Tag Archives: European Union

Feminist Protest Exposes Tunisian Islamist Justice

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web-femen-1-gettyby IPT News:  

Under Tunisia’s “moderate” Islamist government, you can attack and vandalize the American embassy and still walk free. But if a woman bares her breasts in a form of protest, a four-month prison sentence is considered too lax.

A Tunisian judge sentenced three European feminists Wednesday to four months in prison for a topless protest outside the courthouse. Their supporters expected to be fined or deported, London’s Independent reports. European Union officials blasted the sentence as excessive.

“To ensure … freedom of expression, the EU underlines the need to revise [Tunisian] laws inherited from the previous regimes, which can be used to restrict it,” spokesman Michael Mann said.

Two weeks earlier, a Tunisian court issued suspended sentences for 20 people accused of causing property damage at the U.S. Embassy and setting cars there on fire during violence last September.

The women – two from France and one German – are part of group called Femen. “Breast Feed Revolution,” the women wrote across their chests. They came to Tunisia late last month to protest the arrest of a colleague, Amina Tyler, a Tunisian who was arrested after posting a topless picture of herself on Facebook with the message “My body belongs to me and not the honor of others” written on her chest in Arabic.

That’s not the way Tunisian Islamists see it.

“In Islam we respect our mothers, our sisters, our wives. Islam respects women and their physical dignity. Public nudity is forbidden. We reject the actions of Femen,” prosecutor Slah Barkati told the court.

Attorneys for Islamist groups who wanted to be parties to the case wanted to define freedom for the women. “It is Islam that honours women and offers them freedom, not the act of undressing,” attorney Slah Khlifi said in a Middle East Online report. Another attorney said the topless protest constituted an attack on state security under Tunisian law and is punishable by up to a year in prison.

On the other hand, a veteran Tunisian feminist said Femen’s actions were counter-productive for her cause and asked that the group stay out of Tunisia in the future. Provocative actions like topless protests come off as signs of western debauchery. “We Tunisian feminists are trying to steer the discussion away from identity. Women’s rights are a social and political issue,” Maya Jribi said in an interview with Germany’sDer Spiegel.

Tunisia was the first country to see governmental change in the 2011 “Arab Spring.” But the rise of the Islamist Ennahda Party has not eased tension there, as radical Salafis gain stature and a secular opposition leader was gunned down in February. While news outlets continue to call Ennahda “moderate” – the Reuters report on the Femen protest did just that – the group’s leader envisions Islamists soon dominating the Arab world. Rachid Ghannouchi also predicted the Arab Spring would “threaten the extinction of Israel.”

INTERVIEW: GEERT WILDERS AND THE ‘ISLAMICIZATION’ OF EUROPE

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Wildersby JOEL B. POLLAK:

Following his provocative lecture on the “European Spring” to a conference of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles on Sunday, I sat down with Dutch political leader Geert Wilders, who leads a party that demands an end to immigration from Islamic nations and advocates leaving the European Union.

I found Wilders cordial and sincere in his beliefs, though sweeping in his generalizations. He acknowledged that there were Muslims who embraced Western values of freedom and tolerance, but seemed unconcerned that a ban on Muslim immigration would keep such people out–and denied that they were Muslims at all.

At one point, I asked him (6:40) to define more precisely the European values that he is defending:

Breitbart News: So what is the essence, then, of the European value system that you want to protect? What is the essential value?

Wilders: Well…the first and most important thing is our identity: we are not Islamic nor should we become Islamic.

Wilders later added: “Maybe the answer is freedom, respect, and not wanting to rule any minority.” But if Europe primarily knows itself in relation to the Islamic “other,” how can it hope to survive, much less thrive?

“What is happening to Europe today will happen to America tomorrow,” Wilders warns. But is that true, when Christianity–weakened, somewhat, but still strong–remains a foundation that Europe has long neglected? Is that true when ideals of limited government are still more widely shared here, even in the age of Obama?

Wilders has important things to say against cultural relativism, and is careful to distinguish his own party from those he considers racist and extremist in other parts of Europe. But is illiberalism the answer to illiberalism? I have made my own skepticism plain; here, below, is the full interview, for you to decide.

 

 

 

Speech by Geert Wilders Los Angeles, June 9, 2013:

The Resurgence of National Pride and the Future of Europe

Does the Istanbul Process have something to do with Benghazi?

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images (60)By William Federer:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience in Brussels in 2009, “Never waste a good crisis.”

