"We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening to Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible." U.S. President Donald Trump
Pete Marovich/Bloomberg/Getty Images
The American public, termed the "deplorables" by his rival for the presidency, and whom virtually all media anywhere in the world lump together disparagingly as the misbegotten "populists", evidently see beyond this man's grandstanding showcasing of self as Commander in Chief par excellence. This is a man whose utterances are as coarse as his expressions and his interactions with women, a man whose compulsion to authority leads him naturally to embellishments which in plain language means he lies unrestrainedly to suit his purposes.
His main purpose is to draw attention to himself. That old adage that any publicity is good publicity, is one that this man instinctively has taken as his motivation for outrageous statements, bearing no resemblance to fealty to truth or to the public weal. The overwhelming 'good' for this man is to ensure that all eyes are drawn to him. And they are, admiringly from some sources, and with indignant consternation and outright, deserved hostility from others.
Yet a news poll has resulted in a release that the public considers this administration to be more above-board and imbued with more palatable intentions than the media that report on him. If distrust of the most important political office on Earth is a matter of great fear and upheaval, requiring diplomatic skills of as-yet-unknown quality to leaven augers the potential of equilibrium forever unbalanced, it is the news media and their reportage that the public believes has led to this situation.
French mobs, defiant of police, riot in Paris -- Getty Images
The highest office in the political landscape of the United States has increasingly become dependent on political manipulation through the resources available in public relations and steering the gullible to believe what they 'see' on the surface, not what exists on the deeper scale of reality. And increasingly, political office in the United States has been for sale to the highest bidder. Without the loose pockets of interests intent on seeing that their issues come to the fore to instruct the advance of society, politics and above all, business, leading to approval of whoever has the greater financial assets and celebrity support, there is no winner.
The elevation of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America simply represents the thrust of latter-day election techniques have reached their apogee. Inchoate as his message may be through the auspices of a poor communicator who celebrates himself as the master of social media communication, it only reflects the depths to which human intelligence and the ability to speak rationally to one another has fallen.
That he is more invested in himself as drama-of-the-times than as responsible international spokesperson for stable relations globally, only reflects as well the failure of an institution as nobly-launched with high expectations dashed in actual practise, as the United Nations has been. He has assured himself of the immutable quality of his own image; he has simply replaced 'God' with 'Trump' in the message on the American dollar. In so doing he is more upfront than his predecessor.
A
pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protest in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2015. The
signs in Swedish read ‘Boycott Israel.’ (Marianne Pleen Schreiber)
As for Mr. Trump's allusion to 'what has happened to Sweden', which Sweden indignantly denies, as does France, as does Germany, as does the Netherlands, as does Norway and Great Britain, it is as clear as day to those whose vision has not been occluded by political correctness that he speaks of the evidently unspeakable truth that they have all been overtaken by the lethal virus of political Islam, a virulent, violent jihad-infested ideology which is altering their culture, heritage, justice system and social mores, leaving moderation to support mendaciousness.
Illustrative photo of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 20, 2009. Passersby on a central street in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmö,
were greeted with chants in Arabic urging the killing of Jews.
(Miriam Alster/Flash90)
"The line between criticism, insult and defamation is very thin. The moment politicians decide which is which can mean the end of freedom of expression." Donald Tusk, president, EU Council
President-for-life of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan views himself as unassailable, that the same kind of respect be given him as a demi-god that he feels he resembles; at the very least a caliph whose power is unquestionable. He has altered the Turkey that was to become a Turkey that he wills it to be. He has built a palace palatial enough to represent the official abode of his eminence, the president.
He brooks no dissent, and above all, anyone who manoeuvres to take the limelight from him can anticipate being removed from power which is precisely what has occurred with presumptuous prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who thought himself entitled to act in a manner befitting his status.
Erdogan is in a permanent state of high dudgeon, responding to all those who presume to question his motives, let alone who dare to find fault with his directives. He is the scourge of the traditional Turkish military, of the police, of the judiciary, of the opposition, and above all of the journalists who write of matters inflammatory to the president's opinion of himself.
He is a committed litigator, having sued almost two thousand (1,845 to be more precise) people for libel. Reporters at a news conference were recently warned they will be sued should they insult him.
This is a man who was once viewed as a reasonable politician a reform-minded man planning to upgrade the country's economy and modernize its laws. He was amenable at one point to Turkey's emerging better relations with its Kurdish minority. He no longer has any interest in implementing reforms recommended by the European Union, and he has latterly demonstrated his contempt and hatred for the autonomous-seeking Kurds, showing no scruples against bombing Kurdish enclaves, citizens of Turkey.
Should any think of insulting the president they can be assured of four years in prison, if Erdogan has his way, and he generally does. A German satirist wrote and read out on TV and radio a garishly rude poem dedicated to Mr. Erdogan, a poem which generated controversy in Germany which, according to Der Spiegel"normally doesn't spend much time thinking about satire and art and the freedoms associated with them."
But Mr. Erdogan has insisted that Germany arrest German satirist Jan Boehmermann, who has just become a footnote in historical relations between Turkey and Germany. This is a Germany inundated with Muslim refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Eritrea, anxious to have the flow stopped and looking to Turkey to take steps to do just that. Giving Mr. Erdogan the opening he has long sought to have compensatory demands of his own considered by an otherwise-distant EU.
A Dutch-Turkish columnist in the Netherlands was arrested by Turkish police; his crime: offensive tweeting while on holiday in Turkey. Police awakened her, interrogated her, kept her overnight and she was forbidden the leave the country until such time as two of her tweets had been fully investigated and either clear or charge her with insulting Sultan Erdogan.
Ebru Umar had criticized the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam for demanding that Turks in the Netherlands report anyone who insulted Erdogan.
And in Geneva the Turkish consul demanded that the city intervene to remove a picture at a photography exhibit that showcased Berkin Elvan, the 15-year-old who wandered into an anti-government protest and was killed by a tear-gas canister fired by police. His death in 2014 inspired demonstrations across Turkey. The caption on the picture that so offends the Turkish consul reads: "My name is Berkin Elvan. The police killed me on the orders of the Turkish prime minister".
