UNGA: Challenges Transcend Borders and National Sovereignties

Posted on September 16, 2016September 16, 2016 by Denise Simon

Anyone remember Brexit? People across the globe are speaking out and the vote in Britain to get out of a union and regain sovereignty is a message. It is not being heard and such is the case at the United Nations General Assembly.

Borderless….policy by global leaders is promoting this, while citizens are demanding otherwise. Have you taken a moment to look at our domestic universities where classes are filled with foreign students? Have you look at how intertwined governments are with each other’s economies? When one government financially aides another to keep it from a tailspin, major strings are attached and ethical behavior and compliance with law is dismissed.

Have you seen this hashtag? #UN4RefugeesMigrants It is the newest in vogue talking point and condition globally. To view how borderless the West is becoming, click here to see the topics of discussions planned at the United Nations.

The newest mission is to control the oceans and John Kerry is leading the way. Who owns those oceans and the sea life?

The Secretary of State sees the future of the seas as a global threat equal to world conflicts.

So, back to the United Nations and how the above and much more are being covered and delivered. Chilling conditions as noted below:

President Obama is hosting the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees, alongside co-hosts Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Jordan, Mexico and Sweden, which will appeal to governments to pledge significant new commitments on refugees. While the Leaders’ Summit will focus on refugees, not migrants, the General Assembly High-Level Summit will address large movements of both. See the full program here.

Then we have Europe:

The European Union at the United Nations

“Stronger partnerships are the building blocks of our foreign policy. All today’s challenges
transcend borders and national sovereignties. None of us, alone, can carry the weight of the
world on its shoulders.”

High Representative/ Vice-President Federica Mogherini at the UN Security Council 6 June 2016

The EU’s commitment to effective multilateralism, with the UN at its core, is a central element of its external action. The Lisbon Treaty provides that “The Union … shall promote multilateral solutions to common problems, in particular in the framework of the United Nations.” (Article 21-1 TEU) and that “The Union …shall work for a high degree of cooperation in all fields of international relations, in order to (…) preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.” (Art. 21-2)

Multilateralism is also one of the core principles and priorities in the new EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy. To respond successfully to global crises, threats and challenges, the international community needs an efficient multilateral system, founded on universal rules and values. The United Nations is both: a key EU partner and an indispensable global forum for tackling global challenges, within the overall framework of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The EU thus works closely both with the UN and in the UN.

“Without global norms and the means to enforce them, peace and security, prosperity and democracy – our vital interests – are at risk. Guided by the values on which it is founded, the EU is committed to a global order based on international law, including the principles of the UN Charter. The EU will strive for a strong UN as the bedrock of the multilateral rules-based order, and develop globally coordinated responses with international and regional organisations, states and non-state actors.”

– EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy –

Working closely with the UN Secretariat and the various UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes, the EU has established a strong relationship with the UN. Cooperation takes place across a broad range of areas: development, human rights, climate change, peace building, crisis management, disarmament and non-proliferation, humanitarian assistance, fighting corruption and crime, addressing global health concerns, managing migratory flows and labour issues.

The UN General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. The added value of the EU is to coordinate among its 28 Member States to present a unified position.

In 2011, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A/65/276 upgrading the observer status allow the EU to present common positions, make interventions, present proposals and participate in the general debate each September. As an observer with enhanced status, enabling EU representatives to speak on behalf of the EU and its member states in the UN. Since then it is also the President of the European Council who delivers the EU statement in the General debate, and no longer the rotating Presidency, bringing EU representation in New York in line with Lisbon Treaty provisions. The EU has obtained a special “full participant” status in a number of important UN conferences.

The Council of the European Union adopted the EU priorities at the United Nations at the 71st United Nations General Assembly on 18 July 2016. The coming year will be focused on consolidation and implementation of the agreements reached in the past year. These include the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, the Addis Ababa action agenda of the third international conference on financing for development and the Paris climate agreement.

The EU coordinates its voting within the General Assembly’s six main committees and other bodies and agencies such as the Economic and Social Council. To this end, more than 1300 internal EU coordination meetings are held at the UN in New York alone to develop a common EU stance and speak with one voice. Article 34 of the EU Treaty also stipulates that EU members on the Security Council must act in concert and foster the interests of the EU. In 2015, the EU delivered more than 220 statements at the UN in New York, including 31 at the Security Council.

