Detailed Lebanese & Lebanese Related LCCC English New Bulletin For November 02/2018
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The New Jihad: More Threatening Than Ever
Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/November 01/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68555/guy-milliere-the-new-jihad-more-threatening-than-ever-%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%8a-%d9%85%d9%8a%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ac%d9%87%d8%a7%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ac%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%af-%d9%87%d9%88-%d8%a3/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13206/jihad-threat
It is important to emphasize that radical Islamists use means other than terrorism to gain ground.
This week, the unelected judges of the European Court of Human Rights submitted to the demands of Sharia blasphemy laws and decided not to allow criticism of Muhammad, lest Muslim feelings be hurt. The court actually chose hurt feelings over freedom of expression and truth as a defense.
"As someone who has known what it is to live without freedom, I watch in amazement as those who call themselves liberal and progressive – people who claim to believe so fervently in individual liberty and minority rights – make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities... We need to say to Muslims living in the West: if you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional". — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 2016.
Following the destruction of the Islamic State, awareness of the danger embodied by radical Islam has been largely erased in Europe. Knife attacks and the slaughter of passers-by in France or Britain were not treated by the mainstream media as more important than road accidents. Pictured: Police officers and soldiers secure the site of a terror attack, in which a police officer was shot and killed, on April 20, 2017 in Paris, France.
When the Barcelona terror attack took place August 17, 2017, as horrible as it was (13 deaths, 130 injured), the jihadists did not consider it a success. They had a more lethal project. They wanted to drive vans packed with explosives into the of the Sagrada Familia basilica and two other tourist areas of the city. That, however, was the last major jihadist attack in a Western country. The Manchester attack had taken place two month earlier, on May 22, 2017; the attack in Nice, France, had taken place on July 14, 2016; and the in Orlando attack, in Florida, on June 12, 2016.
The destruction of the Islamic State under President Donald J. Trump has not only deprived jihadists of what had become a rear base and training camp; it also deprived them of the idea that they could quickly defeat the West.
Soon, awareness of the danger embodied by radical Islam faded in the United States and was largely erased in Europe. Knife attacks and the slaughter of passers-by in France or Britain were not treated by the mainstream media as more important than road accidents. Jihadist murderers were usually immediately defined by the authorities as mentally disturbed. In Europe, the names of the murderers were often hidden to avoid possibly firing up anti-Muslim "prejudices".
What happens in other parts of the world rarely makes headlines and is usually treated as a local problem of no global importance. Stabbing Israelis and launching rockets and incendiary kites and balloons from Gaza into Israel are looked on as strictly part of "the Middle East conflict." Attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt are defined as an Egyptian problem. More than 1,800 Christians massacred in Nigeria are barely mentioned in the news. The death sentence for blasphemy in countries such as Pakistan are not mentioned at all.
Radical Islam may be on the defensive, but its offensive has not stopped. The main Islamist organizations appear to be waiting for the moment to strike again. Al Qaeda was recently described in a January 2018 UN report as "strong," "influential," and "resilient." Islamic State may have lost territories it once ruled in Syria and Iraq, but, according to the UN report, "The group continues to transform into a terror organization with a flat hierarchy, with cells and affiliates increasingly acting autonomously."
Groups of Islamist jihadis are still active in Libya, where they control people-smuggling activities and infiltrate their operatives among the migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. The police keep seizing components used to make explosive devices and have foiled attempted attacks on European soil, but instructional videos still circulate.
What is important to emphasize is that radical Islamists use means other than terrorism to gain ground. The Muslim Brotherhood, the main Sunni Islamist organization, has never rejected violence, but says it prefers da'wa (proselytizing, infiltration and influence) to attain power in the Muslim world and beyond. Sayyid Qutb, its leader in the 1950's, said that the aim of the Muslim Brotherhood was to "establish Islamic rule" wherever it was possible, by "any means available". Its members may have thought they were achieving their objective during the uprising journalists called the "Arab spring." Unfortunately for them, former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's attempt to make Egypt an Islamic totalitarian state, and the economic collapse that resulted, led to a takeover of the government by Egypt's current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and to a crackdown that eradicated the organization there. The Muslim Brotherhood, however, has not vanished. It still has the support of Turkey and Qatar, and Hamas was founded as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Reports show that members of the Muslim Brotherhood can rely on a network of affiliates in over 70 countries. They keep up their hope of winning throughout the Muslim world, but their main target seems to be to transform the West.
Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood appear to think that if the West falls, the rest of the world will fall thereafter. In the US, the Muslim Brotherhood has unofficial branches that try to hide what they actually are, but that are extremely active: these include the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
The Muslim Brotherhood is deeply implanted in Western Europe, where it controls many organizations and charities that also do their best to hide what they are. These include the "The Islamic Community of Germany," the Muslim Association of Britain, and "The Muslims of France." The Muslim Brotherhood has, in addition, created vast networks of mosques and schools that recruit, indoctrinate and claim that the future of Western Europe will belong to Islam and that Europeans will continue to submit.
This week, the unelected judges of the European Court of Human Rights submitted to the demands of Sharia blasphemy laws and decided not to allow criticism of Muhammad, lest Muslim feelings be hurt. The court actually chose hurt feelings over freedom of expression and truth as a defense. It is probably time to unelect these unelected judges.
