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In this mailing:
- Judith Bergman: Germany: Return
of the Stasi Police State?
- Dexter Van Zile: Time for Jordan's
King Abdullah to Stop Tolerating Genocide from Temple Mount
- Burak Bekdil: Turkey: Targeting
Kurds In Syria
by Judith Bergman • January 25,
2018 at 5:00 am
- Germany's new law
requires social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube, to censor their users on behalf of the government.
Social media companies are obliged to delete or block any
online "criminal offenses" within 24 hours of
receipt of a user complaint -- regardless of whether the
content is accurate or not.
- Social media
platforms now have the power to shape the form of current
political and cultural discourse by deciding who will speak
and what they will say.
- Notice the ease with
which the police chief mentioned that he had filed charges to
silence a leading political opponent of the government. That
is what authorities do in police states: Through censorship
and criminal charges, they silence outspoken critics and
political opponents of government policies, such as Beatrix
von Storch, who has sharply criticized Chancellor Angela
Merkel's migration policies.
- While such policies
would doubtless have earned the German authorities many points
with the old Stasi regime of East Germany, they more than
likely contravene the European Convention of Human Rights
(ECHR) to which Germany is a party, as well as the case law of
the European Court of Human Rights.
Pictured:
Detention cells in the basement corridor of the former prison of
East Germany's Ministry of State Security (Stasi) at Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen,
Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Germany's new censorship law, which has introduced
state censorship on social media platforms, came into effect on
October 1, 2017. The new law requires social media platforms, such
as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to censor their users on behalf
of the German state. Social media companies are obliged to delete
or block any online "criminal offenses" such as libel,
slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user
complaint -- regardless of whether the content is accurate or not.
Social media companies are permitted seven days for more
complicated cases. If they fail to do so, the German government can
fine them up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the
law.
by Dexter Van Zile • January 25,
2018 at 4:30 am
- Not only is rhetoric
like this from Jordan-approved Imams a clear-cut violation of
the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide (which makes incitement to genocide a crime),
Jordan's tolerance for anti-Jewish and anti-Western rhetoric
at the site is a violation of the treaty signed between Israel
and Jordan in 1994.
- "Allah called
them 'infidels' so why should I be ashamed to call them
that?... There is only one kind of punishment for those
people: to stop them, to wreak vengeance upon them, and to
teach them a lesson. This is not achieved through tolerance,
negotiations, or kindness." — Palestinian Imam Issam
Amira, using the Al Aqsa Mosque, June 18, 2016.
- In the United
States, landlords who allow their tenants to use a property
for criminal enterprises, such as the sale or manufacture of
drugs are liable to having their property seized in a process
called "asset forfeiture." Maybe a similar process
needs to be applied to Jordan's custodianship of the Temple
Mount, for clearly, the Hashemite Kingdom is not serious about
preventing the site from being used for criminal incitement
against Jews and Westerners.
The Al
Aqsa Mosque, on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. (Image source: Young
Shanahan/Flickr)
When ISIS put a Jordanian Air Force pilot into a
cage, poured gasoline on him, set him on fire and broadcast a video
of the gruesome murder on the internet in February 2015, the
Jordanian government responded decisively. It hanged two jihadists
affiliated with Al Qaeda and broadcast images of Jordan's monarch,
King Abdullah II, wearing military fatigues to highlight Jordan's
participation in an American-led coalition that engaged in bombing
raids against the terror organization. The Jordanian press office
also publicized the king's promise to exact revenge on ISIS for the
murder of the pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, via a statement that was
quoted in countless outlets.
To further solidify Jordanian support for the war on
ISIS (which, prior to the murder of the Jordanian pilot, had been a
source of controversy in the Hashemite Kingdom), Abdullah's wife,
Queen Rania, led a rally in Amman condemning the group.
by Burak Bekdil • January 25,
2018 at 4:00 am
- "Operation
Olive Branch," the ironic code name the Turkish military
has chosen for its incursion into northern Syria, has catered
well to the Turkish psyche that craves shows of force of every
possible flavor.
- In practice,
ironically, NATO member Turkey's Operation Olive Branch
targets the main ground force allies of its NATO ally, the
U.S.
- The area Erdogan
targets is effectively home to most of Syria's two million or
so Kurds, who seek an autonomous entity that Turkey fears may
further provoke separatist Kurdish sentiments among Turkey's
10 million to 15 million Kurds.
The
Turkish military's General Staff meet to discuss Operation Olive
Branch, on January 21, 2018. (Image source: Turkish Armed Forces)
In Turkey these days, there is every sign of
collective hysteria in a once glorious nation that fell from grace,
then longed for power and grandeur for nearly a century. Turks are
dizzy with joy over their army's incursion into Afrin, a Kurdish
enclave in neighboring Syria.
It is almost a sin not to join the celebrations:
"We are witnessing the lynching of anyone who dares to speak
against it. Opposing the operation has become a death wish,"
Nevsin Mengu, a prominent Turkish journalist, wrote in Sigma
Turkey, an independent news outlet.
"Operation Olive Branch," the ironic code
name the Turkish military has chosen for its incursion into northern
Syria, has catered well to the Turkish psyche that craves shows of
force of every possible flavor. Headlines in the national press
since the launch of Operation Olive Branch speak for that psyche:
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