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- Soeren Kern: Britain's Multicultural Nightmare
- Peter Martino: Old Habits Die Hard: Germany Funding Palestinian Extremism
Britain's Multicultural Nightmare
by Soeren Kern
April 4, 2012 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2991/britain-multicultural-nightmare
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Forced marriages often involve kidnapping, beatings and rape. Muslim women and girls living in the United Kingdom are often facing forced marriage, honor-based violence, female genital mutilation and domestic abuse. Meanwhile, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has refused to broadcast a screenplay about the threat that Islam poses to free speech.
More than 400 children were subjected to forced marriage in Britain during the past year, including a five-year-old girl who is believed to be the country's youngest victim of the practice.
The statistics were provided by the British government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) as part of an ongoing effort to create a law that would criminalize forced marriage in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The custom is already illegal in Scotland.
Overall, the FMU said it gave advice or support related to nearly 1,500 cases of forced marriage during 2011, although experts say the vast majority of forced marriages in Britain go unreported.
Most of the instances of forced marriage in Britain involve Muslim families from South Asia, particularly Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Many of the cases involve Muslim children who are taken abroad by their parents and forced to marry against their will. Forced marriages often involve kidnapping, beatings and rape.
Prime Minister David Cameron has compared the practice of forced marriage to modern day slavery and has said people should not "shy away" from addressing the issue because of "cultural concerns." A new law outlawing the practice is currently being drafted and could be in place by the end of 2012.
Separately, more than 65,000 women and girls in England and Wales have been the victims of female genital mutilation, and another 24,000 girls under the age of 15 are believed to be at a high risk, according to a London-based non-profit group called Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development.
Speaking in the House of Commons on February 6, British Home Secretary Theresa May said "Sadly, what we see are too many examples of this terrible crime continuing to take place. I think most people would be shocked to know how many young girls within the United Kingdom are subjected to female genital mutilation."
Female genital mutilation is most common among Muslim immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. Although the practice is illegal under the 2003 Female Genital Mutilation Act, and carries a jail term of up to 14 years, no one has yet been successfully prosecuted.
In many cases, Muslim families often pool resources to fly professional "cutters" to Britain from Africa to perform mutilations on pre-pubescent girls for as little as £40 ($65), often without anesthetics, using blunt knives, razor blades or scalpels. In other cases, girls are flown abroad to their family's native country to help minimize the risk of detection.
On March 31, an anti-female genital mutilation activist group named Daughters of Eve began hosting workshops in London to encourage men to stop this practice. The workshops, which will run for five weeks, include topics such as an introduction to female genital mutilation, its consequences and the laws surrounding it.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that more than 2,800 so-called honor attacks -- punishments for bringing shame on the family -- were recorded by British police during 2011. That data was compiled by the London-based Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO), a registered charity that provides advice to Muslim women and girls living in the United Kingdom, who are often facing forced marriage, honor-based violence, female genital mutilation and domestic abuse.
Although the statistics provide the best national estimate so far, IKWRO believes the real figure could be five times as high. The highest number of honor crimes -- which include murder, mutilation, beatings, abductions and acid attacks -- was recorded in London, where the problem has doubled to more than five times the national average.
Elsewhere in Britain, the government says that effective in 2013, it will end the practice of paying multiple social welfare benefits to Muslim immigrants practicing bigamy or polygamy.
In September 2011, a British newspaper exposé revealed that tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants in Britain are practicing bigamy or polygamy to collect bigger social welfare payments from the British state.
Although bigamy is a crime in Britain punishable by up to seven years in prison, the rapid growth in multiple marriages has been fueled by multicultural policies that grant special rights to Muslim immigrants who demand that Islamic Sharia law be reflected in British law and the social welfare benefits system.
The United Kingdom also recognizes polygamous marriages where both parties were resident in a country in which the practice is legal before they moved to Britain.
The report shows how Muslim men can take a second, third or fourth wife (or in some cases five or more) from anywhere in the world, father any number of children with her, and have British taxpayers assume responsibility for this family's upkeep and care.
