Laurence D’Hondt, Assita Kanko and Jean-Pierre Martin, Photo via Carl Deconinck
Jean-Pierre Martin and Laurence D’Hondt, who wrote a controversial book on the rising Islamism that is facing teachers in Belgium, presented their book on December 10 in the European Parliament.
Laurence D’Hondt highlighted how she and Martin have been professional journalists, working across the Islamic world, and now see how radical Islam is spreading, how Islamists “impose their views and way of life on everyone.”
She labelled this rising Islamism “a totalitarian project’ and said it was “worrisome” to see it grow so much.
A watershed moment for France came with two startling murders: the killings and decapitations of schoolteachers Samuel Paty in 2020 and Dominique Bernard in 2023 by radical Muslims.
But in Belgium, not much was generally known, and for that reason, D’hondt and Martin went out to speak with teachers in Belgium. They discovered the situation is bad as well, especially in Brussels.
“Schools in Belgium are a target of the Muslim Brotherhood,” D’hondt said.
Martin noted that since its inception in the 1920’s, the Muslim Brotherhood has targeted schools and educational institutions. For example in Turkey, when Kemal Ataturk created a secular state, Martin said the Muslim Brotherhood became experts in subversive ways.
He warned that in Europe, many have a blind spot for how they operate, leading to increasing problems.
“Now it’s a difficult situation in many schools.”
He said there was intensive proselytization in schools and that politics “didn’t take the necessary steps to safeguard secularism”.
Martin noted that the youngest generations never knew the power of faith in society and did not know the repercussions of Islamism on freedom or on the relationship between men and women.
Assita Kanko, a Belgian MEP who is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, hosted the event. She remarked that in Brussels political Islam was on the rise, pointing to the Belgian politician Fouad Ahidar, whose party emphasises Muslim issues. He made gains in the local elections in October. Radical Muslims also were present in cultural centres showing increasing political and intellectual power of radicals in the capital of Europe.
This, of course, is visible in Brussels schools, where the authors talked with teachers, who said they see a shift in atmosphere in class, where girls say they want to wear veils.
Some children appear to be captured by the radical ideology, but many moderate Muslim children appear to be forced to follow the most radical, feeling intimidation and experiencing social pressure.
Belgian teachers say they were no longer invited to certain parties, and some suffered from burnouts.
“There is separatism at schools in Brussels”, Laurence D’hondt said.
“If it happens in schools today, it will be in our streets tomorrow”.
Organisers of the initial presentation just a few weeks ago in November, pulled out after they received threats, apparently from young Muslims who were offended by people allegedly abusing the name of Allah.
Since 2016, there is a new Islamic radicalism, Martin said, less visible, more pernicious.
“Women play a prominent role, experimental even.” They were used to spread radical Islam, often in an educational role.
D’hondt pointed out they were often well-educated, wore make up, appear open, wear a veil, look modern and so on, but did have a radical political agenda.
Wearing a veil was said to be a telling sign, and it allegedly was not a coincidence a TV channel such as Al Jazeera showed young veiled children so often.
Kanko noted that European institutions often used advertising with veiled women and girls.
The authors said there is an inverse integration ongoing, where Europe is increasingly opting for halal food instead of the other way around.
D’hondt said radical Muslims often use the judicial route, and leaned on so-called anti-discrimination laws to get what they want at schools, including the right to wear a veil.
But the radicals did not limit themselves only to this. They also used the economic route, and promoted halal food for example, or the social and cultural route, promoting ritual slaughter, Ramadan and other Islamic customs.
“Discreetly, they are using our system and liberties to impose their customs.”
According to Kanko, all political parties were too supportive of this communautarism, but in particular, the Left supported this way too much.
The authors also noticed a rise in antisemitism, where young children talk about “filthy Jews” and where parents meddle in and determine what can or cannot be said at schools.
Making everything worse is that all this radicalism was pushed via systems often receiving heavy subsidies from Brussels, where radicals allegedly could hand out money with no checks or controls.
Both authors of the bookAllah n’a rien à faire dans ma classe (Allah has nothing to do in my class) were invited to the EP by Assita Kanko, Belgian MEP for the European Conservatives and Reformists and François Bellamy, French MEP for the European People’s Party after an earlier presentation in Brussels was chancelled.
Bellamy could not attend the event due to the political situation in France.
A trans-identified male serving a life sentence for murder who was quietly transferred in to a women’s prison is now sharing a shower with female inmates, causing them to feel “violated.” Bradley Richard Sirvio, 53, was transferred into Minnesota women’s prison MCF-Shakopee at the end of last year after claiming to identify as transgender and adopting the name “Aurora.”
In November of 1995, Sirvio beat a man to death with a hammer before setting the victim’s house on fire. According to court records, Sirvio was checking himself into a detoxification center when he “volunteered to a staff member during the intake process that he may have murdered someone named George and then set the house on fire to cover up what he had done.”
A repeat offender, Sirvio has several other convictions that include multiple charges of assault, burglary, and theft. He was quietly transferred to MCF-Shakopee, Minnesota’s only women’s prison, in November of 2023. The move was made a full five months ahead of the date that a newly-drafted gender identity prison policy was set to take effect, meaning that the state of Minnesota voluntarily chose to transfer Sirvio.
