In this mailing:
- Peter Martino: Anti-Semitism Sweeping France
- Soeren Kern: Jihadi Tourism Hits Europe
- Abigail R. Esman: Honor Violence in America
Anti-Semitism Sweeping France
by Peter Martino
July 18, 2012 at 5:00 am
July 18, 2012 at 5:00 am
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If Europe
fails to protect its Jews, it must be feared that soon Christians, too, will no
longer feel safe in Europe. When the Jews are made to flee, it will not be long
before others will have to flee as well.
Early this month, the French weekly magazine Le
Nouvel Observateur devoted a cover
article and several
other
articles to the phenomenon of the rising anti-Semitism in France. The magazine
referred to several incidents of anti-Jewish violence during the previous
weeks.
The Council of Jewish Institutions in France
(CRIF) keeps track of anti-Semitic incidents. In the last decade, the number
rose well above 300 incidents per year. In 2010, there were 466 incidents. In
2011, there were 389. However, 2012 will break the record. During the first
five months of 2012, already 268 incidents of hatred against Jews have been
reported. In certain neighborhoods of Paris, Marseille or Lyons it is no longer
safe for Jews to walk the streets.
Young Jews in particular are made to suffer for
their Jewishness. Le Nouvel Observateur relates how Elie M., a 12-year
old Jewish Parisian, told his parents that he wants to have his name changed
because he is being called "dirty Jew" at school.
On 26 March, an 11-year old Jewish boy was hit
in the face in front of his school in Paris by a man who was screaming
"Dirty Jew." That same day, in the Rhone Valley, youths threw stones
at a rabbi. On 30 April, two Jewish boys were beaten up in Marseille by an
aggressor shouting: "We support the Palestinians. You will be killed, you
will be exterminated." On 8 June, a Jewish adolescent was beaten up by
three youths who were shouting anti-Semitic insults. In early June, three Jews
were attacked by a gang who hit one of the Jews on the head with a hammer.
On 5 July, the very day that the Nouvel
Observateur was published, a 17-year old Jew was beaten
up in a train near Toulouse because he was wearing a necklace with a Star
of David. The aggressors were two 18-year old Frenchmen of North African origin
who had just applied to join the French army. The victim was a student at the
same Jewish school where last March the jihadist Mohammed Merah murdered
a rabbi and three children.
Mohammed Merah, the Nouvel Observateur
points out, has become a role model for many young French of Islamic origin. In
many French schools, incidents occurred while a minute of silence was being
observed for the victims of the Jewish school in Toulouse. Iannis Roder, a
teacher of history and geography in Saint-Denis near Paris, confirmed in the
magazine that anti-Semitism is rising in French schools and that almost always
the anti-Jewish venom is coming from Islamic youths. As soon as the Holocaust
is mentioned in class, or whenever lessons deal with a historic French figure
who is Jewish, such as Léon Blum, Muslim pupils start making anti-Jewish
remarks.
While the culprits of anti-Semitic acts are
predominantly Muslims, analysts point out that there are some unsettling
similarities with the European anti-Semitism of the 1930s. As then,
anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with anti-Americanism. As then, the Jews are
depicted as rich and powerful capitalists who manipulate the media and rule the
world through their money -- a bizarre assertion when one considers that today
Arab plutocrats control so many Western media outlets.
According to Muslim youths interviewed by the Nouvel
Observateur, of every meal bought at McDonalds one euro is paid by
McDonalds to the Israeli army. Coca Cola, too, is part of the Americo-Jewish
plot as its logo, when read from back to front, allegedly reads: "No to
Allah, no to the Prophet." This information, they claim, is well known,
although it will never be heard on French television because French television
"belongs to the Jews."
Because of the rising anti-Semitism, many Jews
no longer send their children to public shools. The number of children in
Jewish schools has increased to 30,000 and is growing every year. Many of the
600,000 Jews in France no longer feel safe in the country. "People ask
themselves whether they should stay," says Sammy Ghozlan of the National
Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, a French Jewish organization. Young
Jews dream of a safer future in the United States or Israel.
Unfortunately, the situation in other West
European countries is grimly similar to that in France. Last month, the Italian
journalist Giulio Meotti wrote an
article about the plight of the Jews in Italy. He described how synagogues
and Jewish schools in Rome are protected by cameras, metal detectors, security
guards and police officers, while their windows are plumbed with iron grates
like the Jewish homes of Hebron and the schools of Sderot.
Already in 2006, the London Daily Telegraph
ran a story entitled, "Is
this the last generation of British Jews?" In 1990, there were
estimated to be about 340,000 Jews in Britain. By 2006, the population had
declined by a fifth to 270,000. While the article dealt mainly with the
consequences of secularism and intermarriage, it referred to a parliamentary
inquiry which stated "that anti-semitic violence has become endemic in
Britain, both on the streets and university campuses."
