Month: December 2023

A Christmas Market popular with tourists has burst into flames after a number of stalls caught fire last night.

Plumes of thick smoke and flames were seen rising over the market in the European city.

The night’s sky turned red orange during the blaze near the Red Town Hall in Berlin.

Visitors quickly fled the scene after a blaze engulfed two of the wooden stalls selling festive goods.

The Alexanderplatz market was evacuated as firefighters rushed to tackle the inferno.

Two small gas cartridges also exploded, the German newspaper Bild has claimed.

The incident resulted in two people receiving treatment in hospital.

An employee suffered minor burns and a visitor needed treatment for smoke inhalation.

A spokesman for the Berlin fire department said: “At the Christmas market at the Red Town Hall, two stalls caught fire.

“The fire is extinguished. The site is under control.”

The blaze broke out at around 8.15pm but is due to reopen today.

The Christmas Market on Alexanderplatz offers a mix of market stalls, funfair and a party venue and is considered one of the busiest in Berlin.

Locals and tourists enjoy the bright lights and Christmas decorations at the market.

An internet user described the attraction as “one of the hubs to be at around Christmas”.

A second wrote: “As it gets dark very early at the end of December, around 4pm one can already enjoy the lights and splendid Christmas atmosphere, hot wine, Christmas shopping etc.

“It’s very lively in the evenings and a pleasant place to be around Christmas.”

https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/germany-news-berlin-christmas-market-fire

A new study from the University of Amsterdam reveals the enormous costs of mass immigration to the Netherlands over a nearly 25-year timeframe, with the 278-page report adding to the growing list of evidence refuting claims that migrants contribute to national budgets in the West, create jobs, and prop up faltering pension systems.

The landmark study, entitled “Borderless Welfare State: The Consequences of Immigration on Public Finances,” shows that net costs of immigration to the Dutch public sector over the period 1995-2019 were an astounding €400 billion, averaging €17 billion a year, with a peak of €32 billion in 2016 due to the 2015 “refugee crisis.”

To put these figures in perspective, the Dutch government spent around €30 billion on education in 2016, €2 billion less than it spent on migrants in the same year.

The four experienced researchers from the prestigious University of Amsterdam’s School of Economics department write that they “had access to unique, anonymized microdata from Statistics Netherlands on all inhabitants of the country. In estimating the fiscal impact of immigration, the net lifetime contribution of immigrants to public coffers was estimated by employing the method of generational accounting.”

The authors, based on copious amounts of data, also warn that either immigration will have to be curtailed or the Dutch welfare system will have to face dramatic cuts:

Government spending on immigrants is now above average for items such as education, social security
and benefits. Immigrants, on the other hand, pay less taxes and social security premiums on average.
When added together, the net costs of immigration turn out to be considerable: for immigrants who entered in the period 1995-2019 alone, these are 400 billion euros, an amount in the order of magnitude of the total Dutch natural gas revenues from the 1960s onwards. These costs are mainly the result
of redistribution through the welfare state. Continuing immigration with its current size and cost structure will put increasing pressure on public finances. Curtailment of the welfare state and/or immigration will then be inevitable

Given the report’s finding, it can be argued that the entire national revenue of the Netherlands from fracking and other natural gas extraction measures, over the course of approximately 60 years, went entirely to feeding, housing, educating, and providing medical treatment for migrants and their children in the country.

The study also notes that the Dutch population has exploded higher due to the rapid pace of immigration, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. This population density has put enormous pressure on housing, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, all of which in turn has strained the Dutch budget and generous welfare system.

Of the 17 million Dutch inhabitants at the end of 2019, 13 percent were foreign-born (first generation) and 11 percent were children of immigrants (second generation), which represents, in total, 24 percent of the Dutch population.

The study shows that per capita state spending on immigrants is significantly higher than the native Dutch population for social security, welfare benefits, and education.

The study reveals in a variety of charts the average contributions — both positive and negative — of native Dutch people versus non-Western immigrants.

The study, which has its own dedicated English-language site, also breaks down first-generation Western migrants and first-generation non-Western migrants. The charts show that migrants from the Middle East and North Africa never achieve a positive contribution compared with what the state spends on them, while other non-Western immigrants, such as Asians, have a slight net contribution. However, even Western immigrants lag behind native Dutch nationals in their contributions.

The charts show that for migrants from countries such as Turkey and Morocco, there is a particularly high negative contribution rate. Over the course of the average Moroccan’s lifetime, they will actually cost the Dutch people €260,000 per person.

The Dutch Finance Ministry has also revealed in a separate report that immigrants pay lower taxes and make fewer social security contributions, which reduces their net fiscal contribution.

