Saturday, August 29, 2015

Dividing the Arabs: America and Europe's Double Game - Bassam Tawil



by Bassam Tawil

  • Iran is on its way in a few years to having nuclear weapons capability. The breakout time, according to President Obama, would effectively be "zero." Iran could then make as many bombs as it would like, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles to delver them to major American cities, directly from Iran, from South America, or -- making identification and retaliation impossible -- from submarines submerged off the U.S. coast.
  • Obama with one hand allows Iran to glide to nuclear capability and encourage the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamist terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula -- while with the other hand, he claims to support Israel.
  • Qatar's role is duplicitous. It plays host to U.S. military bases at the same time that it funds and supports ISIS.
  • Hamas, since last year's war, has chosen to use its scant resources to rebuild its kidnapping tunnels and war capability, instead of developing businesses and turning the Gaza Strip into a magnificent Arab Riviera, as Dubai has become. Hamas's failure does not come from a lack of resources; it comes from a deliberate choice of how to use them.
  • The Iranians, in opposing American policy, which is a tissue of amateur plans and plots, are flexible and exploit Islam's taqiyya [dissimulation] -- religious approval to lie in the cause of Allah and to further Islam. However, they are not even bothering with that, they are telling the truth: "Death to America; Death to Israel."

The United States is playing a double game in the Middle East: empowering Shiite Iran, while at the same time enabling Sunni ISIS to overthrow the moderate Arab regimes, as if to stop Iran.

The Americans are well aware that the Sunni Arab countries around Iran will now have to arm themselves to the teeth, thereby gutting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

America, despite its power and the image it projects of working against ISIS in Iraq, does not touch ISIS in its real headquarters, Syria, where ISIS actually could actually be hurt. So nothing really changes, and both Iran and ISIS continue to strengthen.

Even as the members the UN Security Council, eager do business with Iran, voted to allow Iran to build nuclear weapons, the Iranians continue to fund Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip -- all Iranian proxies -- in order to split the Arab ranks.

In other words, the hypocritical Obama administration, in backing the Iranians, keeps trying to sabotage the Arabs and provoke dissension.

The U.S. "divide-and-conquer" policy can also be seen in America's ongoing support for Turkey and Qatar, both loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey and Qatar, however, do nothing but foment incitement and support terrorist organizations. Both countries have totally abandoned the real existential interest of the Arab nation: its historic battle against Iran.

Qatar's role is duplicitous. It plays host to U.S. military bases at the same time that it funds and supports ISIS, which is working against the West and against moderate Arab regimes.

The worst, however, is Turkey, which supports ISIS -- the enemy of the West -- despite Turkey being a member of NATO. Turkey also expends inordinate efforts at retaining its control of occupied Cyprus. Above all, its hypocrisy is scandalous. While it claims to care about the independence and human rights of the Palestinians, Turkey is really nothing but a radical Islamist country now denying independence and human rights to its own Kurdish citizens. At the same time, it supports Hamas and Iran in their effort to crush the unity of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the PLO as the only legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.

Turkey, like many other nations, including the countries that negotiated with Iran, is just waiting for the sanctions to be lifted from Iran, so that its dubious military and economic relations with the Mullahs will finally be acceptable.

Turkey and Qatar have also divided the Sunni Islamic camp and fragmented the Arab ranks. Both countries give the Palestinians political support, the deluded hope of "return," and funding that is used for rebuilding Hamas's military capabilities and kidnapping tunnels.

It is both folly and underhandedness for the United States to provide these countries with even a tattered umbrella of military aid.

Not only the U.S. but Europe, which supports Iran, would like to see Hamas -- a terrorist offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood -- become stronger at the expense of the Palestinian people.

Europe would like to empower Hamas even further by handing it diplomatic and political support. There are rumors that the UN is planning to grant Hamas observer status in the General Assembly, as it did the Palestinian Authority.

We all know that the issue of Palestine could have been resolved long ago by establishing a demilitarized Palestinian state next to Israel, and giving the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees living in the Arab states full citizenship. But the manipulations employed by the Europeans and Americans deliberately perpetuate the Palestinian issue by using "good cop - bad cop" tactics.
Europe and the U.S. whitewash not only Hamas's threats to Israel, but also, more importantly, its deadly subversion of Palestinian Authority. Both Europe and America totally disregard Hamas's planned coup against PA leader Mahmoud Abbas last year, Hamas's war crimes in the Gaza Strip, and the unspeakable treatment of its own people at home. Only one year ago, Hamas was murdering its own citizens extra-judicially, and ordering them to be cannon fodder for the benefit of international television crews.