Now, two women who are housed next to Sirvio have come forward to protest the situation. The women reveal that female inmates have been told to share a shower with Sirvio, despite the convicted killer having had “no surgery whatsoever.” The women, whose names have been altered to protect their identities, say that Sirvio’s presence is causing them to feel anxious and violated.
One woman, Letitia, explained: “They put a man next door to me. He claimed to be transgender. I now have to share the same wing with him. I also share the same shower with no lock on the inside door … The whole wing of women share just one shower, and we do not have another shower besides this one. Some of the women live in the wing lounge, and this is their only bathroom.”
She continued: “This man is not transgender. No surgery has been done whatsoever. He is fully a man, and still has a man’s body part attached to him. He acts like a man, sounds like a man, behaves like a man.”
Letitia describes herself as a “vulnerable adult,” and adds that she feels exceedingly uncomfortable sharing an unlocked shower with a biological male.
“This violates my conscience. It causes me to feel uncomfortable when taking a shower, knowing there is no protection for me.” Letitia further noted how, despite voicing her concerns for her safety to prison officials, the matter was ignored and she was told, “there’s nothing [the authorities] can do about it unless something really happens to me.”
Letitia’s sentiment was echoed by another female inmate, who will be referred to as Kari.
“Men were brought to Shakopee, and us women were neither informed nor asked how we would feel about living with them,” Kari said, referring to a gender identity policy that was officially implemented in January of 2023.
“There are women here who have been assaulted by men, and may have PTSD because of it. We can’t go to staff and tell them how we feel about the situation because no one wants to discuss it. There are no locks on the bathroom door, so when taking a shower, I feel so unsafe,” Kari said.
“The first day that [Sirvio] moved in, I had an appointment with my mental health worker and I let her know why my anxiety was so high,” she said. “It makes me feel violated emotionally. She understood my concerns and said that she would feel the same way, knowing that they are violent and sex offenders … I just don’t understand why the DOC would put violent men and sex offenders around all these women. It’s sad that the staff doesn’t care about how we as women feel.”
The Minnesota Department of Corrections has allowed at least FIVE male inmates to transfer to a women's prison, including two sex offenders.
One of the transfers is serving a 36-year sentence for sexually assaulting two 6-year-old girls.https://t.co/PvZXyphlim
Reduxx has seen communications from Sirvio wherein he explained that he first began to claim a transgender status approximately five years ago.
“I didn’t know too much about transgender stuff until then,” Sirvio said. “I always wanted to be a woman. I never was or am attracted to men, and I am open to things! I didn’t feel like a drag queen or a cross dresser and only found out about transgender stuff five years ago. I’ve been on hormones… and wearing women’s underclothes.”
The convicted killer commented that he had “anger issues” while incarcerated in the male facility MCF-Oak Park and “ended up hitting two [correctional officers]” with a pool stick, resulting in his transfer to USP Marion, in Illinois.
Sirvio also stated that his transfer into the women’s prison took place after he filed an application with the Minnesota Department of Corrections’ (DOC) Gender Identity Committee. However, according to an official announcement from the state, the gender identity policy was not set to take effect until April 1, 2024, whereas Sirvio was relocated to MCF-Shakopee in November 2023 – five months ahead of schedule.
He added that since he was moved into MCF-Shakopee, female prison staff, rather than male guards, are required to perform strip searches and pat downs on his person. This is done as a result of the new gender identity policy, which states, “pat and unclothed body searches of incarcerated people who are transgender, gender diverse, intersex, or nonbinary must be done in accordance with the gender of the facility in which they are assigned… Incarcerated people who are transgender, gender diverse, intersex, or nonbinary may request that they receive pat or unclothed body searches from security staff of a specific gender.”
As previously reported by Reduxx, there have been at least six male convicts transferred into MCF-Shakopee since 2023, half of whom are serving or have served sentences on charges related to the sexual abuse of children.
The prison policy was altered following a 2022 lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Corrections which ultimately resulted in the implementation of measures permitting male convicts to be housed in the female estate. The lawsuit, filed by trans activist non-profit organization Gender Justice – which was recently revealed to have received nearly $500,000 in taxpayer funds from the administration of Governor Tim Walz.
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨
Female inmates at Minnesota's Shakopee women's prison have come forward to reveal that trans-identified male transfers have caused a "climate of terror" in the facility.
The discrimination claim was filed by the trans activist non-profit organization Gender Justice on behalf of Craig ‘Christina’ Lusk, who was serving a five-year sentence for the possession of methamphetamine at the Moose Lake correctional facility for men.
“I was uneasy when Lusk lived on my wing because [he] still had [his] male anatomy, was built like a line backer, had a horrible temper, and would verbalize that [he] ‘still had a working unit,’” one woman, known as Janice, told Reduxx in October. “Thankfully [he] was discharged this past year.”
“I definitely have my concerns and opinions about the male inmates being admitted into our facility, but like most inmates there is a fear of speaking up or voicing those concerns because of potential retaliation, or because people will think you are being discriminatory or judgemental,” said Janice.
Commenting on Lusk’s transfer last November, Aaron Swanum with the Minnesota DOC remarked, “Minnesota has now joined 10 other states and the District of Columbia in approving transfers to facilities matching an inmate’s gender identity. The DOC is committed to providing supportive and safe environments for people of all gender identities and our new policy reflects this commitment.”
