Τρίτη 25 Ιουνίου 2013

A MORE SECULAR EUROPE DIVIDED BY THE CROSS


A  MORE SECULAR EUROPE DIVIDED BY THE CROSS
by Andre Higgins Published June 17, 2013

Dear People,

            As a follow up to the Geert Wilder presentation on the dangers of aggressive Islamists taking over Europe, I believe this article is equally important because it speaks directly to the Christian roots of Europe.  It is important for it points out clearly how the secularist’s ruling class of the EU is removing all references to the Judeo-Christian ethos and culture upon which Europe was founded. In following the constant flow of directives coming out of the EU Parliament in Brussels, it is clearly evident that every reference to Christianity is being forced out the social structure of Europe.  For example, the public schools of the EU countries have been ordered to remove references to the Christian faith from all classrooms.  These references are crucifixes, religious paintings, icons, prayers and any symbols that define us as Christians.  In fact it was not long ago that the soccer team of Italy was required to remove the Cross symbol from the uniforms of their soccer club. This directive was given to appease the sensitive feelings of Muslims throughout Europe. Even Greece, a predominately Orthodox Christian society, has been requested to remove icons from the classrooms.  Even the textbooks of Greek public schools have been ordered to remove catechetical subjects from the curriculum.  

            Seeing what is happening in Europe, could America be far behind in removing all references to Christianity in our society?  We see what has happened to our public school systems with the removal of all Christian references in text books, to Jesus Christ, to prayer, to Christmas and Easter hymns; and even the removal of all decorations that are connected with these two great Christian holidays.  All of this anti-Christian activity has been mandated to appease the secularists, the humanists, the atheists, and the Muslims.  The article that follows speaks in detail to what has been mandated by the EU Parliament.  This is true fascism masquerading as a quest for equality.  While the United States does not have to deal with the oppressive regulations of the EU Parliament it does kowtow to the progressive elitists who desire to rid our society of all references to God.

+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones, Waterford, CT, USA


Άγαπητοί μου έν Χριστώ Άδελφοί,

            Έν συνεχεία μέ αύτά πού σάς έγραψα τελευταίως διά τόν Geert Wilders άπό τήν Όρλανδίαν διά τόν κίνδυνον πού φέρνει τό Ίσλάμ στά κράτη τής Εύρώπης σάς προσφέρω αύτό τό άρθρο γραμμένο άπό τόν κον Andre Higgins. Τό άρθρο αύτό είναι σπουδαίο διότι όμιλεί διά τάς Χριστιανικάς ρίζας τής Εύρώπης καί πώς προσπαθεί τό EU νά έκριζώση τάς ρίζας αύτάς άπό τήν κοινωνικήν, πολιτικήν καί θρησκευτικήν ζωήν τής Εύρώπης.  Ή Βουλή τής EU συνέχεια έκδίδει διαταγάς πρός όλα τά κράτη τής Εύρώπης νά έκριζώσουν κάθε έκφρασιν τής Χριστιανικής πίστεως.  Διά παράδειγμα, τά σχολεία τής Εύρώπης έχουν λάβει διαταγάς νά μή ύπάρχει κανένα σύμβολον τής Χριστιανικής πίστεως. Αί διαταγαί αύταί άπαγορεύουν τόν Έσταυρωμένον Χριστόν, θρησκευτικές ζωγραφιές, είκόνες, Χριστιανικές προσευχές, καί κάθε άλλο σύμβολον πού μάς προσδιορίζει ώς όπαδούς τού Χριστού.  Πρίν λίγες μήνες ή Βουλή τής Εύρώπης διέταξε τήν ποδοσφαιρικήν όμάδα τής Ίταλίας νά βγάλει τό σημείον τού Σταυρού άπό τάς μπλούζας τής όμάδος.  Αί διαταγαί αύταί έκδίδονται μόνον καί μόνον νά καθυσιχάσουν τούς Μουσουλμάνους τής Εύρώπης. Άκόμη καί είς τήν Όρθόδξον Έλλάδα ή Βουλή διέταξε νά βγάλουν είκόνες άπό τά σχολεία καί τά κατηχητικά μαθήματα άπό τά βιβλία τών μαθητών. 

