Saturday, January 30, 2021

GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS FOR OPEN BORDERS - TO KEEP THEM COMING, WORKING CHEAP AND VOTING DEM WE MUST EXPAND HANDOUTS PAID FOR BY MIDDLE AMERICA

NYTimes to Elites: Blame Americans First for Causing Illegal Migration

AP Photo/Alden Pellett
AP Photo/Alden Pellett
10:55

Foreign migrants take American jobs illegally because the federal government will not let them take the jobs legally, according to a new article in the New York Times.

“The Reagan-era amnesty in 1986 caused only a temporary drop in the number of undocumented immigrants because it was not accompanied by a robust system for legally bringing in low-skilled workers,” said the January 27 news article by reporter Miriam Jordan.

The editor-approved headline was “The Reality Behind Biden’s Plan to Legalize 11 Million Immigrants,” referring to illegal migrants.

The New York Times‘ perspective on illegal migration matches George W. Bush’s “Any Willing Worker” strategy, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies:

It is the business perspective that the level of immigration should be set by market conditions, that there are no limits. The desires of business and of the immigrants are the two things that determine how many immigrants come here, not the American people’s elected representatives.

The same claim was loudly made in 1990 when Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and President George H. Bush doubled the inflow of legal immigrants and visa workers in the 1990 immigration expansion act.

Nonetheless, 5.5 million illegal migrants moved into the United States from 1900 to 2000, doubling the illegal population to seven million, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security.

That illegal inflow happened even though Congress also created the blue-collar H-2A and H-2B visa worker programs in 1986 and allowed the J-1 program to quadruple during the 1990s.

The Bush/Kennedy 1990 act also allowed CEOs to push two generations of U.S. professionals out of skilled careers because it allowed the Fortune 500 CEOs to import a huge number of H-1B visa contract workers. That legal inflow still helps investors suppress competition by minimizing the number of innovative Americans and consolidating their control of the sector.

The New York Times report also downplays the civic and economic value of automating and mechanizing lower-skilled jobs, claiming that “Demographers say a shortage of blue-collar workers highlights the need for immigrants, in ever larger numbers, to perform low-skilled jobs.”

There is growing evidence that labor migration reduces pressure on investors to redirect their profits back into the productivity-boosting traininginnovationautomation, and robotics that can keep lower-skilled Americans and America rich, stable, and more equal, amid growing worldwide competition.

“If the [pro-migration advocates] got their way, we would end up with the United Arab Emirates in North America,” where a wealthy elite dominates a population of imported, powerless, and replaceable workers, Krikorian said. He added:

The [advocates] just say, “Well, a rising tide raises all boats, and more immigrants mean there’s also more demand [for American workers] in the economy and so everybody wins.” There is no cost, there are no trade-offs, there are no losers, just a happy-clappy way of looking at the issue.

I think they believe [their own claims] because they don’t want to think beyond that. And [they think] people who put forth a different position are bad people and so [the different position] can’t be right because they’re bad people.

Jordan’s view is commonplace throughout the establishment — and in the White House following the election of President Joe Biden.

“President [Joe Biden] outlined his plan to reduce migration,” said a January 23 White House statement:

by … increasing [migrant] resettlement capacity and lawful alternative immigration pathways [in the United States], improving processing at the [U.S.] border to adjudicate [migrants’] requests for asylum, and reversing the previous administration’s draconian immigration policies.

“One of the things that I think is critical to remember,” said Roberta Jacobson, Biden’s newly hired coordinator for the southern border, in a June 2020 conversation with other migration advocates, is that:

The United States closed off almost every other avenue for migration from Central America, and indeed, from Mexico to the United States, which in some respects, not completely, forced people to seek asylum, right? There aren’t temporary worker programs other than agricultural and low skilled H-2A [programs], and those have struggled, frankly, to keep up with both demand and processing. And so people have sort of resorted to requesting asylum, both for legitimate reasons, but also because they don’t know of any other way to get to the United States.