Upon his release this year, Lusk was awarded a $495,000 payout. But Lusk’s ex-wife came forward last year to tell The Daily Mail that she believed he was a “scammer” and a “big fat liar.” The two were married in 2005, but Lusk’s wife filed for divorce in 2008 due to his heavy drinking and violent behavior.
Janice currently shares a unit with Elijah Thomas Berryman, 26, who was first arrested in April 2022 and accused of sexually abusing a minor multiple times. He pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in March of this year, and according to the Minnesota DOC website, is currently serving his 25-year sentence at the women’s prison.
🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨
A transgender pedophile was housed in Minnesota's only women's prison after launching a discrimination lawsuit against the state.
A female inmate at the facility says Daniel Benz exposed himself to her after being transferred in.https://t.co/iJEFoxV6vj
Last week, Reduxx revealed that a man who was convicted of sexually abusing a six year-old girl was transferred into MCF-Shakopee, where he had exposed himself to one of the female inmates. Despite having repeatedly lied about his identity to law enforcement in a bid to evade the law, Daniel Patrick Benz was permitted to change his name to Danielle Marie Whitebird in June of 2023 after his petition was approved by the state of Minnesota.
In addition to the name change, Benz also was supplied with a “replacement birth record” which declared his sex as female, despite not having undergone any surgeries, according to his own legal complaints.
Reduxx would like to extend a special thanks to Hands of Hope Prison Ministry for facilitating the inmate communications for this report.
After five years of hard work, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has finally risen from the ashes. A titanic task, which does justice to the extraordinary mobilisation and expertise of the French craftsmen and those who assisted them. But the ceremonies to reopen the building left us with mixed feelings.
Speaking as a Frenchwoman, as a Catholic, there are many reasons to rejoice at this achievement. Like millions of people around the world, my heart sank as I watched the magnificent nave being devoured by tongues of fire one evening in April 2019, just a few days before Easter, and then the roof structure giving way with a terrible crash. A strong feeling of irreparable loss gripped us all that evening, to the point where many tears flowed.
And yet. Notre-Dame de Paris was the strongest. At the end of an extraordinary construction project, France’s most famous cathedral has risen from the ashes. A thousand and one stories, each more moving and powerful than the last, have accompanied its fall and its resurrection. The story of the indifferent fireman who entered the burning building out of duty, only to emerge a believer, touched by grace. That of the firefighters’ chaplain who, at the risk of his life, took it upon himself to go and save the Crown of Thorns and the Blessed Sacrament. The carpenters who, as one man, asked for their axes to be blessed before they set about preparing the oaks for the carpentry.
There were also breathtaking images, so full of meaning in our grey, mystery-free world. The immortal shot of a ray of sunlight illuminating the altar amidst the rubble. These photos of the restored spire, taken with exaltation by Parisians as it rose once again into the Parisian sky—like the needle of a compass showing them the only direction worth following, that toward Heaven.
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: when many doubted, President Macron believed in it, and put all his authority in the balance (which goes to show that where there’s a will, there’s a way) to make it possible within these deadlines, at the price, thank God, of a certain number of adjustments of regulations and red tape to work, quickly and well. Confidence and enthusiasm are always there when the objective is noble and exhilarating. He entrusted the project to a worthy man, retired general Jean-Louis Georgelin, who died in 2023, unfortunately without having seen the end of this immense project. There have been enough thunderous failures since Macron took over as head of France for us not to give him a good mark, for once, on the Notre Dame restoration.
But the cathedral’s rehabilitation has also had its dark side, and the sordid stories are no less numerous than the high points.
The ludicrous discussions about the possible transformation of the building, with wild suggestions ranging from an integrated café-restaurant to a glass roof-top. The pettiness of the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who, while not wanting to spend a penny on Notre Dame, has found a way of making the construction site pay a tax.
The torrents of hatred that poured down on the wealthy citizens who had generously put their hands in their pockets to finance the work.
À quelques jours de la réouverture de Notre-Dame, je n’oublierai jamais qu’alors que les familles Bettencourt-Meyers et Arnault faisaient chacune un don de 200 M€, #AnneHidalgo, toute honte bue, exigeait du chantier de restauration une redevance de 25,4 M€, avant d’y renoncer… pic.twitter.com/2PEyGhGN40
The questionable choices made, against the wishes of heritage protection associations, such as the removal of the stained glass windows by Viollet-le-Duc in favour of contemporary creations, stubbornly desired by the evil trio formed by Emmanuel Macron, his Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, and Archbishop Msgr. Ulrich.
You might think that all that is now behind us, and that the only thing that matters is the reopening of the church and the resumption of worship, effective on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, on a beautiful and cold Sunday in December 2025. But the ceremonies held on December 7th and 8th remind us that nothing is won, and that much is irretrievably lost.
As a Frenchwoman, as a Catholic, I should be rejoicing, but my heart isn’t really in it. The restored Notre Dame is whiter than it has ever been. But with the soot that has been stripped from the stones, the repentance of men and the prayers accumulated within these walls over the centuries have been washed away to create a smooth, uneven face at the image of a hygienic modern world too proud of itself. A little of the soul of Notre Dame has gone.