Islamist organizations are present and growing. Often, they join forces to advance intimidation campaigns that push governments, the mainstream media and universities to ban all criticism of Islam and to enforce a growing Islamization of everyday life. Examples include efforts to change academic programs to present Muslim civilization in a more attractive light; efforts to have hospitals accept that Muslim women may be examined only by female doctors, and that social service agencies must respect polygamy. Many organizations rely for support on "fellow travelers" -- mainly Westerners who hate Western civilization and may see the rise of Islam as a means of destabilizing it. They want, and get, results.
Western European politicians, left and right, increasingly rely on the Muslim vote to get elected: they see that the birthrates (now well below replacement levels) and migratory flows create a population change; they calculate that being too hostile to Islam could lead to their political defeat.
Although the Swiss Islamist author Tariq Ramadan remains jailed in France over rape accusations, his books are still move up bestseller lists. Islamic bookstores are becoming more and more numerous. They sell anti-Semitic and anti-Western books that incite violence. No-go zones continue to proliferate in France, Britain and now in Germany. In his book No Go Zones, Raheem Kassam shows that female genital mutilation, sexual assault, and sometimes honor killings take place in these areas.
A few politicians -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Italy's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz -- are trying to defend European civilization. They are dragged in the mud by Merkel, May, Macron and other Western European leaders. The chance of Orbán, Kurz and Salvini to win the fight in the short term is limited by the rapid aging of their country's populations.
Authors criticizing Islam are still allowed to write in Western Europe, but, with some exceptions, such as Éric Zemmour in France or Thilo Sarrazin in Germany, they are now almost totally ignored by the mainstream media. All of them are harassed by Islamists and sometimes by prosecutions. Anyone who has left Islam risks being killed. Some have chosen to escape to a safer part of the world. Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands in 2006 and is now an American citizen. Others, who stayed in Western Europe, have to live under police protection. Hamed Abdel-Samad, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood who now lives in Germany, is the author of Islamic Fascism. Abdel-Samad says what Western European leaders refuse to see: "Islam is a religion of war". In a recent interview, he added that when a non-Muslim country is strong, "Islam can end up agreeing to coexist", but when a non-Muslim country is passive, "war comes back" on the horizon. This war, he added, "can be violent. It can be non violent". Western European countries show all the signs of being passive.
The United States is stronger. Will it remain a safe haven for ex-Muslims and freedom of speech? The Islamists are at work. Some in mosques incite violence. They find support. They intimidate institutions. In April 2018, M. Zuhdi Jasser, a practicing physician and founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which advocates the separation of religion and state, was invited to speak at Duke University. Under pressure from Islamist students, the invitation was cancelled; it was then reinstated.
In 2014, when Brandeis University wanted to honor Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an author who abandoned Islam, Islamic organizations and "progressives" demanded that Brandeis to revoke the invitation. She was "disinvited" and the invitation not extended again. Hirsi Ali said:
"As someone who has known what it is to live without freedom, I watch in amazement as those who call themselves liberal and progressive – people who claim to believe so fervently in individual liberty and minority rights – make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities... We need to say to Muslims living in the West: if you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional".
*Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13206/jihad-threat

Life Returning Slowly to Christian Homeland in Iraq
Kenneth R. Timmerman/Gatestone Institute/November 01/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68559/kenneth-r-timmerman-life-returning-slowly-to-christian-homeland-in-iraq-%d9%83%d9%86%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d8%aa%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%b1%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13211/iraq-christians-returning
"Something specific occurred here that requires a specific response. It is called genocide... It is important for these communities to understand that they have a superpower behind them. This is a White House priority. Our goal is to help those communities return to their historic lands." — Max Primorac, Special Representative for Minority Assistance Programs at USAID, who is responsible for aiding Christians and Yazidis targeted by ISIS.
While roughly a third of the Christians who fled from ISIS in 2014 are returning, the future of their communities in northern Iraq needs political support and a surge of security and economic development. For Christians worldwide, this is our homeland. This is where we began. These are the people we need to protect and help to prosper.
QARAQOSH, Iraq — Christians are gradually returning to their historic homeland in northern Iraq, after three years of ISIS occupation.
The lucky ones managed to flee before the ISIS onslaught in the pre-dawn hours of August 6, 2014, and returned to find their houses intact. Most, however, are facing tremendous damage to their homes and families from a war that pitted neighbor against neighbor, community against community, tearing apart bonds forged over generations.
Yohanna Younis Towaya, 54, a prominent businessman and farmer, returned to find his home burned and looted. "One wall, next to my father's house, was completely blown out but we repaired it," he says. His father's house, next door, he says, has been flattened by an allied air strike: ISIS fighters turned it into a fighting post.
Towaya says he doubts he will ever rebuild his father's house, like the 116 such buildings in this once-thriving Christian economic center. "ISIS fighters are buried there beneath the rubble," he says. "Sometimes, you can smell them."
The smell of the unburied dead is pungent. You can smell it from here in the Christian heartland all the way into ancient Mosul, 12 miles to the west. The area was totally devastated in the final battle to crush ISIS hold-outs fighting from tunnels and underground bunkers.
