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Europe Tag

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on December 29, 2015 4 Comments
According to British newspaper Express, city of London and other European capitals have been warned about an imminent terror attack "on or before New Year's Eve." The security alert issued by an unnamed intelligence agency specifically mentions the likelihood of an attack on shoppers and revellers in crowded places around New Year’s Eve in a European city. The warning is considered credible, prompting the police departments across Europe to take security measures in a bid to avert another Paris-style attack. London-based Express writes:
The terror alert was handed to Austrian police from a "friendly" intelligence service, as evidence grows that jihadi sleeper cells are planning to hit Western targets. It has prompted police across the continent to increase security measures in a bid to prevent a Paris-style copycat attack on an unknown location in Europe. (...)

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on December 24, 2015 11 Comments
This year saw the destruction of some of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the Middle East. As predominantly Christian Europe braces itself to accommodate millions of new Muslim migrants this year alone, Christianity takes its last breath in region where it was first revealed to the world. Israel remains the only glaring exception to this dismal rule. The armed war against Christians is accompanied by a cultural war on Christmas. This year, Muslim countries like Somalia, Tajikistan and Brunei joined the long list of Islamic nations banning the Christian festival -- in many cases making Christmas celebrations even in private settings a punishable offence. With the rising tide Islamist terror, even in the Christian heartland of Europe the Christmas is now under siege.

Posted by New Neo on November 22, 2015 10 Comments
Here's a fascinating article (to me, anyway) written by a man named Teun Voeten who moved to the Molenbeek section of Brussels back in 2005 and lived there for nine years. In case you haven't heard, Molenbeek is the area mostly populated by Muslim immigrants and their offspring, and it was the home to the terror cell that planned the Paris attacks. Voeten came there for the low rents and brought with him some idealistic and naive hopes (is idealism always naive?):
I was part of a new wave of young urban professionals, mostly white and college-educated — what the Belgians called bobo, (“bourgeois bohémiens”) — who settled in the area out of pragmatism. We had good intentions. Our contractor’s name was Hassan. He was Moroccan, and we thought that was very cool. We imagined that our kids would one day play happily with his on the street. We hoped for less garbage on the streets, less petty crime. We were confident our block would slowly improve, and that our lofts would increase in value. (We even dared to hope for a hip art gallery or a trendy bar.) We felt like pioneers of the Far West, like we were living in the trenches of the fight for a multicultural society.
Those nine years were an eye-opener for Voeten, who seems to be the classic liberal mugged by reality:
Hassan turned out to be a crook and disappeared with €95,000, the entire budget the tenants had pooled together for our building’s renovation. The neighborhood was hardly multicultural. Rather, with roughly 80 percent of the population of Moroccan origin, it was tragically conformist and homogenous...

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 21, 2015 1 Comment
Authorities in Europe are tense due to warnings of another attack or wave of attacks. Belgium has raised its terror alert to the maximum level and has nearly shut down. The Guardian reports:
Brussels in lockdown after terror threat level is raised to maximum Brussels has been blanketed with security after the Belgian government raised alert levels on terrorist threats to the maximum, warning of the “serious and imminent” possibility of a Paris-style attack involving firearms and explosives. The city’s metro system was closed down on Saturday until Sunday afternoon at the earliest as shops shut, shopping malls were partly shuttered, professional football was cancelled, concerts were called off and music venues, museums, and galleries closed their doors for the weekend.

Posted by New Neo on November 19, 2015 0 Comments
Obama's taunt that Republicans "are scared of widows and orphans" takes on an ironic twist in light of the fact that one of the dead in Wednesday morning's Paris raid was a female suicide bomber, Hasna Aitboulahcen [Featured Image]. We also know that, in some of the earliest conflicts in which a significant number of female suicide bombers and other terrorists were involved (Chechnya), many of these women terrorists were in fact widows. That status inspired the group's Russian name, which means "Black Widows":
Shahidka,...sometimes called "Black Widow" or Chyornaya Vdova in Russian, is a term for Islamist Chechen female suicide bombers, willing to be a manifestation of violent jihad. They became known at the Moscow theater hostage crisis of October 2002...