As in France, in Britain, in the past few
years, emigration to Israel has doubled. The Jewish population in the United
Kingdom is expected to decline to 240,000 by 2020, 180,000 by 2050, and 140,000
by 2080.
In the Netherlands, in 2010, Frits Bolkestein,
a prominent Dutch Conservative and former European Commissioner, said there
is no future for Jews in his country because of "anti-Semitism among
Dutchmen of Moroccan descent, whose number keeps growing." He referred to
the increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands over the past decade
and urged Jews to "emigrate to the U.S. or Israel."
As always, the Jews are like the canary in the
coalmine. If Europe fails to protect its Jews, it must be feared that soon
Christians, too, will no longer feel safe in Europe. When the Jews are made to
flee, it will not be long before others will have to flee as well. Recently,
Monsignor Anba Damian, bishop of the Coptic Church in Germany, warned that persecutions of Christians
might soon be a reality in Germany. "There is a real danger that an ever
more dominant Islam in Germany will seriously threaten Christians," he
said. Many think the Bishop is scaremongering. However, as teacher Iannis Roder
said in the Nouvel Observateur, in the late 1990s, he could not have
believed that anti-Semitism would again become a common phenomenon in France.
"I am from a generation that thought that anti-Semitism had died with the
Shoah [Holocaust]. I could never have imagined that it would resurface."
Related Topics: France
| Peter
Martino
Jihadi Tourism Hits Europe
by Soeren Kern
July 18, 2012 at 4:45 am
July 18, 2012 at 4:45 am
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European
security officials are especially concerned about reports that al-Qaeda is
recruiting and training Western operatives who have "clean" criminal
records and have the ability to travel freely and blend in with European and
American cultures.
Increasing numbers of Muslims in Europe are
travelling to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and other conflict zones to obtain
training in terrorist methods.
Although intelligence agencies have been
following the trend since the July 2005 bombings of the London commuter system,
which were perpetrated by four home-grown Islamic terrorists, the scale of the
problem has come into greater focus in recent weeks.
European security officials are especially
concerned about reports that al-Qaeda is recruiting and training Western
operatives who have "clean" criminal records and have the ability to
travel freely and blend in with European and American cultures.
In Norway, for example, an ethnic Norwegian
convert to militant Islam who has received terrorist training from al-Qaeda's
offshoot in Yemen, is awaiting orders to carry out an attack on the West,
officials from three European security agencies said on June 25.
European officials have confirmed that the man
is "operational," meaning he has completed his training and is about
to receive a target. Although the terrorist-in-waiting is believed to still be
in Yemen, even if he is found he cannot be extradited: under Norwegian law it
is not a crime to attend a terrorist training camp.
The London-based newspaper Sunday
Times, quoting intelligence services, published a story on July 1 that
said the Norwegian jihadist had been trained by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula [AQAP] to evade airport security and is plotting to hijack an
American passenger plane and, in a suicide mission, crash it. The newspaper
portrayed the plot as an attack on the upcoming London Olympics, to be held
from July 27 to August 12, but said the target was specifically supposed to be
an American aircraft.
The paper described the recruit as being a
Norwegian citizen in his 30s, with no immigrant background, but who calls
himself Abu Abdulrahman. The man, who converted to Islam in 2008, has
apparently in recent months been undergoing training at AQAP bases in Yemen.
According to a detailed report in the Norwegian
newspaper Dagbladet,
on July 5, the individual is a 33-year-old Norwegian who, in his youth, was
associated with Oslo's far-left Blitz movement. Despite his one-time radical
credentials, he later worked as a babysitter at a daycare center in Oslo, the
city where he was born and raised. He did not have a history of violence, the
paper said.
Dagbladet went on to report that
eventually he became a member of the Green Party; a source close to the suspect
said that, after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, he had come to be
viewed as an easily-led conspiracy theorist.
His ideological priorities shifted, according
to the paper, after he married the daughter of a diplomat from an unspecified
North African country. In 2008, he converted to Islam and underwent a change of
lifestyle: he gave up alcohol and broke off almost all contact with his earlier
friends. The newspaper stated that he recently became a father, and that his
wife had travelled to her home country with their child.
Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, Britain's
domestic security service, recently provided important context to the threat
posed by would-be jihadists. In a rare public
address on June 25, Evans said the Olympic Games in London "present an
attractive target for our enemies and they will be at the center of the world's
attention in a month or so. No doubt some terrorist networks have thought about
whether they could pull off an attack."
"In back rooms and in cars and on the
streets of this country there is no shortage of individuals talking about
wanting to mount terrorist attacks here," Evans continued. "It is
essential that we maintain pressure on al-Qaeda."