Global Security Provider

The EU has a wide range of tools available to prevent and solve crises in close cooperation with international and regional partners. For this reason, the High Representative provides regular updates to theSecurity Council and the EU is often invited to address issues of common concern, such as the fight against terrorism. Regular UN Security Council meetings on UN-EU cooperation in maintaining international peace and security are testimony to the importance both place on it.

“In our conflictual world, where power is scattered and diffuse, global peace and security only stands a chance if our nations and our regions are united. Our European Union will always come back to the United Nations, to the core of the international multilateral system, to the stubborn idea of a cooperative world order.”

HRVP briefing to UNSC 6 June 2016

The Security Council endorsed the relationship with the EU in 2014 when it adopted a presidential statement on cooperation between the EU and the UN.

Major contributor

Collectively, the EU and its Member States are the single largest financial contributor to the UN system. The sum of the contributions of the 28 EU Member States amounts to 30.38% of the UN regular budget and 33.17% of the UN peacekeeping budgets. In addition, the EU and its Member States also provide about one-half of all the voluntary contributions to UN funds and programmes. The European Commission alone contributed more than $1.5 billion to support UN external assistance programmes and projects in 2014. The European Union and its Member States retained their place as the world’s largest aid donor in 2014, according to OECD figures. In 2014, EuropeAid’s financial contributions to the UN exceeded €983 million, with the most funding going to UNDP (40%), UNICEF (18%), FAO (12%), UNRWA (10%), and WFP (8%). In 2015, ECHO (European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection) provided €514 million (an increase from €452 in 2014) to UN agencies, funds and programmes, including €207 million to WFP, €127 million to UNHCR and €108 million to UNICEF.

UN Reform and Increased Efficiency

Effective multilateralism requires an effective United Nations at its core. The EU supports the reform of the UN system, including its bodies and organs, to ensure it is fit to address the complex, multi-sectoral challenges we face today. This should include comprehensive reform of the UN Security Council as well as revitalisation of the work of the General Assembly. The EU supports the notion that the United Nations must be ‘fit for purpose’ as well as increasingly effective and efficient, including to support successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

From Raqqa to Paris and Other Targets in Europe

Posted on September 6, 2016September 6, 2016 by Denise Simon

ISIS cell behind Paris atrocity ‘planned attacks on shopping centre and targets in Holland’: Full scale of attack revealed as official warns operatives are trying to reach UK

ISIS fanatics killed 130 people in the French capital on November 13
But papers claim murderous team may have been plotting wider attack
Investigators believe shopping centres and targets in Holland identified
Official says ISIS has stepped up moves to infiltrate operatives in the UK

DailyMail: A network of ISIS extremists who targeted Paris in November last year had ambitious plans to carry out yet more atrocities, it has emerged.

Fanatics killed 130 people in the French capital on November 13 when they massacred music fans in the Bataclan theatre hall, set off suicide bombs at the Stade de France and gunned down revellers outside bars.

But the terror group’s external operations wing, known as Amn al-Kharji, may have been planning for the murderous team to hit other targets, including supermarkets and packed shopping centres, it has been reported.

A network of ISIS extremists who targeted Paris in November last year had made ambitious plans to carry out yet more atrocities, it has emerged. People are pictured fleeing from the Bataclan on November 13

There are also suggestions their hit list included targets in the Netherlands while one official said ISIS has stepped up moves to infiltrate its attackers into Britain.

Details of an apparent wider plot emerged after CNN examined tens of thousands of pages of documents from investigations into the Paris massacre.

The papers revealed that the ISIS network may have been planning to follow up the slaughter in Paris with attacks in several other locations.

CNN says the documents show a suspected terrorist called Abid Tabaouni, believed to have been linked to the Paris terror cell, was at large in Europe for months after the atrocity. He was only arrested in July this year.

A European counter-terror official told CNN that Paris was a ‘slimmed-down’ version of a far wider plot.

Sources told the broadcaster that, even now, operatives planted in Europe are waiting for instructions from key ISIS strategists based in the terror group’s Syrian stronghold.