In the weeks leading up to the Benghazi attacks, Clinton inexplicably removed defense personnel and denied Ambassador Christopher Steven’s repeated requests for security.

Six hours into the Benghazi attack, President Obama called Hillary, as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney admitted on Feb. 20, 2012 to CNSNews.com.

At some point, an unidentified person in authority gave a stand-down order that no help would be sent to Ambassador Stevens.

Why did Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama act in the way they did?

Was it ineptness, or something else? If the latter, can a motive be established?

A possible motive could be the Istanbul Process.

In 2012, Hillary Clinton co-chaired a meeting with 57 Muslim countries in Istanbul, Turkey.

The closed-door meeting was for the purpose of devising a process to implement U.N. Resolution 16/18, which would prohibit speech insulting Islam.

Championed by the Obama administration, Resolution 16/18 claims to seek a balance between freedom of religion and freedom of expression by “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons based on religion or belief.”

Forbes’ Abigail R. Esman wrote on Dec. 30, 2011:

Proposed … in an effort to clamp down on anti-Muslim attacks in non-Muslim countries, Resolution 16/18 has been through a number of revisions over the years in order to make it palatable to American representatives concerned about U.S. constitutional guarantees of free speech.

The resolution, though, is disingenuous in that it is the initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is made up of Muslim countries that do not allow equal freedom of speech or religion to non-Muslims living within their borders.

The resolution limits free speech viewed as “discriminatory” or which involves “defamation of religion” — specifically, speech which can be viewed as “incitement to imminent violence,” with Islam itself being the religion most known for allowing itself to be incited to “violence.”

This resolution will limit the free speech of non-Muslims, which is the Sharia law restriction placed on conquered peoples, called “dhimmi.” Resolution 16/18, for those who dare admit it, would effectively establish global Sharia law.

In fact, in the OIC countries, the very act of proclaiming that Jesus is the son of God or that Israel is the Jewish homeland would be enough to incite violence.

At the close of the Istanbul meeting in 2012, Secretary Clinton called for “formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred.” OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu commended the Obama administration. “I particularly appreciate the kind personal interest of Secretary Clinton and the role played by the U.S. towards the consensual adoption of the resolution,” he said.

Are there places in the world where these types of laws have already been implemented, and by what process?

In 2005, there were Muslim riots in Europe after a Dutch cartoon was published. The European Union quickly mandated religious-hate-speech codes which prohibit insulting Islam.

Riots, and the process of inciting them, has been a political tactic dating as far back as Rome’s Mark Anthony; or the French Revolution’s Robespierre; or Chicago Labor’s 1886 Haymarket Riot; or Bill Ayers’ Chicago Days of Rage.

Stalin said: “Crisis alone permitted the authorities to demand and obtain total submission and all necessary sacrifices from its citizens.”

Someone who codified this process was Saul Alinsky.

In 1969, Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis at Wellesley College was titled “There Is Only the Fight — An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”

President Obama taught Alinsky’s tactics while a Chicago community organizer.

What did Saul Alinsky write in Rules for Radicals?

“The organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems.”

“An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.”

“The organizer must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.”

“Fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression.”

“He must search out controversy and issues rather than avoid them … for unless there is controversy the people are not concerned enough to act.”

In other words, Alinsky’s tactics are designed to incite people.

Could those tactics have been applied to implement the Istanbul Process?

In the vein of “Fast and Furious,” if there could, just by chance, be a spontaneous riot incited that could be blamed on someone insulting Islam, then there would be the justification for a hurried rush for Americans to give up their free speech rights.

Read more at Daily Caller

Shadowing Europe with the ‘Islamophobia’ Canard

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20130411_shadow_report_2011-12by ANDREW E. HARROD:

On March 21, 2013, the United Nation’s observed its annual International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, commemorating the anniversary of the 1960 apartheid massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa.  Attempting to draw a parallel with the massacre, the Non-Governmental-Organization (NGO) grouping European Network Against Racism (ENAR) issued its Racism in Europe:  ENAR Shadow Report 2011-12 on racism in Europe the week earlier.  In the report’s associated Key Findings on Muslim Communities and Islamophobia, ENAR, an entity linked on its website to George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, calls upon European Union (EU) institutions to “recognize Islamophobia as a specific form of racism.”  ENAR’s cavalier invocation as “racism” of what has been analyzed as an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) developed “thought crime of the totalitarian future” portends problematical developments with respect to the treatment of Islam amidst its critics in Europe.