And what about the opening ceremony?
With two days to go to celebrate the anniversary of the separation of Church and State, President Macron could not stop himself from speaking inside the cathedral, despite promises to the contrary. And his wife, Brigitte Macron, took communion with the archbishop, even though she lives with a man in a union that is anything but canonical, to say the least—all in a blissful unanimity maintained by a Church in France that no longer really knows where it stands.
The official festivities gave rise to gigantic nonsense, providing a formidable factory of memes on social media.
The liturgical vestments designed by high-profile fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac gave the impression that the ceremony was in the colours of Google or Microsoft Office, as the case may be—blithely trampling all over the liturgical calendar in the process. Many people who were not ‘traditionalists’ noticed this. ‘Trad’ abbots wearing white lace are to be blamed for their putative non-compliance with the directives of Vatican II, but anything goes for the official clergy, who do what they want, when they want.
Vêtements des évêques à Notre-Dame de Paris : des réactions aussi vives que les couleurs
Avec ses créations comparées au logo de Google Chrome ou aux cartes du Uno, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac en prend plein la chasuble https://t.co/0daPwUOOnH
Basically, the problem with this garment, beyond any aesthetic appreciation, is that it escapes the common language of the Catholic liturgy. For a Christian, it does not say what is being celebrated. Instead, it summons up another language, with other references, other meanings… that of the artist, who in effect silences the Church to speak for him. And we are summoned to enter into this new language, which does not belong to us.
The ceremony was sadly characterised by the omnipresence of ugliness. In the words of Cyrano de Bergerac’s father, the poet Edmond Rostand, “I thought I saw a long slug slide over a flower.” It is appalling to see the extent to which the modern church strives to present a repulsive image. Let’s make the best of it: it’s a formidable technique for bringing out the radiant beauty of the past.
It would seem that the French have had a problem with opening ceremonies. After the controversy surrounding the Olympic Games, the ceremony at Notre Dame was a huge missed opportunity to speak to the greatest number of people—so much so that the choice of mediocrity and ugliness is never likely to win over the crowds. The public was expected to flock to the building, but a storm blew in from Paris. As a result, many visitors stayed at home. If, like the ancient Romans, we like to read divine will in the signs of the weather, we could say that Heaven was—a little—annoyed at the way things had turned out and wanted to send a reminder.
The gaudy colours of the liturgical vestments speak only to a small caste of initiates satisfied that they have paid their dues to the prevailing progressivism. Another example: the musical programme. For a moment, a splendid Magnificat resounded under the vaults. But the ‘awakening’ ceremony for the organ disconcerted many. Made up of improvisation sequences on the majestic instrument, the vaults resounded with dissonant pieces in the purest vein of twentieth-century music, designed for aesthetes trapped in intellectualism. As amateur organist and editorialist Olivier Babeau humorously put it: “It’s been going on for 50 years. Time doesn’t help, it just won’t go away. And that’s a problem. If music is meant to uplift, it must speak to the senses. For many people, this kind of music is more likely to keep them away from the altar because it’s the stuff of pro-virtuoso musicians tired of harmonies.”
It would have been so simple to choose something harmonious that would appeal to the humble heart of the man in the street, who has often lost his way in the faith and just wants to be amazed. Too simple. Modernity has forgotten the old Racine adage: “The main rule is to please and to touch.”
The signal had been given from on high, by Pope Francis, who, by refusing to travel to Paris, failed to see what an extraordinary opportunity the reopening of Notre Dame provided to speak to as many people as possible, and who preferred to send a dull message when he could, by his presence, have bowed the knee to a multi-secular reality that is a reference point for millions of people throughout the world.
The party is ruined. I would have liked to be there, but the Notre Dame of December 7th is not quite mine. Fortunately, what remains is the inexorable power of those who conceived it, built it and supported it with their prayers. Its immense beauty continues to shine through beneath the garments of gaudy modernity with which it has been dressed. This Notre Dame is still standing, against all odds. I’m going to pay homage to her when the official din has died down. God save France!
A Somali asylum seeker has been sentenced to six years in prison for the brutal rape of a 14-year-old girl at a train station in Langenzersdorf, Lower Austria.
The Korneuburg Regional Court delivered the verdict after hearing harrowing details of the attack and rejecting the defendant’s attempts to downplay the crime.
As reported by Kronen Zeitung, the assault took place on the night of Aug. 7 when the victim was on her way home, talking to her mother on the phone. The defendant, who was intoxicated, approached her at the station. After she ignored his advances, he later claimed he “felt like he had to rape her.” He dragged the girl between two vehicles in the station’s parking lot and attacked her. After the assault, he demanded her phone and money before fleeing the scene, leaving the girl lying on the ground.
During the trial, the defendant shocked the courtroom with his grin and statement, “I couldn’t hold back,” which he offered as a justification for his actions. When questioned, he described himself as having been drunk and wanting to “get to know her.”
He later attempted to express remorse, telling the court, “Everyone makes mistakes.” However, the judge firmly dismissed this, stating: “You’re talking about a mistake, but these are two capital crimes. Your confession is not genuine; it only comes because of overwhelming evidence.”
DNA traces found on the victim and at the crime scene, combined with surveillance footage, conclusively tied him to the crime.