Erdogan demands removal of 'offensive' Geneva photo Photo: DIHA
"On Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists announced
the collaboration of more than 100 publications worldwide to report on the biggest electronic leak in history: the Panama Papers.
These documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca total 11.5 million
separate items spanning 40 years, and take up 2.6 terabytes of information—more than 1,500 times the size of
the WikiLeaks State Department cables. Among the most explosive revelations from
the leak are $2 billion in payouts to Vladimir Putin’s friends, family
members, and allies, and that global soccer superstar Lionel Messi and his
father set up an offshore company to which they are the only beneficiaries...." Slate Magazine online, April 4, 2016
Handout TV grab from Telemetro Panama showing Ramon Fonseca, one of the founders of
Panama's Mossack Fonseca law firm, in Panama City, on April 4, 2016Credit:
AFP PHOTO/TELEMETRO PANAMA
"[Revealing unauthorized details of the offshore
structures of wealthy clients is a] crime [an] attack [on
Panama]."
"This is a crime, a felony. This is an attack on Panama because certain countries don’t like it that we are so competitive in attracting companies."
Ramon Fonseca, one of the founders of Mossack Fonseca
View
of a sign outside the building where Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law
firm offices are placed in Panama City on April 3, 2016. (AFP PHOTO /
RODRIGO ARANGUA)
But according to Dmitri Petrov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the revelations represent a conspiracy cooked up by Russia's Western enemies to smear Mr. Putin and Russia. "It’s clear that the level of Putinphobia has reached a level at
which it is impossible a priori to speak well of Russia, and it’s
required to speak ill of Russia", he stated, denying at the same time that his wife is another owner of a beneficial company to evade taxes.
"My wife does not
and has never owned any offshore companies. Based on this I am inclined
to doubt the authenticity of other claims." But hold on there a minute; Mr. Peskov's wife, former Olympic ice skater Tatiana Navka is shown to have set up Carina Global Assets Ltd., in 2015, using agents on the Isle of Man to aid her in her investments portfolio, according to documents from the Panama Papers, including a copy of her own passport for identification purposes.
One might ask what do Sigmundur Davio Gunnlaugsson, prime minister of Iceland, the offspring of Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister David Cameron's father, Mauricio Macri, president of Argentina, Syria's Bashar al Assad, Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, Ayad Allawi, former prime minister of Iraq; Bidzina Ivanishvili, former Georgian prime minister, Ali Abu al-Ragab, former prime minister of Jordan, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, former prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, former emir of Qatar, Ahmad Ali al Mirghani, former president of Sudan, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of UAE, and Pavio Lazarenko, former prime minijster of Ukraine have in common?
Well, for starters, their complicated names, their 'former' status in a great many instances, and their obvious desire to escape notice for taxation purposes and in the process become the recipient of untold additional riches to add to their existing considerable wealth. And all kept out of the public eye. No longer away from the public's notice, there will be a lot of explaining to do, and many will lose face, let alone their political positions, albeit not those in the Middle East.
The information dragnet is voluminous to a fault, an incredible scoop of data released for public scrutiny and private shame. But apart from the inconvenience of revelations best kept hidden, many of these people have no shame, just an overweening entitlement, and the grasping desire to become more wealthy than they already are, and if the looting of public treasury and the white-washing of ill-gotten gains through corrupt transactions are involved, that's just the way the elite world of wealth making more wealth operates.
Russian state media itself reveals that $2-trillion in state assets have left the country in the past few years ... to end up, where? Among the unsavoury elements being revealed is the background of one of the founders of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca; there is the appalled Ramon Fonseca, attempting fruitlessly to divert attention from the criminal aspect of the firm's business, expressing frustration and innocence and criminality on the part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who leaked the revelatory documents.
And then, there is the other partner whose father, Erhard Mossack, was one of the law firm's co-founders. The current partner, Jurgen Mossack, has been silent so far. His father had been a member of the armed wing of Germany's Nazi party, known as the Death Heads, whose insignia was just that. U.S. Army intelligence files verify his status in that dread World War Two Nazi elite group whose function was to administer the death camps where millions of Jews, political prisoners, gays, gypsies, met their deaths.
It is the still-murky connection of Vladimir Putin and how he has benefited personally that will be of greatest interest, a man who has amassed a staggering fortune as president, prime minister and again president of the Russian Federation. Whose good friend Sergei Roldugin, director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory is directly responsible for managing massive amounts of money through shell companies.
But Mr. Putin is, of course, innocent of any wrongdoing, his press secretary attests to that: "Here we see no intent to conduct objective investigations, we see just an intention to publish a hatchet job", he complained in defense of his boss.
"The situation of those who attended this hearing is very important. The
consuls-general in Istanbul come to the courthouse. Who are you, what
are you doing there? This is not your country, this is Turkey ...
Diplomats can operate within the boundaries of missions. Elsewhere is
subject to permission." "I
would (thank) each and everyone one of those who criticize me but if
they were to insult me, my lawyers will go and file a lawsuit." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
"Turkey is where many journalists may have to spend more time at their
attorneys' offices or in courtrooms than in the newsrooms, where they
should be." "Don't quote me on that. I
don't want to be declared persona non grata." Unnamed Western diplomat
"We came here today to defend journalism. We gathered here before and
said the same thing. We said we would defend the people's right to
access information. We defended that and we were arrested." Can Dundar, editor-in-chief, Cumhuriyet
"... in the year 2016 courthouse corridors and the hearing rooms have
become the habitats of journalists in Turkey. Freedom of the press in
Turkey in 2016 is now confined to court corridors." Sedat Ergin, editor-in-chief of Turkey's most influential newspaper, Hurriyet
Can Dundar (right), editor-in-chief of Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Erdem Gul (left), Cumhuriyet's
Ankara bureau chief, were arrested after the paper published evidence
of arms deliveries by the Turkish intelligence services to Islamist
groups in Syria. They remained behind bars for over 90 days, until
Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled that their detention violated their
rights.