Hamas, since then, has chosen to use its scant resources to rebuild its kidnapping tunnels and war capability, instead of to develop businesses and turn the Gaza Strip into a magnificent Arab Riviera, as Dubai has become. Hamas's failure does not come from a lack of resources; it comes from a deliberate choice of how to use them.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are now operating against Egypt and Israel not only from the Gaza Strip, but from the Sinai Peninsula as well. Thus, in addition to allowing Iran to sail to nuclear weapons capability, President Obama encourages the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula with one hand, while with the other hand he claims to support Israel.

After all is said and done, if we Arabs had joined ranks -- even temporarily and even with Israel -- we could have long ago put a stop to Iran's plans for expansion.

But because of our own shortsightedness, we waited too long and now the Iranians have established footholds in the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, and are increasing their control of Arab states such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Iran is on its way in a few years to having nuclear weapons capability. The breakout time, according to President Obama, would effectively be "zero." Iran could then make as many bombs as it would like, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles to delver them to the major cities of the "Great Satan," the United States, directly from Iran, from South America, or -- making identification and retaliation impossible -- from submarines submerged off the U.S. coast.

The Iranians, in opposing American policy, which is a tissue of amateur plans and plots, are flexible and exploit Islam's taqiyya [dissimulation] -- religious approval to lie in the cause of Allah and to further Islam. However, they are not even bothering with that, they are telling the truth: "Death to America; Death to Israel."

U.S. President Barack Obama (left). Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (right).

By this point, near the end of the process of Sunni Muslim self-destruction, a large part of the Arabs' energy has been wasted on internal wars and the misallocation of resources to the barren, useless confrontation with Israel, even while many Arab states secretly collaborate with the Zionists.

All that will be left for the Arabs will be to continue to argue among themselves and with the Israelis about the Palestinian issue. We should instead stop the distractions and the wounds we are inflicting upon ourselves, and put the Palestinian problem behind us by granting equal rights and citizenship to Palestinians residing in Arab countries, in order to shift our focus totally, if belatedly, to the real battle: The Islamic Republic of Iran.
 
 
Bassam Tawil is based in the Middle East.
Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6352/dividing-arabs

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Can the Iran Deal Be Stopped? The Chance is Slim to None - Karin McQuillan



by Karin McQuillan

Obama will get his veto-proof vote.  He will be allowed to capitulate to Iran, with $120 billion thrown in for them to splurge on terror to their heart’s content.  We will allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and purchase ICBM missiles that can reach America. 

I asked this question to Senator Cruz last week when he was in my town for a stump speech and fundraiser.  The answer was as disappointing as it was swift:  No.  There are not enough Democrats willing to put love of country ahead of partisan politics.

Donald Trump has not helped.  He is sucking up all the media attention, and Iran is not important to him.  In Trumps stump speeches, Iran is just one in a list of deals he could have done better.  In the crucial few weeks leading up to the Iran vote, the Donald is helping to lull the public into complacency on Iran.  This is very damaging to America and Israel, despite all of Trump’s professions of love.

Obama will get his veto-proof vote.  He will be allowed to capitulate to Iran, with $120 billion thrown in for them to splurge on terror to their heart’s content.  We will allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and purchase ICBM missiles that can reach America.    We will give birth to a Shi’ite-Sunni nuclear arms race.  We will sow this whirlwind and live with the consequence for years. Because Democrats in Congress will give Obama their votes.

I understand Obama very well – he is a leftist hater who wants America (and Israel) punished and whittled down to size.  But almost half our nation are Democrats.  Not every Democrat in Congress is as radical as Obama.  Few of them share his personal history and characterological problems.  Why aren’t they standing up to him?  

Even if all these pols care about is naked self-interest, surely they can see past this month to the voters’ wrath.  Aren’t they afraid of the political damage that will follow the explosion of Iranian terror and mayhem that will follow this ‘deal’?   They lived through Obamacare and saw how Obama survived the citizens’ wrath just fine, while Democrats throughout the country saw themselves booted out of office, from State House to the Governor’s office to Congress.  Yet they are willing to jump off the cliff for Obama again.  What is going on?  Is it just desperation to keep blacks voting as a block for Democrats?  Are they being bought off by Obama and the Iranians?