            Έφ’ όσον ή Εύρώπη έχει φθάσει σέ τέτοιο βαθμό καταδιωκώσεως τού Χριστιανισμού, είναι ή Άμερική πολύ πίσω;  Τώρα στήν Άμερικήν άπαγορεύεται Χριστιανικές προσευχές στά σχολεία μας.  Άπαγορεύεται έπίσης κάθε έκδήλωσις διά τάς μεγάλας Χριστιανικάς έορτάς τών Χριστουγέννων καί τού Πάσχα.  Όλη αύτή ή προσπάθεια νά βγάλωμεν τόν Θεόν άπό τήν κοινωνικήν, τήν πολιτικήν καί τήν θρισκευτικήν ζωήν τής Εύρώπης καί τής Άμερικής γίνεται μόνον καί μόνον νά εύχαριστήσωμεν τούς ύλιστάς, τούς άνθρωπιστάς, τούς άθεϊστάς καί τούς Μουσουλμάνους.  Δήλαδή, άγαπητόι μου Χριστιανοί, ή Εύρώπη καί ή Άμερική διώχνουν τόν Θεόν μας άπό τήν ζωήν τού κόσμου διά νά εύχαριστήσουν τούς άπίστους.  Άλλοίμονον, ό κόσμος δέν μπορεί νά σταθή χωρίς τόν Θεού διά μέσου τής Θείας Χάριτος. 

+Πρεσβ. Κωνσταντίνος Δ. Σιμώνης, Waterford, CT., ΗΠΑ, 19 Ίουνίου, 2013
  
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA—Stanislav Zvlensky, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Slovak capital here, was trilled he was invited to Brussels three years ago to discuss the fight against poverty with the insistently secular bureaucracy of the European Union.  The European Commission at first order Slovakia to revise its monks-in-halos design for a commemorative euro coin.  It therefore came as a rude surprise when, late last year, the National Bank of Slovakia announced that the European Commission, the union’s arm, had ordered it to remove halos and crosses from special commemorative euro coins due to be minted this summer. The coins, designed by a local artist, were intended to celebrated the 1,150th anniversary of Christianity’s arrival in Slovak lands but have instead become tokens of the faith’s retreat from contemporary Europe.  They featured two evangelizing Byzantine monks, Saints Cyril and Methodius, their head crowned by halos and one’s robe decorated with crosses, which fell afoul of European diversity rules that ban any tilt toward a single faith.
            “There is a movement in the European Union that wants total religious neutrality and can’t accept our Christian traditions,” said Archbishop Zvolensky, bemoaning what he sees as a rising tide of militant secularism at a time when Europe is struggling to forge a common identity.”  In a continent divided by many languages, vast differences of culture and economic gaps, the Archbishop said that centuries of Christianity provide a rare element shared by all of the soon-to-be 28 members of the fractious union.  Croatia, a mostly Catholic nation like Slovakia, joins next month.  Yet at a time when Europe needs solidarity and a unified sense of purpose to grapple with its seemingly endless economic crisis, religion has instead become yet another source of discord.  It divides mostly secular Western Europe from profoundly religious nations in the East like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece.   In nearly all of Europe, assertive secularists and beleaguered believers battle to make their voices heard.  All of which leaves the European Commission, in charge of shaping Europe’s common aspirations, under attack from all sides, denounced by atheists for even its timid engagement with religion and by nationalist Christian fundamentalists as an agent of Satan.
            Asked about such criticism, Katharina von Schnurbein, the commission official responsible for outreach to both religious and secular groups, smiled and said, “I can assure you that the European Commission is not the Antichrist.” Europe is suffused with Christianity, or at least memories of its past influence.  The landscape is dotted with Churches, now mostly empty, and Monasteries, its ancient universities are rooted in medieval religious scholarship, and many of its national crests and anthems pay homage to God.  Even the European Union’s flag—a circle of 12 yellow stars on a blue background—has a coded Christian message.  Arsene Heitz, a French Catholic who designed the flag in 1955, drew inspiration from Christian iconography of the Virgin Mary wearing a crown with 12 stars.  The same 12 stars appear on all Euro coins.  The very idea that Europe should unite began with efforts to rally Christendom in the ninth century by Charlemagne, the first ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.  Throughout its modern history, however, the European project, as the Continent’s current faltering push for unity is known, has sought to keep religion and the unruly passions it can stir at arm’s length.  The 1957 Treaty of Rome and other founding texts of what is today the European Union makes no mention of God or Christianity.  The Brussels bureaucracy, in its official account of Mr. Heitz’s religion-tinged flag, ignores the Virgin Mary, stating instead that the 12 stars “symbolize the ideal of unity, solidarity and harmony among the people of Europe.”
            “There is a general suspicion of anything religious, a view that faith should be kept out of the public sphere,” said Gudrun Kugler, director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians, a Vienna-based research and lobbying group.  “There is a very strong current of radical secularism,” she said, adding that this affects all religions but is particularly strong against Christianity because of a view that “Christianity dominated unfairly for centuries” and needs to be put in its place. Ms. Von Schnubein dismissed accusations of an anti-Christian agenda.  The European Union, she said, “is often seen as trying to eliminate religion, but that is really not the case.” She added, “We deal with people of faith and also people of no faith.”  Obliged by treaty to consult with religious and secular groups, the European Commission, said Ms. Von Schnurbein, attaches great importance” to this dialogue, which she described as “unique” for an international body.
            The commission’s monetary and economic affairs department that ordered Slovakia to redesign its commemorative Euro coins says it had no real problem itself with halos and crosses and demanded that they be deleted in the interest of “religious diversity” because of complaints from countries that also use the Euro.  Leading the charge was France, which enforces a rigid division of Church and State at home, and objected to Christian symbols appearing on Slovak money that would also be legal tender in France, Greece, where Church and State are closely intertwined, also protested, apparently because it considers the Greek-born monks Cyril and Methodius as part of its own heritage. 
           