For years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration — or the hiring of temporary contract workers into the jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. The multiracialcross-sexnon-racistclass-basedpriority-driven, and solidarity-themed opposition to labor migration coexists with generally favorable personal feelings toward legal immigrants and toward immigration in theory.

The deep public opposition is built on the widespread recognition that migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.

Migration allows investors and CEOs to skimp on labor-saving technology, sideline U.S. minorities, ignore disabled peopleexploit stoop labor in the fields, shortchange labor in the cities, impose tight control and pay cuts on American professionals, corral technological innovation by minimizing the employment of innovative American graduates, undermine Americans’ labor rights, and redirect progressive journalists to cheerlead for Wall Street’s priorities and claims.

Jordan’s George W. Bush-like statement at the New York Times is echoed by editors at the investor-dominated Wall Street Journal.

Under a January 26 headline, “On Immigration, Compromise Beats Amnesty,” columnist Jason Riley called for investors to compromise with progressive groups:

… the amnesty debate is largely a side issue. Simply legalizing the status of these migrants—most of whom have been in the country for more than a decade—won’t solve the larger problem, which is the imbalance between the number of [worker] visas available and the number of foreigners who want them. After World War II, the federal government’s Bracero program extended work visas to Mexican migrants to address a U.S. labor shortage, and the rate of illegal immigration plummeted … The biggest failure of the 1986 amnesty under Ronald Reagan was that it did little to expand ways to come lawfully. Mr. Biden should avoid making the same mistake.

“The only answer to this [migrant pressure] quandary is to open more legal pathways,” WSJ columnist Mary Anatasia Gray wrote January 24.

The New York Times offers uncritical support for labor migration, but also it reports the spreading poverty in immigrant-dominated suburbs and cities.

On January 29, for example, the New York Times posted a detailed report showing the coronavirus’s spread through the migrant-heavy Los Angeles region:

County officials recently estimated that one in three of Los Angeles County’s roughly 10 million people have been infected with Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. But even amid an uncontrolled outbreak, some Angelenos have faced higher risk than others. County data shows that Pacoima, a predominantly Latino neighborhood that has one of the highest case rates in the nation, has roughly five times the rate of Covid-19 cases as much richer and whiter Santa Monica.

The essential workers who risk getting sick on the job are more likely to be Latino and more likely to live in overcrowded houses and apartments without space to isolate, experts have saidthroughout the pandemic.

Their jobs — including those in warehousesfood processing plantsrestaurant kitchens and factories — are likely to be lower paid, and workers are less likely to be able to take time off when they’re sick.

The large-scale use of migrant labor also leaves American workers more vulnerable to pressure from foremen and hiring managers. The Wall Street Journal reported January 5:

In a 2019 report by Barclays Research that examined data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the bank’s analysts said that opioid use in the U.S. has made workers in the industry less productive and has increased costs to the industry. While the precise number of overdose deaths in the North American construction industry is hard to determine, the workers are roughly six times more likely than workers in other manufacturing, industrial and service industries to become addicted to opioids, according to the report.

Mr. Anderson, a 28-year-old elevator mechanic who works in New York City, became addicted to Percocet and OxyContin when he started his first construction job framing houses at 19 years of age. He found that he could get more work done when he was high and unable to feel the strain of the job.

“I was doing my thing, doing my work, and life didn’t become a mess,” he said. “It was no harm, no foul.” Eventually, however, he found he couldn’t even get to work without the drugs and spent almost all his money on the pills. When those became too expensive or difficult to find, he switched to heroin.

Jordan’s New York Times article included a quote from a California academic who has seen his state transformed by commingled waves of cheap legal and illegal labor since 1990:

“The principle is simple: If you carry out a broad legalization [of illegal migrants], it doesn’t freeze undocumented migration flows as long as labor demand persists,” said Wayne Cornelius, director emeritus of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

“That’s why you need to increase the number of legal-entry opportunities, to accommodate future migrants,” Cornelius emailed Breitbart News.

However, Cornelis declined to answer any questions about the impact of a migrant-flooded labor market on the distribution of wealth and poverty throughout California and the United States.