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 01, 2015 30 Comments
The small German village of Sumte has approximately 100 local residents but is now slated to receive 750 refugees from Syria and other countries. How is this supposed to work? If you lived in a one bedroom apartment, would you volunteer to take in seven permanent house guests? Andrew Higgins reports at the New York Times:
German Village of 102 Braces for 750 Asylum Seekers SUMTE, Germany — This bucolic, one-street settlement of handsome redbrick farmhouses may for the moment have many more cows than people, but next week it will become one of the fastest growing places in Europe. Not that anyone in Sumte is very excited about it. In early October, the district government informed Sumte’s mayor, Christian Fabel, by email that his village of 102 people just over the border in what was once Communist East Germany would take in 1,000 asylum seekers.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 29, 2015 31 Comments
Governments across Europe are complying with European Union directives to accommodate tens of thousands of migrants arriving each day. Germany, which became the driving force behind the recent influx of migrants after it suspended Dublin convention, refuses to put any cap to the number of migrants it can absorb. The rules of law and property rights are the first casualties of the EU push for a more 'generous' migration policy. Countries like Germany and Sweden are considering revising existing property laws to confiscate homes to house arriving migrants. Austria has changed its constitution to force provinces to accept higher quotas of migrants. The existing law restricted the intake of refugees more than 1.5 percent of the population. The country is expecting to receive about 80,000 asylum claims by the end of 2015. The Austrian news website The Local reports:
The move, mirroring EU efforts to oblige member states to accept more migrants, is aimed at relieving Austria's overcrowded main refugee centre at Traiskirchen, and comes into effect on October 1. It was put forward by Chancellor Werner Faymann's Social Democrats and the centre-right People's Party, which form Austria's governing coalition, and votes from the Greens gave it the necessary two-thirds majority.  (...) In recent months Austria has become a major transit country for tens of thousands of migrants entering from Hungary -- having travelled up the western Balkans -- bound for northern Europe, in particular Germany.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 27, 2015 6 Comments
The Catalonia region of Spain is voting today in local elections which, while not directly an independence vote, are considered a proxy for independence support. Background on Catalonia and Spain is explained in this English-language Spanish website, An historical look at the drive for an independent state of Catalonia. This Vox-like Spanish website has a series of "cards" explaining what is going on, Catalonia explained in 21 cards. The Daily Mail reports:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on August 13, 2015 7 Comments
A high-profile trial is currently underway in Germany. 26 year-old Ebrahim H.B. and 27 year-old Ayoub B. are facing terrorism charges after returning back from Syria, having served as ISIS combatants. Just like in U.S., the German mainstream media too is clueless about the motivations of these two jihadists. Media can’t credibly talk about “resentment” and “alienation” in case of this relatively prosperous duo, it has to contend with "personal distress" and trauma as main reasons to explain the pathological behaviour of the alleged terrorists. Ebrahim H.B., a German citizen of Tunisian-origin is charged with planning a suicide bombing in Baghdad. The media repeatedly emphasized the "quiet" and "shy" nature of the alleged ISIS-mastermind, who joined the Terrorist group just because his “planned wedding was called off”. The leading German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported [Author’s Translation]:
On Monday, Ebrahim H.B. told the Regional High Court in Celle that he had been very upset at that time. In spring of 2014 his fiancée called off their planned wedding. “I felt extremely humiliated by that.”