No one really knows who provided ISIS with their tunneling machines, but there are many of them. On the outskirts of Qaraqosh, members of ISIS had dug a maze of tunnels beneath a Syriac Orthodox monastery at Qortaya to an ancient Assyrian mound 150 meters away. Those firing positions, high enough for an ordinary person to walk upright, allowed them to dominate the surrounding plains.
Most of the returnees have not visited these tunnels or want to visit them: they are visible reminders of the barbaric presence of the ISIS fighters who looted and burned their homes.
Instead, they seek to create new rituals and forge new bonds.
Father Behnam Benoka, 39, is the Syrian Catholic priest in nearby Bartella, another ancient Christian town in the Nineveh Plain outside Mosul.
Around one-third of the town's 3,000 Christian families have returned since ISIS transformed Bartella into a military compound for three years, from 2014-2016.
He invites us to a graduation ceremony for the church music school, where more than 100 students, from first grade to high school, will receive their diplomas.
"Our goal is to build an orchestra, the first Christian orchestra in Iraq," he says. "This is our third group of graduates."
The ceremony, which takes place in a church social hall, would be familiar to most Americans. Indeed, were it not for the languages spoken -- ancient Aramaic, the language of Jesus, and Arabic, the secular language of the region -- the ceremony could be taking place in Bethesda, Maryland, or Sewanee, Georgia.
"This gives us hope," Father Benoka says afterwards. "Instead of thinking all day about their problems, they think about music. Instead of carrying a gun, they carry a musical instrument."
The most astonishing thing about the visit to this area are the smiles. Despite the trauma, the destruction, the genocidal mania of the ISIS fighters who wanted to tear down every stone of one of Christianity's earliest communities, the people we meet on the streets and in the churches are smiling.
They are happy, they say, to be alive. They are happy to return. They are happy to start over again. They also, however, say they realize that their hold on this historic Christian homeland is tenuous, at best.
"If we don't get help now, we are finished," says Father Noel, 56, an aide to the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul and the Nineveh Plain. "We have local Shabak Shiites, supported by Iran, who have surrounded us. They are buying houses and changing the demography of this area."
Wissam Gedjo, 42, returned after the liberation in late 2017 to find his toy store in downtown Qaraqosh in ruins. "ISIS set everything on fire," he says, showing us pictures of the devastation. "They even took the floor tiles." All that survived was a group of painted Easter eggs, intact amid the rubble.
"This is how I found it in October 2017, when I returned. But I rebuilt this shop and reopened for business that Christmas."
As we are speaking, a young bride-to-be, her mother, and her fiancé are looking at a bridal bouquet of artificial white roses and angel spray. She says she is from nearby Karamles, and he is from Qaraqosh, which the local inhabitants also call Baghdeda.
She picks at the angel spray, so Gedjo keeps adding more. Finally, she seems happy and bursts into a big smile.
"Are you glad to be getting married and staying here in Qaraqosh," we ask.
She looks radiant. "Oh, yes!" she says.
Most of these Christian towns and villages are secured by armed guards from the Nineveh Protection Units (NPU), a Christian component of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), who man checkpoints at the entries.
The Christian guards number fewer than two hundred, and are dwarfed by some 4,000 Shiite Muslim guards of Battalion 30, reportedly supported by Iran.
"I carry a gun but I do not feel secure," says 25-year old Ronay, an NPU security guard.
"It took us seven years to build my father's house." Ronay says. "When I returned, I saw it burned by ISIS. You do not know what I feel when I see that. We cannot live there."
Although Ronay has returned and has a job, he says he dreams of leaving for America. "We can do nothing here," he says. "We have no future, no hope."
Hope is the name of the game -- not just for local Christians, but for the U.S. government, the Iraqi government, and for aid agencies seeking to convince Iraqi Christians and Yazidis to return to their historic homelands.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has repeatedly announced that the American government is focused on making sure the aid it sends reaches Iraqi minorities targeted by ISIS genocide.
"Something specific occurred here that requires a specific response," said Max Primorac, Special Representative for Minority Assistance Programs at USAID, who is responsible for aiding Christians and Yazidis targeted by ISIS. "It is called genocide."
Primorac and his team say they have been given special authority to streamline USAID projects in ways never before seen in Iraq or elsewhere. "It is important for these communities to understand that they have a superpower behind them. This is a White House priority. Our goal is to help those communities return to their historic lands."
While roughly a third of the Christians who fled from ISIS in 2014 are returning, the future of their communities in northern Iraq needs political support and a surge of security and economic development if they are to flourish and attract others to join them in this ancient Christian land, proselytized by St. Thomas in the 1st Century AD.
For Christians worldwide, this is our homeland. This is where we began. These are the people we need to protect and help to prosper.
*Kenneth R. Timmerman was jointly nominated with Ambassador John R. Bolton for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. His latest book is ISIS Begins: A Novel of the Iraq War
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13211/iraq-christians-returning

Opinion/In Just Two Years, President Trump Has Reversed the Decline of American Influence in the Middle East
اليوت إيراهام من الهآررتس: خلال سنتين فقط تمكن الرئيس ترامب من وقف تدهور وضعف التأثير الأميركي في الشرق الأوسط
Elliott Abrams/Haaretz/November 01/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68564/elliott-abrams-haaretz-opinion-in-just-two-years-president-trump-has-reversed-the-decline-of-american-influence-in-the-middle-east-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%aa-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%87%d8%a7/
Trump’s policy has been grounded in realism, in reasserting that the U.S. knows who its friends are - and who are not: A simple, old-fashioned, yet absolutely indispensable stance for a world power.