It simply doesn't do to criticize Turkish President Erdogan; he is a man above criticism and he will certainly not tolerate any. To level charges of any kind against him is to carelessly command his attention. And his attention is not pleasant. Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet, and
Erdem Gul, the newspaper's Ankara bureau chief, have an intimate knowledge of the process. They have been charged by a prosecutor with intent to topple
the government by publishing a video purporting to show Turkey's state
intelligence agency helping to truck weapons to Syria in 2014.
If they are convicted of the charges, the two journalists stand the chance of facing life in prison. Erdogan had, after all, promised that Dundar would "pay a heavy price". Life in prison is that heavy price, although international condemnation of the situation may ease the seriousness with which Turkish justice is treating this situation. This is simply one of many such situations and Mr. Erdogan has issued a warning of his intention to continue to sue critics who insult him; there is ample precedence of imprisonment for critics of the president.
The two journalists stand accused of publishing footage showing Turkey's intelligence agency in the process of shipping truckloads of weapons to opposition fighters in Syria, in early 2014. Their trial was set to resume today. Journalism rights groups accuse the government of Turkey of using vague terrorism charges to silence journalists. Erdogan has filed a record 1,845 court cases against individuals for the crime of insulting him. Insulting the personage of the president carries a maximum of four years in prison.
The advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists describes Turkey as a "country of concern" in the number of arrested journalists. A decade ago the novelist Orhan Pamuk stated: "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." He was charged under a statute specifying a jail term up to three years for insulting "the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly".
The resulting hate campaign forced him to leave Turkey. Eventually the charge was changed to "insulting Turkishness". This is all most inconvenient for Turkey, hoping to become a member of the European Union which keeps turning it away with the admonition it must first improve its human rights record. The EU intended to send five members of the European Parliament as observers at Pamuk's trial. That resulted in the law being changed and the prospect of jail for Pamuk lifted.
He became the first Turk to win the Nobel price in literature in 2006. After which any prosecutorial attack on the man would have been keenly awkward. A nationalist rally, however, was the venue of a book burning; copies of his books, of course. Burak Bekdil, a Turkish journalist, was charged under the Turkish Penal Code for committing an "insult to the state and its institutions", receiving a suspended sentence of 18 months for a satirical piece he wrote about the Turkish judiciary.
He continued to write critical columns about President Erdogan, sometimes publishing in Hurriyet. Writing as well on the Gatestone Institute website, he is known to sometimes defend Israel in his dispatches. A pro-government columnist tweeted that Mr. Bekdil was a "disgrace to humanity", and others joined him. "Enmity to Islam spills from his face", tweeted someone else, while another wrote suggesting he go to Gaza, so he could be shot.
On September 6, when nationalists gathered in their hundreds to throw rocks at Hurriyet's offices, the mob's leader identified on video was recognized as Abdurrahim Boynukalin, a member of the Turkish parliament from Erdogan's ruling AKP party. He was elevated to the high council of the party a few days later, at the AKP general convention. And then the government began to investigate the Dogan Media Group, the parent company of Hurriyet, for terrorist propaganda. "An important line has been crossed. In an already troubling campaign of harassment and intimidation targeting independent media", said a statement from the International Press Institute.
"[Paul Refsdal], the Norwegian journalist who spent some time with the students [Taliban in Afghanistan] and released a film that was condemned in the West because he shows that the students are humans that have families and children and that they laugh and eat like the rest of the people [can be trusted]." Adam Gadahn (deceased) al-Qaeda spokesman "Nusra do kidnap people, or arrest them. But that is if they enter their area without permission." "I think al-Qaeda in general need to have some relations with journalists to bring their message out. They don't have to accept that these journalists are 100 percent in their favour, but if they can trust them to give a fair coverage, I think that's OK." "[Nusra] were just happy for me to be alone if I wanted to be alone [in the evenings, after frontline business was over for the day]." "It sounds very difficult and very dangerous, but when you are there [embedded with the Islamist jihadis], everything is easier in a way." Journalist and filmmaker Paul Refsdal
A still from 'Dugma: The Button,' a documentary by Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal, who embedded with al-Nusra Front in Syria.Paul Refsdal
And so was a documentary produced. To humanize the suicide bombers, as simply ordinary people taken by extraordinary events and times to commit to unusual and usually deadly practices. But since these are fervent Muslims who have answered the fundamental demand of Islam to take part in jihad there is nothing too unusual about the aspiration to martyrdom, since it is an honourable and venerated achievement.
That much being understood, Mr. Refsdal sought to film the ordinariness of jihad and martyrdom.
And so he did. And he has had ample experience as a freelance journalist with three decades under his belt and behind his camera reporting from global conflict zones. He has been to Burma, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua and Kosovo as well as Afghanistan and now Syria in the interests of revealing to the world what he has seen and experienced in recognition of common humanity, living for periods of time among rebels.
Two trips to Syria in 2014 and 2015 furnished the adventurous and empathetic 52-year-old with the makings of a documentary he hopes will help the world see suicide bombers as, well, people. Fact is, it is generally recognized they are people, without Mr. Refsdal's assistance but people with a distorted agenda of sacred war in the name of the ineffable. His purpose was achieved when two al-Qaeda-affiliated suicide bombers agreed to have Mr. Refsdal shadow them.
One, Lucas Kinney, a 26-year-old British convert from West London, renamed as Abu Basir al-Britani, the other Abu Qaswara el-Maki, a 32-year-old Saudi national. Both dedicated to jihad, both willing to honourably surrender their lives as martyrs to global jihad. In the process, of course, driving explosives-laden vehicles into crowds of people, then detonating their deadly load for maximum carnage. The dream of every juvenile delinquent.
Which gives the documentary its title: Dugma: The Button, since the button in the vehicle to be depressed to initiate the blast is called the dugma. In one scene in the documentary al-Maki escorts Refsdal to an armoured truck where a dugma is positioned close to the driver's seat, connected to an explosive device in the trunk of the vehicle. When a suicidist drives such a vehicle and hits its target, that is the time to also hit the dugma for maximum effect. And the effect is totally maximum.