Many investors gain from importing a population of poor, taxpayer-aided consumers.

 

House Democrats Urge Joe Biden to Give Obamacare to DACA Recipients

Doctor
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
2:29

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and 93 other House Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to give Obamacare benefits to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) recipients.

Castro and the 93 other House Democrats signed a letter Tuesday pressing for the change as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, claiming it would benefit not only those in the DACA program, but also the general public, NBC News reported.

The letter was addressed to Biden and Acting Secretary of Health and Human Services Norris Cochran.

Castro said in the letter:

Access to Covid-19 testing and treatment for DACA recipients and their U.S. citizen children is absolutely critical during this pandemic, particularly for the 202,500 DACA recipients employed as essential workers on the front lines to keep our country healthy and running.

Under current rules, DACA recipients cannot enroll in Obamacare because they are not considered “lawfully present.” Castro argued that DACA recipients are treated as “lawfully present” for other federal benefits and urged the Biden administration to revoke the rule.

Whether House members plan to enact legislation to this effect or just want Biden to introduce an executive order on the subject is unclear.

Some Republicans say the effort will not pass Congress if Democrats try to introduce it as legislation.

“He’s doubling down on putting American taxpayers last by giving free health care to DACA recipients, when he should be solely focused on the most urgent health issue of our time: getting every American vaccinated,” Lauren Fine, a spokeswoman for Republican House Whip Steve Scalise told Fox News Friday.

“An expansion of ObamaCare to DACA recipients won’t pass Congress and is wasting time he should be spending on leading us out of the Coronavirus crisis and reopening our economy,” Fine added.

If Castro’s push is successful, the move would be another expansion of benefits the Biden administration would be providing to illegal aliens.

The DACA program, which was started in 2012 during the Obama administration, allowed illegal aliens who came to the country as young children to work or go to school while they legally remained in the country.

Former President Donald Trump repeatedly tried to end DACA, but the Supreme Court rebuffed his efforts.

JOE BIDEN AND HIS MUSLIMS - ANYONE, ANYWHERE BUT MIDDLE AMERICA!!!

 Archbishop Ieronymos said: “Islam, its people, is not a religion but a political party and are the people of war…They are the people who seek expansion, that is the characteristic of Islam.” Erdogan proved him right.


Joe Biden Extends ‘Temporary’ Amnesty for 7K Syrian Nationals in U.S.

US President Joe Biden speaks to the press as he departs the White House in Washington, DC, on January 29, 2021. - Biden travels to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
2:02

President Joe Biden has extended a temporary amnesty program for nearly 7,000 Syrian nationals living in the United States.

On Friday, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it would extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to 6,700 Syrian nationals in the U.S. who would otherwise be eligible for deportation.

The renewal of TPS for Syrians means those who meet particular requirements can stay in the U.S. until September 2022, when the program must be renewed again by DHS. Despite supposedly being temporary, TPS for Syrians has been in effect since March 2012 due to “armed conflict, environmental disasters, and extraordinary and temporary conditions” in the region.

The Obama administration extended TPS for Syrians in 2015 and 2016 before the Trump administration extended the program twice as well.

TPS has become a quasi-amnesty for foreign nationals created under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 (INA), which prevents their deportation to countries that have suffered famine, war, or natural disasters. Since the Clinton administration, TPS has been transformed into a de facto amnesty program as the Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden administrations have continuously renewed the program for a variety of countries.

Most recently, on his way out of office, former President Trump implemented a similar quasi-amnesty for at least 94,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the U.S. That program, called Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), will last for 18 months until the Biden administration can renew or end it.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.

Another Muslim-American Soldier Turns to Terrorism

Exposing where his true loyalties lie.

  

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Cole Bridges, a 20-year-old American who joined the U.S. Army in late 2019—and who was earlier described as “a polite, responsible and trustworthy teen”—was recently arrested and faces two federal charges: “attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group and the attempted murder of U.S. military service members.”