Evans also said that al-Qaeda militants are
using the countries which toppled their leaders in the Arab Spring as bases to
train radical Western youths for potential attacks on Britain: "This is
the completion of a cycle. Al-Qaida first moved to Afghanistan in the 1990s due
to pressure in their Arab countries of origin. They moved on to Pakistan after
the fall of the Taliban. And now some are heading home to the Arab world
again."
"Today," Evans added, "parts of
the Arab world have once more become a permissive environment for al-Qaeda. A
small number of British would-be jihadis are also making their way to Arab
countries to seek training and opportunities for militant activity, as they do
in Somalia and Yemen. Some will return to the UK and pose a threat here. This is
a new and worrying development and could get worse."
Some 100-200 British residents are thought to
be involved in militant activities in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa,
mostly young men from cities such as London and Birmingham between the ages of
18 and 30, according to MI5.
Although al-Qaeda has made no successful attack
on Britain since 2005, Evans said the threat has not evaporated, and that
Britain has been the target of credible terrorist plot every year since the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
A suspected
al-Qaeda militant and would-be suicide bomber, for example, was caught at
the Olympic Park in London on July 7. The 24 year-old has previously tried to
get to Afghanistan, allegedly for terrorist training; he is suspected of
fighting for the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, which has been responsible
for thousands of deaths, including those of Western aid workers. He is also
accused of trying to recruit other Britons to the Islamist cause.
In Germany, the country's international
broadcaster, Deutsche
Welle, published a detailed story about German jihadists on July 2.
Citing intelligence sources, Deutsche Welle reported that "since
the beginning of the 1990s, around 235 people with German connections and
Islamic terrorist backgrounds have at least attempted to obtain paramilitary
training." There is concrete evidence that around 100 were actually
trained or engaged in military operations. More than half of those are said to
be back in Germany, and around 10 have been imprisoned.
Deutsche Welle interviewed a spokesman
for Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz
(BfV), who said: "Should they [the jihadists] return to Germany, these
people could be involved in activity which poses a threat to national security.
Another risk factor is that these people have big reputations in the Islamist
scene. That can lead to the further radicalization of Islamists who until now
weren't necessarily prepared to engage in violent conflict."
The report also describes the lives of two
Turkish-German brothers from the German city of Wuppertal, who went to join
Islamist fighters in the mountainous Pakistani region of Waziristan on the
border of Afghanistan. One of the brothers, named Bünyamin, was killed by an
American drone attack shortly after his arrival in October 2010. (His death
caused German politicians to protest the American policy of drone strikes in
Pakistan.)
After Bünyamin died, his brother, Emrah, left
Waziristan and travelled to Somalia where he joined al-Shabaab militants in
Somalia. East African security agents became aware of him at the end of May
2012 in connection with an attack in Kenya on a shopping mall. He was arrested
in Tanzania on June 10, 2012, and later deported to Germany. The Federal
Prosecutor's Office has accused him of being "an active member of the
foreign terrorist association al-Qaeda."
Deutsche Welle also made mention of Mounir and Yassin Chouka,
two Moroccan brothers from Bonn who regularly appear in German-language
propaganda videos from Waziristan. In the most recent
video, dated May 2012, Yassin called for the murder of journalists and
activists from the conservative political party, PRO NRW, which is opposed to
the Islamization of Germany.
A new book, entitled, "Young,
German, Taliban," sums it up nicely. Author Wolf Schmidt, who is also
the editor of Berlin-based newspaper Tageszeitung, states: "Many of
these young men intended to go to Chechnya, but ended up in Pakistan. They
don't know the war zone, have relatively little idea about the conflict, and
often have shockingly little knowledge of the religion which they claim to
defend."
Soeren
Kern is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He
is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de
Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics: Soeren Kern
Honor Violence in America
by Abigail R. Esman
July 18, 2012 at 4:40 am
July 18, 2012 at 4:40 am
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Other
girls, unable to resolve the conflict between submitting to a marriage, and
essentially being raped by a stranger – not to mention the physical torture and
possible murder if they resist – prefer to end their lives.
Aiya Altemeemi, aged 19, suffered a punishment
last February that none of her schoolmates in Phoenix, Arizona could have
imagined: her father cut her throat with a kitchen knife. When she escaped to
her bedroom, her mother and sisters followed, tied her to her bed, taped her
mouth shut, and beat her. And this was not the first time: previously, when
Aiya had expressed reservations about marrying the 38-year-old man her parents
had chosen as her husband, her mother had shackled her to the same bed and
burned her with a hot spoon.
Despite such treatment, Aiya, who arrived from
Iraq with her parents around three years ago, soon after announced
to stunned reporters that she understood why her mother had assaulted her:
"Because I talked to a boy, and that is not normal with her, that is not
my religion. My religion says no talking to boys."