Syria, the world's most fraught area for journalists, where according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 91 journalists have been killed since 2012, called out to Mr Refsdal. Despite the gruesome beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff when most news organizations and freelance journalists felt it was suicidal to enter Syria, Mr. Refsdal thought otherwise. And lived to tell the tale.
(Seems he does share something with the suicide bombers; a casual attitude toward life.)
That members of Nusra are just ordinary people, albeit ordinary people with a mission. That most Western countries consider the group a terrorist organization is beside the point, obviously, based on their purpose and action. Mr. Refsdal sought the opportunity to embed with them in Idlib, Aleppo and Latakia provinces. And out of that experience came his understanding and forgiving portrait of ordinary people indulging in extraordinary events.
When Israeli Jews are
murdered, often barbarically, nearly all European and American media
blame Israel and find excuses for the killers.
Forgotten is that the "Palestinian people" and the "Palestinian
cause" are a mythic narrative invented by the KGB and Nasser's secret
service propaganda machine in the 1960s.
Hamas has an even more genocidal goal: the destruction of Israel and all Jews. For many journalists, that is also a detail not worth mentioning.
The Iranian regime claims non-stop that its main objective is the
elimination of Israel and Israeli Jews. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei has just published a book, Palestine, detailing his
plans to destroy Israel. For most commentators, the book is of no
relevance. It does not matter. Leaders of Western countries adopt the
same view.
What is at stake in enriching Iran and arming it with nuclear
capability is more than the fate of Israel and Israeli Jews: it is also
the fate of America -- even if it does not wish to realize that goal yet
--as well as values of Western civilization.
As migrants continue to pour over the borders of Italy and
Hungary, and from there to spread out into the rest of Europe, the
continent is becoming increasingly and irreversibly Muslim. Europe is
lost to Islam.
In recent weeks, the Middle East section of most European and American newspapers and magazines included many articles on Muhammad Allan,
a hunger striker imprisoned in Israel. Apparently that Muhammad Allan
is in jail because he belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad seemed
irrelevant. That the Israeli intelligence services know he was preparing terrorist attacks
also did not seem to matter . That the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a
terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel
additionally did not seem to matter.
Muhammad Allan was described as a victim. If he had died on a hunger
strike, Israel would be blamed. As he did not die, but suffered brain damage due to self-inflicted starvation, Israel was blamed anyway.
When a member of a Palestinian jihadist organization that has killed
Jews and that wants to kill more Jews puts his life in danger, most
mainstream media in Europe and in America depict him as a "resister." Negative comments are usually directed against Israel.
When a Palestinian Arab terrorist is killed by an Israeli soldier,
most members of the mainstream media in Europe and America blame the
Israeli army, even if the person killed was known to have murdered or
injured Israeli Jews.
A few weeks ago, when a Palestinian Arab house was set on fire and a
baby died in the flames, the perpetrators were assumed to be Israeli
Jews. Even though the Israeli government immediately denounced the crime, almost all the reports published in European and American media accused Israel.
When Israeli Jews are murdered, often barbarically, nearly all
European and American media blame Israel and find excuses for the
killers.
If the murdered Jews lived in the West Bank, they are automatically
featured as people occupying someone else's land, and to blame for what
happened to them. Such accusations even fall on murdered young children,
including babies.
Immediately after the massacre of the Fogel family in Itamar in 2011, many newspapers reported that "five settlers" were killed. Some "pro-Palestinian" websites in Europe went even farther; one reported, "Five terrorist Zionists eliminated."
If the murdered Jews lived outside the West Bank, it was harder to
belittle them directly, but it did not stop those who said that the
murdered had good reasons to kill. Some journalists cite
"Palestinian" organizations' press releases claiming the bloodshed was
in response to "crimes" committed by the Israeli army. Others,
suggesting that the killers were guided by "despair," included the
criminals among the victims.
After the November 2014 massacre at a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof, the French daily, Le Monde, published an article entitled, "Six Killed in Jerusalem." In the article, the murderers shot dead by police were included in the victims' body-count. CBC News in Canada did worse. The headline of the report on the attack read, "Jerusalem police fatally shoot 2 after apparent synagogue attack."
Despite the massive atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq
and in Syria, despite the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime
in Syria, despite the existence of atrocious dictatorships, this
disproportionate pile-on against Israel has a name: the hatred and
demonization by racists of an entire country and an entire people.
Demonization works because it uses all sorts of political
stereotypes. All the false and collective allegations used to demonize
Jews in Europe for centuries are used again. Israel is described as an
"imperialist," "colonialist" and "militarist" power, and Israeli Jews
are portrayed as ruthless agents of this power. The "Palestinian"
killers of Israeli Jews, including civilians and babies, are presented
as "freedom fighters" and heroic members of an "oppressed people."
Forgotten is that the "Palestinian people" and the "Palestinian cause" are a mythic narrative invented by the KGB and Nasser's secret service propaganda machine in the 1960s.
Jews in Europe have long been accused of every conceivable evil; now
Israel and Israeli Jews are accused of blood libels, the gratuitous
murder of innocents. Killers of Jews in Europe were often glorified and
described as killers of people who were strangers to the land they lived
in. Crimes committed by Jews were used to incriminate all Jews. When
Jews were slaughtered, they were often designated as deserving the blame
for their fate.
Historians of anti-Semitism explain that in Europe, frequently the
hatred of Jews was so common that it made the unacceptable acceptable.
The historian Leon Poliakov noted that, "Without the incessant
incitement to hatred of Jews throughout Europe, without the
trivialization of the hatred, the attempted extermination of an entire
people would not have been possible."[1]
The late scholar Robert Wistrich said that demonization of Israel and
Israeli Jews leads to the same kind of hatred. He added that a
trivialization of hatred is accepted all the more if it is based on an
old hatred: "What did happen could happen again."[2]
Ideas of extermination proliferate in the Middle East; most people do not pay attention.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad is dedicated to the destruction of Israel
and Israeli Jews. For many journalists, that is a detail not worth
mentioning. Hamas has an even more genocidal goal, the destruction of Israel and all
Jews. "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the
Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones , and
each tree an stone will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a
Jew behind me, come and kill him." For many journalists; that is also a
detail not worth mentioning.