For the European Union’s most strident critics, the dispute has been a godsend, buttressing their argument that Brussels is an alien, meddling and sinister force.  “I need to voice a serious and disturbing suspicion: that the EU is under the control of Satan or Satanism,” said Rafael Rafaj of the Slovak National Party, a far-right nationalist party.  The view that the European Union serves Satan has become a popular theme for some extreme Christian fundamentalists, who cite the Bible’s Book of Revelation as proof that dissolving national boundaries signals an approaching apocalypse.  Yet, several of the union’s most senior figures are themselves Catholics, as were most of its founding fathers, including Germany’s first postwar chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.  Germany’s current leader, Angela Merkel, the daughter of a pastor, has been outspoken in defending Christianity, telling supporters worried about an ever increasing number of Muslims that” we don’t have too much Islam, we have little Christianity.”
          
  The Brussels bureaucratic apparatus, however, is “uncomfortable with religion,” said Lucian Leustean, a scholar at Aston University in Britain and the editor of a 2012 book, “Representing Religion in the European Union: Does God Matter? This is partly due to the rise of well-organized secular groups that pounce on any hint that Christians are being favored over other religions or nonbelievers.  But a bigger reason, said Mr. Leaustean, is a shift in demography and public attitudes. Church attendance is falling across Europe as belief in God wanes and even cultural attachments wither.  The Continent’s fastest-growing faith is now Islam.  In Britain, according to a poll last year, more people believe in extraterrestrials than in God.  In the European Union as a whole, according to a 2010 survey, around half the population believes in God, compared with over 90 percent in the United States.
            