When Donald Trump arrived in office U.S. influence in the Middle East was in broad decline. In the previous eight years, Iran and Russia had established vast influence and an on-the-ground presence in Syria, Iran was seen to be the rising power throughout the region, and U.S. relations with both Israel and the major Sunni Arab states were strained.
In two years Trump has turned that around.
U.S. power has been used to decimate Islamic State in Syria and shrink its geographical presence. Relations with Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf states are much closer. The U.S. has withdrawn from the deeply flawed Obama nuclear agreement (JCPOA) that Israelis of all major parties had opposed, and has reimposed full economic sanctions on Iran aimed at damaging its economy and reducing the cash available to it for aggression, subversion, and terrorism.
The U.S. military presence in Syria has helped prevent Iran’s consolidation of control through the Assad regime, and Trump administration officials have recently said expelling Iran is a key American goal.
Relations between the United States and Israel are excellent, and the U.S. no longer shies away from the toughest possible defense of Israel in the United Nations system, including vetoing all biased resolutions in the Security Council. In protest against maltreatment of Israel, the U.S. has resigned from the UN Human Rights Council and from UNESCO.
Trump’s policy has been grounded in realism. The decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem reflects that attitude: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, so why should the embassy be anywhere else? The president saw the issue as a simple one and was not cowed by Arab threats or State Department predictions of doom.
Similarly, he saw UNRWA as manufacturing new generations of purported "refugees" rather than solving the refugee problem, so his conclusion was clear: we will contribute no more American money to that organization. He has also cut off funds for the PA, in the face of both its absolute refusal to end the payments to terrorists and their families, and the PA/PLO refusal to negotiate seriously with Israel and the United States over a possible peace agreement.
There are two cases where relations with the United States have suffered: the PA/PLO and Iran.
While the JCPOA was being negotiated Iran’s terrible conduct in the region - support for Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, putting IRGC and Hezbollah troops in Syria, subverting Bahrain, arming the Houthis in Yemen with missiles to shoot at Riyadh and at ships in the Bab el Mandab - was largely ignored.
No longer. So the tone of U.S.-Iran relations has become more hostile. This is a reflection of reality, and will not change unless Iran’s conduct does.
The U.S. now sees Iran as the region does: A country led by a malevolent regime that continues to promote terror and regional instability, while maintaining the ability to relaunch its nuclear weapons program. Trump has stated that he would be willing to negotiate with Iran as he has with North Korea, but it will not be a phony negotiation producing anything like the JCPOA, nor will he believe or argue that "moderates" in Tehran are in charge and are great partners.
There remain serious challenges in the two years ahead in Trump’s first term.
Refugees are still leaving Syria rather than returning to it, and there has been no progress on a political settlement that would ultimately allow Syrians to choose their country’s leadership. Iran and Russia have made far greater investments in supporting Assad than the U.S. and its allies have in opposing him.
Similarly, in Yemen, the U.S.-supported efforts of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have not yet changed the balance of power and a political solution is therefore not yet possible. In Iraq, the new government appears likely to seek a balance between Iran on one side, and the Sunni Arab states and the U.S. on the other, because it does not want Iranian domination.
In all these cases, the president’s desire to avoid being dragged into more Middle East ground wars will conflict with his wish to support friends and allies and his intention to push back against Russia and Iran.
Diplomatic outcomes will always reflect the real balance of power on the ground, and (as we saw in the various failed Kerry negotiations) the United States and its allies cannot win at the conference table what they have not won on the ground. Trump administration officials and the president will be facing many difficult decisions as they balance military and diplomatic goals with his desire for a light footprint.
What Trump has achieved already is a reassertion of the American presence, diplomatic in some cases (think of Jim Jeffrey’s efforts now as the new Syria envoy) and military in others. He has reasserted that the U.S. knows who its friends are and who they are not, a simple, old-fashioned yet absolutely indispensable stance for a world power.
Ask Israeli officials about that - and then ask the ayatollahs.
*Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. He served as deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-in-just-two-years-trump-has-reversed-the-decline-of-u-s-influence-in-the-mideast-1.6614067

‘Doormat Christianity’ and the Islamic Invasion
ريموند إبراهيم:الخضوع والقبول بالظلم المسيحي والغزو الإسلامي
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/November 01/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68567/raymond-ibrahim-pj-media-doormat-christianity-and-the-islamic-invasion-%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%88%d9%86%d8%af-%d8%a5%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ae%d8%b6%d9%88/
A Catholic archbishop recently touched on an unspoken but highly subversive phenomenon: How anti-Christian forces exploit Christian teachings to empower those who seek to dismantle Christian civilization, Muslims being chief among them.
In an interview published last summer by the Italian outlet IlGionarle.it, Catholic Archbishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan said: The phenomenon of so-called “immigration” is an orchestrated and long-prepared plan by international powers to radically change the Christian and national identity of the peoples of Europe. These powers use the enormous moral potential of the Church and their structures to achieve their anti-Christian and anti-European objective more effectively: To this end, the true concept of humanism and even the Christian commandment of charity are abused.
