Islamism

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

France is throwing a tantrum at Trump

France is intensifying its counter-offensive against what it calls misinformation. Earlier this month, Paris prosecutors confirmed they have opened a criminal investigation into Elon Musk and X. Musk had ignored a summons to appear for a voluntary interview on April 20. The French state requested Musk assist in an investigation into algorithmic manipulation and the spread of AI deepfakes on X. Musk responded to the criminal investigation by labeling the prosecutors “faker than a chocolate euro and queerer than a pink flamingo in a neon tutu!” On the same day, Paris unveiled its “French Response” strategy. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, posted a video on X (where else?

France misinformation

Monday

Simon Diggins

Britain is facing an Islamist insurgency

The recent horrific attack in Golders Green has generated much anger and despair at this latest in a series of concerted, violent assaults currently aimed primarily at the Jewish community, but with a clear lineage to earlier Islamist outrages such as the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby and the London Bridge attacks of 2017 and 2019. The UK terrorism threat level was raised to "severe" following the attack on Thursday. But terrorism, "an action or threat designed to influence the government or intimidate the public," is an inadequate descriptor of what we face in Britain. Instead, I believe we face a different problem: a full-blown insurgency.

islamist

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

British politics is turning French

An editorial in Friday’s Le Figaro (France’s equivalent to the New York Times) is headlined "Mélenchon or the moral suicide of the left." The same statement could be applied to Britain’s Green party. Their open pandering to the Muslim vote in Thursday’s Gorton & Denton by-election was arguably a new low in British politics. It wasn’t just Israel and so-called Islamophobes who were targeted (in Urdu) in their campaign leaflets and videos, so was India. Le Figaro’s scathing critique of the left-wing populist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was written as a reaction to his visit to Lyon on Thursday evening. A fortnight earlier 23-year-old Quentin Deranque had been kicked to death in Lyon, allegedly by a far-left mob.

Monday

Hamit Coskun

I burnt a Quran. Now I may have to flee Britain

My name is Hamit Coskun and last year I was convicted in a British court of religiously aggravated public order offense. My “crime”? Burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Moments later, I was attacked in full view of the street by a man. I was hospitalized. Then I was arrested and convicted in Westminster Magistrates Court. I managed to get that conviction overturned, with the help of the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, but now the Crown Prosecution Service is appealing my acquittal, with the case being heard tomorrow in the High Court. Now I am in discussions with the White House about claiming asylum in America in case the decision goes against me.

Monday

Terry Barnes

Bondi Beach and the heroism of Ahmed al-Ahmed

As the appalling story of Sunday’s anti-Jewish mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach continue to unfold, and 16 people are now dead, there have been few glimmers of light in the darkness. The men identified as the shooters are a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24. The father was shot and killed by police last night, and the son was overpowered and taken into custody. The New South Wales police commissioner says little is yet known about the pair, but Sajid Akram was a licensed gun owner, with six guns in his possession. Old social media posts have also emerged of Naveed Akram being praised for his Islamic studies in 2022.

ahmed

Tuesday

Josie Cox

Meet the e-girls selling European decline to America

Earlier this year, a striking 28-year-old woman, dressed head to toe in a vivid shade of crimson, stepped up to the podium at a conference in Hungary. “Ladies and gentlemen: hello Budapest. I’m so thrilled to be here again,” she began, adjusting the twin microphones and gently swiping a strand of long blonde hair from her forehead. “As some of you might remember, last year I gave here a speech as well, about the ‘great replacement,’” she continued, confidently glancing around the assembled audience. “I wanted the whole world to know that the ‘great replacement theory’ was, in fact, not a theory, but reality. White people are becoming a minority in their own homelands at an exceptionally fast rate.

e-

Friday

Gavin Mortimer

A decade after Bataclan, France is more divided than ever

Ten years ago on Thursday, Islamist terrorists massacred 130 people in a coordinated attack across Paris. It was the heaviest loss of life on French soil since World War Two, and those who perished – as well as the 350 who were wounded – were remembered yesterday in a series of commemorations. Emmanuel Macron visited the six sites where the terrorists struck, among them the Stade de France and the Bataclan concert hall, and the President inaugurated a memorial garden at Place Saint-Gervais, opposite Paris City Hall. According to the Élysée Palace ahead of proceedings, the day would be an opportunity for the nation "to honor the memory of those who lost their lives... and reaffirm its ongoing commitment to the fight against terrorism.

bataclan

Friday

Josh Kaplan

Do Jews have a future in Britain? 

I was on my way to synagogue yesterday when I got news that was surprising and unsurprising at the same time. That there had been an attack at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur was a shock, but only the location and the timing. The fact that terror had struck our community felt like the confirmation of our worst fears – and something that was grimly predictable.  For as long as I can remember, Jewish life in the UK has been closely guarded and protected. My childhood synagogue in the leafy London suburb of Surbiton was behind locked gates with security guards posted outside when anyone was in the building. My Jewish newspaper office today has similar protections and an address we’re told must never be made public.

Saturday

Monday

Dominic Green

Life, liberty and the pursuit of laïcité

The French were asking for it, weren’t they? All that laïcité is the political equivalent of a short skirt. What did Marianne think would happen if she went out like that?The very act of being French, Politico tells us, ‘incites’ Muslims to murderous rage. A New Yorker writer explains that Charlie Hebdo cartoons are ‘effectively hate speech’, which effectively implies that Samuel Paty, the teacher who showed the cartoons to his pupils in a class on free speech, got what he deserved. The New York Times tells us that there are fine people on both sides: the real victims of Islamist terrorism in France are French Muslims, who are left feeling uncomfortable.

Laïcité

Tuesday

Barbara Boland

Islamic terror and the Left’s pretzeled language

After years of Obama-era State Department obfuscations and Orwellian redactions, it was heartening to hear Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lay the blame for the ‘horrific wave’ of bombings at international hotels and Catholic churches across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday where it belongs: at the feet of ‘Islamic radical terror.’ Pompeo stated at a press conference Monday that ‘radical Islamic terror remains a threat’ and that the US, along with international partners, is working against the ‘evil’ of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other radical Islamist groups. That’s a far cry from the antics of the State Department under Obama.

mike pompeo sri lanka