Investigations uncovered that the defendant, who had been registered as a 17-year-old in Austria, had previously used seven different alias identities and birth years across various European countries. A forensic age analysis revealed he was at least 21 years old at the time of the attack, allowing him to be prosecuted as an adult under stricter laws.
The 14-year-old victim has been in therapy since the assault, working to process the emotional and psychological trauma. Her legal representatives stressed the severity of the attack, urging the court to impose the maximum sentence.
“This girl’s life has been permanently scarred by what happened that night,” her counsel said. “The court must ensure that the defendant faces the full consequences of his actions.”
The court sentenced the Somali national to six years in prison and ordered him to pay €2,500 in compensation to the victim.
“I have to react here with a severe punishment,” said the presiding judge, although some credit was given for his partial confession.
The judgment is final, as the defendant accepted his sentence without appeal.
Dictatorships never end well and no matter how resistant (like Soviet communism for 80 years) they always have an expiration date, let alone family dictatorships with 10 percent of Alawites tyrannizing over 80 percent of Sunnis.
It is incredible that Damascus fell in a week without a fight. Like Iraq under the advance of ISIS and “Western” Kabul before the Taliban.
The Syrian civil war had transformed Syria into a puppet regime controlled by Iran and Russia.
After the fall, Syria will follow demographic lines. Demography, in the Middle East but also in Europe, is always in favor of Islam. Perhaps the country will divide into ethnic-religious enclaves or perhaps it could turn into a real civil war or, most likely, into a terrible combination of the two. The only thing the Middle East is not known for is stability. And chaos is the only thing you can bet on in the Middle East. And only Westerners rotten to the core do not see that Israel is our only rock in that part of the world, so decisive for history, religion, energy and terrorism.
Who wins and who loses from this watershed moment? There are more losers and even those who win have a lot to lose.
The Iranians lose, they who used Syria as a base and passage. Whether the fall of Damascus will be the “Kabul moment” of the Islamic Revolution remains to be seen.
The Russians lose, not only their bases on the Mediterranean, but a historic ally after 1991.
The Kurds lose, they are the ones who have everything to fear from the advent of an Islamic regime and who were our only true allies in this war between barbarians. Erdogan and Islam cannot stand this small people who arm women, who have their hair in the wind, who leave religion in the private sphere and who helped us destroy ISIS.
An appeal in Le Figaro signed by French intellectuals Pascal Bruckner, Bernard Kouchner and Stephane Breton states: “The Kurds of Syria have defeated the Islamists who have caused the worst attacks in our history. When young Kurdish fighters with admirable courage are captured by jihadists, they are tortured, disemboweled and torn to pieces. This barbarity is unsustainable. The Kurds are our only allies in the region and have proven their effectiveness on the ground. If we abandon them, there will be no one to help us contain new terrorist explosions against us. Finally, the Kurds of Syria are building a democratic society that respects ethnic and religious pluralism and equality between men and women”.
Christians and all those who do not want to live under Sunni and Sharia rule also lose: women without veils, religious minorities, free and secular people. The motto of the winners of the revolution is “the Alawites in the grave, the Christians in Lebanon”.
Europe loses, a Europe which cannot say anything and which will welcome not only refugees, but terrorists who will then use Syria as a base for Jihad. It is shocking that Europe no longer has any foreign policy.
Erdogan wins, the figure who finances the Islamic insurrection and can add a piece to the puzzle of his “Erdoganistan”.
Qatar wins, as it has always armed the Syrian Islamic rebels.
ISIS wins, and is already exploiting the situation to reconstitute itself (at the height of its power it controlled a third of Syria).
America wins and loses. It is far away and not affected by any Middle Eastern geopolitical shocks, which wins in the short term due to the fall of a piece of the “axis of evil” but which could soon be forced to intervene again against a terrorist army.
Israel wins and loses: it wins because, after the blow dealt to Hezbollah, a historic ally of Khomeinism is no longer there. It loses, because for the Jewish enclave the best outcome would have been a weakened Assad. No one knows what can come out of an Islamic regime. In the short term, divide and conquer.
Above all, political Islam wins. We are witnessing the greatest Islamic flare-up since 2011, when the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt. In the streets of Syria, a revolution is taking place to the cry of “Allahu Akbar” led by former lieutenants of Al Qaeda and ISIS, whose leader still has a $10 million bounty on his head from the United States. If they build a sort of Caliphate on the Mediterranean, they will go down in history.
“In the ruins of cities like Aleppo, Christians who refuse to convert to Islam were kidnapped, executed and beheaded by Islamist rebels.” This is what the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, wrote ten years ago.
In the Middle East, history always repeats itself. But worse than before.
“They want to restore the Caliphate,” explains Le Figaro. “They consider the Kurds and Christians as an extension of the West into Muslim lands.”
But who are these rebels? Who is their leader, Al Golani, so called because he claims the Israeli Golan?
Yesterday it was called Al Nusra, today it is called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of Al Qaeda. Kurds and Christians have everything to fear from the advancing Islamists, whose online communications advocate the systematic looting and destruction of Christian villages and the enslavement of Kurdish women.
Mark Dubowitz writes: “America and Israel’s only true allies in the Syrian conflict are the Kurds. The others are adversaries: Erdogan, Assad, Putin, Khamenei, Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shia militias, and Golani. Our failure to support the Kurds over the years has been a grave mistake.”