To understand how these forces exploit “the enormous moral potential of the Church to achieve their anti-Christian and anti-European objective,” one must first understand the symbiotic relationship between liberalism and Christianity.
It is often forgotten, but tolerance, human rights, a desire for peace, accommodating the other, and all similar concepts secular liberalism claims to champion did not develop in a civilizational vacuum; they developed from the singular teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Over the course of some two thousand years, these precepts have had a profound influence on Western epistemology, society, and culture to the point that they are now taken for granted.
Somewhere or other, however, Western Christians came to believe that the entirety of their faith rested exclusively in those passive values — particularly forgiveness and non-judgmentalism for the other, and introspection and accountability for oneself. These now manifest as blanket “tolerance” and self-guilt. Whereas Christ tolerated sinners but did not tolerate sin — always calling on sinners to “repent,” and invoking the torments of hell more than any other biblical figure — today most Western Christians believe they must tolerate (or “celebrate”) both sinner and sin. The latter, thanks to entrenched moral and cultural relativism, no longer even seems to exist.
Such is the “Doormat Christianity”© that those who despise traditional Christianity call friend (or Useful Idiot). Muslims and other elements are persecuting innocents around the world? Show love and tolerance, turn the other cheek, say a prayer, and feel guilty for your own crimes — or even your ancestors’ crimes.
Doormat Christianity was regularly on display during Barack H. Obama’s presidency: “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” he said in 2015 — three days after a terror attack targeting Christians killed 147 people in Kenya, provoking a few American Christian groups to express anger. “And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”
Similarly, during the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015, Obama directly invoked Doormat Christian tenets to shame Christians from being too critical of Islamic State atrocities: “Lest we get on our high horse and think this [Islamic beheadings, sex-slavery, crucifixion, roasting and burying humans alive] is unique to some other place,” the American president admonished, “remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
That Obama had to go back almost a thousand years for examples by referencing the Crusades and the Inquisition did not trouble most Americans. Nor did most Americans even know that the Crusades and Inquisition were defensive responses to Muslim aggression and subversion, respectively (read Chapters 4, 5, and 6 of Sword and Scimitar).
After all, Americans had been miseducated to believe that their Medieval European ancestors were false Christians who mangled the faith to persecute peaceful Muslims. As the former nun, now self-described “freelance monotheist” Karen Armstrong once put it, “During the 12th Century, Christians were fighting brutal holy wars against Muslims, even though Jesus had told his followers to love their enemies, not to exterminate them.”
The notion that Christianity begins and ends with “loving one’s enemy” — all too often a lofty way to justify cowardice in front of evil — has become mainstream among Western Christians. In 1999, to mark the 900th anniversary of the crusader conquest of Jerusalem, hundreds of devout Protestants participated in a “reconciliation walk” that began in Germany and ended in Jerusalem. Along the way, they wore T-shirts with the words “I apologize” — in Arabic.
From their official statement: Nine hundred years ago, our forefathers carried the name of Jesus Christ in battle across the Middle East. Fueled by fear, greed and hatred … the Crusaders lifted the banner of the Cross above your people … On the anniversary of the First Crusade, we … wish to retrace the footsteps of the Crusaders in apology for their deeds … We deeply regret the atrocities committed in the name of Christ by our predecessors. We renounce greed, hatred and fear, and condemn all violence done in the name of Jesus Christ.
The First Crusaders only went to Jerusalem because Muslims had been slaughtering and enslaving literally hundreds of thousands of Christians in the East in the preceding years. The much-recounted Crusader sack of Jerusalem was a mere drop in the bloody bucket of Islamic atrocities. But this never seems to matter to such lofty-minded Christians.
It should be noted that Doormat Christianity is a distinctly Western phenomenon. Several Eastern European nations reject it, refusing to play along by opening their doors to Muslim “refugees.” On November 11, 2015, two days after the Paris terror attack that left 130 dead, tens of thousands of Poles demonstrated against Muslim immigration; it was Poland’s largest march in history. They chanted that they would defend their homeland — where “Christ is king” and where there is “no place for Islamic Sharia or terror” — against Muslim invaders and “Leftist traitors.”
Two months earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressed similar sentiments, if more diplomatically:
Those [migrants] arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity…. We don’t want to criticize France, Belgium, any other country, but we think all countries have a right to decide whether they want to have a large number of Muslims in their countries. If they want to live together with them, they can. We don’t want to, and I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries, and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see.
Then, Orbán did the unforgiveable: He invoked Islam’s occupation of Hungary from 1541 to 1699:
I have to say that when it comes to living together with Muslim communities, we are the only ones who have experience, because we had the possibility to go through that experience for 150 years.
(For an “idea” of how those 150 years went, read Chapters 7 and 8 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Just how outrageous citing Europe’s actual history with Islam in the context of rejecting Doormat Christian sensibilities can be seen in how the Guardians of the Narrative — beginning with the UK’s aptly named Guardian — responded:
Hungary has a history with the Ottoman empire, and Orban is busy conjuring it. The Ottoman empire is striking back, he warns. They’re taking over! Hungary will never be the same again!… Hence the wire; hence the army; hence, as from today, the state of emergency; hence the fierce, unrelenting rhetoric of hatred. Because that is what it has been from the very start: sheer, crass hostility and slander.