Official Palestinian Authority television constantly calls for the destruction of Israel. It also glorifies killers of Jews as role models; most commentators just look the other way.
The Iranian regime claims non-stop that its main objective is the
elimination of Israel and Israeli Jews. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei has just published a book, Palestine, detailing his plans to destroy Israel. For most commentators, the book is apparently of no relevance; it does not matter.
Leaders of Western countries have the same view. They fund the Palestinian Authority
(PA), and therefore finance official PA Television. They know that much
of the money given is used to pay and train killers of Jews, but
evidently they do not care.
They just signed an agreement with the Iranian regime that will allow Iran soon to have nuclear weapons and to receive billions of dollars
to finance and arm terrorist groups dedicated to the full destruction
of Israel, and Israeli Christians, Muslims and Jews. But evidently
leaders of Western countries do not care about that, either.
They are, in effect, acquiescing to genocide; but so long as business can be done with Iran, apparently that is fine with them. If genocide occurred, they would be ready to cheer from the sidelines.
Some journalists and columnists see what is happening and are
sounding an alarm. But they are a minority, especially in Europe, where
courage seems to have vanished along with a number of Jews.
Some political leaders still have ethical values and shout their
indignation. None of them is European. Nearly all of them are American. They understand that silence means consent and that at certain moments in history, it is imperative to take a stand.
What is at stake in enriching Iran and arming it with nuclear
capability is more than the fate of Israel and Israeli Jews: it is also
the fate of America, even if it does not wish to realize that yet. It is
also the fate of Western civilization.
As migrants continue to pour over the borders of Hungary, Italy and
Greece, and from there to spread out into the rest of Europe, the
continent is becoming increasingly and irreversibly Muslim. Europe is lost to Islam.
Seven decades after Auschwitz, barbarity is fast gaining ground again.
In September, the U.S. Congress may vote -- or try to weasel out of a
vote -- to approve or disapprove of the agreement with Iran. Either
way, U.S. President Barack Obama has vowed to push the deal through. His
decision will have consequences far beyond what we see now. One thing
is certain: they will not be good.
Iran's
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei (center), is shown meeting in May
2014 with Iran's military chief of staff and the commanders of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. (Image source: IRNA)
[1] Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe, Schocken Books, 1979. [2] Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel, University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
"CIA Director Admits: U.S Foreign Policy Causes Terrorism." "U.S. wants to make Ukraine a base to attack Russia." "NATO breaks treaty to establish permanent forces in Baltic." Russian RT television channel, 'breaking news' items
"I realize why I keep working at a channel which is alone facing thousands, tens of thousands of Western media outlets, telling the other side of the story, finding itself in the cross-hairs of those media and struggling to fend off their attacks. Because it's my Motherland." RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan
"If you follow the RT Twitter feed as I do to my eternal teeth-gritting annoyance, it's full of stories of racism in the U.S., police corruption in the U.K., gay propaganda in Sweden." "The West is playing 19th-Century Victorian boxing while Russia is using karate." Ben Nimmo, former NATO press officer
"They aren't concerned to prove they are right, but to muddy the information space so much that it's hard to get the truth through." Adam Thomson, British ambassador to NATO
Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
Public relations is one of the thorny issues confronting European Union leaders in their discussions at the Brussels summit. Russia's government appears to have spent thought and time in putting together an effective media machine to target its interior and to convince a foreign audience that all the news that's fit to print does not always reach them, and Russia's version of events give food for appetizing thought for those to care to know the truth.
They have enlisted some American media heavy-hitters in their campaign to air Moscow's version of world events. The murkier the relations become between Russia, the U.S. and NATO, the more persuasive the message becomes that Russia stands stalwart and unintimidated by powerful forces intending to bring it to its knees, and in the process creating a non-existent emergency, dividing former allies and creating hostility where none should exist.
Larry King has been enlisted to reach households around the world with his convincing good will through talking with celebrities and entertaining the worthy. Former governor and professional wrestler, once a member of the Navy SEALs, Jessie Ventura has added his intellectual and public relations heft to Russia's half-billion-a-year commitment to getting its story out, trumping the efforts of NATO states to explain to their constituents the strains and sanctions earned by Moscow.
Jesse Ventura featured "torture whistleblower" John Kiriakou stating the CIA "is run by lunatics", and that the U.S. Federal Reserve is an "illegal institution"; two claims that may have a modicum of veracity on the face of things, yet bear nothing as much scrutiny as Russian institutions of the same purpose bear for outright depth and commitment to corruption. AP also involves itself, providing text, photos and raw video footage to the English-language RT.
"Larry King, well, you and I know him. He's a chap of great broadcasting credibility", Lt.-Col. Simon West, a British Army specialist on strategic communications allowed, in speaking of RT's programming initiative meant to to gather audience trust. He is acting as a consultant at a Riga, Latvia-based facility initiated by NATO member states to address the flow of information from Moscow challenging the Western version of situational events. "Russia's ongoing disinformation campaigns" have stimulated a draft EU "Action plan on strategic communication", calling for a group of measures to balance and hopefully surmount the Russian plan. Witold Waszeyzkowski, Polish member of Parliament points out the strategy Moscow is employing, which leaves viewers with the impression they are listening to a Western source, unaware that they have tuned into a Kremlin-paid information machine.