Similar results have been seen in a variety of countries, including France and Germany. The German government, for instance, predicts it will spend €36 billion on migrants in 2023 alone. Amidst a budget crisis, the government is cutting a variety of services and refusing to issue a pension bonus for the country’s native population. Meanwhile, researchers in France estimate that migrants cost the French state €25 billion a year.

Despite the reality of these figures, Western liberal governments inexplicably promote the idea that migrants are the solution to Europe’s growing financial and pension crises. Germany’s left-liberal government, for instance, is looking to liberalize immigration laws, speed up naturalization, and bring up to 1.5 million migrants into the country a year, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz arguing it is needed to support Germany’s ailing pension system and boost the country’s lack of qualified labor.

https://rmx.news/economy/netherlands-spent-e400-billion-on-migrants-between-1995-and-2019-according-to-new-landmark-study/

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan keeps increasingly referring to places outside Turkey as “our lands.” In his statement following the presidential cabinet meeting on November 20, Erdogan said:

“Karabakh [in the South Caucasus] has the same place in our hearts as Gaza. Just as we do not distinguish between Bosnia and Aleppo [in Syria]; Tripoli [in Libya]; Balkh [in Afghanistan]; Thessaloniki [in Greece] and Mosul [in Iraq], we see our own ancient cities and Jerusalem as the same.”

“Karabakh” is the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, currently occupied by Azerbaijan after it – with the help of Turkey – seized it in September after a genocide against the indigenous Armenians there, that lasted from 2020-2023.

On November 17, Erdogan once again announced his government’s expansionist goals. “Whoever says ‘We do not care about Syria, Iraq, Karabakh, Libya, Bosnia, and Jerusalem’ is either intentionally or unintentionally impeding Turkey’s great march,” he stated.

On October 28, at a demonstration condemning Israel’s war against Hamas, he also said that a century ago, Gaza was what Adana [a city in Turkey] was for Turks:

“Edirne [in Turkey] was the same [to us] as Skopje [a city in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia]; Kırklareli [in Turkey] was the same as Thessaloniki [in Greece]; Mardin [in Turkey] was the same as Mosul [in Iraq]; and Gaziantep [in Turkey] as Aleppo [in Syria]. Just like Gaza, they were all part of our homeland that we thought was inseparable from us. Look what we have become now…

“They [the West] unfortunately separated the Turkish nation from all these lands that belong to [Turks] as much as their blood, life and love. They not only separated us [from those cities] physically; they also used all kinds of tricks to remove them from our hearts and minds.”

The cities in Turkey that Erdogan referred to (such as Edirne, Adana, Kirklareli, Mardin, and Antep) were built and enriched by Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and other indigenous peoples thousands of years ago. These cities were later wiped of their indigenous Christian residents as a result of centuries-long Islamic oppression that culminated in the 1913-23 genocide in Ottoman Turkey.

Meanwhile, the Turkish media continues to falsely and repeatedly to claim that “152 Greek islands and islets in the Aegean belong to Turkey”. These islands historically and legally (mainly through the 1924 Treaty of Lausanne, 1932 Turkish-Italian Agreements and 1947 Paris Treaty) belong to Greece.

In October, Greek media reported that Turkey annexed an Aegean Greek islet rock (Zourafa, or Ladoxera).

According to the Turkish media, Turkey sent a “notam” [notice to airmen] that “the region [waters surrounding Zourafa] where the Turkish Army recently started a drill is under Turkey’s sovereignty”.

The government of Turkey has threatened to invade and annex Greek islands in the Aegean Sea for at least the past five years.

Meanwhile, Turkish troops continue to violate the UN-controlled buffer zone in the Republic of Cyprus, 36% of which the Turkish army has illegally occupied since 1974. The Cypriot media reported that on November 27, “around 40 Turkish soldiers entered a two-story residence [in the buffer zone]… The mayor of Agios Dometios, Kostas Petrou, said that ‘there has been intense activity in the area by the Turkish Army for about 1.5 months….”

Territorial expansionism is apparently a major part of Erdogan’s government’s foreign policy agenda. Unfortunately, political Islam is an ideology of conquest and dominance.

Since its inception in Arabia in the seventh century, Islam has been spread throughout the world by means of the sword. According to the Islamic law, the entire world is divided into the “dar al-Islam” (territory of submission to Allah — the word “Islam” is Arabic for “submission”), which denotes regions where Islam prevails, and the “dar al-harb” (territory of war), which refers to non-Muslim lands, yet to be conquered.