Earlier, in October, 2020, Bridges, a convert to Islam, came into contact with an FBI online covert employee (OCE) posing as a Muslim supporter of and in contact with the Islamic State.  In their communiques, Bridges made clear that his allegiance was to Islam and jihad, not America and its soldiers.  According to the criminal complaint against him:

BRIDGES then provided training and guidance to purported ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in New York City, such as the 9/11 Memorial.  BRIDGES also provided the OCE with portions of a U.S. Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, for use by ISIS.

In or about December 2020, BRIDGES began to supply the OCE with instructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.  Among other things, BRIDGES diagrammed specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of attacks on U.S. troops.  BRIDGES further provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to repel an attack by U.S. Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the U.S. troops.  Then, in January 2021, BRIDGES provided the OCE with a video of himself in body armor standing before a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS.  Approximately a week later, BRIDGES sent a second video in which BRIDGES, using a voice manipulator, narrated a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on U.S. troops.

On being asked by the OCE what he would do if his army unit engaged Islamic State fighters in combat, Bridges responded, “I would probably go with the brothers,” meaning the jihadis.  On Dec. 27, after the OCE  told the young convert to stay safe and avoid being “compromised,” he responded by saying he’d “either become a martyr or somehow escape the country” if that happened.

In their complaint, all of the prosecutors involved underscored the traitorous nature of Bridges’ crime:  “Cole Bridges betrayed the oath he swore to defend the United States by attempting to provide ISIS with tactical military advice to ambush and kill his fellow service members,” said one, adding, “Our troops risk their lives for our country, but they should never face such peril at the hands of one of their own.”  “This alleged personal and professional betrayal of comrades and country is terrible to contemplate,” said another. “Cole Bridges violated his oath and used his position of privilege against his fellow citizens,” said yet another.

The shock is unwarranted; Bridges is hardly the first American Muslim to betray his nation and fellow brothers-in-arms.

Recall Major Nidal Hasan, who was “very upfront about being a Muslim first and an American second.” Instead of being deployed to a Muslim nation—his “worst nightmare”—in 2009 he went on a killing spree in Fort Hood, where he murdered thirteen fellow soldiers.

Then there was Nasser Abdo, an American soldier arrested in 2011 for planning on using a “weapon of mass destruction” to massacre his fellow soldiers.  Earlier, in 2010, he had applied for conscientious objector status pending his deployment to Afghanistan, and the Army approved his discharge.  “I don’t believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims,” he once said. “I don’t believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim…. I can’t deploy with my unit to Afghanistan and participate in the war — I can’t both deploy and be a Muslim.”

And of course there was sergeant Hasan Akbar, who was convicted of murdering two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait: “He launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq.” Previous to the attack, he confessed to his diary: “I may not have killed any Muslims, but being in the army is the same thing. I may have to make a choice very soon on who to kill.”

All of this goes back to one pivotal Islamic doctrine, known in Arabic as al-wala’ w’al bar’a.  Perhaps best translated as “loyalty and enmity,” this inherently tribalistic doctrine calls on Muslims to maintain absolute loyalty to one another, while hating and seeking to undermine all non-Muslims—“even if they be their fathers, sons, brothers, or kin” (Koran 60:4; 58:22).

In the words of Koran 3:28, “Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels rather than believers: and whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”

The words translated here as “guard” and “precaution” are derived from the Arabic word taqu, from the trilateral root w-q-y—the same root that gives us the word taqiyya, the Islamic doctrine that permits Muslims to deceive non-Muslims whenever under their authority.

Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), author of one of the most authoritative commentaries on the Koran, explains taqiyya in the context of verse 3:28 as follows: “Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.”  As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who once said, “Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.”

Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of another standard commentary on the Koran, interprets verse 3:28 as follows:

If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.

The significance of Islam’s doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity—which is as ironclad in Islam as the so-called Five Pillars—concerning questions of national allegiance and security can hardly be clearer.


Islam's greatest university clutches pearls when archbishop says Muslims are 'people of war'

Al Azhar, the Muslim world's most prestigious if not authoritative Islamic university, recently blasted Jerome, the archbishop of Athens and all Greece, for saying during a January 14 interview that:

"Islam, its people, is not a religion but a political party" — that Muslims are "the people of war ... who seek expansion," which is a "characteristic of Islam."