Posted by New Neo on June 20, 2015 19 Comments
While thinking about Obama's comparison of mass murders in the US to the same phenomenon in Europe, it occurred to me that part of what Obama has done during his presidency is to capitalize on an already-existent attitude among many liberals that everything European is better than everything American. That's one of the reasons that Obama can get away with erroneously stating that mass murder by gun is practically nonexistent in Europe and linking it to enhanced gun control. Not too many liberals in this country are going to question that because of the pre-existing idea that Europe has gotten its act together in so many respects while we falter far behind, alone among developed (or, as Obama said, "advanced") countries in bitterly clinging to our troglodyte ways, our guns and our religion. Other things we cling to, and of which Obama would dearly like to free us, include our American exceptionalism, our nationalism rather than internationalism, our rugged individualism, our income inequality, and our idea that "we built that." Things he's already greatly improved about America (i.e. Europeanized, at least to the extent we have allowed him, which is not to the extent he would like) are health insurance and our relations with the Muslim world and with Israel.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 06, 2015 9 Comments
From physical attacks, to vandalism, to verbal attacks on those walking while Jewish, Europe has seen a rise in anti-Semitism in recent years. So much so, that a resolution condemning the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe passed the Senate by unanimous vote on Thursday.
The resolution, authored by Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and co-sponsored by 60 other senators encouraged “greater cooperation with the European governments, in the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in preventing and responding to antisemitism.” “In light of the rise of antisemitism in Europe, this resolution calls on European governments to not only stand against antisemitism, but to work to end it,” said Sen. Menendez, applauding the unanimous passage of the bill.
In the UK, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has been appointed to head the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation: Nicholas Watt of The Guardian reports:
Tony Blair is to take on a new role tackling antisemitism by assuming the chairmanship of a pan-European body that campaigns for stronger laws against extremism across the continent. The British former prime minister has been appointed as chairman of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation a week after he announced that he would stand down as the envoy of the quartet on the Middle East. In an article for the Times, in which he sets out his plans for his new role, Blair says that he will campaign against the abuse of religions which has become a “mask behind which those bent on death and destruction all too often hide”.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 18, 2015 14 Comments
In August 2013, we noted that Jews in Europe past their expiration date, based on the superb article You Only Live Twice by Michel Gurfinkiel in Mosaic Magazine:
There is no future left for Jewish communities in Europe. That’s the inescapable conclusion of You Only Live Twice by Michel Gurfinkiel in Mosaic Magazine. The lengthy article is a long trip down the death during World War II and then rebirth of Jewish communities in Europe, and how that rebirth is being snuffed out by renewed anti-Semitism from multiple directions, particularly leftist demonization of Israel and Islamist anti-Semitism. This Leftist-Islamist coalition, centered around hatred of Israel, is a topic we’ve explored here many times in connection with anti-Semitism in Malmö, Sweden, on British campuses, in the BDS movement, in the academic boycott movement, among other places. The fact is that while intellectually one can distinguish anti-Israeli fervor from anti-Semitism, in reality, on the streets of Malmö and Paris, and elsewhere in Europe, they are one and the same.
That was a year before the 2014 Gaza conflict, which so many blame for the rise of anti-Semitic violence in Europe. Anti-Semitism and violence directed at Jews in Europe are not about Gaza.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 24, 2015 12 Comments
A three-day long controversy broke out recently over the use of the term "No-Go Zones" with regard to certain European cities in light of the Charlie Hebdo and HyperCasher supermarket attacks by Islamic radicals. Steve Emerson of The Investigative Project, a longtime expert on terrorism and its connection to Islamist radicals, made a misstep when he overstated the case while appearing on Fox News.  That created a near-perfect storm of groups just waiting to jump all over him: Fox News haters like the NY Times (even though it previously used the term) and the liberal entertainment media; British and European politicians who prefer not to deal with the sources and implications of domestic terror; and groups that have made professions of tarring people with the Islamophobia epithet. Emerson handed it all to them on a silver platter, as Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal explains:
Steven Emerson, the expert on terrorism, has caused a sigh of relief among the bien pensants of the Western world. By making inaccurate and false claims on Fox News, he has enabled them to pour righteous scorn on him and thereby avoid thinking about uncomfortable social realities.