The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe slowed the secular tide somewhat as the European Union began to admit new and sometimes deeply religious countries like Poland and Rumania.  Jacques Delors, the president of the European Commission in the 1990’s, kicked off a debate on the “soul of Europe” and held informal meetings with Church and other religious leaders.  But when Europe set about drafting a constitution in the early years of the last decade, demands that Europe’s Christian heritage be mentioned ran into bitter resistance and were eventually dropped.  The religious question resurfaced again with the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon, which skipped any reference to Christianity and instead paid tribute to the “cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe.”  It mandated dialogue with religious groups.  But is also ordered equal treatment for “philosophical and non-confessional organizations,” which include groups whose principal philosophy is hostility to organized religion.

          
  Archbishop Zvolensky of Bratislava predicted that efforts at European unity are doomed unless the union gives a bigger place to God.  “Religion should be the inner strength of the union,” he said.  He does see one encouraging sign: Slovakia’s national bank had decided to stick with its original coin design and abandon plans for a halo-free minting in honor of Saints Cyril and Methodius.  The European Commission has gone along with this, and the commemorative coins will finally be minted next month—two months later that originally planned—but with halos and crosses.

ΑΔΕΛΦΟΙ ΠΟΥ ΕΧΟΥΝ ΑΝΑΓΚΗ ΓΙΑ ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΗ.








ΠΑΡΑΚΑΛΟΥΜΕ ΟΠΟΙΟΣ ΜΠΟΡΕΙ ΝΑ ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΗΘΕΙ
ΓΙΑ ΤΟΝ  ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟ ΗΛΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΑΡΙΑ
Ο ΟΠΟΙΟΙ ΠΕΡΝΑ ΜΙΑ ΠΟΛΥ ΔΥΣΚΟΛΗ ΣΤΙΓΜΗ
ΣΤΗΝ ΖΩΗ  ΚΑΙ ΖΗΤΟΥΝ ΤΙΣ ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΕΣ ΜΑΣ.

Κυριακή 16 Ιουνίου 2013

THE RESURGENCE OF NATIONAL PRIDE AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE






THE RESURGENCE OF NATIONAL PRIDE
AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

Dear People,

          I have been following the courageous battle of Geert Wilders of the Netherlands for a number of years in his attempt to awaken the consciousness of the Western World to the dangers posed by Islam in the West.  He has been viciously attacked for his efforts as being an Islamophobe in the Netherlands and the Muslims have placed a price on his head, a fatwah. Because of this he is forced to have security around him twenty-hours a day where ever he travels in the world.  The speech that follows was presented in Los Angeles, CA on June 9, 2013.  It is one of the most comprehensive exposes of the EU that I have ever read.  It talks about the destructive nature of a united Europe and the consequences it will have on the world community.  I especially direct these remarks of his to my fellow Greeks in Greece for they have suffered the most since joining the EU.  I call upon all the freedom-loving peoples of Europe to throw off the tyranny of the EU before it is too late for Christian Europe.

Άγαπητοί πατριώτες τής Έλλάδος,

          Παρακολουθώ τώρα διά πολλά χρόνια τήν προσπάθειαν τού κου Geert Wilders άπό τήν Όλλανδίαν νά ξυπνίση τούς δυτικούς Χριστιανούς τής Εύρώπης διά τόν μεγάλον κύνδινον πού διατρέχουν μέ τούς Μουσουλμάνους μετανεστάτας.   Οί Μουσουλμάνοι έχουν διακηρύξει φάτουα στό κεγάλι του Wilders διά τήν στάσιν του άπέναντι τών Μουσουλμάνων.  Ό κος Wilders λέγει ότι ή Ήνωμένη Εύρώπη (The EU) σιγά-σιγά φέρνει τήν καταστροφήν τής Δυτικής Χριστιανικής Εύρώπης.  Ή Έλλάδα ίδίως μέχρι σήμερον έχει πάθει μεγάλη ζημιά άπό τό EU.  Διά τό καλό τής Εύρώπης καί τής Χριστιανοσύνης πρέπει νά διαλυθή τό EU.  Είναι ό μόνος τρόπος πού μπορεί νά ξεπεράση τήν κρίσιν είς τήν όποίαν εύρίσκεται σήμερον.