Islamists believe that once a land has come under Islamic occupation and colonialism, the land conquered is forever Islamic. The Greek city of Thessaloniki, for instance, was once under Ottoman Muslim occupation. According to the official website of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, while it was under Ottoman rule (1430-1912), almost all Christian churches, parishes and monasteries were converted into mosques. Thessaloniki was liberated from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.

Islamic supremacists such as Erdogan believe that because Thessaloniki was once under the occupation of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, it is a Muslim land eternally and must be returned to its rightful owner.

From the mid-15th century until the proclamation of the first Hellenic Republic in 1822, the territory constituting modern Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan has been open about his goal of resurrecting the Ottoman Empire, which would include expanding Turkish territory considerably. In 2016, he said:

“There are physical borders and there are borders in our hearts.

“Some people ask us: ‘Why do you take an interest in Iraq, Syria, Georgia, Crimea, Karabakh, Azerbaijan, the Balkans, and North Africa?’… None of these lands is foreign to us. Is it possible to divide Rize [in Turkey] from Batumi [in Georgia]? How can we consider Edirne [in Turkey] to be separate from Thessaloniki [in Greece]? How can we think that Gaziantep [in Turkey] has nothing to do with Aleppo [in Syria]; Mardin [in Turkey] with Al-Hasakah [in Syria]; or Siirt [in Turkey] with Mosul [in Iraq]?

“From Thrace to Eastern Europe, with every step you take, you will see traces of our ancestors… We would need to deny our true selves for us to think Gaza, with whom we speak the same language and share the same culture, is separate from us, as far away as Siberia. To take an interest in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Bosnia and other brotherly regions is both the duty and the right of Turkey. Turkey is not just Turkey. The day we give up on these things will be the day we give up on our freedom and future.”

Erdogan also referred to the Misak-ı Milli (“National Pact”), a set of decisions made by the Ottoman Parliament in 1920 concerning the borders of the future Turkish state. The National Pact is commonly referenced by Turks when calling for Turkish territorial expansion.

The Turkish newspaper Hürriyet wrote in 2016:

“Some historians say that according to the National Pact, the Turkish borders include — in addition to the current borders of Turkey — Cyprus, Aleppo [in Syria], Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk [in Iraq], Batumi [in Georgia], Thessaloniki [in Greece], Kardzhali, Varna [in Bulgaria], and the Aegean islands.”

In the 13^th century, the Turkic tribe known as Ottomans formed a state in western Anatolia, on land they invaded and captured from the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. They conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in the 15^th century, bringing an end to the Byzantine Empire.

For more than 600 years, from its founding in 1299 in Anatolia (present-day Turkey) to its end in 1922, the Ottoman Turks invaded and occupied nations across three continents. These nations included, among others, most of the Balkans, (such as Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and Romania), Hungary, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan and Israel (then called Palestine), Lebanon, Syria, some of Arabia and a considerable amount of North Africa. During this period, many crimes were systematically committed against non-Muslims, including:

• The ghulam system: the enslavement, conversion, and training of non-Muslims to become warriors and statesmen;
• The devshirme system: the forced recruitment of Christian boys who were taken from their families, converted to Islam and enslaved for service to the sultan in his palace and to join his janissaries (“new corps”);
• Compulsory and voluntary Islamization: the latter resulting from social, religious and economic pressure;
• The sexual slavery of women and children, deportations and massacres.

Jerusalem was under Ottoman occupation for four centuries (1517-1917). The Jewish people, however, reversing that pattern of Islamic colonialism and imperialism, re-established their homeland, now Israel, in 1948. Islamic supremacists still have not healed from the perceived affront by Israel’s indigenous Jewish people to Islamic conquest.

Islamists therefore say they want to reconquer Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. According to doctrine, the only religion that should rule over these lands — or any lands, for that matter — is Islam. Christians and Jews could be only dhimmis, second-class, tolerated subjects of an Islamic state where they are only allowed to stay alive on sufferance by paying a high “protection” tax, the jizya.

In 2018, during a rally, Erdogan said, “For us, Jerusalem is what Çanakkale is.” (Also, where Troy was.)

In 2020, Erdogan opened the Turkish parliament’s legislative session with a long speech that again addressed Jerusalem: “Jerusalem is our city, a city from us.”

Theologically, according to Islamic scriptures, Judaism and Christianity are merely distorted versions of Islam. In the Islamic view, originally there was only Islam, which the Jews and Christians later distorted into Judaism and Christianity. All history, in this mindset, is therefore originally Islamic history and all major figures of Biblical history, from Adam and Eve, are therefore Muslim. According to Islam, Abraham, David, Moses and Jesus are also Muslim. So, any place related to them, in that view, is Muslim territory.

Moshe Sharon, Professor Emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, calls these views the “Islamization of history” and “Islamization of geography”.