But let’s look at who has taken power.
“Christians are pigs. They do not deserve to live.” These are the words of an Islamist rebel to a Christian, Elia Gargous, one of those kidnapped by the Al Nusra militia, outside of Rableh in western Syria. They were taken to the convent of St. Elias, two miles from Rableh. There, Christians watched helplessly as icons were smashed in front of them. Gargous said: “They told us to convert, but we refused. They killed people in front of us.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera, then-head of Al Nusra, Al Golani, explained what the future would be for Syria’s religious minorities. The Alawites would have to “correct their doctrinal errors and embrace Islam.” But it’s not just the Alawites, whom Golani referred to by using the Islamist term “Nusayris.” The Druze also need to be reformed from the “doctrinal pitfalls they fell into.”
Jihadists massacred entire families: “Al Nusra attacked Christian villages, killing only people who were in the army and Christians; one woman was massacred and a cross was put in her mouth.”
Today Golani declares that “diversity is our strength,” a phrase that sounds more like Western human resources departments than jihadist warlords. Like the “inclusive Taliban,” the jihadists know how to sell themselves to the West.
Wherever it governs, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham imposes sharia patrols, “Hisbah,” that beat and imprison women who violate Islamic dress or are caught traveling without a man. In Idlib, the Syrian city they governed for ten years, they stone women. Then there are the beheadings of children.
A new fatwa has just been launched by Islamic ideologists:
“The policy of Sharia and neutralizing enemies is in line with what Muhammad did when he neutralized the Jews”.
As soon as they took control of the Aleppo airport, the Islamists destroyed all the bottles of alcohol.
The village of Kanayé, on the Orontes River, in the governorate of Idlib, was invaded by Islamist militiamen who are now marching on Syria. What they did was revealed by Giuseppe Nazzaro, the vicar emeritus of Aleppo:
“In Kanayé, the Salafi militiamen and the jihadists of ‘Jabhat al-Nousra’ have ordered the parish priest to stop ringing the bells. Women must no longer go out into the streets with their heads uncovered, but must be veiled. And if they do not obey these orders, the threat is massacre. We are faced with what they have already done in the nearby village of Ghassanieh for over a year. In Ghassanieh they ordered the inhabitants to leave the village immediately, otherwise they would massacre them, and they obtained the desired result: to occupy the village with all the Christians dispossessed. In Kanayé, they did not force the population to leave but to live according to Islamic law”.
The Islamist program has a simple and effective slogan: “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people”.
Jews had lived in Arab countries for 2,500 years, starting with the “Babylonian Captivity.” In 1948, they represented 3.6 percent of the population in Libya, 2.8 percent in Morocco, and 2.6 percent in Iraq. Their social position varied in different countries.
In Iraq and Egypt, some Jews were successful in their occupations and professions and played a certain role in their societies; in Yemen and Morocco, they were generally poor. Pogroms occurred in Libya, Syria, Morocco, and especially Iraq, where in the space of two days in June 1941, a pogrom, known as “Farhud,” occurred in Baghdad: under the pro-Nazi regime of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, 179 Jews were murdered and 600 wounded. In Libya, in 1945, Islamists in Tripoli killed more than 140 Jews.
In several other Arab countries, Jews were murdered, kidnapped and persecuted. Arab League countries decided to strip their Jews of their citizenship. Iraq stripped its Jews of their citizenship in 1950 and their property in 1951. Egypt and Libya passed laws that “Zionists” were not citizens. They ignored the Jews who had lived in those countries for more than a thousand years and certainly before the birth of Muhammad.
With the creation of Israel in 1948, Jews in Arab and Islamic countries in the Middle East faced dispossession, organized discrimination, violence, attacks and pogroms. By the mid-1970s, nearly all Jews, more than 850,000, had left those countries. The largest numbers came from Morocco (265,000); Algeria (140,000), Iraq (135,000) and Tunisia (105,000). Nearly all 55,000 Jews living in Yemen were taken to Israel. 130,000 Jews were airlifted from Iraq to Israel. 600,000 of the more than 850,000 Jews of Islam went to Israel.
A story that no one teaches in schools or newspapers.
An Arab revolt in Aleppo in 1947 killed dozens of Jews and destroyed hundreds of homes, shops and synagogues. It was the beginning of the mass Jewish emigration from Syria to Israel. At the time of the war in 1967, 1,000 Jews remained.
Officially, Jews were considered “Syrian citizens,” but on their identity cards there was a red embossed mark: “Jew.” They could move freely only within a radius of five kilometers from their homes and were forbidden to sell real estate. If a Jew died, his property passed to the “government agency for Palestinian affairs.” Jews were frequently registered and subjected to checks: raids on their homes even at night, searches, torture.
Judy Feld Carr, a Toronto Jew born in 1939, a music teacher, is the woman who organized the escape of over 3,000 Jews from Damascus, Aleppo and Qamishli to Israel and America, in one of the most incredible rescue operations after the Holocaust, beginning in the mid-1970s. A Jewish woman originally from Aleppo who was living in Toronto decided to return to her homeland to visit her brother who was still there. She returned with a letter, which she gave to Feld Carr. “It was a letter that I would have expected at the time of the Holocaust,” recalls the professor. “It was written by three rabbis of the community: ‘Our children are your children. Get us out of here,’ I remember it saying.”