+Πρεσβ. Κωνσταντίνος Δ. Σιμώνης, 14 Ίουνίου, 2013 ΗΠΑ
+Fr. Constantine (Charles) Simones, June 14, 2013 USA

Dear Friends,

          Thank you for inviting me to Los Angeles.  I always like coming to the United States.  There are many things that I admire Americans for.  One of them is that they are unashamedly patriotic.  The American Freedom Association has asked me to speak to you today about the future of Europe.  Europe is in a terrible state.  Bit by bit, European countries are losing their national sovereignty.  The economy is in shambles.  Islamic militants riot and terrorize the many locals.  And when people’s throats are slit in the streets, while the murderers shout “Allahu Akbar,” the authorities appease the killers and declare that Islam has nothing to do with it.  Europeans feel that the gap between them and those who rule them is growing.  Many no longer feel represented by their politicians.  There is a complete disconnect between the people that truly rule Europe and the people that live in it. 

          The blame lies to a large extent with the European Union and the weak leadership within the European countries which have signed away their national sovereignty.  The EU cannot be compared to the United States. Europe is a continent of many different nations with their own identities, traditions and languages.  The EU is a supranational organization, but its leaders aim to turn it into a state. To this end they are destroying the wealth, identity and freedoms of the existing nation-states of Europe.  Before I elaborate, let us take a closer look at the terrible mistake that Europe made.

          Following the Second World War, Europe’s leaders mistakenly thought that patriotism was the cause of war.  All over Europe, not just in Germany, but everywhere, they equated the defense of national identity with extremism.  Politicians told the electorate that the nation state was dangerous.  On the rooftops of Europe’s parliaments and official buildings, they flew the EU flag next to the national flag, as if the nation is nothing but a province of a Pan-European empire.  On the number plates of European cars, they put EU flags instead of the national flag, thereby forcing people to drive around with the symbol of their subjection.  They signed away their national interests for the goal of so-called Europeanization. Such policies could never have been possible if the ruling elite had not fallen for the ideology of cultural and moral relativism. Patriotism, which is a virtue, came to be seen as a vice. 

          Today, the citizens of Europe are reaping the bitter harvest of this arrogance, this refusal to stand by the ancient nations of Europe, the mothers of modern democracy, the guardians of our liberty.

          *The EU stands for everything that is wrong in Europe.

          *It is a gigantic undemocratic transnational monster.

          *It issues legislation permeated with cultural relativism.

          *It meddles in the everyday lives of millions of people.

          *It has opened Europe’s borders to uncontrolled mass immigration, mostly from Islamic countries.

          *And it has deprived Europe’s parliaments of a huge amount of their legislative powers.

         
The European Union has brought one-size-fits-none policies that have resulted in economic disaster.  It has led to growing tension between the nations of Europe.  It has led to the loss of democracy and liberty.  Because the premise on which it was built, was false.  Robert Schuman, one of the EU’s founding fathers, said that the  EU’s aim was—I quote—“to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.”.  But the idea that Germany, France, Britain and other nations in the past went to war because they were sovereign nations is simply ridiculous. As I tell my audience whenever and wherever I speak in Germany, it was not German patriotism that started the Second World War; it was Hitler’s vicious totalitarian ideology of Nazism.  It was not patriotism that caused the holocaust. German patriots, such as Count Stauffenberg, fought Hitler. “Let the world see that not all Germans are like Hitler; that not all Germans are Nazis,” he wrote in his diary the evening before Hitler’s hounds executed him.

          Likewise, it was not Russian patriotism that sent people to the Gulag; it was the Soviets’ vicious totalitarian ideology of Communism.  Russian patriots, such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, stood up against the Soviets.  Nevertheless, the proponents of EU keep pretending that without the EU, the Germans, the French, the British, the Dutch and the other nations of Europe would go to war again.  The European Union has even been given the Nobel Peace Prize for the achievement of preserving peace in Europe—an achievement that is according to me NATO’s rather than the EU’s.