Philip Carl Salzman, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill University, noted:

“Israel exists on territory once governed and dominated by Arab and later Turkish Muslims. The Arab invasions in the 7th century displaced and replaced the Jews who were the majority population, those who survived the wars of the Romans against the Jews. Almost a thousand years later, the Ottoman Turks became the rulers of the Holy Land. According to Islamic law, land once governed by Muslims is owned by Muslims forevermore. Notwithstanding the Jews’ prior occupation of the Holy Land, Muslims regard the region as theirs and theirs alone and Israel as having stolen their land.”

Many others see these events as the Jews, who were the indigenous population of what is now Israel, having had their land “stolen” by the Ottomans, similarly to how the Turkish military invaded the northern part of the Republic of Cyprus in 1974, or how the Christian Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire was “stolen” by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and his troops on May 29, 1453 when they stormed Constantinople and triumphantly entered the Cathedral of the Hagia Sophia, after besieging the city for 55 days.

Many Islamists are therefore obsessed with conquering Israel, Spain and Portugal (Muslim-occupied al-Andalus), Greece, Cyprus and India for Allah — then the rest of the non-Muslim world.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20203/slamists-claiming-and

The German Ministry of the Interior has proposed a draft amendment to its Residency Act to redefine what constitutes human trafficking into the EU—a move which could criminalize the work of ‘search and rescue’ NGOs operating on the Mediterranean Sea, EU Observer wrote.

Existing German laws already prohibit facilitating irregular entries into the EU for the sake of financial gain or personal advantage, which means NGOs can ferry migrants from the Libyan and Tunisian shores to Europe under the term ‘rescue’ unobstructed.

While several EU countries, including Italy and Greece, have already passed legislation to clamp down on the systemic abuse of sea rescue regulations observed when it comes to North African migrants, Berlin remained the biggest defender—and financier—of these shady NGOs. 

Until now. In an apparent U-turn, the government now seeks to expand the existing laws to criminalize all forms of assistance to illegal entries, regardless of the motive, with violators potentially facing massive fines or up to 10 years of prison time.

The proposed changes could also make it illegal to aid people who entered Germany illegally—including with clothing, food, or shelter—in order to eliminate other existing incentives for illegal migration.

The law still has to pass in the Bundestag, but the fact that the proposal exists already proves how much Germany has been struggling with the sudden influx of illegal migrants this year.

In response, over 50 humanitarian organizations—led by one of the most notorious migrant-ferry NGOs, SOS Humanity, which was granted €790,000 from Berlin in September—signed a joint statement urging the federal government to withdraw the proposal.

Addressing the backlash, the Ministry of the Interior scrambled to clarify on X that the new law would not apply to sea rescuers or humanitarian organizations. The aim of the amendment, the ministry said, was to clamp down on human traffickers alone.

The NGOs, however, doubled down on their criticism, claiming that the current draft will create a “legal uncertainty,” making such a distinction hardly possible. 

They were joined by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), which called for the inclusion of a concrete “humanitarian clause” to make sure rescue NGOs are immune from the law.

While the government, and especially the Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, continues to publicly support ‘search and rescue’ NGOs, they have shown no intention to modify the amendment so far.

The country registered over 200,000 asylum requests this year, 77% more than in 2022. What’s more, migrants cost German taxpayers over €50 billion this year alone, at a time when the federal government is struggling to fill the gaping holes in its budget.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/germany-to-criminalize-migrant-ferrying-ngos/

Dublin, Ireland’s City Council, in a unanimous vote, agreed to fly the Palestinian flag over Dublin’s City Hall as a display of support for the people of Gaza.

The motion to fly the Palestinian flag was first brought to a vote on November 6th, but the move failed to receive enough votes.

However, on Monday, Dublin’s City Council changed course and reversed its prior decision.

The Palestinian flag was raised above Dublin’s City Hall on Tuesday morning, and will remain flying for a total of 7 days.

Many Dubliners are furious with the decision and are calling out their politicians for flying a flag of another country on their City Hall.

In the last decade, Ireland’s politicians have placed more priority and funding for immigrants entering the country than the Irish natives themselves.

UFC star Conor McGregor has hinted he will run for President to fix this broken trend.

Dublin City Council Votes to Fly Palestinian Flag for 7 Days Over City Hall via @gatewaypundit https://t.co/FrTq3bQspw

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) December 5, 2023

A Somalian asylum seeker who sexually assaulted a nurse in Northern Ireland, and then sexually assaulted the policewoman who arrested him, did so as a “cry for help” because he was suffering from mental health issues, the man’s lawyer has claimed.