For simply maintaining an accurate view of history and unapologetically seeking to preserve his nation’s Christian identity and heritage, numerous Western media and politicians characterized Orbán as “xenophobic,” “full of hate speech,” and Europe’s “creeping dictator.” Another Guardian piece simply referred to Orban as a “problem” that needs to be “solved.”
Meanwhile, the indigenous citizens of European nations that have taken in large numbers of Muslim migrants — including France and Germany — are fleeing to and seeking refuge in Hungary, a fact which speaks for itself.
Incidentally, lest it seem that only “liberal Protestants” are devotees of Doormat Christianity, it bears mentioning that the man who holds the same office that historically spearheaded the defense of Christianity against Islam is one of the greatest representatives of passive Christianity: The Catholic pope, Francis.
He repeatedly calls on Western nations “not to create walls but to build bridges,” including by taking in millions of Muslim refugees. Yet his Vatican residence is surrounded by walls built over a millennium ago to prevent ongoing Muslim raids. One of those raids sacked two of Christendom’s greatest basilicas, St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s (read Chapter 3 of Sword and Scimitar).
Nonetheless, according to the Vicar of Christ:
When I hear talk of the Christian roots of Europe, I sometimes dread the tone, which can seem triumphalist or even vengeful. It then takes on colonialist overtones.
How the desire to preserve the national, cultural, and religious integrity of one’s homeland can have “colonialist overtones” remains to be explained.
Yes, Europe has Christian roots and it is Christianity’s responsibility to water those roots. But this must be done in a spirit of service as in the washing of the feet. Christianity’s duty to Europe is one of service. … Christianity’s contribution to a culture is that of Christ in the washing of the feet.
Here, then, is Doormat Christianity at its finest, existing only for the “washing of feet” — or, in this context, taking in millions of Muslim migrants, many of whom are openly hostile to Christians.
For the record, yes, Christ served and washed his disciples’ feet and preached mercy and compassion — but that was hardly the sole or even primary purpose of his mission. He offered an entire worldview founded on theological assertions of eternal significance. When people erred by profaning the temple, he did not “turn the other cheek” (let alone wash their feet) — he whipped and cast them out. When he himself was slapped, Jesus did not offer the other cheek but rather challenged his abuser (John 18:23). He praised a Roman centurion without calling on him to resign from one of history’s most brutal militaries (Matt. 8: 5–13). In short, he did not call on his followers to be doormats — but to be “wise as serpents.”
Why do Christians everywhere fail to remember these biblical positions that at least balance out those on “unconditional” tolerance and forgiveness? Because they were born and bred on Doormat Christianity, an oxymoronic caricature developed to orchestrate Western civilization’s own suicide, including at the hands of jihad.

Brazil: A Dangerous Adventure After a Disappointing Experience!
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/October 01/18
Brazilians have elected Jair Bolsonaro as their new president.
Bolsonaro (63 years), a populist politician who is not ashamed of anything that would embarrass the post-Latin American dictatorships, entered the last day of the election campaign leading his moderate Left-wing opponent Fernando Haddad (55 years). Indeed, he was only 4% short of winning the first election round outright on October 7. In that round Bolsonaro led Haddad by no less than 17%, and then maintained a healthy lead in the polls, all the way to his resounding win in Sunday's run-off. Sure enough, classes and groups who have been targeted by Bolsonaro’s extremist policies, are quite worried by his victory. However, thus far, the popular disappointment after the lengthy rule of the Left (between 2003 and 2016) marred by chaos and widespread crime, seems to outweigh the fear felt by many of allowing the genie of racism out of the bottle, the return of the strong arm of military dictatorship, and the ever increasing role of extremist Evangelists who have supported and financed the Rightist candidate’s campaign. Among the lessons of history many hesitate to comprehend, is that populist extremism, or sectarian fanaticism, are usually doomed.
Of course this does not apply to what Samuel Huntington calls the ‘Clash of Civilizations’, when one major ‘civilization’ defeats another, and by this, rewrites history. For example, during the 15th century the world witnessed two such events; the first, was the success of the Castile-Aragon’s Christian ‘neo-crusaders’ in destroying and eventually wiping out the Moorish-Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula; the second, was the success of the Ottoman Muslims in conquering Constantinople, turning the great Byzantine capital into a capital of the Ottoman’s ‘Caliphate’.
With the above-mentioned exceptions, the world has witnessed the eventual demise of extremism and populism in many places. In Spain, ‘The Inquisition’ ended after it had outlived its usefulness; a few centuries later, Franco’s military dictatorship ended after ruling Spain for almost four decades.
Italy and Germany, the two entities created by the unification and re-formation of several feudal ingredients within Europe’s realms, paid a heavy price for the extremism of the Fascists and the Nazis. The outcome of WW2 was tragic for both countries as well as to their ally, Japan.
In fact, in the ideologically-opposed camp, Russia’s Soviet experiment did not fare much better, although it managed to re-define political concepts, shake many parts of the globe, and help in bringing down European colonialism in Asia, Africa and parts of Latin America.