Relating “racism” to Islam asks the obvious, “are Muslims a race?”  The Shadow Report does little to clarify the confusion, stating (page 2) that “Islamophobia describes an irrational fear, prejudice and hatred towards Islam, Muslims or Islamic culture.”  ENAR thus condemns not just animus against Muslim individuals, but also any undefined “irrational” opposition to Islam as an idea in faith or culture.   Accordingly, the report condemns as “Islamophobia” (13) not simply “criminal damage to Islamic buildings and violence against Muslims” but also “opposition to, as well as protests against, the building of mosques,” irrespective of any individual criticism of such mosques like the proposed New York City Ground Zero Mosque.

The Shadow Report similarly bemoans the poor public relations (PR) image concerning Islam and Muslims in Europe.  While noting (4) that the “news media plays a critical role in shaping public opinion,” the Shadow Report declares without any empirical substantiation that “news reporting of ethnic minorities…is generally negative and distorted.”  The report complains of a “tendency for the media to blame migrants and asylum seekers for high rates of unemployment and criminality.”

In contrast, the Shadow Report recommends (5) that supposedly objective journalists “[u]se positive terminology and encourage positive media reporting about ethnic and religious minorities and migrants to emphasize their economic, social and cultural contributions to European societies.”  This would be part of what the report (5) describes as a desired “ethical journalism, protective of values such as equality and dignity.”  Similarly (6), the report calls upon authorities to “[r]eview school curricula to ensure that they take into consideration the presence of minorities and migrants and their contribution to culture and society, and contribute to overcoming stereotypes and promoting inclusion.”

While promoting positive speech about Islam and Muslims along with other minority groups, the Shadow Report disturbingly calls for restricting negative speech on these matters.  The Key Findings and the report (5) both advocate a “courageous approach to tackling hate speech and racist rhetoric in the public discourse” and a “zero tolerance policy to stigmatizing comments and terminology likely to incite violence, racism or other forms of discrimination.”  While most EU members (4) “have legal provisions in place for tackling hate speech…in some cases they are insufficient or ineffective.”

Thus the report, in reiterating this charge on page 30, states that “[i]n some cases measures still need to be brought in.”  In particular, the report (5) deems “regulation of the internet” as “seriously inadequate and often completely lacking” even though “[s]ocial media and social networking sites have become a growing space for disseminating xenophobic, Islamophobic and racist discourse.”  EU members should accordingly “[r]einforce legislation to monitor hate on the internet and in the media.”

The report (30) identifies Austrian politicians, “particularly from far-right parties,” as “regular perpetrators of hate speech.”  The report references the October 14, 2011, acquittal of the provincial Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partie Österreichs or FPÖ) chairman in Styria, Gerhard Kurzmann, of incitement charges.  The Styria FPÖ had posted on its website a game entitled Moschee Baba (Austrian slang for “Mosque Goodbye”) in which players targeted mosques, minarets, and muezzins on screen, something that brought prosecution accusations of replicating a shooting gallery.  The Shadow Report finds that this case “demonstrates the difficulty in successfully prosecuting hate speech in Austria, especially when the perpetrator is a public figure.”

Read more: Family Security Matters

Andrew E. Harrod serves as a Legal Clerk for The Legal Project, an activity of the Middle East Forum. Mr. Harrod is also a freelance researcher and writer who holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George Washington University Law School. This article was commissioned by The Legal Project.

 

Scottish Government Funds Pro-Terror Group

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islamic-reliefby Samuel Westrop:

Although the Scottish government may be convinced it is engaging with the Muslim community, in truth it is funding Islamist groups with extremist agendas and ties to terrorism.

The Daily Express revealed last week that Islamic Relief Worldwide, a British charity accused of links to terrorism, was presented with £398,000 of the taxpayers’ money by the Scottish Government last year, as part of its £9 million International Development Fund.

The funding was announced by Scottish politician Humza Yousaf, formerly the Media spokesperson for Islamic Relief Worldwide, and currently a Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament and Minister for External Affairs and International Development. This grant comes in addition to the European Union’s grant of €22 million provided to Islamic Relief Worldwide between 2007 and 2011.

In 1999, Islamic Relief Worldwide received a payment of $50,000 from a Canadian charity that the US Department of the Treasury identified as a “Bin Laden front”. In 2005, the Russian Government accused Islamic Relief of supporting terrorism in Chechnya.