". . . just read a few of the select explanations
provided this week by the writers who chose to sit out the PEN dinner. "A hideous crime was committed" wrote
the novelist Peter Carey, "but was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN
America to be self-righteous about?" And this, from a letter signed by
26 of contemporary literature’s most vaunted, arguing that Charlie Hebdo "seems
to be entirely sincere in its anarchic expressions of disdain toward
organized religion. But in an unequal society, equal opportunity offense
does not have an equal effect. Power and prestige are elements that
must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse,
including satire." Liel Liebowitz, Tablet Magazine
"[PEN's] seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognize its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population." Peter Carey, Australian novelist, PEN member
"[The PEN award] does not believe that any of us must endorse the contents of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons in order to affirm the principles for which they stand, or applaud the staff's bravery in holding fast to those values in the face of life and death threats." PEN president Andrew Solomon "If PEN as a free speech organization can't defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name." former PEN president, Salman Rushdie
A Hebdo-themed mural in the French western city of Rennes on March 6, 2015.
(Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images)
At a New York gala coinciding with PEN's annual World Voices Festival on May 5, PEN American Center plans to award its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Present will be a grand gathering of international writers, some 800 writers, publishers and supporters. Gerard Biard, Charlie Hebdo's editor-in-chief will accept the award on behalf of the magazine.
That he is alive today owes to the fact that he was absent from the office that January day when a dozen of Charlie Hebdo's staff were slaughtered by Islamic jihadists. Jean-Baptiste Thoret, another staff member who, arriving late to the office, had his life saved from a violent and early death, will also be on hand to accept the gracious recognition of the world's premier writer's group.
A mass rally in Paris last January to remember the 12 people murdered in
the Charlie Hebdo attack. Photograph: David Ramos/Getty Images But there will be members, some of them distinguished writers, who have chosen to boycott the event. Among them is Canada's own Michael Ondaatje, scheduled to serve as a host, and now no longer part of the ceremony; missing in action. That action being to express solidarity with Muslim outrage that their religion -- along with all the world's other religions, politicians, celebrities, and world-shakers -- suffered mockery at the clever cartoon hands of Charlie Hebdo staff. Rachel Kushner, an American writer, expressed extreme discomfort with the magazine-to-be-honoured's "cultural intolerance". Do they really believe that claptrap? Other writers, in withdrawing their august presence from the event, cite the focus on "disenfranchised" Muslims, handily overlooking the even treatment meted out by Charlie Hebdo staff to all pretentiously sanctimonious arbiters of the sacred, the rude and the sublime. It has been pointed out that PEN, in reaching the decision to honour Charlie Hebdo, now stands a real risk of itself attracting the attention of Islamists outraged at its recognition of the newsmagazine they love to hate, for spreading "Islamophobia". The eyes and curses of the offended Islamists will now swivel toward PEN arbiters of virtue in the written word and the scribbled cartoon. In offending Muslim sensibilities, admittedly irascible for far lesser transgressions than these, PEN and its leading lights also affirm uncategorically the right of poets, writers, novelists, editors, cartoonists to express themselves without fear or favour where civilizational values hold that the truth and realities as they are seen and recognized must have priorities over pretensions of righteousness.
French Premier Declares ‘War’ on Radical Islam as Paris Girds for Rally
The New York Times
A police officer on Saturday outside a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris where a gunman and four of his hostages were killed.Credit
David Ramos/Getty Images
PARIS — Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared Saturday that France
was at war with radical Islam after the harrowing sieges that led to
the deaths of three gunmen and four hostages the day before. New details
emerged about the bloody final confrontations, and security forces
remained on high alert.
“We
are 99 percent sure that she traveled to Syria from Urfa,” said a
Turkish intelligence official, referring to a city in southern Turkey.
“There is no evidence that suggests she was involved in the terrorist
attacks in France this week.”
France
remained on edge a day after security forces killed Mr. Coulibaly, who
the police said was responsible for the deaths of four hostages at a
kosher supermarket near the Porte de Vincennes in eastern Paris on
Friday, and Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the brothers who fatally shot 12
people on Wednesday in and around the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a
satirical newspaper.
The
French government said it would put 500 additional troops on the
streets over the weekend amid preparations for a giant unity rally in
Paris on Sunday. A number of European officials said they would attend,
including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister David
Cameron of Britain and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, the
most prominent Muslim leader scheduled to be there.
Other
foreign officials who have said they would be at the rally include
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
On
Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Paris, Toulouse,
Nice and other cities in a show of solidarity, and rallies were held in
places as far away as Madagascar, Tel Aviv and Bangui, Central African
Republic.
Top
ministers in the French government held an emergency session to discuss
measures to prevent a repeat of the attacks, which shocked the country
and raised questions about why law enforcement agencies had failed to
thwart terrorism suspects well known to the police and intelligence
services.
Some
of the surviving hostages shared chilling accounts of their ordeals at
the hands of heavily armed captors, who they said had seemed prepared to
die as police forces amassed outside the kosher supermarket and a
printing plant northeast of Paris that the Kouachi brothers had seized
early Friday.
Where their lives intersected and what may have influenced them.
Mr.
Coulibaly, in an interview with a French television outlet not long
before he was killed, claimed to be affiliated with the Islamic State,
which has its headquarters in northern Syria. Officials identified him
as the gunman in the fatal shooting of a female police officer in a
Paris suburb on Thursday.
The
crisis and its aftermath presented a major challenge to President
François Hollande and his government, which are facing deep religious
and cultural rifts in a nation with a rapidly growing Muslim population
while simultaneously coping with the security threats stemming from
Islamic extremists. Large numbers of French citizens have been traveling
to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
and ISIL.
Mr.
Hollande, appealing for unity, has warned against seeing Muslims as the
enemy, and Mr. Valls called again on Saturday for citizens to join the
rally planned for Sunday.
“There
needs to be a firm message about the values of the republic and of
secularism,” Mr. Valls said in Évry. “Tomorrow, France and the French
can be proud. Everyone must come tomorrow.”
But
the event was already proving polarizing in some quarters. Marine Le
Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, which was not invited,
urged her followers to stay away, saying the rally had been “taken over
by parties which represent what the French hate: partisan spirit,
electioneering and indecent polemic.”
Mr.
Valls’s statement that France was at war with jihadists and radicals
reflected the depth of the concerns over security in France and across
much of Western Europe.