When they supported Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, the Germans and Italians were running away from complicated fateful questions to what they convinced themselves were simple and ideal answers. In principle, one could define ‘populism’ as being the act of presenting easy and simple answers to difficult questions. Furthermore, there would always be a certain group of people, or a particular community who would be demonized and made a scapegoat for all problems.
Italy’s Fascists demonized the Leftists, Germany’s Nazis demonized the Jews as did the ultra-nationalist Russians during the ‘Pogroms’; and today, Europe’s extremist Right is demonizing Muslims, immigrants and refugees, while its American counterpart is targeting the Hispanics and Afro-Americans, and Brazil’s extremists are rising against homosexuals, Leftists and shantytowns’ (favellas’) poor! When Brazil’s voters cast their votes, they expressed anger and disappointment at a popular experiment that had promised social justice, tolerance, job opportunities, and improvement in living conditions; which is absolutely their right. Without doubt there are no excuses for corruption. However, corruption in Brazil is not limited to one party or political current, as it exists within both sides of the political divide. Young Brazilians, who have never lived under military dictatorship, also have every right to aspire for a clean and promising future, far away from the political camp that they had tried for more than a decade, but at least some of its leaders let them down. Thus, the young men and women are entitled now to give the other camp a chance, given its promises of a better life; because experimenting and providing the chances to correct previous mistakes, policies or choices, are democracy’s most important principles. Having said this, however, trust brings with it heavy responsibility, and anger caused by disappointment may be huge in a country where everything is, truly, huge! Brazil is a giant of a country, in terms of its population (with more than 200 million inhabitants), area (more than 8 million square km), resources (GDP exceeding 3.370 trillion US dollar – ranking it 8th globally), capabilities, problems, contradictions as well as aspirations.
Brazil is almost a unique case; indeed, it is ‘Latin America’s India’, just as Nigeria would be ‘Africa’s India’.
Moreover, economic and political problems may become ever more dangerous when fault lines of poverty and wealth intersect ethnic divisions (mainly between whites and non-whites), confessional identities (particularly, Catholicism vs Evangelical Protestantism) and regional economic and developmental disparity. In fact, the poor Northwest Brazil gave the Leftist candidate a big majority! In addition, if some believe that waving the military’s ‘thick stick’ may be enough to stifle the bitterness of the disappointed, the dismay of the deprived, and the worry of the opponents, jumping from one ideological extreme to another – even through the ballot box – provides no guarantee of easy co-existence, much needed social cohesion, or promised wealth. Brazilians suffered under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985. Then, they lived through the reign of the Left’s hero Luis Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, which was accompanied by a healthy economic boom for 8 years (between 2003 and 2011) before accusations of corruption dominated the scene, and led ‘Lula’ to be tried, convicted and imprisoned. Last Sunday, around 150 million Brazilian faced a straightforward choice between vestiges of a corruption-blemished Leftist era and a pretty dangerous Rightist adventure, which they opted.

Scary Effects of Climate Change
Faye Flam/Bloomberg View/October 01/18
What’s so scary about climate change?
The term is not scary — at last not in a visceral, skin-crawling sense. Scientists have shown that the likely 2 degrees of global warming to come this century will be extremely dangerous, but, you know, “2 degrees” is hardly a phrase from nightmares and horror films.How about “rat explosion”?Like rats, humans are hardy animals, and we’ve adapted to all kinds of climates. So it can be tempting to brush off the prospect of 2 degrees of warming. Especially for Americans, who mostly use Fahrenheit. That 2 degree warming is Celsius. Think of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Still not scared? Fine. Many living things are sensitive to small changes in temperature, so warming of 2 degrees Celsius will transform the flora and fauna that surround us in a big way. Other life forms are also very sensitive to moisture, and so populations will crash or explode as anthropogenic climate change continues to make wet areas more sodden and dry areas, more parched.
And while extinctions may inspire a sense of tragedy, it’s the creatures multiplying in outbreaks and infestations that generate horror. As rat expert Bobby Corrigan of Cornell University has told various media outlets, rats have a gestation period of 14 days. The babies can start reproducing after a month. That means that in one year, one pregnant rat can result in 15,000 to 18,000 new rats. Warmer winters will continue to dial up rat fecundity. People in urban areas such as New York and Boston are already noticing a lot more rats, not just in downtown alleyways, but even in the posh suburbs.
Rats are just the beginning. Biologists have calculated that with the expected warming this century of 2 degrees Celsius, populations of dangerous crop-eating insects are likely to explode as temperate areas warm, reducing crop yields by 25 to 50 percent. Similar horrors lurk offshore, where biologists have found that a population explosion of purple sea urchins — “cockroaches of the ocean” — is choking out other denizens of Pacific kelp forests. There’s something deeply troubling about a single species taking over what was a diverse ecosystem.
In recent years, psychologists have accused conservatives of being more innately fearful than liberals, but that never quite squared with the fact that conservatives express less fear over environmental problems. Some social scientists are finally starting to question the broad equation of political preferences with fear, recognizing that different people fear different things depending on their upbringing, education and surroundings. But we’re all sharing this warming planet, and at the very least surely we can unite against a future filled with rats.