          My friends, no one knows this better than American patriots such as you: True patriots are always democrats because true patriots love their people and their country.  You do not want your nation to be invaded by other countries.  But neither do you want a totalitarian ideology, such as Communism or Nazism or Islam, to rob you of your own identity and enslave you.  Patriots want their country to be free.  But people only care about the freedom of their country if they love it first.  That is why one of my heroes Ronald Reagan said in his Farewell Address that we have to teach our children what our country is, what it stand for, what it represents in the long history of the world. Reagan said that Americans need—I quote—“a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.”

          Patriotism is not a totalitarian ideology aiming for world control; it is love of one’s own country and identity—and as such it is the strongest force against totalitarian ideology aiming for world domination. Love your country, appreciate its national institutions. As long as you do this, your country will remain the land of the free.  But if you fail to do so, you will lose your freedoms.  That is the lesson that we, Europeans, have learned the hard way after the past six decades of experimenting with EU trans nationalism.  And the worst thing, my friends, the worst thing is that we could and should have known better. In her last book, Statecraft, Margaret Thatcher wrote—I quote: “That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European super state was ever embarked on will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era.”

          My friends let me tell you about the terrible consequences of this folly. The Europeans set out to build a political tower of Babel.  In 1957, six European nations, including my own, the Netherlands, signed the Rome Treaty.  They committed themselves to the formation – I quote from the Treaty’s preamble—“and ever closer union among the peoples of Europe.” From the original six, the European Union’s member states expanded to 27 nations today. Nations as diverse as Finland and Portugal, Ireland and Bulgaria, with their entirely different languages, cultures, traditions, habits and mentalities, were forced by their political leaders to adopt the same economic, fiscal, social, security, and foreign policies. These policies are drawn up by the enormous, ever expanding bureaucracy of the so-called European Commission in Brussels.  It issues laws—so-called “directives”—that the member-states are forced to implement in their national legislation. 

          As a national legislator in the Netherlands I daily experience how little we still have to say about our own fate.  We are expected to rubberstamp legislation made behind closed doors in Brussels.  Both the EU Council of Ministers and the European Commission negotiate in secret and then emerge to announce their agreement and present it.  That is how the system works.  And we are not allowed to ask questions.  Those who dare think differently are labeled enemies of European integration.  They are so-called Europhobes. The former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky calls the EU the EUSSR, because of its striking similarities to the former Soviet Union.  He compares the European Commission to the former Soviet Politburo and Brussels to Moscow before the fall of the Iron Curtain. 

          Two weeks ago, I went to Prague and met with Vaclav Klaus, the former President of the Czech Republic.  President Klaus speaks of Europeanism as one of the new and dangerous ideologies that have supplanted Socialism.  During his ten years in office, President Klaus refused to fly the EU flag over the Czech presidential palace.  He points out that the EU is—quote—“based on big and patronizing government, extensive regulating of human behavior and large-scale income redistribution.  It shifts government upwards, which means to the level where there is not democratic accountability and where the decisions are made by bureaucrats appointed by politicians, not elected by citizens in free elections.”

          The EU supra nationalism has brought the once prosperous, sovereign and free nations of Europe economic misery, a loss of national identity, the demise of freedom and independence.  Seventeen of the twenty-seven EU member states have even been so foolish as to dump their national currency.  By adopting the euro, the common EU currency, they joined the so-called euro zone.   Strong and solid currencies that were the pride of their nations, such as the Dutch Guilder and the German Deutschmark, was sacrificed on the altar of European unification.  The then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl sold this project to his people as—I quote—“a matter of war or peace.” The Euro was presented as –I quote again—“an angel of peace.”  But what did this angel do for us?  All the countries that joined the euro lost the power to adjust their currency to their own economic needs.  They have destroyed their economies and have doomed their people to rising poverty and unemployment.  They all suffered as a consequence.  They all have to share the burden of other countries, even if the latter are suffering from self-inflicted policies, corruption or fraud, like in Greece.