A sign on the Arc de Triomphe
read “Paris Is Charlie,” a message of solidarity with the victims of
Wednesday’s massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.Credit
Peter Dejong/Associated Press
American
officials said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. would attend a
meeting in Paris on Sunday convened by the French interior minister.
Terrorist threats, foreign fighters and violent extremism were expected
to be at the top of the agenda.
Simone
Rodan Benzaquen, the director of the American Jewish Committee in
Paris, said there was deep anxiety among French Jews, who had already
been grappling with a spate of anti-Semitism in recent months, prompting
some to declare their intention to leave France.
“We
wonder whether it is the beginning of a series of further attacks or if
it is the end, or a wake-up call that will help the country understand
what Islamic radicalism is,” Ms. Rodan Benzaquen said.
The
Defense Ministry said it had added 250 soldiers to the 850-person force
already deployed in the greater Paris area, and would add 250 more on
Sunday. Security forces could be seen outside vulnerable targets in
Paris.
Yet
a Turkish official said that French authorities were slow to provide
information, allowing Ms. Boumeddiene to slip into Syria before she
could be questioned about Mr. Coulibaly and the attacks.
Much
remained unknown or unclear about the attacks, the suspects and the
efforts to hunt them down. After initially suggesting that the Kouachi
brothers had another accomplice, the police have said little since an
18-year-old with the name of the person they were seeking turned himself
in late Wednesday.
A crowd paid tribute to the four hostages killed Friday at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.Credit
Olivier Hoslet/European Pressphoto Agency
The
precise nature of the relationships among the Kouachi brothers, Mr.
Coulibaly, the Islamic State and another terrorist group, Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, remained murky. And with security services still
on high alert, there was little public indication of whether the
authorities had specific information about possible further attacks or
simply remained worried about the potential for other terrorists to take
cues from the French gunmen and from the jihadists and militant groups
that had quickly applauded them as heroes.
Le
Monde, citing counterterrorism officials, said that the links between
Mr. Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi appeared to stretch back to 2010, and
that telephone wiretaps showed that they had frequently visited Djamel
Beghal, a French-Algerian champion of jihad who had once been imprisoned
for planning an attack on the American Embassy in Paris in 2001. The
police said Mr. Coulibaly and Mr. Kouachi had been followers of Mr.
Beghal.
Mr. Coulibaly was an associate of Chérif, the younger Kouachi brother, a sometime pizza delivery man and fishmonger.
The
brothers were being tracked by intelligence officials in the United
States, France and Yemen, but large gaps remain in the chronology of
their actions and in accounts of their affiliations. A senior United
States official said on Saturday that Saïd Kouachi had traveled to Yemen
with another person, probably an accomplice, in the summer of 2011.
The authorities are trying to determine whether that person was Chérif, who claimed to have gone to Yemen that year.
The
official said that the Kouachi brothers had known Mr. Coulibaly, and
possibly Ms. Boumeddiene, also a French citizen, since childhood.
"I just went to get my daughter from daycare. As I got to the front door of the building, two masked, armed gunmen brutally threatened us. They wanted to enter, go up. I typed in the code." Corinne Rey, Charlie Hebdo cartoonist "As we progressed into the office, we saw that the number of casualties was very high. There was a lot of people dead on the floor, and there was blood everywhere." Wandrille Lanos, TV reporter
Six of the Charlie Hebdo journalists
and staff members killed in Wednesday's attack are pictured together in
this photo, taken in 2000. Circled top from left is Philippe Honore,
Georges Wolinski, Bernard Maris and Jean Cabut. Below them on the
stairs, from left, is editor Stephane Charbonnier and cartoonist Bernard
‘Tignous’ Verlhac
A woman picking up her child from daycare, how perfectly pedestrian. Taking her child with her, a little girl who would be given paper and pencil to doodle with as her mother, a professional cartoonist, carried on with her work at Charlie Hebdo, until it was time to leave for the afternoon, and head for home together, the close of the working day. Only, that isn't what happened, the expected; the unexpected intervened.
Armed and intent men embarked on a slaughter they intended to carry out in military fashion recognized the woman for who she was, and commandeered her intent, turning it to their advantage to bypass the building's security code system to allow them to enter the office that she would forbear on this occasion from entering with her vulnerable child; her child's very presence ensuring the mother's vulnerability. How could she refuse to do as they bid her to?
And so the masked, black-clad men with machine guns that intercepted Corinne Rey as she approached her newspaper's office forced her to punch in the security code. They obviously knew well what they were doing, were practised in expediting such an event where every second counted, to enable them to carry out their plan of vengeance against the unprepared and the innocent. They delivered the message of who they were and what they represented, those commandos of Allah.
Al-Qaeda had put a bounty on Charlie Hebdo's editor, Stephane Charbonnier, whom they charged with blasphemy. The senior staff were present, something evidently known to the intruders, that an editorial meeting would be taking place, a weekly event, so everything was planned and timed with inside knowledge; how gained? They sought out particular journalists and cartoonists by name; meticulous in their savagery. Their Kalishnikov rifles were put to use, killing, wounding.Allahu Akbar!
"It lasted five minutes", said Ms. Rey. There were witnesses from neighbouring news outlets, seeing the gunmen, hearing shots, some running away in panic to protect themselves, others alerting police, others using their cellphone cameras. Once their work within the building was concluded the jihadis ran outside to the black Citroen in which they had arrived. First, though, they fired at a police officer downing him, then shooting him point-blank in the head; dead a Muslim patrolman assigned to duty.
Killing: Leaving the 42-year-old
married officer, Ahmed Merabet to die, they run off, sparking a massive manhunt which continues.
As an arriving police car attempted blocking the road before the Citroen, it was sprayed with gunfire. The attackers were supremely co-ordinated, well precision-trained and triumphant, calling out "we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad". "An act of indescribable barbarity has just been committed today in Paris. Measures have been taken to find those responsible, they will be hunted for as long as it takes to catch them and bring them to justice", vowed President Hollande.