A friend had this explanation, which I thought was insightful.  The entire Democratic Party from top to bottom is made of niche interest groups who are bought off by having their narrow self-interest promoted above the interests of the country.  The feminists get abortion without limit at the price of infanticide.  The gays get gay marriage at the price of religious freedom.  The teacher unions get lifetime job security at the price of lousy schools.  The government bureaucrats get outsize salary/benefit/pension packages at the price of bankrupting the country.   The race hustlers get the President fomenting racial hatred, at the price of people’s lives.  Those dependent on the government teat get more and more stuff and a blind eye to fraud, while the economy sinks under our debt.    The environmentalists and Silicon Valley get subsidies for green energy and EPA attacks on our energy industry, at the price of energy security and blue collar jobs.  The Hispanic activists get illegal immigration, at the cost of good salaries and jobs for citizens.  Hollywood and liberal Jews and academia get entry to the jobs and cocktail parties controlled by punitive, blacklisting, fellow liberals.  And they all get to feel superior and sanctimonious at the same time by libeling conservatives as uncaring, racist, morons. 

Each Democrat voting block cares only about themselves. That is the essence of the Democratic Party.  

No wonder Democrats easy to buy off on Iran.  Not one part of the Democrat voting bloc cares about national security, stability in the Middle East, Israel, or the dangers of a Sunni-Shite arms race.  For most of them patriotism is so passé, so flyover country.  They only care about getting their own perks.  They are dreamers who believe their own B.S. about how beautiful the world will be once America stops being aggressive.  So why should their representatives in Congress care about Obama’s insane handing over of the Middle East to Iran?   

Does that mean there is nothing to be done until a Republican President takes office?  I have scoured the media for ideas on what Congress can do to try and stop this so-called ‘deal.’   Here are the ideas being floated.  Most of them seem to me to be DOA, with no chance of getting a veto proof majority.  But why aren’t we hearing leadership and better ideas from our Republican leaders?

·       Congress could pass a bill to reauthorize sanctions
Every state and firm considering business opportunities with Tehran will have to weigh them against the opportunity cost of being barred from doing business with the US.
·       Reps. Grace Meng (D-Queens) and Lee Zeldin (R-LI), members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in the N.Y. Post that Congress should vote to approve bunker buster bombs for Israel.  

·       House and Senate Members should pass a concurrent resolution deeming that for Congress’s internal purposes, the Iran deal is a treaty that requires a two thirds vote to pass.
The Iran deal includes secret side-agreements the Obama administration appears to have deliberately withheld from Congress. That move is a prima facie violation of Corker-Cardin….
·      Congress can condition the Iran deal’s legal stature on the passage of enabling legislation – that requires simple majorities in both houses.  Dan Darling, foreign policy adviser to … Rand Paul wrote Monday that senators can use Senate procedure to force the Foreign Relations Committee to act in this manner.   
·      State legislatures can pass their own sanctions against Iran.  An executive agreement, unlike a treaty, is not binding on the states.  This would apply only to state business and pension fund investment.
At the end of the day, the problem with the Democrats in Congress is that they have not been hearing from their constituents.  Will this change in the last few weeks?
The most powerful voices lobbying against the deal have been coming from the military.
Obama could only get 36 retired US generals to sign a petition in favor of his ‘deal.’  This week, a group of five citizen volunteers in a few days got a letter signed by 190 US generals and admirals that will be handed to every member in Congress.  The letter reads in part:
In our judgment as former senior military officers, the agreement will not have that effect (preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons).  Removing sanctions on Iran and releasing billions of dollars to its regime over the next ten years is inimical to the security of Israel and the Middle East.  There is no credibility within JCPOA’s inspection process or the ability to snap back sanctions once lifted, should Iran violate the agreement. In this and other respects, the JCPOA would threaten the national security and vital interests of the United States and, therefore, should be disapproved by the Congress. 
The agreement as constructed does not “cut off every pathway” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.  To the contrary, it actually provides Iran with a legitimate path to doing that simply by abiding by the deal.
…The agreement is unverifiable.  Under the terms of the JCPOA and a secret side deal (to which the United States is not privy), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be responsible for inspections under such severe limitations as to prevent them from reliably detecting Iranian cheating.
It’s not just generals.  American vets are speaking out about the Iran capitulation.  In some states, they have been helped with organizing and funding to produce very moving videos.  This can and should be done in every state with traitorous Democrat Congressman.
We can’t wait for Democrats to step up and stop the Iran Deal.  They don’t care enough about America to do it.  We can’t wait for our Republican politicians – as they did with Obamacare, they console themselves the world will go up in flames and tens or hundreds of thousands die, but Democrats will be punished at the polls next November.  That is not good enough.
What else can be done by each and every one of us?  If all those blue state Senators and Congressmen heard from their constituents, they might remember the fate of those who voted for Obamacare.  Tragically, the public is asleep as an Iranian nightmare is being loosed upon the world by our own fellow citizens and politicians. 
Update:
From NBC Call it a public display of political affection: Sen. Ted Cruz has invited Donald Trump to Washington next month for a rally against the Iran nuclear deal.