U.S. Officials Push for Yemen Talks
Elana DeLozier and Lt. Col. August Pfluger, USAF/The Washington Institute/November 01/18
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Washington’s abrupt change in tone could bolster the UN envoy’s efforts to end the fighting and convene negotiations sooner rather than later.
On October 30, the U.S. government’s public position on Yemen appeared to shift as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis called for the parties to cease hostilities and begin peace talks in November. Mattis’s remarks were made during a U.S. Institute of Peace webcast event, while Pompeo’s were issued as an official State Department press release hours later.
Previously, the Trump administration’s position centered on cautious support of Gulf coalition efforts against the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels, with Pompeo recently certifying to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were working to reduce civilian casualties in the conflict. Specifically, the administration continued its predecessor’s combination of air refueling support, intelligence sharing related to targeting, and advisory support to help defend against ballistic missile attacks.
The change in public positions comes in the wake of the Jamal Khashoggi affair, and amid mounting congressional pressure to end the war or halt U.S. support for the coalition. Adding to the urgency, Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, suggests the country may face the worst famine the world has seen in a century by year’s end.
Prior to yesterday’s statements, senior U.S. officials had privately urged coalition partners to bring the war to a close before the United States was forced to publicly call for it. Washington is particularly concerned about the coalition’s inability to conduct precision targeting with any consistency, resulting in heavy civilian casualties. Mattis emphasized this concern in his remarks, stating that the most important U.S. contribution in training coalition forces is to improve their targeting precision to the point where “they are not killing innocent people.” He noted that the Royal Saudi Air Force was comfortable with the targeting delays that sometimes result from instituting better procedures. At the same time, he implied that the high standards and meticulous procedures set by U.S. and NATO forces might not realistically apply to others, admitting that this level of precision took decades to achieve. More important, he concluded by reemphasizing Washington’s desire to see the war end, noting that “improved accuracy of bombs is still war.”
Likewise, Pompeo’s statement called for the cessation of “missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas” into Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as the halting of airstrikes in Yemen’s “populated areas.” His careful wording did not appear to include Houthi attacks inside Yemen or coalition airstrikes on unpopulated areas. He also failed to mention Iran—an odd omission given that Tehran has enabled Houthi missile attacks through weapons smuggling and otherwise stoked U.S. concerns about its role in Yemen.
Mattis also referred to a “pull back” from the borders, while Pompeo suggested “demilitarization of borders” as a confidence-building measure. It is unclear if they were referring to the Yemen-Saudi border alone, or to maritime borders as well. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis created de-escalation committees in 2016 to discuss the land border, so they could be prepared to do so again. Another Pompeo suggestion—concentrating “all large weapons under international observation”—may be more difficult because the Houthis perceive any suggestion to disarm as tantamount to surrender.
Regarding the call for peace negotiations in November, that timeline fits with recent comments by UN special envoy Martin Griffiths, who adamantly pushed for talks within the next month during an interview on Al-Arabiya television last week. He suggested that he would be briefing the UN Security Council in mid-November, and that he wanted talks to be either underway or scheduled by that time. And in a statement issued earlier today, he welcomed the U.S. position and reiterated that he would be promoting three confidence-building measures: “enhancing the capacities” of Yemen’s central bank, exchanging prisoners, and reopening Sana airport. During the Al-Arabiya interview, he suggested that all three proposals have been put down in writing and are underway; indeed, other recent reports indicate that some high-level prisoner releases are being carried out with Oman’s help.
If U.S. support proves genuine and durable, Griffiths has a plausible chance of convening peace talks in the next month. Mattis claimed that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are “ready” for that step, though reports of a coalition troop surge in Hodeida suggest they have other plans in the immediate term. As for the Houthis, they failed to show up for the previous round of talks, claiming they did not have guarantees of safe passage. Griffiths stated that those issues are now resolved, so the Houthis cannot use that excuse again. If talks do convene, they would represent the first real effort to end the war since the Kuwait negotiations collapsed in 2016, so Washington and its partners should do what they must to seize this opportunity.
* Elana DeLozier is a research fellow in The Washington Institute’s Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy. Lt. Col. August Pfluger, USAF, is a military fellow at the Institute.

U.S. Officials Push for Yemen Talks
Elana DeLozier and Lt. Col. August Pfluger, USAF/The Washington Institute/November 01/18
المسؤولون الأمريكيون يحثون على إجراء محادثات حول اليمن
إليانا ديلوزيي والمقدم أوغست بفلوغر، "سلاح الجو الأمريكي"
معهد واشنطن/01 تشرين الثاني/18
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U.S. Officials Push for Yemen Talks
Elana DeLozier and Lt. Col. August Pfluger, USAF/The Washington Institute/November 01/18
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/68574/elana-delozier-and-lt-col-august-pfluger-the-washington-institute-u-s-officials-push-for-yemen-talks-%d8%a5%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%a7-%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%84%d9%88%d8%b2%d9%8a%d9%8a-%d9%88%d8%a7/

المسؤولون الأمريكيون يحثون على إجراء محادثات حول اليمن

إليانا ديلوزيي والمقدم أوغست بفلوغر، "سلاح الجو الأمريكي"

معهد واشنطن/01 تشرين الثاني/18

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