In 2006, the Israeli Government designated Islamic Relief a “terrorist front.” After three weeks’ detention in Israel, the head of Islamic Relief’s operations in Gaza, Ayaz Ali, was deported by Israeli authorities after being accusedof funneling money to banned organizations and storing images of swastikas and Osama bin Laden on his computer.

In November 2012, the Swiss Bank UBS closed the account of, and blocked all donations to, Islamic Relief due to “counter-terror concerns.”

A considerable number of Islamic Relief officials are also connected to extremist groups:

  • Ibrahim El-Zayat, a trustee of Islamic Relief, is a leader in both the European and the German Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist Islamist organization with branches all around the world.
  • Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, the former head of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), was also previously a director of Islamic Relief. FIOE is a leading advocate of jihadist Egyptian scholar, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
  • Issam Al-Bashir, a former Director of Islamic Relief, is the former Minister of Religious Affairs in the Sudan and has held many positions associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Dr. Hani Al-Banna, the co-founder of Islamic Relief Worldwide, was formerly affiliated with Muslim Aid, a London-based Islamic “charity” which was previously a “partner organization” of the Al-Salah Islamic Association. The US Government has officially designated Al Salah a terrorist entity.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

Hamas: We are Not Terrorists; We Just Want to Destroy Israel

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cmimg_32400by Khaled Abu Toameh:

Hamas wants be dropped from the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations not because it has changed, but because it feels that the world has changed, and that many naïve Westerners are now willing to tolerate its radical ideology and terrorism.

Hamas leaders are working hard these days to have their movement removed from the U.S. State Department list for Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The Hamas leaders are hoping to persuade a number of European Union countries to support their bid.

Hamas wants to be removed from the list without changing its strategy or charter, which call for jihad [holy war] and which do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Hamas is also not prepared to dismantle its armed group, Izaddin al-Kassam, as part of its effort to persuade the US and EU to drop it from the list of terrorist groups.

Nor is Hamas prepared to stop smuggling weapons or give up thousands of rockets and mortars that it possesses in various parts of the Gaza Strip.

And of course Hamas is not prepared to renounce violence in the context of its effort to seek legitimacy in the international community.

The Hamas initiative comes at a time when senior officials of the movement, including Khaled Mashaal, continue to talk about their dream of replacing Israel with an Islamic state. In addition, they are continuing to call on Palestinians to abide by the “armed resistance” as the only option for achieving their goal.

Ironically, the Hamas request to be removed from the list of terrorist groups coincides with reports about the Islamist movement’s involvement in terror activities in neighboring Egypt.

According to these reports, Hamas was behind the August 2012 killing of 16 Egyptian border guards in Sinai. Hamas has also dispatched thousands of its men to Cairo to protect Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi against his political opponents, the reports revealed.

Although Hamas has denied the reports, there are increased signs that the movement is cooperating with other Islamic fundamentalist groups in Sinai to turn the peninsula into a base for jihadists from different parts of the world. Some of these jihadists are believed to be linked to groups that are affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Hamas claims that it has won the secret backing of a number of EU governments — a claim denied by the EU.

The Hamas demand was first raised by the movement’s prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, during a meeting with European supporters in the Gaza Strip last month.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

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Europe Rolls Over for Hezbollah Blackmail

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by Soeren Kern:

The recent cases in Bulgaria and Cyrus provide irrefutable evidence that Hezbollah is highly active in Europe, where it raises funds, launders money, traffics drugs, recruits operatives and plots attacks with impunity

images (26)The main objective of Israeli President Shimon Peres’s week-long state visit to Brussels, Paris and Strasbourg March 5-12 is apparently to persuade reluctant European leaders to designate Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement a terrorist organization.

Blacklisting Hezbollah would deprive the militant group of significant sources of fundraising by enabling the freezing its bank accounts and assets in Europe. It would also facilitate intra-European police cooperation aimed at pursuing and arresting Hezbollah operatives believed to be living underground throughout Europe.

Several Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands officially classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization years ago. But the European Union has steadfastly resisted calls to sanction Hezbollah.

EU leaders say they do not have enough information to make a judgment about whether Hezbollah is involved in terrorism. They have tried to justify themselves by saying that because the issue is legal, not moral, in nature, they need “courtroom evidence” of Hezbollah’s culpability.

Well, at least that has been clarified: in recent weeks Bulgarian authorities implicated Hezbollah in the July 18, 2012 terrorist attack which killed five Israeli tourists and their driver in the Black Sea resort of Burgas.