At the time, the Syrian regime did not allow Jews to emigrate and tortured those captured who tried to escape. It took two years to get the first person to escape, for a ransom. Canada did not have an embassy in Damascus, so it was difficult to find a way to bribe Syrian officials. That first Syrian rabbi to escape had already been imprisoned and tortured and was terminally ill with cancer. Thanks to Judy, he realized his dream of drinking coffee in Israel with his mother. Then she made a wish: “Take my daughter out of Syria.”
And so the Canadian took action for the girl, who was 19 at the time (she now lives in Bat Yam and is a grandmother). One by one, with the financial support of the Canadian community, without ever setting foot in Syria, Judy helped 3,328 Jews out of the 4,600 who lived there escape (almost all of the rest managed to escape by their own means or with the help of Israel). Observing the news that came from Syria after the outbreak of the civil war, the massacres, the disappearance of minorities, Carr said: “I don’t think the Jews would be alive today if that community of over 3,000 were still there. I can tell you that.”
If the Jews had remained in Syria, they would have met the same fate as the Christian Ninar Odisho, who was in the city of al-Tabqah, which had been in the hands of Islamic rebels for over a year, when he was approached by some jihadists. After pointing guns at him, they let his two friends go because they were Muslims, while they beat Ninar to death, after learning that he was a Christian.
They can blame Israel all they want: Christians will not be spared. “In February 2014, I met with the head of the Jewish community in Egypt, Magda Haroun,” wrote Coptic Samuel Tadros in the New York Times. “Today, she told me, there are 15 Jews left in the country, out of a population that once numbered 100,000. Ms. Haroun said she feared the Copts would soon follow. At the time, I thought the prospect was exaggerated. But I myself had left the country, and so had hundreds of thousands of Copts. Ms. Haroun was right.”
Yes, she was right.
Like Mosab Hassan Yousef, at this point I only hope that those in charge have destroyed in time the chemical and biological weapons that Assad has in his arsenals. Because the idea of a bearded Islamist who believes in the invincibility of Allah and in the conquest of Rome with his fingers on a barrel of gas does not leave me at all calm. I would not like to witness live the scene from the TV series Jack Ryan in which a Syrian Islamist spreads sarin in a church in Paris.
Notre Dame is well worth an attack. Stand guard, Europe.
Police forces from the states of Baden-Württemberg and Hesse have arrested two Lebanese brothers aged 15 and 20 and a 20-year-old Turkish man. The public prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe has accused them of ‘preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state’. This was announced by the prosecution on Tuesday. The arrest took place on Sunday.
According to the statement, the three suspected terrorists had already procured ‘an assault rifle with the corresponding ammunition’. The investigators have a well-founded suspicion ‘that the two brothers have made concrete preparations for an attack due to their strong religious ideology and profound sympathy for the Islamist terrorist organisation “Islamic State (IS)”’. In addition to the assault rifle, the police found ‘a balaclava, a tactical waistcoat, several knives and various mobile phones and data carriers’. The latter are currently still being analysed.
The two Lebanese men from Mannheim and the Turkish man from the Hochtaunus district have already been brought before a magistrate and are in custody. The public prosecutor’s office assured: ‘There was no concrete danger to the public at any time.’
The leftist government in Britain has come under fire from former military top brass over plans to use electric vehicles on the battlefield as a part of its green energy agenda push.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is reportedly set to accelerate tests of battlefield electric vehicles in the coming year. Although initially thought up under the so-called Conservative government in 2019, the experimental testing is an expansion by the recently-elected left-wing Labour Party government, The Telegraphreports.
A government source told the broadsheet: “New and emerging technologies can support decarbonisation efforts and improve battlefield capability, reducing the supply chain vulnerability of liquid fuel and also reducing the heat signature and noise of vehicles on the battlefield.”
According to the paper, the Labour government has ploughed over £400,000 in contracts to defence firm Magtec, which specialises in installing electric drive systems in vehicles.
Last week, Prime Minister Starmer said that the green agenda will be a key focus of his government’s defence strategy, which would seek to “support net zero, regional growth, and economic security and resilience”.
The plans have come under heavy criticism from prominent retired military officials over concerns that the government may be prioritising its ideological vision over the safety of British troops on the battlefield.
The former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, said: “What this amounts to is virtue signalling by MoD, trying to get into the climate change agenda. I suspect it will be wasting quite a lot of people’s time and resources in trying to show they are playing their part. At the moment, the technology is just not there.”
Colonel Kemp explained that keeping traditionally powered vehicles supplied with fuel is already a difficult task and said that he “can’t see how it would possibly work with EVs.”
“Fighting battles is an extremely difficult activity – to make it unnecessarily even more difficult seems to be a crazy endeavour. I would be pretty confident that it is just not at all a starter in terms of maintaining the level of battleground capability that we have now.”
The former leader of the Royal Irish Regiment in Iraq, Colonel Tim Collings added that he “doubts” that enemy forces will be considering converting their vehicle fleets to electric anytime soon, as they will “be looking for immediate effect, not approval ratings or whatever.”