The terror group’s external operations wing, known as Amn al-Kharji, may have been planning for the murderous team to hit other targets, including supermarkets and packed shopping centres. The exterior of the Bataclan, where 90 people died, is pictured above

According to the CNN reporters Scott Bronstein, Nicole Gaouette, Laura Koran and Clarissa Ward, documents revealed that two terror suspects who were delayed in reaching France ahead of the November 13 killings may have been plotting to return to the French capital for a further attack at a later date.

Adel Haddadi and Muhammad Usman had reportedly been looking at train times to Paris and made a number of overseas calls in the days before they were arrested – and investigators believe they were waiting for a third man to join them.

The attack on Paris was one of a series of jihadist strikes on French soil.

In January last year, terrorists shot 12 people dead at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Days later a Jewish supermarket was targeted with four shot dead.

In June this year Police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife were knifed to death inside their home near Paris by a man who said he had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

And on July 14, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, thought to have links with ISIS, murdered 84 when he drove a lorry into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice.

****

From CNN in part:

Suspected ISIS operative map graphic

The documents show:

a fuller portrait of the suspected terrorists’ extensive use of social media platforms such as Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp, many encrypted for secure communication. One app let them pick their own phone number, allowing them to disguise who was calling them and from where.

how ISIS handlers protect their missions by: giving operatives only as much information and money as they need to reach the next phase; contacting them on each leg of their journey; and insisting on pseudonyms, even within teams.

how the suspected terrorists constantly exchanged logistical advice with others in their network, including whether or not to use real names at border crossings and how to sneak across those borders illegally. One tip was to hide in train restrooms.

A senior European counter-terrorism official who spoke to CNN said that according to investigations into the network that carried out the Paris attacks, they were a slimmed-down version of an even more ambitious plan to hit Europe.

After interrogating suspects and gathering intelligence, European investigators now believe that ISIS initially planned for the operatives it sent last year to also attack the Netherlands, as well as other targets in France including shopping areas and possibly a supermarket in Paris, the official said.

In addition, recently obtained intelligence indicates that ISIS has stepped up efforts to infiltrate operatives into the UK to launch attacks there, an official told CNN.

The senior European counter-terrorism official told CNN that security services were “uncovering more and more ISIS operatives” on continental European soil. ISIS operatives dispatched back to Europe have taken advantage of encryption, especially the Telegram messenger app, to communicate securely, the official told CNN, frustrating European security services.

“Encrypted messaging groups have the potential to revolutionize terror plot planning by allowing entire cells to coordinate in real time without compromising themselves,” said CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

Europe’s security agencies have had important successes, though. One major breakthrough was the capture of two men who authorities believe intended to travel to France alongside the two suicide bombers who eventually blew themselves up outside a Paris stadium.

Investigators: Two ISIS attackers who never reached France

Those two suspected ISIS operatives are identified in the documents as Algerian-born Adel Haddadi and his Pakistani travel partner, Muhammad Usman.

Algerian-born Adel Haddadi is a suspected ISIS operative.

Muhammad Usman is a suspected ISIS operative from Pakistan

Documents that detail their capture and extensive interrogations, particularly with Haddadi, show how ISIS supported the attackers throughout their journey from Syria through Europe — and how future attacks might be organized. The following account of their journey to Europe is based on those documents, which include evidence gathered by investigators, and their conclusions.

Haddadi and Usman, who was identified by investigators as a suspected bombmaker for the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, set out from the capital of the self-declared ISIS caliphate in Raqqa, Syria, six weeks before the Paris attacks.

They were part of a team, investigators concluded. The two others, Ahmad al-Mohammad and Mohamad al-Mahmod, would later blow themselves up outside the national stadium in Paris. The team crossed the border from Syria into Turkey in early October and headed for the Turkish coast.

Ahmad al-Mohammad was one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks.

Mohamad al-Mahmod was one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks.

The four men didn’t seem to know each other’s real names, or what their final mission would be. All Haddadi knew, he later told interrogators, was that they were being sent to France to do “something for the good of God.”