Abdullahi Hidig Salaad, a 22-year-old Somalian national living in the country for the past six months, was arrested at the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine on Nov. 29 after being accused of approaching a pregnant nurse from behind and groping her.

Ballymena Magistrates’ Court heard how the defendant subsequently assaulted a female police officer in an interview room at Antrim police station. An officer recounted how Salaad had grabbed the policewoman’s waist and forcefully pulled her toward him before groping her bottom.

“He then reached across her body and grabbed her right breast. She had to move her upper body down and away from the defendant as she thought he was going to try to kiss her,” the officer continued.

Another officer and the defendant’s solicitor witnessed the second assault.

When he eventually kept his hands to himself, the defendant admitted to police that he had committed the assault at the hospital, but claimed to be “mentally unwell.” He also claimed he could not remember the subsequent assault on the policewoman.

During his bail application, the defendant’s solicitor reiterated the claim that his client was suffering from “mental health issues” and told the court that the offenses had been a “cry for help.”

The presiding magistrate refused bail and ordered the defendant to remain in custody ahead of a further hearing on Dec. 19.

https://rmx.news/crime/somalian-asylum-seekers-sexual-assaults-of-pregnant-nurse-and-policewoman-who-arrested-him-were-a-cry-for-help/

Two trans-identified males dominated a women’s category at the Illinois State Cyclocross Championships yesterday, leading many women’s rights advocates to condemn the tournament for allowing men to self-identify into the women’s divisions.

The Illinois State Cyclocross Championships was held at Montrose Beach on December 3, representing the final challenge in the eight-race Chicago CycloCross Cup. As with other events in the Cup, the event comprised of over one dozen different competitions for men, women, and junior athletes.

But two trans-identified males topped the podium in the Women’s Singlespeed category, taking home medals set aside for female racers. Tessa Johnson and Evelyn Williamson placed first and second, respectively, in the competition, leaving space for only one biological woman – Kristin Chalmers – on the podium.

Johnson also participated in the Women’s Category 1/2 race, placing third and winning $100 in prize money.

According to the Chicago CrossCup’s website, the competition prides itself on “first and foremost fostering a positive & supportive community built around competitive cyclocross racing,” continuing: “That means welcoming and challenging everyone who wants to contribute to the series and make it better in that regard.”

In its official FAQ on the topic of transgender cyclists, the Cup notes that “discrimination or harassment of any kind on the basis of race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, national origin, or any other stupid idea someone comes up with to belittle another racer will not be tolerated at [our] events and may result in disqualification.”

On X (formerly Twitter), news of Johnson and Williamson’s victories was shared by user @i_heart_bikes, an anonymous female cyclist who frequently calls out males self-identifying as “women” in the sport. In response, many women’s rights advocates and sports enthusiasts condemned the competition for allowing the men to participate.

Men took the top two podium spots in the women's singlespeed category at the Illinois State Cyclocross Championships yesterday.

Tessa (Michael) Johnson took 🥇and "Evelyn" Williamson took 🥈

Thanks to @usacycling, men are racing in women's categories all over the US. pic.twitter.com/AQixz5xWx1

— 🚲 (@i_heart__bikes) December 4, 2023

“Well done @usacycling you’ve proved you don’t care about women & you’re happy to put men in female categories. What a joke,” one user replied.

“Cycling has been my refuge since I was a little girl. This makes me sick to my stomach and full of rage,” another said in response to the news.

One woman’s rights advocate even went so far as to edit Johnson and Williamson out of the podium photo, placing female racer Kristin Chalmers onto the top spot.

Fixed it pic.twitter.com/d6EM61DWxr

— Margo 🏃‍♀️ (@is_a_woman) December 4, 2023

This is not the first time that Johnson and Williamson dominated the podium at the  Chicago CycloCross Cup. In October, the two also took gold and silver in the Women’s Singlespeed, similarly leaving the only female on the podium with bronze. Johnson also took first place in the Women’s Category 1/2 race, earning him $150 in prize money.

Both Johnson and Williamson have been racing in women’s cycling for years, with Williamson collecting 18 first place titles in races across the country since 2017. 

In September, Reduxx reported that Johnson and Williamson competed as a team in two separate women’s races in Illinois, taking first place in both of them. During one of the competitions, Williamson and Johnson competed under the team name “TS-ESTRODOLLS,” a reference to cross-sex hormones.

Johnson and Williamson celebrated their initial first place win on August 27 after their victory at the xXx Racing-Athletic Relay Cross in Chicago. The two men surpassed nine pairs of women for first place.

Just days later on August 31, Johnson and Williamson beat out two teams of women at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome during the State Championship in Madison. 