Instead of replying with outrage and accusations of "Islamophobia" — as Turkey and other nations did, on January 19, the Observatory, a branch of Al Azhar, denounced "these irresponsible statements by the archbishop of Athens," adding that they are "merely farcical and empty claims — trivialities unworthy of responding to or discussing." 

Why?  Because, continued Al Azhar, "Islam is the final, heavenly message that Allah Almighty sent to our master Muhammad, the seal of the prophets and apostles, to bring humanity from out of the darkness and clutches of ignorance and into the light of truth and the sun of guidance."

To anyone unconvinced by this hagiographic explanation, Al Azhar continued:

Accusing Muslims of being people of war and expansion is a pure lie — a fraud and falsification of Muslim history, which is replete with forgiveness and pardon[.] ... The Prophet's invasions were either in defense of Muslims or to discipline those who reneged on their pacts[.] ... [Islamic history] is inconsistent with the claim that Muslims want to expand!

Indeed, the only thing consistent here is Al Azhar's denial of the militant, expansionist history of Islam.  For example, on April 30, 2020, during his televised program, which is watched by millions in Egypt and the Arab world, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb — Al Azhar's grand imam and Pope Francis's close ally — declared that "Islam doesn't seek war or bloodshed, and Muslims only fight back to defend themselves."

This somewhat surreal claim was even the grand conclusion reached at — and therefore making a mockery of — a recent mega-conference dedicated to finding solutions to "extremism."  Hosted in Egypt by Al Azhar, and attended by leading representatives from 46 Muslim nations, al-Tayeb capped off the two-day conference by again declaring:

Jihad in Islam is not synonymous with fighting; rather, the fighting practiced by Prophet Muhammad and his companions is one of its types; and it is to ward off the aggression of the aggressors against Muslims, as opposed to killing those who offend in [matters of] religion, as the extremists claim.  The established sharia rule in Islam bans antagonism for those who oppose the religion.  Fighting them is forbidden — as long as they do not fight Muslims.

Needless to say, such claims fly in the face of more than a millennium of well documented Islamic history.  Beginning with Muhammad — whose later wars were hardly defensive, but rather raids meant to empower and aggrandize himself and his followers over non-Muslims — and under the first "righteous" caliphs and virtually all subsequent sultans and rulers, jihad consisted of "inviting" neighboring non-Muslims to embrace Islam or at the very least submit themselves to its political authority (as second-class dhimmis); if non-Muslims refused, as they almost always did, if they insisted on maintaining their own religious identity and freedom from Islam, then jihad was proclaimed, the non-Muslims' lands were invaded, and the aftermath looked like an ISIS setting, with pyramids of heads, burned churches and other temples of worship, and slave markets of women and children littering the landscape.

One need only look at  a map of the Muslim world today and realize that the vast majority of it — all of the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, Central Asia, as far east as Pakistan and farther — was taken by violent conquest in the name of jihad.  There is nothing "defensive" about that.

Indeed, within the context of his interview, Archbishop Jerome's words were especially accurate, for he was discussing the Islamic conquest of Constantinople in 1453.  As with the aforementioned Muslim conquests preceding it, the only reason it was attacked and its citizens treated in mind-boggling ways is because it refused to submit to Islam, preferring to remain Christian, as it had been for over a thousand years.

In short, the history and subsequent expansion of Islam is almost entirely based on violent conquest, or jihad.  Anyone who denies that — and that goes for the Muslim world's most authoritative prestigious institution, Al Azhar — is the one making "farcical and empty claims — trivialities unworthy of responding to or discussing." 

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.


Young Muslims Three-Times More Likely to be Antisemitic, Homophobic Than Atheists Counterparts: Study

A Muslim man reads from the Koran at the Grand Mosque in Brussels on Match 25, 2016, as Muslims gathered for the first Friday prayers in the wake of the suicide attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station that left 31 people dead and 300 wounded and were claimed …
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images
3:05

Young French-speaking Muslims in Europe’s capital Brussels are at least three times as likely to be antisemitic, homophobic and sexist compared to their atheist counterparts, according to a Belgian study.