The documents show that their journey was directed by a shadowy ISIS leader in Syria, known only as Abu Ahmad. Operating like a puppet-master from afar, Abu Ahmad handled their logistics: connecting them with smugglers and cars for transport, providing pre-programmed cell phones and getting them fake Syrian passports.

He wired them money as they moved, using intermediaries who couldn’t be traced, and communicated using encrypted apps.

“Abu Ahmad … is key in sending those individuals, at least the foreigners, into the Paris attacks,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, president and chairman of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, who reviewed the documents for CNN.

“He is the one who recruited them, who funds them, who trained them,” said Brisard. “He was always in contact with them.”

Throughout their journey, Abu Ahmad gave the men only enough money and information to get to the next stop, rarely if ever telling them what would happen next, the documents show.

Posing as Syrian refugees

The documents reveal fresh details about their journey and the way they posed as Syrian refugees, blending in with thousands fleeing the war-torn country.

They made the treacherous crossing from Izmir, Turkey, into Greece in a boat filled with dozens of refugees. But they were then intercepted by the Greek Navy.

The two who would go on to strike the Paris stadium passed through Greece and started moving across Europe toward their target in France. Greek officials declined to explain how the two got through.

But Greek authorities discovered Haddadi and Usman’s fake Syrian passports. The pair were arrested, their money was taken, and they were held for nearly a month.

Sources told CNN that investigators believe that delay was significant; as a result, they would not have a chance to become part of the Paris attacks.

The Greeks released Haddadi and Usman in late October. They immediately contacted their ISIS handler, Abu Ahmad, who arranged for someone to wire them 2,000 euros. Flush with cash, the pair continued along the refugee route.

It was likely a quiet journey.

The documents show that Usman spoke only Urdu, while Haddadi spoke mostly Arabic. And as they travelled north, Usman was preoccupied with a strikingly un-Islamic hobby — using his phone to peruse almost two dozen X-rated sites, including “sexxx lahur” and “Pakistani Lahore college girls … ImakeSex.”

Both men’s phones have given European officials rich investigative veins to mine, revealing dozens of contacts across Europe and the Middle East.

One of the people Haddadi reached out to for help was a technician at one of the most important nuclear research centers in Europe. That man was placed under immediate observation by French authorities, the documents show.

Data pulled from the phones also revealed how the operatives functioned both with extreme care and sometimes, seemingly, by the seat of their pants. In one exchange, Haddadi asks a contact for advice about what to do at a border crossing and whether a friend should use his real name. The friend is so worried about this, Haddadi gripes that he’s “driving me crazy.”

This graphic, featuring suspected ISIS operative Adel Haddadi, shows Haddadi’s global network.

Other online conversations, notably with Abu Ahmad, are clearly in code. One message investigators pulled from Haddadi’s phone shows the ISIS handler counseling patience, though the exact meaning of his message isn’t clear. “Yes, but not yet,” it reads, “the drugs are not good.”

On November 14, the day after the Paris attacks, Haddadi and Usman arrived in Salzburg, Austria, applied for asylum and settled into one of the city’s refugee centers, where they waited for weeks.

Investigators: Planning for another strike

They were waiting with a purpose, according to the documents.

European investigators concluded that Haddadi and Usman were part of the same terror cell as the Paris bombers and, having failed to participate in that bloody day, were planning another strike.

Investigators found that in the days before their arrest, Haddadi and Usman were researching trains to Paris and making a flurry of phone calls overseas , including to contacts in Belgium and France.

The documents also reveal that investigators believe that Haddadi and Usman were waiting for a third man to join them — Abid Tabaouni. Keep reading here from CNN, this was remarkable work by these journalists.

****

Paris attacks: French authorities file terror charges against Pakistani man

29-year-old Algerian Adel Haddadi, 35-year-old Pakistani Muhammad Usman were charged with criminal conspiracy with terrorists

State Dept: Country Reports on Terrorism 2015

Posted on August 31, 2016August 31, 2016 by Denise Simon

Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, all in our hemisphere get major passes from the State Department.

Related reading: The 50 most violent cities in the world

Related reading: The world’s most dangerous and safest countries revealed Interactive map for rankings is found here.

Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act.

Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.