The two Republican rivals are set to appear at an event organized by the Tea Party Patriots, the Center for Security Politics, and the Zionist Organization of America, according to the Cruz campaign.

Mort Klein, the ZOA president, said the rally has been in the works for weeks, though Trump's inclusion is a relatively new development.

"I think it's of great value to have a person who will likely command coverage of this rally, of this issue, like Donald Trump would be able to," he said. "I think it's a good thing. I don't care if he sucks the air out of the room."

Klein, who said the rally is tentatively set for September 9th, continued: "Maybe [Trump] will be covered more than anyone else at the rally. Fine. The issue's all that matters to me, and getting it covered, and trying to stop this disaster for our country."

Karin McQuillan

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/can_the_iran_deal_be_stopped_the_chance_is_slim_to_none.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Iran may have built extension at nuclear site, says UN watchdog - News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff



by News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report says Iran has built "a small extension to an existing building" at Parchin nuclear site • "Iran doesn't need to ask for the IAEA's permission to do construction work on its sites," says Iranian envoy.

The Parchin military site in Iran
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Photo credit: AP


News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=27907

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Thomas Friedman’s Entire Career Is Built on a Lie - Benjamin Korn



by Benjamin Korn

Friedman sees no difference between Israeli and Syrian policy regarding civilian casualties. Israel drops warning leaflets in neighborhoods it plans to strike; individually telephones residents of apartment buildings in the area; and cancels bombing raids if civilians are likely to be harmed. Meanwhile, Syria slaughters people anywhere, anytime, with whatever weapons it has handy. But it’s all the same to Thomas Friedman.



Israeli Army officials are reportedly furious that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has accused the IDF of massacring Arab civilians. But what else is new? After all, Friedman’s entire career has been built on lying about Israel — including rewriting his own biography in order to smear the Jewish State.

In his August 12, 2015 column, Friedman wrote: “Israel plays, when it has to, by what I’ve called ‘Hama rules’ — war without mercy…it will not be deterred by the threat of civilian Arab casualties…”

The Times of Israel notes that, “While the term ‘Hama Rules’ itself comes from Friedman’s book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, in his new article he offered no history of the event or explanation for the comparison, apparently assuming the reader would understand the context.”

(For the reader’s edification, this is the story of Hama that Friedman refers to and has the gall to tell an absolute lie comparing it to the benign way in which Israel treats its Arab citizens.)

“The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian Arab Army under the orders of the country’s then-dictator, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, besieged the town of Hama for 27 days in order to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood against al-Assad’s government. Estimates vary, with the number varying between 10,000 – 20,000 Syrians killed. About 1,000 Syrian soldiers were killed during the operation and large parts of the old city were destroyed. The attack has been described as one of “the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East”. The vast majority of the victims were civilians.)” From: Wikipedia

Friedman’s sense of self-importance is legendary; evidently he assumes that everyone has read and memorized his book. But for those who have not, the term “Hama Rules” was his little nickname for the policy of then-Syrian tyrant Hafez Assad, when he massacred tens of thousands of civilians in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982.

So, Friedman sees no difference between Israeli and Syrian policy regarding civilian casualties. Israel drops warning leaflets in neighborhoods it plans to strike; individually telephones residents of apartment buildings in the area; and cancels bombing raids if civilians are likely to be harmed. Meanwhile, Syria slaughters people anywhere, anytime, with whatever weapons it has handy. But it’s all the same to Thomas Friedman.

But such lies should not surprise anyone familiar with Friedman’s track record.

He was a junior reporter on the New York Times staff when he was sent to cover the Israel-Lebanon war in 1982. He was catapulted to fame by a series of articles blaming Israel for the Lebanese Christians’ killings of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, (itself a gross lie long ago discounted) which he then parlayed into a best-selling book, the aforementioned From Beirut to Jerusalem.

The major theme of the book, and of the many interviews he gave about his time in Lebanon, was disillusionment. He set out, he claimed, as a passionate supporter of Israel (“insufferably so”). He believed “that all the right [was] on one side, and all the wrong on the other, that Israel always behaves in a way that’s morally upstanding…I had seen Israel as a sort of utopian society…” But these illusions were shattered: “In my experiences as a reporter…I went through a period of disillusionment during my experience of Lebanon and Sabra and Shatilla.”