The study was highlighted by signatories to a letter published by newspaper L’Echo condemning a recent move to allow the wearing of the Islamic veil in Belgian schools by several secular and feminist activists this week.

Published earlier this month, the 70-page study, which was authored by Professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris Joël Kotek and Joël Tournemenne, examined religious attitudes in 38 schools in the Brussels region, compared to atheists.

“Islam is even, according to all of our respondents, the religion with the most positive image; Judaism… the most negative,” the authors said in a summary of their findings.

The authors add that Muslim women often appeared to be even more conservative than Muslim men. The study found 40 per cent of practising Muslim women refused the idea of marrying a Jewish partner, compared to 29 per cent of Muslim men.

21 per cent of Muslims also say the figures of the Holocaust were “inflated” and over 35 per cent believe in conspiracy theories that “Jews control the banks and the media with the Freemasons”, and the study also revealed that 17 per cent of Roman Catholics agreed with the statement.

The authors also said young “radical” Roman Catholics held antisemitic attitudes and beliefs two-times more often than non-believers, but found that so-called “cultural Catholics” generally held opinions that were indistinguishable to atheist views.

Another survey, published in January by the Jean Jaurès Foundation, stated that religious belief in Belgian schools is on the rise and that 53 per cent of secondary school teachers face “religious pressures.”

“As a result, fear and self-censorship are the hallmarks of the profession today,” the authors of the letter published by L’Echo stated.

The study comes a year after Italian populist Senator Matteo Salvini blamed mass migration of Muslims to Europe for the increase of antisemitism across the continent.

“There is, of course, antisemitism of small political minority groups – Nazis and communists,” Salvini said and added, “But, now the massive presence in Europe of migrants coming from Muslim countries, among whom are many fanatics who are getting the full support of certain intellectuals, is spreading antisemitism in Italy as well.”

The German Federal Agency for Civic Education (FACE), meanwhile, has blamed Islamophobia for the rise in antisemitic attitudes within the Muslim community.


Greek Archbishop Tells the Truth About Islam, Muslim Leaders Enraged

Noticing the obvious is forbidden.

 

 

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and all Greece touched off a firestorm in mid-January when he dared to note, according to the Orthodox Times, that “Islam was not a religion but a political party.” He added: “They are the people of war.” In response, Muslim leaders the world over have rained down condemnations upon the archbishop. He spoke inaccurately when he said that Islam was not a religion at all, but proof that he was wrong about Islam having a political aspect has not been forthcoming.

Muslims in Greece were outraged. The Western Thrace Turkish Minority Consultation Council (BTTADK) declared: “We condemn the statement of the Archbishop of Greece, Mr. Ieronimos….We hope a more peaceful language to be used instead of anti-Islamic discourse in such difficult times of pandemic.” The Xanthi Turkish Union added that Ieronymos’ words were an “Islamophobic attack” and even a “hate crime.” It thundered: “The fact that these statements, filled with insults, came from the number one name in the Greek church increases the gravity of the situation. We see this move as one of the typical examples of the rising Islamophobia and xenophobia in Greece in recent years.”

For its part, the Western Thrace Imam-hatip Schools Graduates and Members Association (BIHLIMDER) asserted that the archbishop was displaying “ambition and jealousy,” and stated: “We are leaving the examination of the psychological state of this person, who uses words that even the most ordinary people wouldn’t use, to the experts. We are condemning such a hostile attitude.” Ahmet Ibram, deputy head of the province of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, said fancifully: “One of Islam’s basic beliefs is to have life based on peace between religions. It can never be accepted to have grudge and hostility against other religions’ members.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a statement: “These provocative expressions of Archbishop Ieronimos, which incite the society to hostility and violence against Islam, also show the frightening level Islamophobia has reached. Such malign ideas are also responsible for the increase of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia in Europe.”