Chapters

–Chapter 1. Strategic Assessment
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Africa Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: East Asia and Pacific Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Europe Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Middle East and North Africa Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: South and Central Asia Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Western Hemisphere Overview
–Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview
–Chapter 4: The Global Challenge of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear (CBRN) Terrorism
–Chapter 5: Terrorist Safe Havens (Update to 7120 Report)
–Chapter 6. Foreign Terrorist Organizations
–Chapter 7. Legislative Requirements and Key Terms

Annexes

–National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism: Annex of Statistical Information [ PDF version ]
–Terrorism Deaths, Injuries and Kidnappings of Private U.S. Citizens Overseas in 2015

Full Report

–Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 (PDF)

ISIS Built Their Network in Front of Europe’s Face

Posted on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

How ISIS built the machinery of terror under Europe’s gaze

TimesofIndia: The day he left Syria with instructions to carry out a terrorist attack in France, Reda Hame, 29, a computer technician from Paris, had been a member of the Islamic State for just over a week.

His French passport and his background in information technology made him an ideal recruit for a rapidly expanding group within ISIS that was dedicated to terrorizing Europe. Over just a few days, he was rushed to a park, shown how to fire an assault rifle, handed a grenade and told to hurl it at a human silhouette. His accelerated course included how to use an encryption program called TrueCrypt, the first step in a process intended to mask communications with his ISIS handler back in Syria.

The handler, code-named Dad, drove Hame to the Turkish border and sent him off with advice to pick an easy target, shoot as many civilians as possible and hold hostages until the security forces made a martyr of him.

“Be brave,” Dad said, embracing him.

Hame was sent out by a body inside the Islamic State that was obsessed with striking Europe for at least two years before the deadly assaults in Paris last November and in Brussels this month. In that time, the group dispatched a string of operatives trained in Syria, aiming to carry out small attacks meant to test and stretch Europe’s security apparatus even as the most deadly assaults were in the works, according to court proceedings, interrogation transcripts and records of European wiretaps obtained by The New York Times.

Related reading: Terror in Europe: Safeguarding U.S. Citizens At Home And Abroad
Officials now say the signs of this focused terrorist machine were readable in Europe as far back as early 2014. Yet local authorities repeatedly discounted each successive plot, describing them as isolated or random acts, the connection to the Islamic State either overlooked or played down.

“This didn’t all of a sudden pop up in the last six months,” said Michael T Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012 to 2014. “They have been contemplating external attacks ever since the group moved into Syria in 2012.”

Hame was arrested in Paris last August, before he could strike, one of at least 21 trained operatives who succeeded in slipping back into Europe. Their interrogation records offer a window into the origins and evolution of an Islamic State branch responsible for killing hundreds of people in Paris, Brussels and beyond.

European officials now know that Dad, Hame’s handler, was none other than Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian operative who selected and trained fighters for plots in Europe and who returned himself to oversee the Paris attack, the deadliest terrorist strike on European soil in over a decade.

The people in Abaaoud’s external operations branch were also behind the Brussels attacks, as well as a foiled attack in a suburb of Paris last week, and others are urgently being sought, Belgian and French officials say.

“It’s a factory over there,” Hame warned his interlocutors from France’s intelligence service after his arrest. “They are doing everything possible to strike France, or else Europe.”

For much of 2012 and 2013, the jihadi group that eventually became the Islamic State was putting down roots in Syria. Even as the group began aggressively recruiting foreigners, especially Europeans, policymakers in the United States and Europe continued to see it as a lower-profile branch of al-Qaida that was mostly interested in gaining and governing territory.

One of the first clues that the Islamic State was getting into the business of international terrorism came at 12:10 p.m. on Jan. 3, 2014, when the Greek police pulled over a taxi in the town of Orestiada, less than four miles from the Turkish border. Inside was a 23-year-old French citizen named Ibrahim Boudina, who was returning from Syria. In his luggage, the officers found 1,500 euros, or almost $1,700, and a French document titled “How to Make Artisanal Bombs in the Name of Allah.”

But there was no warrant for his arrest in Europe, so the Greeks let him go, according to court records detailing the French investigation.