          Last year, my party, the Dutch Party for Freedom, commissioned a study by the renowned independent bureau, Lombard Street Research, into the cost for the Netherlands of the Euro so far.  The study found that, since the Dutch introduced the Euro, the growth of consumption spending no longer matches the growth of GDP, as it did before we joined the Euro and as it still does in all the countries that kept out of the Euro zone. The cost was a huge loss in consumer spending.  The study showed that continuing to uphold the Euro would cost the Netherlands billions of Euros.  The Euro zone is a huge transfer zone, whereby taxpayers in our country are forced to subsidize other countries.  The rising taxes have pushed our country, the Netherlands, into economic recession.  Unemployment has grown to over 8%--the highest in decades.  And the countries that receive our taxes have no chance of recovery.  They have no chance of economic growth within a monetary union where the currency is too strong for them.  Millions of people are losing their jobs as a consequence.  Countries such as Spain are doomed with unemployment figures reaching almost up to 30% today.

          EU countries have also lost sovereignty over their own national budgets. The European Commission—not our national government—decides how big their deficits and national debts are allowed to be.  It imposes austerity measures.  But at the same time it demands ever larger sums to be transferred to Brussels or to so-called rescue operations for the Euro and to bail out countries, like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus.  Last month, the EU decided to raise its budget.  My country and the Dutch government opposed this decision, but we were simply overruled.  We have no veto right.  Now we are forced to pay even more to Brussels.  While government expenditure cannot be slashed by cutting the sums demanded by the EU, the Dutch Government has raised taxes dramatically.  The impact has been devastating.  Higher taxes have resulted in less government income and have led to a contraction of the economy and a rise in unemployment. The same phenomenon can be seen all over Europe. The growth of expenses and taxes, the inability to create a competitive environment, the overregulation of the economy, the stifling bureaucratization—all this is leading straight to economic collapse. 

          But there is worse.  EU member-states no longer control their own borders.  Immigration policies are decided by the European Commission and the cultural relativists who are in charge there.  The current European Commissioner overseeing immigration policy is Cecilia Malmstrom, formerly a left-wing kind of hippy politician from Sweden.  Third-World immigration has turned Sweden into a nightmare, with immigrants frequently rioting in major Swedish cities such as Stockholm and Malmo.  Mrs. Malstrom is forcing all EU member states to follow the Swedish example.  Last year, I wrote her a letter.  “Not a single Dutchman has voted for you,” I told her.  “We do not know who you are.  We do not want to know who you are, but you force your ideas on our people.  We are suffering from your absurd refusal to allow us even the slightest restriction to our immigration policy.  You do not even want to limit the number of partners that one is allowed to bring into the Netherlands.  We urge you to cease your activities and give us our sovereignty back,” I wrote.  Needless to say I am still waiting for an answer from her, despite the fact that I am an elected politician, accountable to the voters, while she is not.  That is why she can afford not to answer a parliamentarian.

          Millions of non-Western immigrants are flooding into Europe, predominantly people from Islamic countries.  The Pew Research Center estimated the number of Muslims in Western European countries at 18.2 million in 2010.  It expects that this number will rise to almost 30 million by 2030.  The Netherlands will see its Islamic population grow from 5.5 to almost 8%, Britain from 5 to 8%, Sweden will even see it double from 5 to 10%, and France will see a rise from over 7 to 10%.  A demographic catastrophe is about to happen.  During the past three decades, so many people rooted in a culture entirely different from Europe’s own Judeo-Christian and humanist tradition have entered Europe that its heritage, its freedoms, its prosperity, and its culture are in danger.  The signs are there for all to see.  Look at the names people give to their children. The Mohammed today is the most popular name among newborn boys in many French, Belgian, and Dutch cities.  Mohammed is even the most popular name among all newborns in England and Wales.