Williamson is reportedly in a polyamorous relationship with Austin Killips, another trans-identified male cyclist who has become notorious for his frequent participation in women’s competitions. Killips has similarly taken several first place wins in women’s categories and has forced at least one woman out of the sport after targeting her with physical aggression during a race.

https://reduxx.info/males-seize-gold-and-silver-at-womens-cycling-championship-in-illinois/

“Today, millions of Americans mourned and prayed, and tomorrow we go back to work,” President George W. Bush began his address days after 9/11. “Tomorrow the good people of America go back to their shops, their fields, American factories, and go back to work.”

“We cannot let the terrorists achieve the objective of frightening our nation to the point where we don’t — where we don’t conduct business, where people don’t shop,” he urged in a later press conference.

Defeating the terrorists meant going on with business as usual. And we did.

Life changed. Flying became grueling. There were alerts and terror plots and we stopped paying attention to them. A generation was born and came of age who had never known another life.

It’s not so different in most countries where Islamic Jihadis perform their regular rounds of terror. Israel has been the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. The scenes we’ve come to accept as normal in Boston, Paris or Manchester, dying flowers on streets, tearful women resting their heads on the shoulders of men while a sad song plays, assertions that we are stronger than the terrorists and will not lose our humanity were all field tested out in Israel.

The peace agreement with the PLO took Israel from a place where occasional terrorist attacks happened to a place where they occurred all the time. And when conservative governments isolated them to end the wave of urban bombings, rocket attacks became normal. And when Israel began to neutralize those, the terrorists broke through for an unprecedented massacre.

At each previous juncture, the horror became the new normal. First it was suicide bombs on buses, body parts scraped off the sidewalks outside pizza stores, and strollers full of broken glass. Parents made sure that their children had cell phones so they could immediately check if they were all right after each terrorist attack. Then residents of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv came to accept running to bomb shelters as the new normal. What will the new normal be now?

Bush may have meant well, but his assertion that, “our nation was horrified, but it’s not going to be terrorized” was wrong. Being terrorized can be expressed just as much through adaptation and numbness as through fear and anger. The failure to fight back and end the state of terror is what being ‘terrorized’ looks like just as much as public outbursts of panic and hysteria.

Getting back to normal without dealing with the problem is not resistance; it’s acceptance.. Living with terror is integrated into everyday routines. What once seemed horrifying slowly becomes the new normal.

What we thought was impossible for the mind to grasp becomes the baseline for life on 9/12 or 10/7 or any of the other dates freighted with horror and meaning until they become history.

Already the atrocities of Oct 7 are being discussed the way 9/11 was: a new reality to adapt to. In America, having terrorists blow things up around us became background noise. It happens sometimes, as it recently did in North Dakota, but we try not to pay too much attention to it.

Israel, though, are not willing to brace for the new normal of having thousands or maybe only hundreds, of murderous savages occasionally invade their communities while out to massacre them.

The Israeli leftist talk has already turned to “how do we stop the next one” instead of “how do we make sure this never happens again.” It’s a responsible conversation, but it’s also a sign of acceptance.

Truly resisting terrorism is refusing to accept it as the new normal.

Getting back to normal is not that difficult. It appears initially impossible, but time does its work. We grow numb, too overloaded with stress, worn out by the parade of inconceivable images and thoughts, and then, much like lost travelers trudging through the snow, we go to sleep.

And then before we know it, we’re living in a nightmare but we no longer feel horror at it. The world has monsters. We pass them on the way to work and we see them on the evening news. And we no longer react because extraordinary evil has been integrated into our everyday lives.

What’s the alternative? It’s not a constant immersion in the horrors of Islamic terrorism. But neither is it an acceptance of it as the new normal. Nothing changes when we passively go along and treat the unacceptable as the new course of things. The process of adaptation to each atrocity coarsens and lowers our standards. Slowly we lose our sense that this should not be happening and that it’s happening only because our governments are refusing to end it.

Islamic terrorism is not an indestructible monster. It exists for one reason alone. And the reason is that we tolerate it. Given a choice between two alternatives, doing whatever it takes to end the terror threat or tolerating some acceptable level of terrorism, governments always choose the latter. And when we accept terrorism as the new normal, we make the choice for them.

Big choices like these are not defined by absolutes, but by ‘gut’ feelings. They come down to asking politicians which option seems scarier, more disturbing, immoral or outrageous. We have spent generations suffering from Islamic terrorism because each time the answer is that destroying terrorists is the scarier option while letting them kill us is the least scary one.

As long as Gitmo or Muslim travel bans are scarier than the terrorist attacks, this will go on.