Boudina was already on France’s watch list, part of a cell of 22 men radicalized at a mosque in the resort city of Cannes. When French officials were notified about the Greek traffic stop, they were already wiretapping his friends and relatives. Several weeks later, Boudina’s mother received a call from a number in Syria. Before hanging up, the unknown caller informed her that her son had been “sent on a mission,” according to a partial transcript of the call.

The police set up a perimeter around the family’s apartment near Cannes, arresting Boudina on February 11, 2014.

In a utility closet in the same building, they found three Red Bull soda cans filled with 600 grams of TATP, the temperamental peroxide-based explosive that would later be used to deadly effect in Paris and Brussels.

It was not until nearly two years later, on Page 278 of a 359-page sealed court filing, that investigators revealed an important detail: Boudina’s Facebook chats placed him in Syria in late 2013, at the scene of a major battle fought by a group calling itself the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”

According to a brief by France’s domestic intelligence agency, he was the first European citizen known to have traveled to Syria, joined the Islamic State and returned with the aim of committing terrorism. Yet his ties to the group were buried in French paperwork and went unconnected to later cases.

Including Boudina, at least 21 fighters trained by the Islamic State in Syria have been dispatched back to Europe with the intention of causing mass murder, according to a Times count based on records from France’s domestic intelligence agency. The fighters arrived in a steady trickle, returning alone or in pairs at the rate of one every two to three months throughout 2014 and the first part of 2015.

Like the killers in Paris and Brussels, all of these earlier operatives were French speakers — mostly French and Belgian citizens, alongside a handful of immigrants from former French colonies, including Morocco.

They were arrested in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Greece, Turkey and Lebanon with plans to attack Jewish businesses, police stations and a carnival parade. They attempted to open fire on packed train cars and on church congregations. In their possession were box cutters and automatic weapons, walkie-talkies and disposable cellphones, as well as the chemicals to make TATP.

Most of them failed. And in each instance, officials failed to catch — or at least to flag to colleagues — the men’s ties to the nascent Islamic State.
In one of the highest-profile instances, Mehdi Nemmouche returned from Syria via Frankfurt, Germany, and made his way by car to Brussels, where on May 24, 2014, he opened fire inside the Jewish Museum of Belgium, killing four people. Even when the police found a video in his possession, in which he claims responsibility for the attack next to a flag bearing the words “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” Belgium’s deputy prosecutor, Ine Van Wymersch, dismissed any connection.

“He probably acted alone,” she told reporters at the time.
Among the clearest signs of the Islamic State’s growing capacity for terrorist attacks is its progress in making and deploying bombs containing triacetone triperoxide, or TATP.

London Police on Islamic Payroll?

Posted on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Brian: Given the events in recent years where militant and radical Islamists in the UK are a protected class over Brits, a very chilling condition is real. Islam has won the battles-space in England. What you say?

The host of this website has interviewed several times Tommy Robinson and the leaders of Britain First. Both are fighting a cultural war to preserve the history and dignity of Britain and sadly appear to be losing the war due to some kind of mandate of the police. Arrest the Englishmen and ban them from moving about the country freely.

Perhaps it is time that Americans standup for keeping Britain …British and beware of the same at home in America.

Cant make this up.

Related reading: Germany/Britain Banning Free Speech

Tommy Robinson Thrown Out Of Cambridge And Why You Should Worry

Europe’s struggle with belligerent parts of their Muslim populations is exactly the same as Israel’s. In this we are tied together even if very few people see it yet.

Over the weekend I put up a video which has gone viral. It’s about Tommy Robinson in the UK. If you want a full background on who he is, my review of his book goes into a lot of detail.

What happened this Saturday is another chapter. The short story is Tommy, along with two adult male friends, his three children (all under 10) and four other kids travelled from Luton to Cambridge in the UK to watch Luton FC play Cambridge Untied. The whole party spent a fun day in Cambridge, peacefully went to the match in the afternoon and enjoyed Luton beating Cambridge 3-0. After the match they went into a couple of pubs (family friendly ones) and ended up watching Manchester United on TV.