According to Friedman, it was Israel’s immoral behavior in Lebanon in 1982 that transformed him from a supporter of the Jewish state to one of its most outspoken critics. He bravely discovered the truth about the Israelis, and that gave him the moral credentials to pass judgement on Israel from then on — which is exactly what he proceeded to do, first as the Times‘s bureau chief in Jerusalem from 1984-1988, and from then on as a Times op-ed columnist.

But that was a lie.

Friedman did not become a critic of Israel in 1982. He was strongly pro-Palestinian at least eight years earlier, as a leader of a Brandeis University student organization called the “Middle East Peace Group.” 

When the arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, gun on his hip, spoke at the United Nations that fall, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin strongly protested and hundreds of thousands of outraged New Yorkers held a “Rally Against Terror.” Friedman and his Peace Group colleagues published an open letter in The Brandeis Justice (the student newspaper) on November 12, 1974, to denounce the rally and oppose Prime Minister Rabin’s stance.

Friedman and company declared that the anti-terror rally would “only reinforce Jewish anxiety and contribute to Israel’s further isolation.” They demanded that Prime Minister Rabin “negotiate with all factions of the Palestinians, including the PLO.” Keep in mind that this was at a time when the PLO was not even pretending to be moderate or willing to live in peace with Israel. Earlier that year, PLO terrorists had proudly slaughtered dozens of Israeli schoolchildren in the towns of Ma’alot and Kiryat Shemona.

When Friedman graduated from Brandeis, he left the Middle East Peace Group — but the Middle East Peace Group never left him. His news articles for the Times, and later his op-ed columns, consistently exhibited the same negative tilt against Israel.

Secretary of State James Baker, (of “F–k the Jews. They don’t for us anyway” infamy and now Jeb Bush’s foreign policy advisor!) in his autobiography, described how he and Friedman were tennis partners, and Friedman would give him suggestions on how to pressure Israel. He credited Friedman for the notorious episode in which Baker publicly humiliated Israel by announcing the White House phone number and declaring that the Israelis should call when they get serious about peace. No wonder the editors of The New Republic, in 1992, characterized Friedman as “the New York Times‘s State Department spokesman” and as part of “the James Baker Ministry of Information.”

Ultimately, all of Friedman’s writings on Israel are anchored in the myth of the “Disillusioned American Jewish Journalist.” All of his credibility as a commentator on Israeli-Palestinian affairs rests on the image he concocted in Lebanon. Brian Williams recently lost his job as anchor of the NBC Nightly News because he falsified his war correspondent experiences. Thomas Friedman should be judged according to precisely the same criteria.


Benjamin Korn, chairman of the Philadelphia Religious Zionists, is former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and the Miami Jewish Tribune.)

Source: http://israel-commentary.org/?p=11753

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Swedish Imam to Muslims: "Do Not Befriend the Unbelievers" - Ingrid Carlqvist



by Ingrid Carlqvist

Translations of this item:
  • He forced the 24-year-old woman to get in his car at gunpoint. He took her to his apartment, where he raped her and bragged about how he had killed ten people. He also explained that since he was a Swedish citizen, he was now free to rape because he could not be deported.
  • "He of course realizes he is risking a very long prison sentence in the end, and should do whatever he can to avoid it, like get in a car and travel through Europe. That's a pretty safe bet, considering the open borders." — District Attorney discussing an accused murderer, released pending trial.
  • When asked if there might be terrorists and war criminals that have already been granted asylum in Sweden, Immigration Service Director General Mikael Ribbenvik said: "Yes, that is unfortunately the case."
  • The obvious risk that they might commit terrorist acts, killing hundreds of Swedes, apparently makes no difference.
On July 1, the Swedish daily Gefle Dagblad revealed that an imam from the northern city of Gävle was the man behind the now-closed website, www.muslim.se, which stated, among other things, that homosexuality is punishable by death. The imam, Abo Raab, is a prominent figure in the Swedish Imam Association, which has received over 400,000 kronor (more than $47,000) from the government to "combat Islamophobia and racism in society." When its officials applied for the money, the association claimed to want to create a professional website containing "factual and pertinent information about Islam" and "to build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims." But no bridges were built. The website, which was shut down in January for unknown reasons, listed the following as forbidden for Swedish Muslims:
  • Being homosexual, punishable by death.
  • Befriending non-believers and liking them.
  • Joining the communities of the non-believers, joining their political parties, increasing their numbers, adopting their nationalities (except when absolutely necessary), joining their armies or helping them develop weapons.
  • Imitating their clothing, appearance, speech etc., because this indicates a love for the person or people imitated.