Bulgaria’s February 5 public announcement, which angered many EU countries afraid of provoking Hezbollah, was the first time that an EU member state has officially established that Hezbollah was guilty of a carrying out a terrorist attack on EU territory.

European officials have long rationalized their lack of resolve against Hezbollah by claiming that the organization has both a military wing and a political wing, and that cracking down on the former would cripple the latter, which consequently would lead to the destabilization of Lebanon as well as the broader Middle East.

Many analysts, however, say this high-mindedness is a smoke screen behind which Europeans are hiding to conceal the real reason why they are reluctant to confront Hezbollah: fear, fear and more fear.

Europeans are afraid to call Hezbollah what it is because they fear reprisals against European interests at home and abroad. Europeans also fear that if they take a hard line against Hezbollah, the group may activate sleeper cells and carry out attacks in European cities. (According to a leaked German intelligence report, there are more than 900 Hezbollah operatives in Germany alone.)

Read more at Gatestone Institute

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

 

Elaborate surveillance operation raises concerns about broader Hezbollah attacks

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AFP/AFP/GETTY IMAGES - A truck carries the bus damaged by the suicide bomb blast which targeted a group of Israeli tourists in Bourgas, Bulgaria, on July 19, 2012.

AFP/AFP/GETTY IMAGES – A truck carries the bus damaged by the suicide bomb blast which targeted a group of Israeli tourists in Bourgas, Bulgaria, on July 19, 2012.

By :

The Israeli tourists on Arkia Airlines Flight 161 from Tel Aviv could not have known it, but their arrival in Cyprus July 6 was watched closely. A pair of trained eyes counted each passenger as the group exited the plane and boarded a shuttle, headed for resorts that had also been carefully studied and mapped.

The bearded foreigner who silently tracked the Israelis had done his work well. He knew where the visitors would sleep, shop and eat. He knew how many security guards patrolled their hotel parking lots and how long it would take police to arrive from the station down the street.

But the watcher was being watched. When Cypriot police picked him up, the Hezbollah operative quickly acknowledged what he was doing, although he claimed not to know why.

“I was just collecting information about the Jews,” he told police, according to a sworn deposition. “This is what my organization is doing, everywhere in the world.”

The arrest of Hossam Yaakoub, a Lebanese-born Swedish citizen, on July 7 was all but forgotten 11 days later when a bus containing another group of vacationing Israelis was blown up in the Bulgarianresort city of Burgas . The attack, which killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver, was quickly blamed on Hezbollah.

Now, seven months after that attack, new details emerging in Yaakoub’s case are providing chilling insights into what investigators describe as a far broader effort by the Lebanon-based militant group to lay the groundwork for killing Israeli citizens and perhaps others in multiple countries.

Some details have come from Yaakoub himself, who made his first public appearance last week during his trial in Cyprus. But a much fuller account comes from legal documents summarizing the Swedish man’s statements to police during weeks of questioning last summer and obtained by The Washington Post.

The evidence echoes discoveries by investigators in Bulgaria and prosecutors in Thailand, India, Azerbaijan, Kenya and other countries hit by a wave of attempted assassinations and bombings linked to Hezbollah or its chief sponsor, Iran. U.S. officials characterize the plots as part of a shadow war directed by Iran in part to retaliate for Western efforts to derail Iran’s nuclear program. Evidence uncovered by investigators portrays a professional, well-funded effort by Hezbollah to recruit, train and position European-based operatives for what U.S. analysts describe as preparations for future terrorist operations.

‘Calculated tradecraft’

While most of the attacks were thwarted or failed, the accumulated intelligence shows that Hezbollah is learning from its mistakes, employing the tactics of professional intelligence operatives to cover its tracks and expanding its threat, according to current and former U.S. officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing nature of the inquiries.

“In the beginning, they clearly emphasized speed over tradecraft,” said Matthew Levitt, a former counterterrorism official with the FBI and Treasury Department and author of the forthcoming book “Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God.” Ananalysis of the more recent plots shows a shift in tactics, said Levitt, who said the Cyprus case in particular “underscores a very patient, careful and calculated tradecraft.”

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Europe’s Hezbollah Dilemma

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hezby MARK  SILVERBERG:

The long-awaited results of the Bulgarian investigation into the Burgas  terrorist bombing last July 18th  has placed enormous pressure  on the European  Union to proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization – a classification  repeatedly called for by the US, Canada and Israel, but so far rejected by EU member states except the  Netherlands.