Politicians know how to cope with the aftermath of a terrorist attack. It’s become a new normal for them too. There are flags, tearful songs and finally a call to get back to normal. Go shopping. Laugh. Eat out. And those are all good things to do. But the unspoken passenger on these trips is Islamic terrorism. Getting back to normal also normalizes a new level of terror.

Living with Islamic terrorism should never be normalized. The answer to an enemy trying to kill you is not going through the stages of grief, passing from anger to acceptance: it’s resistance.

The only acceptable answer to Islamic terrorism is to utterly destroy it while making the terrorist supporting populations pay the largest share of the price for that destruction. Any other answer normalizes terrorism. The failure to commit and then carry out anything short of total destruction perpetuates terrorism. The refusal to imagine that such a thing is possible makes it impossible to end terrorism. And the idea that there is any alternative to this is either a fantasy or a lie.

Refusing to accept terrorism as the new normal means confronting politicians, even those on our side, with the firm position that we will not accept anything from them short of a plan to win: not incrementally, not to establish deterrence, and not just to “show the terrorists we mean business”. We will live our lives, but we will not treat Islamic terror as business as usual.

Bombs, massacres and assaults are not the new normal: they are the new abnormal.

Our only hope for victory is to treat them as abnormal, to never adapt and accept the idea that being attacked by terrorists is just the price we pay for living in a big city, for our foreign policy, for living in the region, or for a world where madmen can get hold of weapons.

It’s easy to forget what life was like before Islamic terrorism since the abnormal world foisted on us by Islamic terrorism is all around us. The political distortion has made that world seem normal and any proposals to dismantle it appear abnormal. The chattering class rushes to shout down even the most modest proposals for stopping the terrorists because moral inversion in this abnormal world has made terrorists into the victims. And we forget that all of this is abnormal.

Our vital resistance is to define this as abnormal, not normal. It is not normal to adapt to terrorism, what is normal is for terrorists to adapt to running for their lives. A lawless society is a place where citizens are terrified and criminals are emboldened. A lawful society however is one where citizens are emboldened and criminals are terrified. Until the terrorists are terrified, we are the ones who are living in a lawless society at the mercy of monsters. We are not physically weak, but morally weakened by politicians who offer mercy to the monsters and none to us.

Failed politicians have ushered in this abnormal world in which we are afraid and our leaders negotiate with the terrorists and appease them to determine how much they can terrorize us. They worry about what the terrorists and their allies will think more than whether their citizens will live or die when the next terrorist attack rolls around. That is abnormal and unacceptable.

Muslim terrorism is a norm within Islamic societies, but abnormal in ours. If we continue to accept it, we will end up living in an Islamic society and the abnormal will become the norm.

What we are fighting for is the abnormalization of not only Islamic terrorism, but its appeasement, any tolerance for it, any acceptance of it and any concern for its perpetrators.

(In Israel,October 7 broke the pattern and led to an all out war to destroy Hamas. Israeli have learned the hard way, but the world has not, ed.)

All of these things must be made abnormal, from last to first, to restore a normal world.

Don’t accept terrorism as the new normal (israelnationalnews.com) / Front Page Magazine.

The dark series of crimes inflaming French public opinion continues with a murder in the heart of the capital on Saturday night, December 2nd. Once again, controversy has erupted over the identity of the assailant, which the media and the political class were at pains to conceal in order to avoid facing up to the harsh realities of Islamism and immigration.

The attack took place in southwest Paris, not far from the Seine and the Eiffel Tower. A German tourist was killed, and two other people were injured. The German tourist suffered several blows to the head, back, and shoulders. Two other people were injured in the attack. One of them, an English tourist, was hit in the eye with a hammer.

As soon as the attack was made public, the first information filtered through the press about the assailant: he was a Frenchman, born in France. The terms used by the news channels and echoed by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin were unambiguous. It was the perfect counterexample to the Crépol tragedy, which had occurred two weeks earlier and was still the talk of the town, and which had been committed by young people of immigrant origin, none of whom had a traditional French-sounding name.

The Frenchman, born in France, went by the name of Armand R., we learned a few hours later. It couldn’t be more ‘French’: wasn’t du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu, once called Armand?

But investigative work by influencers on X revealed the deception. The murderer’s first name is Armand, but his surname is Rajabpour-Miyandoab. He was born in France in 1997 to Iranian parents and was naturalised. The individual was well known to the police and judicial authorities under the name Armand, but his given name at birth was Iman, which his parents changed to Armand in 2003—a change that the converted and radicalised young man disapproved of and wished to be called Iman again.