On July 9, the Supreme Court of Sweden ruled that 41-year-old Muslim Ekrem Bregaj will be deported to his home country of Serbia. Mr. Bregaj was sentenced, in his absence, for a crime he committed in 2006: firing his gun in the air. Bregaj, a denizen of the small southern village of Skurup in Sweden, opposed extradition because he claimed that as a Muslim he was at risk of being "discriminated against" in Serbia. An extradition, he claimed, would be a violation of his human rights. The court was not convinced, and ruled that he be kept in custody until the deportation could be executed.

On July 9, the Administrative Court of Härnösand decided that a 39-year-old Somali man will be reimbursed for the plane tickets he bought for his ten children to travel from Ethiopia to Sweden. The man came to Sweden in 2009 and remains "dependent long-term on economic aid," according to the court ruling. When the Immigration Service turned down the request for the airfare for his ten children, the Somali took out a loan and demanded that Social Services reimburse him. When they too said no, he appealed to the Administrative Court, which has now ruled that the Swedish taxpayers should pay for the plane tickets. In all, the bill amounts to 45,000 kronor (about $5,300). The government has since appealed the ruling:
"More and more applications for financial aid keep coming in all over the country. In the investigation pertaining to XX's [the man's name] request regarding economic assistance for travel costs, we contacted several other counties around the country. Through these contacts, we learned that similar applications are rejected because it is not considered reasonable for the county to pay for travel and reunions with relatives from other countries. We see a need for an up-to-date precedential verdict, taking into account the current immigration conditions and how reunions with families/children happen today."
On July 10, alternative media reported that Samiyah M. Warsame, an administrator at the Immigration Service, likes and celebrates "Swedish" jihadis. Her job is to say yes or no to asylum applications (asylum, for obvious reasons, should probably not be granted to Islamists). All the while, she has been writing on Facebook about Swedish jihadis from Örebro: "Oh, masha Allah, how beautiful."

The Swedish civil service and local authorities are apparently trying their best these days to hire as many people of non-Swedish descent as possible. They say it every time they seek new employees. They do this, they say, because they want to create diversity and "mirror society."

These people do not always act in accordance with Swedish bureaucratic tradition, which consists of being very formal, and not, for instance, letting friends and relatives get better treatment. This break with tradition became obvious in 2013, when police arrested two men at the Malmö office of the Immigration Service, suspected of having sold residence permits. The men were convicted, and sentenced in May 2015.

Talal Abdelrahman, a Palestinian, was sentenced to three years in prison, while the other man, a 47-year-old from the Ivory Coast, was acquitted due to some uncertainties concerning dates. Abdelrahman is believed to have made at least half a million kronor ($59,000) from his illegal activities. Amer Ahmed Iskandar, who ran a restaurant in Malmö that was a well-known meeting place for immigrants seeking false papers, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. The verdicts show how employees at the Immigration Service sometimes seem to set rules aside for people living in ethnically parallel societies in Sweden. The convicted ringleader has appealed the verdict.

On July 14, the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter wrote that during the first six months of 2015, Sweden's Immigration Service reported 130 asylum seekers to the Security Service because they were considered a threat to national security. This number is greater than the figure for all of 2014.
When asked if there might be terrorists and war criminals that have already been granted asylum in Sweden, Immigration Services Director General Mikael Ribbenvik said: "Yes, that is unfortunately the case. We evolve our methods, but nothing is foolproof, of course. There are examples of war criminals being discovered after the fact."

As more and more jihadis and war criminals come to Sweden, the number of people exposed as such, but who cannot be deported, increases -- because they risk death or torture in their home countries. So far this year, 41 asylum seekers have been granted temporary residency status for that reason; last year that number was 20. Most of them are not in custody and can move freely in society; some will never be deported.

The obvious risk that they might commit terrorist acts, killing hundreds of Swedes, apparently makes no difference. "We do not send people to their deaths," says Mikael Ribbenvik.