“I doubt a battery can currently provide the horsepower necessary for warfare. What’s driving this? Is it battlefield necessity or fashion? If it’s fashion then it’s a bad idea. Renewables alone aren’t sufficient to deliver the power we need for potential conflicts,” he said.
An MoD spokesman said that the “rapid advancement of electric vehicle technology has opened up new possibilities for military applications” and the planned tests will be to determine if the EVs can “match or exceed” the performance of traditional vehicles.
“The Ministry of Defence remains committed to pursuing innovations that could enhance the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces, while also supporting sustainability where possible.”
The panel began the episode by looking at a clip of an interview with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in which he finally admitted that the Russia-Ukraine war is a “proxy war” between the West and Russia.
“Let’s face it, we’re waging a proxy war. We’re waging a proxy war. But we’re not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. And we’re in for years and years now, we’ve been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. And it has been cruel; it has been cruel. And we need now to give them what they need,” Johnson said in the interview.
Wright emphasized that Johnson’s admission is fitting because he played a major role in NATO’s efforts to destabilize Russia and absorb it into the West.
“Despite the fact that the Rand Corporation published the strategy in 2019, which was to overextend and destabilize Russia by bleeding it on the battlefield and, therefore, plunder Russia afterwards, absorbing it into the [Western] sphere. The idea that it was a proxy war was dismissed as a conspiracy theory and the idea that Boris Johnson might have had a hand in starting that proxy war was also a conspiracy theory – which, of course, he did many weeks after the war actually began, when he went to Kiev in a surprise visit to sabotage the peace deal,” Wright said.
“This is Boris Johnson’s war from start to finish, and it’s fitting that it should be he who comes on to the mainstream media and finally names it appropriately,” he added.
A bit later in the episode, the panel turned to news from the Vatican, where Pope Francis recently wrote to an Italian grandmother who was distressed about her children’s lack of affection for raising her grandchildren in the faith. The Pontiff told her to “accompany” them but notably not to “insist” on her grandchildren’s baptism.
Fr. Murr underscored that grandparents can play a pivotal role in the catechesis of their grandchildren and have every right to insist on their grandchildren being baptized.
“If the Holy Father would have said, ‘Don’t nag, don’t nag your sons or daughters to death,’ I understand that. But to push and to insist, and to show how important it is to me as your grandfather, your grandmother, they have every right to do that, every right to do that,” Murr said.
“And they should continue; they should also [do] as much as they can – it’s hard today because the distractions are incredible to young people – but as much as they can to catechize those grandchildren when they have them there. Just take one question from the Catechism and sit down and explain it for five minutes, and then [have] 10 minutes of chocolate or something. The grandparents certainly have a role. We’re not disconnecting family. And I think His Holiness is off base again,” the priest added.
For more discussion on Boris Johnson’s admission that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war, the Pope’s stunning response to a distressed grandmother, and much more, tune in to this week’s episode of Faith and Reason.
Salafists are trying to convert young women to radical Islam online. With increasing success. The ultra-conservative ideas are being spread in a very modern way by influencers on social networks. The aim is for the victims to cover themselves up, obey men and bear children.
Investigators cannot say how often it happens. However, it is certain that there has been a sharp increase in cases recently. And the victims of radicalisation are getting younger and younger. According to a report by public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk, the age of initiation is now 14 to 15. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism in Upper Austria has also made this observation.
In November, the newspaper JF reported exclusively on a secret report by the authority. It speaks of Catholic girls who are persuaded to convert to radical Islam. They are then quickly married off to Muslims with the aim of ‘giving birth to fighters’. The radicalisation is said to take place on the internet.
A woman who has left the scene now tells German broadcaster BR how these radicalisations take place. Male and female influencers with tens of thousands of followers spread propaganda and present themselves as religious authorities on social networks. ‘If you talk a lot about Islam, young girls think you are a scholar,’ the report quotes the anonymous insider. The messages conveyed are explosive. ‘Women can do jobs, but with controls’, preaches a Salafist on TikTok, for example. But the influencers have no real interest in the girls. ‘The moment you convert to Islam, you are marginalised,’ the dropout is quoted as saying.
A spokesperson for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Bavaria adds: ‘At the beginning, simple questions from everyday life are used – for example, finding a partner, raising children or clothing. Women are attracted by such topics, and only later does the ideologisation follow.’ Just how serious the problem is is made particularly clear by one figure: in Germany alone, authorities speak of 11,500 known Salafists living here.
A group of five Arab-looking men brutally beat up a 26-year-old man in the Treptow district of Berlin. The victim was draped with a Syrian flag over his shoulders to celebrate the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
According to the police, the Syrian lost consciousness during the attack. A passer-by who witnessed the attack alerted the officers. Apparently, the perpetrators had literally hunted down people who were celebrating the downfall of the regime in their home country with flags. According to the police report, five Arabs jumped out of a car while the man was waiting at a bus stop on Köpenicker Landstraße shortly before midnight. According to the victim, the perpetrators spoke Lebanese Arabic. The man was taken to hospital with lacerations to his face and bruises.
In Berlin, thousands of mainly male Syrians celebrated the victory of the rebels under Islamist leadership in their home country. Large crowds gathered everywhere in the capital to take to the streets with Syrian flags. A total of one million Syrians live in Germany – five per cent of the citizens of the Arab state.