Discussions were rife on social media. The extract from the official gazette showing his naturalisation at the time when he was still called Iman was found. Once again, the work of clarifying the murderer’s profile was carried out via alternative channels instead of the official channels for disseminating information. This mirrors the Crépol affair, when it took the intervention of well-known right-wing whistleblowers in France, such as Damien Rieu, to reveal the names of the attackers, which had been deliberately hidden by the media.

Once again, there is a clear desire on the part of the press and those in power to hide the truth. On the BFM TV website, reference continues to be made to ‘Armand R.’ with no further details in order to maintain the vagueness about his origins.

Armand-Iman comes from a family that fled the mullahs’ Iran and was naturalised. The Left defends itself by explaining that the problem is not, strictly speaking, immigration and that this murder could not have been avoided. But the assailant’s background proves that France’s naturalisation policy is too generous and that the problem posed by Islamism remains unresolved. The murder was committed by Armand-Iman to cries of “Allah akbar,” and he made no secret of his motives: to defend Muslims under attack in Palestine and Afghanistan. He pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State.

Éric Zemmour has made the need to impose French first names on immigrants one of his favourite hobby horses. He was asked about the Armand-Iman case: his profile would prove that a French first name is no guarantee of anything. The polemicist replied that, on the contrary, his case was a demonstration of what he was trying to defend. Iman’s first name had been changed by his parents in order to facilitate his integration into French society, but the man did not recognise the change and reclaimed his original first name. His mother tried to alert the police to her son’s radicalisation but was ignored.

Once again, the French government has largely shirked its responsibilities. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin believes that there was no fault on the part of his ministry, but simply that the medical follow-up of the murderer, who had already been convicted of a terrorist plot but had shown signs of psychological fragility, was lacking. But at the time of his terrorist plot in 2016, he was not considered insane since he was convicted.

As feminist Marguerite Stern explained with a certain irony on X, why do all unbalanced people shout “Allah akbar” and never “In the name of the Father?” Once again, the alibi of madness is put forward to explain Armand-Iman’s actions. But this time, several voices are speaking out against this ploy. Hugo Micheron, a specialist in jihadism and lecturer at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), spoke out on France Inter against the systematic temptation to psychologise Islamism. The act of murder is not a sign of madness but a response to a precise religious logic. Our Western society has deeply internalised non-violence, so much so that it can no longer consider that there can be such a thing as rational, considered acts of violence.

Attaque à Paris : "Je me méfie de cette approche qui viserait à sur-psychologiser l'individu." @MicheronH, spécialiste du djihadisme, maître de conférence à Sciences-Po souligne "l'environnement idéologique extrêmement marqué" de l'assaillant. #le710inter pic.twitter.com/PFwCbPMIG4

— France Inter (@franceinter) December 4, 2023

Although Gérald Darmanin acknowledges the murderer’s ability to intelligently exploit the “flaws in the system,” in the end it is nothing more than a “psychiatric failure.” The solution to the problem lies in giving prefects the power to issue “care orders.” Public blindness still has a long way to go.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/french-media-hide-true-identity-of-paris-attacker/

Police in London are investigating claims that Jewish children were prevented from boarding buses in London, according to an Independent report.

Several complaints have been made to the police due to a series of incidents in which bus drivers refused to pick up Jews waiting at bus stops, reportedly due to the encouragement of the passengers.

In Stamford Hill, a neighborhood home to a large Jewish community, several Jewish schoolboys were waiting for the bus and signaled for it to stop. The driver slowed down but did not stop.

According to the complaint, several passengers encouraged the driver, while making antisemitic remarks and expressing gratitude for it not stopping.

After the incident was initially reported to the local Shomrim, a Jewish neighborhood watch group, the complaint was passed on to London’s Metropolitan Police. The complaint was made by a passenger on the bus who said they felt “threatened, intimidated, shocked, and scared” as there were no other Jewish people on the bus at the time.

Another incident took place three days later when a 13-year-old Jewish girl reported a similar incident where the bus driver did not stop for a Jewish boy but did stop for another non-Jewish Londoner. 

Transport for London said they were taking reports “extremely seriously,” adding: “We do not tolerate any form of discrimination on our network.”Advertisement

This comes after a spike in antisemitic incidents in London since the outbreak of war on October 7, which saw a 1,353% increase in October compared to the same month last year.

Chaim Hochhauser, chief executive of Shomrim, was quoted by the Independent as saying “Children [are] terrified to go home from school or use public transport.”

“We have never had so many hate crimes in one month. Usually, on average, it’s three a week. Since 7 October, Shomrim has reported 84 hate crimes. We are not talking about nationally this is happening, just around the Stamford Hill neighborhood.”

Both Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police confirmed that an investigation was ongoing.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-776604