On July 14, three doctors and a former chief of police in Gothenburg presented a study in Läkartidningen, the magazine of Swedish physicians' union. The study looks at the increasing number of gunshot wounds treated at Swedish hospitals -- something that used to be quite a rare occurrence in Sweden but is now a routine part of emergency medicine:
"Caring for these patients puts high demands on the experience and competence of everyone involved. Typically, difficult decisions must be made under immense time constraints. The flow and need for admittance of trauma patients greatly affect how the emergency care is organized. Surveying incidence, injury characteristics, administration and costs is of vital importance to face these new challenges when it comes to allocating resources and developing trauma care."
Between January 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014, 58 people were shot in Gothenburg. Fifty-seven were men; their median age was 26. Most injuries were in their arms and legs. Ten of the patients died. The total care time for the 47 admitted patients who survived was 316 days, putting the net health care cost at 6.2 million kronor ($730,000).

Since the study was concluded, criminal gangs have continued shooting at each other in Gothenburg (map). There were twelve shootings during the first five months of this year. Five young men died, and 16 people were wounded.

On July 14, a 22-year-old Somali man was prosecuted for a brutal rape in Uppsala earlier this summer. The man found his victim, a woman in her twenties, on the street at 5 a.m. He wrestled her to the ground, sat on her, held her arms down and said: "Do you want to live or die?" He repeated the question several times during the rape. Afterward, he fled the scene, but thanks to the victim's description was apprehended a few hours later. At the time of his arrest, he had her cell phone on him. The 22-year-old has previous convictions for making unlawful threats, assault, battery and sexual molestation. However, that did not stop him from writing on Facebook that he thinks people who damage society should be deported from Sweden.

On July 15, a 30-year-old Kurdish man from Iraq was prosecuted for the attempted murder of a 40-year-old woman in Stockholm. The man wanted residency status; to that end, he tried to force the woman to marry him. When she refused, he stabbed her eight times in the face and chest. The knife attack took place on a walkway in a residential area. The woman sustained life-threatening injuries.
On July 16, two Kurdish men, aged 21 and 30, were convicted of being involved in an explosion in Nyköping on March 2. Two people were killed. Police believe the men packing a half-kilogram (1.1 pounds) of explosive material into a metal box when it suddenly went off. It is not known what the bomb was to be used for, but the district court concluded that the device "had no other meaningful use other than to cause people harm." An explosives expert who testified during the trial said he had never before seen such a device, and that the very powerful bomb could have killed or injured people up to 600 meters (650 yards) away.

One of the two convicted men is not a Swedish citizen; and despite this being his eighth conviction for a violent crime in Sweden, he will not be deported to his native Iran. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and his partner in crime to one year and ten months.

On July 17, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) revealed to date, between 30 and 40 women have traveled from Sweden to Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS). In an e-mail to the Dagens Eko public radio news program, Säpo wrote that this is a "serious and disturbing turn of events," adding that, "there are no verified reports that these women are actively taking part in combat or training for combat."

Peder Hyllengren of the National Defense College told Dagens Eko that ISIS has a rather large group of sympathizing women in Sweden. "There are at least ten times as many who sympathize, compared to how many have gone," says Hyllengren. "It's about building the caliphate, becoming wives and birthing a new generation of jihadis. They become housewives, but many are very active in spreading the propaganda."

On July 18, the local daily Östra Småland wrote that a group of Christian asylum seekers in the city of Kalmar, after being harassed and threatened by Muslims, had been forced to move from the Immigration Service housing where they were staying. The Muslims demanded that they stop wearing crosses and other Christian symbols, and did not allow them to use joint facilities, such as the kitchen, when Muslims were in there.

Mikael Lönngren, the local Immigration Service manager, told the paper that it was the Christians themselves who decided to move. The Immigration Service does not divide people into groups based on religion or ethnicity, which means that people from different sides of a conflict may end up living together. The reason is said to be a housing shortage. "We presume that those who flee to find a safe haven in our country will follow the laws of the land once they get here," said Lönngren.

Asylum seekers in the Swedish city of Kalmar, where Christian refugees were forced to move out of public housing after being harassed and threatened by Muslims.

On July 23, in Gothenburg, the Security Service and the National Task Force apprehended two men suspected of terrorism and murder in Syria, and a third man was charged in absentia. It is the first time such a serious crime is being tried in accordance with the terrorism law. The three suspects are Swedish citizens -- Yasser Sadek, 26 (wanted by Interpol), Iraqi-born Hassan al-Mandlawi, 32, and Ethiopian-born Al Amin Sultan, 30. A week later, the Court of Appeals released al-Mandlawi, also known as "Mark Abu Osama al-Suwaidi," pending trial.