By having a string of wives living in separate homes, Muslim immigrants are squeezing tens of millions of British pounds from the state by claiming benefits intended for single mothers and their children.
Those women are currently eligible for full housing benefits -- reaching £106,000 ($250,000) a year in some parts of London -- and child benefits paid at £1,000 ($1,500) a year for a first child, and nearly £700 ($1,000) for each subsequent one.
The British government is also working on a new law that would ensure that meat slaughtered in accordance with Islamic Sharia law cannot be sold to unwitting members of the public. The new measure would prevent schools, hospitals, pubs and sporting venues from serving so-called halal [permitted in Islam] meat secretly to customers.
The move will be welcomed by animal rights activists and many others, who argue that the traditional Islamic way of preparing meat -- which involves killing animals by drawing a knife across their throats without stunning them first -- is cruel and causes unnecessary pain.
In September 2010, an investigation by London's Daily Mail found that major supermarket chains, fast-food restaurants, even some hospitals and schools in Britain are serving halal food without telling those who are eating it.
Meanwhile, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) -- a key promoter of multiculturalism in Britain -- has refused to broadcast a screenplay about the threat that Islam poses to freedom of speech.
The BBC's director general, Mark Thompson, says he will not air a play the National Theatre's controversial play called "Can We Talk About This?," which examines multiculturalism and how it has resulted in Britain being more divided than ever.
According to Thompson, there is "a growing nervousness about discussion about Islam." He also claims that because Muslims are a religious minority in Britain, their faith should be given different coverage than that of more established groups.
In 2005, Thompson famously ordered BBC Two to air an anti-Christian musical called "Jerry Springer: The Opera," which mocked God and presented Jesus Christ as a homosexual. At least 45,000 people contacted the BBC to complain about the show, which contained an estimated 8,000 obscenities. According to one observer: "If this show portrayed Mohammed or Vishnu as homosexual, ridiculous and ineffectual, it would never have seen the light of day."
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
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Old Habits Die Hard: Germany Funding Palestinian Extremism
by Peter Martino
April 4, 2012 at 4:45 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2992/germany-funds-palestinian-extremism
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It is a disgrace that the German authorities allow this to happen.
Last week, Salam Fayyad, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority [PNA], visited Berlin with several of his ministers. His visit was successful. The Germans, who pride themselves on being one of the largest sponsors of the Palestinian cause, promised almost €100 million ($133 million) in bilateral German aid to the PNA this year.
Germany has a long history of pro-Palestinian activism. By 1935 the Germans were already subsidizing a wide variety of Palestinian organizations. Berlin was especially generous towards Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Germans subsidized the Grand Mufti, who led several anti-Jewish pogroms in the Middle East, to the amount of 75,000 reichsmarks per month.
In 1937, Husseini's friend Adolf Eichmann attempted to visit Palestine, but the British did not allow him in. Four years later, after the Grand Mufti had met German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in Berlin, Eichmann gave Husseini a tour of Auschwitz and showed him the gas chambers. Husseini reacted with great enthusiasm and began planning another Holocaust in Palestine, for which he asked German assistance. Fortunately, the German defeat in the war prevented the Grand Mufti's plans. The Grand Mufti, who also acted as the religious leader of a Bosnian Muslim SS-division, died in Beirut in 1974, at the age of 77. In a 2002 interview, his relative, Fatah Chairman Yasser Arafat, a grandson of the Mufti's first cousin, praised Husseini as a great Palestinian hero.
In 2006, Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority, appointed Muhammad Ahmad Hussein as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Three months after Hussein's appointment, the new Grand Mufti stated that suicide bombings against Israelis are "legitimate." Again, at a recent Fatah meeting in January, he quoted anti-Jewish statements advocating the killing of Jews. His statements were broadcast on Palestinian television. There is widespread admiration for Hitler being spread throughout the Palestinian Authority area, where Mein Kampf is still a bestseller.