At this point a large squad of policemen came into the pub and told Tommy and his party to leave threatening him with a “Section 35” dispersal notice and (if he failed to comply) arrest and criminal charges. Tommy broadcast most of this live including the walk to the train station with his kids crying and being followed by at least four threatening policemen. Breitbart has a more detailed write-up of the story. The security staff of the pub even pleaded with the Police to let them stay saying they’d been no trouble at all.

**

There is a bigger picture to this harassment. On September 19th Tommy is scheduled to appear in court related to a “Football Banning Order”. The Police and the Crown Prosecution Services are trying to get Tommy banned from Luton FC and all football matches for five years. If they succeed, however, they will also prevent him from walking in large parts of his home town of Luton. They’ve essentially decided, for Tommy, there are no-go areas of Luton. It probably won’t shock you to learn those no-go areas correspond to areas where large numbers of Muslims live.

The pretext for this latest arrest and trial stems from the summer. Tommy Robinson travelled to France to watch a few Euro 2016 matches and was pictured holding a flag saying “F**k ISIS”. This statement by his lawyer was put out in June:

The mainstay of the application by Bedfordshire Police is that Tommy Robinson, while in France was pictured wearing an Anti ISIS T Shirt, and holding up an English Saint George Cross flag with ‘Fuck ISIS’ written across it, and that this was aimed at inciting racial hatred against muslims. Both I and my client are very concerned that the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police and the UK Football Policing Unit have equated Tommy Robinson’s demonstration against a banned extremist terrorist organisation as being the same as showing hatred towards people of the muslim faith. The Prime Minister David Cameron in his House of Commons speech on 2nd December 2015 refered to the ‘Evil’ of ISIS, and that British Muslims were appalled by ISIS. He further said that the attacks in Syria by the British Military were “far from an attack on Islam, we are engaging in the defence of Islam…failing to act would betray British Muslims”. It now appears that both Bedfordshire Police and the UK Football Policing Unit are linking ISIS to the general muslim people and population, because it suits their purpose of the campaign of harassment against Tommy Robinson.

It’s hard to see how saying “F**k ISIS” constitutes an insult to those Muslims who claim to be as horrified by ISIS as non-Muslims are. ISIS are a “banned extremist terrorist organisation”, they’re not representative of mainstream British Islam.

Tommy recorded this explanatory video before the incident in Cambridge:

**

When I put all this together I get the inescapable feeling that the Police in Cambridge this weekend wanted to provoke Tommy Robinson into lashing out. They made his kids cry! They know Tommy’s history, they know he has (or at least had) a short temper. Hat’s off to him for keeping it down to a bit of shouting (which of course the Cambridge newspaper managed to focus on). My personal option: the goal was to get him to hit a policeman: that would send him back to prison for a long time and, judging by what happened to him last time, have a good chance of getting him killed.

As he mentions in that video, all this follows the banning of a group called “Britain First” from Luton. As Tommy explains in the video, Britain First felt forced to accept these terms because of the sheer expense of fighting against them.

What is going on in the UK is something I’ve referred to as “Proleptic Dhimmitude”:

Submission to the rules of Islam by non-Muslims before one is actually living under a Muslim ruler. For instance judging that insulting the prophet of Islam or desecrating one of Islam’s holy texts should be illegal so as to avoid “unpleasant consequences”. That is “proleptic dhimmitude”.

Tommy holds and expresses opinions about Sharia which are blasphemous when judged ONLY by Islamic Sharia law. That is undeniable. Many people do. I do. It doesn’t mean we are bigoted against individual Muslims, many of whom live good and peaceful lives. It just means we hope fervently Muslims themselves can discuss what it is about Islam that seems to lead to such high numbers of violent acts today.

It is hard to believe a majority of the Muslim population in Luton is really demanding Tommy be physically banned from entering parts of a town he grew up in. Whether they are demanding it or not, that is what the UK government seems to want to give them. Protection from any challenge to the ideas of their religion: ideas which are hard to separate from the actions of violent Jihadis all over the world including ISIS.

We have the same here in Israel. The hate filled minor “journalist” Abby Martin has recently visited the ancient Jewish city of Hebron to see how evil “settler Jews” are. Ironically she took a picture of the very sign, at the entrance to his ancient city which includes the site of the burial of the patriarchs of Judaism. Read more here if you dare.