A defense of Emerson's basic point, if not his specific description, is provided by the Gatestone Institute, European 'No-Go' Zones: Fact or Fiction? Part 1, France. (added) See also, Jonathan Tobin, ‘No-Go Zones’ Are Not a Conservative Meme. Regardless of whether "No-Go Zone" is a proper term in a general way, there is no doubt that there are cities and sections of many cities in Europe which are no-go zones for those publicly identifying as Jewish by dress (e.g., wearing a kippah/yarmulke) or symbols (e.g. wearing a Star of David) or appearance (e.g., long beard in combination with dress and symbols). We have explored the problem of Walking While Jewish repeatedly over the years, including recently regarding "Kippah Walks" in placed like Copenhagen to protest harassment of Jews on the street, frequently by groups of Muslim young men. Though it's not only men, as this woman in Copenhagen demonstrated with her Heil Hitler shout when she spotted Jews at a restaurant:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 10, 2015 16 Comments
The terror attack on Charlie Hebdo this week was a stark reminder that Europe and the rest of western civilization has a serious problem. As people seek explanations for how this happened and what should be done about it, one voice speaks bravely and deserves attention. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the writer and activist who has drawn the ire of many in the Muslim community as well as American feminists for her defense of women, has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which she addressed the attack:
How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam. This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an “un-Islamic” attack by a bunch of thugs—the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked. The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised. If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe. There are numerous calls to violent jihad in the Quran. But the Quran is hardly alone. In too much of Islam, jihad is a thoroughly modern concept. The 20th-century jihad “bible,” and an animating work for many Islamist groups today, is “The Quranic Concept of War,” a book written in the mid-1970s by Pakistani Gen. S.K. Malik. He argues that because God, Allah, himself authored every word of the Quran, the rules of war contained in the Quran are of a higher caliber than the rules developed by mere mortals.
You can read the whole thing here. Ms. Ali appeared on Megyn Kelly's show this week after the attacks.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 09, 2015 33 Comments
Increased Muslim immigration to Europe has created small areas which are essentially countries within countries which European law enforcement officials have dubbed "No-Go Zones." Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times recently described what's happening in France:
Muslims segregated from French society in growing Islamist mini-states A backdrop to the massacre in Paris on Wednesday by self-professed al Qaeda terrorists is that city officials have increasingly ceded control of heavily Muslim neighborhoods to Islamists, block by block. France has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, some of whom talk openly of ruling the country one day and casting aside Western legal systems for harsh, Islam-based Shariah law. “The situation is out of control, and it is not reversible,” said Soeren Kern, an analyst at the Gatestone Institute and author of annual reports on the “Islamization of France.” “Islam is a permanent part of France now. It is not going away,” Mr. Kern said. “I think the future looks very bleak. The problem is a lot of these younger-generation Muslims are not integrating into French society. Although they are French citizens, they don’t really have a future in French society. They feel very alienated from France. This is why radical Islam is so attractive because it gives them a sense of meaning in their life.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 22, 2014 1 Comment
We previously featured the Yarmulke (Kippah) March in Copenhagen, after a series of attacks on Jews wearing Jewish symbols or dress: At the end of my last post I predicted:
While it’s great that the march was held, it’s a shame that it needed to be held in the first place. It will, of course, change nothing, as the interruptions and heckling showed.
And so it comes true just days later, via The Copenhagen Post, Copenhagen Jewish school vandalised:
When students and teachers arrived this morning at Carolineskolen, a private Jewish school in Copenhagen’s Østerbro neighbourhood, they were greeted by shattered windows and anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls of the school. The school, which is home to 200 students, had apparently been vandalised sometime on Thursday night. The vandals cut through a fence to gain access to the property, according to TV2 News.
http://cphpost.dk/news/copenhagen-jewish-school-vandalised.10582.html Additional reports detail the graffiti:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 16, 2014 3 Comments
Several days ago we wrote about the “Yarmulke March” planned for Copenhagen to protest anti-Semitic violence, after numerous anti-Semitic incidents and attacks, including a confrontation with a Jewish man initiated by this precious lady: Copenhagen Woman Heil Hitler w caption The march, organized by conservative politician Rasmus Jarlov, was held today. There were about 500 participants, according to BT.  A different news report said 1000. TV2 had a live blog of the event, and posted this entry on Facebook showing organizer Jarlov: https://www.facebook.com/tv2nyhederne/posts/999349763413997 Here's a video of the march -- note the guy shouting "down, down Israel" at 2:15. This wasn't a pro-Israel march, it was a march against anti-Semitism, a distinction lost on that guy:
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