The contemporary Grand Mufti of Jerusalem still adheres to the ideas of his infamous predecessor in the 1930s and 40s. The same applies to the Fatah leadership. Even though PNA President Mahmoud Abbas is perceived by the Western media as a "moderate," he sang the praises of the genocidal wartime Grand Mufti in a 2010 speech. He said: "We must … recall the outstanding [early] leadership of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, who sponsored the struggle from the beginning, and sponsored the struggle and displacement for the cause and died away from his home."
Husseini wanted to cleanse Jerusalem of the Jews. Mahmoud Abbas, too, denies that Jerusalem is a historic Jewish city. In a recent speech in Doha, Qatar, Abbas questioned the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, saying that the city "has always been and will remain an Arab city."
Unfortunately, old habits also die hard in Germany. Berlin is still one of the major sponsors of Palestinian activism. This is done in three ways: through the European Union, through bilateral government aid, and through political advocacy non-governmental organizations.
Every year, the European Union pays €400 million in so-called development aid to the PNA. The bulk of this money (as with all EU money) comes from Germany. The EU's financial assistance to the Palestinians dates back to 1971. Since then, the EU has become the largest provider of aid to the Palestinians.
Berlin also funds Abbas's Palestinian National Authority. Last year, the PNA received €72 million in bilateral German aid. This year, the German government has already promised to give up to €93 million. Last Wednesday, a delegation including several Palestinian ministers, led by Salam Fayyad, the PNA Prime Minister and a close collaborator of President Abbas, was in Berlin for a meeting of the German-Palestinian Coordination Council. Germany is the first country to hold such bilateral governmental coordination meetings with the PNA. The Council was set up in 2010 to balance Germany's holding similar regular consultations with Israel. The concept has since been imitated by other European nations.
"Germany is a friend and a partner of your government and of the Palestinian people," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told Fayyad, who returned home with the promise of €40 million from the German taxpayers for the Palestinian police force. "Our aim is a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution and we support the development of that state not just theoretically, but also practically," Westerwelle said. Germany has also formally upgraded the Palestinian mission in Berlin to that of an embassy, allowing the Palestinian representative in Germany to call himself an ambassador. In an op-ed piece in the Arab-language newspaper al-Quds, Westerwelle emphasized that Germany had been helping the Palestinian territories "for decades" and that it is "one of the largest benefactors" of the Palestinian state.
Fayyad used the opportunity to criticize what he called "Israeli settlers' violence" against Palestinians, the "excesses of the Israeli security forces" against the 4.5 million Palestinians who live under "occupation," and the "increasing pressure" on Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem.
In late April, Nabil Sha'ath, the Palestinian Minister of Planning, will visit Berlin again to discuss other German development projects in the Palestinian territories. German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said that with its aid to Palestine the Germans wish to "make a statement."
In dealing with Israel, Germany usually demands concessions from Israel towards the Palestinians. One would expect that, in return for lavishly showering the PNA with funds, Berlin would demand that PNA officials refrain from singing the praises of the former Grand Mufti, stop naming streets and schools after terrorists who have killed Israeli civilians, including children, or ban the sale of Mein Kampf in PNA areas, since the copyright of the text belongs to the Bavarian state government and no permission was granted for a new Arab publication of the infamous book. But no, such demands were not made.
The German government also provides support via leftist and anarchist Israeli pro-Palestinian NGOs. Most of this money is given through the political foundations of the various German parties, which are subsidized according to the number of seats they hold in the German Parliament, through the Institute for Foreign Relations (IFA), funded by the German Foreign Ministry, through local governments or through church organizations.
The political foundations of the leftist parties, such as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Social Democratic Party), the Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Green Party), and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Left Party) are particularly active supporters of biased anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian NGOs. In this way, groups advocating boycotts of Israeli products or international sanctions against the Jewish state are showered with money from German tax payers.
It is a disgrace that the German authorities allow this to happen. It looks as if Germany, realizing that it has a "good reputation" among Palestinians and Arabs thanks to its Nazi past, is attempting to avoid everything that might harm its pro-Palestinian reputation. In this sense, it is almost as if the spirit of Eichmann is still very much alive in Berlin today.
Related Topics: Peter Martino
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