Image source: IDF) |
BR> The American media, by drawing almost exclusive attention to the wide difference in casualties between Gaza and Israel -- a disparity that did not ensue from Hamas's lack of trying -- do a disservice to humane people on the front line of a global war between Islamic extremists and liberal-democratic civilization.
The media also does not mention that Hamas leaders have set up their military headquarters beneath hospitals and established arms storerooms in homes, mosques and even in an empty UNRWA school. Journalists do not discuss the Hamas tactic of regularly mixing their operatives with the women and children of their own families. This is the intentional use of innocents as human shields and as hostages, to serve their propaganda objective of casting Israel in the role of aggressor and villain. The media networks leave this narrative to Israeli diplomats and spokespersons.
But the faint rhetorical support of an ally from U.S. leaders is cowardly and a disingenuous insult to the intelligence of the American people who are not swayed by the phony handwringing of its so-called intelligentsia.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Prayers For The Idf
Yesterday Hamas tried to invade a border Kibbutz in Israel, find the children's home and kill the children. Israel has decided to stop Hamas once and for all.
No nation would allow tunnels to be built under their border and neither does Israel.
Click here if the video fails to load.
No nation would allow tunnels to be built under their border and neither does Israel.
Prayer For The IDFHu Yivarech - A Song for the IDF Soldiers - by DOV
He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.
May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.
May He lead our enemies under our soldiers’ sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.
Now let us respond: Amen.
Click here if the video fails to load.
Am Yisrael Chai!!!!
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