Thousands of French citizens gathered on the streets of Paris, some holding pens aloft symbolizing freedom of expression, quietly expressing their outrage and anger with the massacre. In contrast to those who celebrated with congratulatory tweets and praise for the gunmen, Said and Cherif Kouachi and Hamyd Mourad, good French citizens loyal to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The oppressors change, oppression does not.
The U.S. and EU expressed concern about media freedom and the independence of the judiciary in Turkey.
Turkey changes, and it does not. The oppressors change; oppression does not.
Every Turkish courtroom sports in big, bold letters the proud dictum:
"Justice is the foundation of the state." Perhaps that explains why the
Turkish state looks like a makeshift building without a proper
foundation.
In Turkey, the ruling ideology has changed from one belief to
another. The bête noire for the state also changed -- in line with what
the dominant ideology has crowned, or what is perceived as threat.
Between 1923, when Ataturk built modern Turkey, and 2002, when the
(Islamist) Justice and Development Party [AKP] came to power, the usual
suspects were the liberals, Islamists, non-Muslim minorities,
communists, Kurds and random dissidents.
The state machinery often effectively used law enforcement
authorities and the justice system to punish the "internal threats" to
the state's own survivability. Government bigwigs, judges and generals
were largely the "untouchables." In 2002, this author was given a
20-month suspended prison sentence for an article criticizing corruption
in the judiciary ("Turkey's 'De Jure' Untouchables," Aug. 21, 2001, Turkish Daily News.) In 2005, the Court of Appeals approved the sentence.
The AKP's rise to, and consolidation of, power reshuffled the usual
suspects and the dominant ideology, but left random punishment
unchanged. Only a month ago, a university professor of astronomy was put
behind bars for not allowing female students to take his classes
because they wore the Islamic headscarf. The legal case for the campus
ban on the headscarf is complicated. There is still a valid ruling from
the Constitutional Court that favors the ban; and a ruling from the
European Court of Human Rights that says the ban does not constitute a
violation of rights. But there is also a parliamentary decision that
legalizes the headscarf on campus. The professor of astronomy went to
jail because he thought the supreme court's decision overruled the bill
that passed in parliament.
Before the AKP, female students with headscarves were punished for
manifesting Islamist headgear (and ideology). Today, secular professors
are punished for not allowing Islamist headgear.
Similarly, after the AKP consolidated power in the late 2000s, after
successive election victories, and "tamed" the secular generals, its
staunchest Islamist allies, known as "Gulenists," launched a law
enforcement and judicial campaign to "liquidate" hundreds of generals,
officers, journalists and academics. The Gulenists had infiltrated into
the higher ranks of both the police force and the judiciary, and are
widely believed to have fabricated evidence to prosecute anti-Islamist
groups on charges that they plotted a coup d'état against the AKP
government. Scenes of top brass generals, including a former chief of
the military, prominent journalists, writers and intellectuals being
arrested at police raids, usually at dawn, traumatized much of the
Turkish society. On December 14, 2014, Turkey woke up to the same
scenes, but this time the victims were the Gulenists themselves.
The first signs of cracks between the AKP and Gulenists appeared in
2012. Due to ideological differences, and what looked like an apparent
power-sharing battle, the allies were no longer allies. At the end of
2013, the war was "official": secretive sources, believed to be
Gulenists, started to leak embarrassing audio recordings implicating
serious graft involving (then) Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his
family and four ministers in his cabinet.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L), and Fethullah Gülen.
In the local elections of March 2014, Erdogan's AKP won a comfortable
43.3% of the vote. That vote, and Erdogan's subsequent victory in
presidential elections in August, marked not just a bad, but a dramatic,
omen for the Gulenists.
Erdogan, in almost every public speech he made, vowed revenge. Last
week, Erdogan implied that the Gulenists were conspiring against Turkey,
"with the southern country which they love," an apparent reference to
Israel.
In the early hours of Sunday, December 14, the police detained 31
people, including prominent media figures and high-ranking police
officers, all believed to be members of the Gulen movement. Its leader,
Futhullah Gulen, lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania, where he runs an
empire of charters schools in the U.S. and half the globe, media outlets
and companies, such as the Gulenists' flagship daily newspaper in
Turkey, Zaman; its English language version, Today's Zaman, and the Samanyolu media group.
Zaman's editor-in-chief, Ekrem Dumanli, was among the
detainees charged with "setting up an illegal organization in order to
destroy Turkey's democratic regime."
Shortly before his arrest, Dumanli made a speech, broadcast live on
television, defiantly calling on the police to detain him. Dumanli said
that he was being accused of "traveling to Israel and Brussels" shortly
before the leak campaign began in December 2013. The charge was a sign
of government claims that Israel and the EU were part of efforts to
topple the AKP government. He said he did not travel to Israel, although
as an editor-in-chief, he often went to Brussels.
Hidayet Karaca, the head of Gulen's Samanyolu media group -- and a
producer, scriptwriter and director -- was also detained, as well as
Tufan Erguder, the former head of the Istanbul Police Department's
anti-terror branch.
"The detentions have been ordered [for the people on the list] in
order to take their testimonies on charges of founding and directing an
armed terror organization, being a member of this organization, and
engaging in forgery and slander," a statement from the prosecutor's
office said. And hell broke loose.
Two leading journalists' associations and trade unions and the main
opposition condemned the detentions. The U.S. and EU expressed concern
about media freedom and the independence of the judiciary in Turkey.
Gulenists' former foes, journalists who had been detained by
allegedly Gulenists judges but were later released, tweeted in
solidarity: "This is time to fight fascism. No matter who the victims
are..." In return, the Gulenists thanked them shyly. "Forgive us... We
did not defend your freedoms a few years ago as you are defending ours
today," one Zaman editor tweeted.
The Crescent and Star looks like Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's famous novel "The Leopard" (Il Gattopardo).
One of the most memorable lines in the book is spoken by the
protagonist's nephew, urging his uncle unsuccessfully to abandon his
allegiance to the disintegrating Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, to ally
himself with Giuseppe Garibaldi and the House of Savoy: "If we want
things to stay as they are," he says, "they will have to change."
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