The fact that the Turkish Foreign Ministry would attack the Archbishop of Athens for abetting “the increase of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia in Europe” confirms that the concept of “Islamophobia” is an illegitimate conflation of two distinct phenomena: crimes against innocent Muslims, which are never justified, and honest analysis of the motivating ideology of jihad terror, which is always necessary. Archbishop Ieronymos pointed out that Islam was political and expansionist, which its scripture, doctrine, and history show it to be.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry knows that Archbishop Ieronymos is right. In January 2018, as Turkish troops launched a military operation in Syria against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), 90,000 mosques in Turkey prayed the Qur’an’s “Conquest” sura, sura 48, which calls upon Muslims to be “ruthless against unbelievers.” Why did they do that, unless they assumed that their military action had an Islamic aspect? And in November 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Our God commands us to be violent towards the kuffar (infidels). Who are we? The ummah [nation] of Mohammed. So [God] also commands us to be merciful to each other. So we will be merciful to each other. And we will be violent to the kuffar. Like in Syria.”

Archbishop Ieronymos said: “Islam, its people, is not a religion but a political party and are the people of war…They are the people who seek expansion, that is the characteristic of Islam.” Erdogan proved him right.

Nonetheless, all this led the unnerved Archdiocese of Athens to issue a clarification, claiming that Archbishop Ieronymos was “meaning nothing more than the distortion of the Muslim religion itself by a handful of extreme fundamentalists, who wreak death and destruction all over the world.These are exactly the people the Archbishop was referring to, that is, people who instrumentalize Islam and turn it into a deadly weapon against all those who have a different view from that of ‘unbelievers,’ even that of believers.”

It is understandable that the archdiocese would release this clarification in light of all these denunciations of the archbishop. The archdiocese doesn’t want any violence from Muslims who believe that perceived insults to their faith should be requited with violent attacks, after the pattern of the prophet of Islam himself. But that proves the archbishop’s point yet again.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.


Brussels: Nearly 200 Islamic Terror-Related ‘Entities’ Shut Down Since 2014

This picture taken on October 3, 2017, shows the top Brussels great mosque's minaret. Belgium has withdrawn the rights of residence to one of the emblematic imams of the Great Mosque of Brussels, Abdelhadi Sewif, on October 3, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Emmanuel DUNAND (Photo credit should read EMMANUEL …
EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images
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Since 2014, the Belgian police have identified and closed 192 entities, including prayer rooms and organisations, linked to radical Islamic terrorism in Brussels as part of an anti-terror project.

The Belgian Fighters project — Belfi for short — placed a total of 832 entities under observation and closed 192 of them for links to radical Islamic terrorism between 2014 and the end of 2020.

In addition, 308 illegal migrants were arrested and 19 of them subject to further charges and judicial arrest, according to the Belgian federal police, newspaper La Dernière Heure reports.

The Belfi operation was launched in 2014 after investigators noted that many Belgian citizens who had travelled to fight for jihadist groups overseas in the Middle East, many of them Brussels residents, had continued to receive government cash while doing so.

While Belfi started as an anti-terrorism operation, it later expanded into other areas including forged travel documents, drug smuggling, and weapons smuggling. This has led to the dismantling of criminal networks across the Brussels region.

Belgium remains a hub for radical Islam in Europe, with police in the province of Liège arresting two teens in November for plotting terrorist attacks against police officers after allegedly pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State terror group.

Many theories have been prosed as to why Belgium, along with neighbouring France, has seen such a rise in Islamic radicalism in recent decades. According to French researcher Hugo Micheron, the rise is linked to “neglected” enclaves along with Islamist prisoners radicalising fellow inmates.

“These attacks are the culmination of dynamic actions that have been taking place over the past 15 or 20 years in certain enclaves,” Micheron said, noting that the arrival of radical preachers from countries like Afghanistan in the 1990s coincided with the rise of radical Islam in certain areas.

Radicalism among young Muslims was observed in a recent survey that suggested they were three times as likely to be antisemitic as their atheist counterparts in the city of Brussels.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com