Hezbollah’s involvement in the Burgas tragedy should make European leaders  rethink the standard excuses they have made to rationalize their lack of action  against Hezbollah. One often-quoted EU excuse maintains that since Hezbollah in  Lebanon has both a military aspect and a political/social aspect, clamping down  on the former would cripple the latter and destabilize the Hezbollah-dominated  government of the country.

While this hair splitting gives Hezbollah the wiggle room it needs to carry  on its nefarious activities in Europe, the argument has no validity given that the EU’s terror list already includes Hamas, which won the  Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, as well as the Communist Party of the  Philippines, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and other radical organizations  that are involved in their countries’ political systems. And given that the EU  has already sanctioned individuals and entities “responsible for the violent  repression against the civilian population in Syria”, there is no logical reason  to exclude Hezbollah as it clearly falls into this category given its continuing  support of the Assad regime.

This argument is especially vacuous given that Hezbollah’s second-in-command  Naim Qassem has already rejected the British separation of his organization into  political and military wings. Qassem told the Los Angeles Times in  2009: “The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work  (in Lebanon) also leads jihad actions in the struggle against  Israel.”

Stripping away all this double-speak, EU member states, most notably France  and Germany, fear that proscribing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization could  potentially lead to the activation of Hezbollah terror cells across the  continent. According to Matthew Levitt, the Director of the Washington Institute  for Near East Policy’s counterterrorism and intelligence program, the Europeans  are afraid to stir up a hornet’s nest. “Hezbollah” he writes, “is not very  active in Europe and the Europeans feel that if you poke Hezbollah or Iran in  the eye, they will do the same to you. If you leave them alone, then maybe they  will leave you alone.”

France is particularly apprehensive given the exposure of its UNIFIL forces  in Lebanon to Hezbollah fire, and it is even more concerned that designating  Hezbollah as a terrorist organization would, once again, bring  Hezbollah/Iranian-directed terrorism back to its streets.

Read more at Family Security Matters

Mark Silverberg is an attorney with a  Masters Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the  University of Manitoba, Canada. A former member of the Canadian Justice  Department and a past Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Western Office)  based in Vancouver, he served as a Consultant to the Secretary General of the  Jewish Agency in Jerusalem during the first Palestinian intifada. He is a member  of Hadassah’s National Academic Advisory Board, a foreign policy analyst with  the Ariel Center for Policy Research (Israel) and the International Analyst  Network (U.S.), and has been interviewed on Israel National Radio as an  authority on American foreign policy in the Middle East. His editorials and  articles on Middle East affairs have appeared in the NATIV Journal of the Ariel  Center for Policy Research (Israel), Israel Insider, the Conservative Voice,  Family Security Matters, Israel Unity Coalition, The Intelligence Summit,  Midstream and Outpost magazines and Arutz Sheva (Israel National News). He has  lectured extensively on subjects of counterterrorism, jihadism, homeland  security issues and intelligence matters and is a Featured Writer with the New  Media Journal (Chicago). He is the author of “The Quartermasters of Terror:  Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Jihad (Wyndham Hall Press, 2005). His  articles and book have been archived under http://www.marksilverberg.com/.

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Bulgaria Points Finger at Hezbollah

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Bulgaria bus bombing / AP

Bulgaria bus bombing / AP

BY: :

Bulgarian officials on Tuesday implicated the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah in a targeted bombing last year that killed five Israeli tourists.

Bulgaria could clear the way for Europe to finally designate Hezbollah as a terror group by officially pointing its finger at Hezbollah—and by proxy Iran, which sponsors the terror group.

Bulgarian investigators revealed they could link the terrorists to Hezbollah and Iran.

“There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects,” Reuters quoted Bulgarian interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov as saying Tuesday.

“What can be established as a well-grounded assumption is that the two persons whose real identity has been determined belonged to the military wing of Hezbollah,” Tsvetanov said.

Israel and the United States suggested Hezbollah was to blame for the attack soon after it occurred last year.

“We strongly urge other governments around the world—and particularly our partners in Europe—to take immediate action to crack down on Hezbollah. We need to send an unequivocal message to this terrorist group that it can no longer engage in despicable actions with impunity,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday in a statement.

The revelation of Hezbollah’s involvement in the coordinated attack could pave the way for European nations to finally blacklist the terror group, which is still permitted to fundraise and transport money in much of the European Union.

Read more at Free Beacon

See also:

Short-Circuiting Sanctions - “European Union courts have quietly rolled back economic sanctions on several Iranian banks that have long been suspected of transferring funds to terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”