Alhough Aiya's was among the few to receive
media attention, stories like hers are far more common than most people would
imagine. In what is known as "honor violence," mistreatment includes
not just beatings, but acid attacks, setting a woman on fire, severing her nose
from her face -- particularly in Pakistani and Afghan communities -- and other
forms of mutilation.
Such incidents, which occur mainly in Muslim
and Hindu families, have been the focus of attention in Europe for several
years -- largely thanks to the efforts of Somali-Dutch activist Ayaan Hirsi
Ali, who first brought the problem to light some ten years ago in the
Netherlands. Since then, research has uncovered disturbing statistics: 400 to
600 incidents of honor violence are recorded annually
in the Netherlands alone, with around 12 honor killings a year each in
Germany and the Netherlands. And in England, where the directors of one center
say they receive 500 calls for help from victims of honor violence every month,
and where police
estimate there are between 3,000 and 17,000
incidents of honor violence each year, a recent report contends that one-fifth
of all South
Asian immigrants believe that "certain acts thought to shame families
were justification for violence."
Americans, however, have been reluctant to
accept the notion that honor violence occurs on US soil, just as – until
recently – they insisted that the radicalization of Muslims in Europe was not a
problem that could confront Americans. But with events such as Nidal Malik
Hassan's 2009 attack at Fort Hood and the would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal
Shahzad, we've learned otherwise: radical Islam is alive and well in these
United States and with it, religious and culturally-based violence against
women.
CBS
News has reported that, "According to a survey, the [Virginia-based]
Tahirih Justice Center conducted of more than 500 social service, religious,
legal, educational and medical agencies last year, 67 percent responded that
they believed there were cases of forced marriage occurring among the
populations they serve, but only 16 percent felt their agency was equipped to
deal with the situation." Yet no one had ever investigated the problem.
Now Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) has introduced
a bill that promises to make clear just how big the problem is, and – if
necessary – to develop programs to address it.
Those who have experience with the issue say
that such programs are sorely needed: while Americans are growing more aware of
honor killings, they are less conscious of honor violence -- a more insidious
but even larger phenomenon. Moreover, domestic violence shelters and services
are not adequately suited to handle the problem, , which encompasses more
complex and dangerous situations, and which often require a different kind of
outreach: honor violence victims are often immigrants with little or no
understanding of the resources available, few outside contacts, and in the case
of Muslims, are often not even allowed access to the outside world except when accompanied
by a male family member.
More significantly, in cases of honor violence,
the entire family –- even the entire community –- is involved. Where a domestic
violence victim can often find shelter with a friend or family member, such
refuge is usually impossible for these women. "What do we do with a
teenager runaway? Ninety-nine percent of the time, we take her home,"
Peoria, Arizona, Detective Chris Boughey told CBS. "But some of these
girls end up getting killed."
For this reason, many of the victims of honor
violence -– girls and women who have, for instance, refused a promised
marriage; fallen in love with a boy the parents do not accept; or who are too
Westernized, at least according to the family's standards -- are not safe even
in domestic violence shelters. The situation has grown so difficult that in the
Netherlands, young girls are sometimes sequestered in prison cells -- the only
place where they can be certain they are safe. Some will only appear in public
in disguise, including full face masks and wigs. Other girls, unable to resolve
the conflict between submitting to marriage, and essentially being raped by a
stranger -- not to mention the physical torture and possible murder if they
resist -- prefer to end their lives. Carla Rus, a psychiatrist who specializes
in working with these women in the Netherlands, reports that suicide among
young Hindu and Muslim women is as much as five times higher than among the
rest of the population.
According to Congressman Wolf, the new bill
will allow the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to examine the extent of
the problem in the US, based not only on Aiya Altameemi's case, but on research
from Tahirih, in addition to the cases that have ended in the death of the
victims: girls such as Jessica Mokdad, murdered at 20 by her father, an Iraqi
immigrant; Noor Al-Maleki, also Iraqi, who was also 20 when her father ran her
down in the family car (she, too, had refused an arranged marriage, and was
considered "too Westernized" by the family); and Aasiya
Hassan in Buffalo, NY, whose husband, when she threatened to leave their
marriage, beheaded her.
"This is just the beginning," notes
Wolf. "It's from here that we will look to find out if there really is a
problem, or if this is just an isolated few incidents. Until now, it seems the
FBI has not wanted to look at it; but there seem to be enough dots on the page
that we feel it is time for them to gather data."
Not everyone, however, finds this idea
admirable. Some worry that the bill targets Muslims, defining a category of
crime that singles out specific cultures and religions.
"That's ridiculous," says Rep. Wolf;
he points out that his office has long championed issues on
freedom-of-religion. "If there are honor killings and honor violence,
wherever it's going on, it ought to be ended. This is just the beginning of our
country beginning to deal with this issue in a way that we should have been
dealing with it a long time ago."
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