According to the court, there is little risk of al-Mandlawi obstructing the investigation, because he is in a wheelchair and has difficulty speaking. The district attorney was "surprised" by the release and told daily Dagens Nyheter that even though the man had been stripped of his passport, he may obviously still leave the country: "He of course realizes he is risking a very long prison sentence in the end, and should do whatever he can to avoid it, like get in a car and travel through Europe. That's a pretty safe bet, considering the open borders. Also, there's always the option of getting a fake passport, then you're gone for good," said district attorney Ronnie Jacobsson.

It recently came to light that the father of al-Mandlawi, the handicapped ISIS terrorist, also has a criminal past. As soon as he got his Swedish passport in 2003, he raped a 24-year-old woman -- as revenge for her helping two of his daughters escape the "honor culture" he had forced upon them. He forced the woman to get in his car at gunpoint. He took her to his apartment, where he raped her and bragged about how he had killed ten people. He also explained that since he was a Swedish citizen, he was now free to rape because he could not be deported. The man was sentenced to a modest 3.5 years in prison for rape and unlawful threats.

Al-Mandlawi's father also reportedly doused his wife in lighter fluid and struck a match. One of his daughters was granted "protected identity" to escape her father.

On July 23, the daily Sydsvenskan reported that Malmö is the city with the greatest frequency of bombings in all of Scandinavia. Göran Månsson, head of the bomb squad in Malmö, talked about this far-from-flattering record for Sweden's third-largest city. Eighteen explosions have taken place so far in 2015. "Hand grenades are used in about fifty percent of the blasts that occur," says Göran Månsson. "That wasn't the case before. It's frightening and very serious and also poses a great threat to the general public. Once a grenade is thrown, it is uncontrollable."

Also on July 23, the daily Göteborgs-Posten reported that "Sweden is no longer as attractive an asylum country." The Immigration Service, which usually inflates their forecasts, are now predicting a small decline in the number of asylum seekers in 2015 -- from 80,000 to 74,000. One reason is said to be Sweden's long waiting periods compared to Germany, which has a fast track, as well as the poor integration practices in Sweden. "It's hard to get housing and jobs, and that affects people's choice of destination," said Immigration Service Director General Anders Danielsson.

Another reason is that it has become more difficult to move north through Europe. France, for example, has implemented border controls on the Italian border. Switzerland is considering doing the same, and Hungary is building a fence along its border with Serbia.

When it comes to the group referred to as "unaccompanied refugee children," the Immigration Service is increasing its forecast from 8,000 to 12,000 arrivals. That estimate leaves Sweden continually in the number one spot in the EU when it comes to taking in so-called unaccompanied refugee children.

On July 29, a small Pride Parade marched through some of Stockholm's Muslim-dominated suburbs. There was heavy media coverage, even by foreign media. The British newspaper, The Independent, for example, wrote an article headlined "Sweden right-wingers plan LGBT march through Stockholm's Muslim-majority neighbourhoods."

The Swedish mainstream media was quick to condemn the initiative, as was the National Coalition for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender Rights (RFSL). There was talk of "pinkwashing," to promote friendliness to sexual preference rights, and also of the parade being an attempt to "provoke" Muslims. Apparently challenging Islam's view of homosexuals as pariahs deserving the death penalty was not acceptable to members of the RFSL. They are evidently content just with arranging Pride Parades in central Stockholm, where no one questions homosexual rights anymore.

The Järva Pride Parade was conducted without incident, even if some Muslims in the area shouted "Allahu Akbar" ["Allah is Greater"] and "We are Muslims, what are you doing here, faggots?" However, the so-called "anti-racists" who had gone to the neighborhood to protest against the allegedly "provoking" parade were assaulted and beaten by masked assailants.

On July 30, the daily Dagens Nyheter revealed that almost 25% of foreign-born applicants to the Swedish armed forces are unable to pass the enrollment test. The extremely slimmed down Swedish military badly wants soldiers with foreign language and cultural skills, but qualified applicants are hard to come by.

According to a survey conducted at the Defense College of Karlstad, where, in 2013, applications to the military basic training were evaluated, 7.3% of Swedish-born men and 8.1% of Swedish-born women failed the test, compared to 24.2% of foreign-born men and 24.7% of foreign-born women.
The questions in the test, covering technical ability, spatial ability, verbal ability and logic, have been the same since the 1990s, when compulsory military service was still a reality in Sweden, and they are adapted to an 18-year-old, male population. The military will now investigate if the foreign-born applicants' problems are due to... discrimination.
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Ingrid Carlqvist

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6378/swedish-muslims-unbelievers

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