          Look at Europe’s inner cities.  Visit Europe and you will see that they have come to resemble Northern Africa and the Middle East.  They have become areas ruled by Islamic Sharia law.  Only last month, a Dutch newspaper reported that a neighborhood barely two miles from our parliament building in The Hague is now a Sharia zone.  Islamic areas also border the EU headquarters in Brussels.  And less than 10 miles from Westminster, the mother of all parliaments, a British soldier’s throat was slit by Islamic murderers.  Paris, the capital of France, is surrounded by largely Islamic suburbs.  And so are other cities.  The authorities have even drawn up a list of 751 so-called “sensible urban areas,” where it is dangerous to go, especially for native Frenchmen.  These are the lost territories of the French Republic, even though a staggering 5 million people, or 8 percent of the total French population lives in them. Even soldiers are no longer safe in Europe’s streets, as the recent horrible events in Britain and France have shown.  But neither are Jews.  Anti-Semitism has risen, and keeps rising the more Islamic immigration we get.  Indeed, my friends, after Nazism and Communism, another totalitarian ideology is threatening Europe: the evil ideology called Islam.

          In Europe, we are experiencing that the more Islamic a society becomes—even when the majority of Muslims are moderates—the less free and tolerant it will be.  Atrocities, similar to the recent bombing in Boston, where Islamic immigrants massacred innocent onlookers at the marathon, occur in Europe as well.  In my own country a few years ago, Theo van Gogh, a film maker critical of Islam, was butchered in the streets of Amsterdam.  Today, hundreds of young Islamic inhabitants of our countries have flocked to Syria to wage jihad there.  They will return as experienced jihadists, trained in urban guerilla warfare.  But while you in America are still able to do something about it, while you can control and close your borders, while Congress can vote legislation to protect American citizens, we in Europe have been robbed of this possibility by the European Union.  And there is not only the threat of terrorism or violence; there is also the phenomenon of non-violent jihad.  The rise of Islam means the rise of Islamic sharia law in our judicial systems. In Europe, we have sharia wills, sharia schools, and sharia banks.  In Britain, they even have official sharia courts.

          Europe is gradually Islamizing. People, who criticize Islam, such as me, are threatened by Al Qaeda and dragged to court by Islamic and leftist groups. There is not just me, there is the journalist Lars Hedegaard, the author Salman Rushdie, the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, and many others.  We criticize Islam and we will keep on doing so, because it is a dangerous ideology.  It is intolerant, it is violent.  And, worst of all, it cannot be reformed.  It cannot because it believes that the Koran is a book written directly by Allah himself.  And it cannot because it calls on Muslims to follow Muhammad as the role model for their personal life. There could not be a worse model than this man, who was a warlord, a terrorist and a pedophile.  While most Muslims are moderate people, those who think that they have to follow Muhammad’s example are not.  That is exactly the reason why the more Islamic a country becomes, freedom is lost  and violence increases. 

          Europe needs to be protected against this new totalitarian threat.  That is why I say: No more immigrants from the Islamic world!  My party wants to close our borders to immigration from Islamic countries.  And ever more people support us.  A poll, which was commissioned ten days ago, shows that 77% of the Dutch do not see Islam as enrichment for our country, 68% say there is more than enough Islam in the Netherlands already.  A majority of the voters of all the major parties in my country—even the voters from leftist parties—agree with these two principles.  The poll also showed that 55% of the Dutch want to stop on immigration from Islamic countries, 63% want no more mosques, and 72% want a constitutional ban on Islamic sharia law.  Ordinary people in Europe want three things.  One—they want their politicians to tackle the problem of Islamization and mass immigration.  They want to control their own borders. Two—they want to restore their national sovereignty.  They do not want their countries to become provinces of a pan-European super state.   Three—they do not want their money to be used to pay for mistakes made elsewhere.  They do not want a transfer union where they have to pay higher taxes to bail out other countries, whose leaders were either corrupt or incompetent.

          Poll after poll shows that ordinary Europeans do not want their democracy to be subverted.  Last April, a pan-European poll showed that a clear majority of the population in the major EU member states no longer trusts the EU as an institution.  Even in Germany the number has reached almost 60%.  This week the Gallup poll showed that for the first time in history in the Netherlands as many people want to leave the EU as stay in.  A few years ago, this was unthinkable.  The strength of Europe is its diversity.  Europe is not a nation. It is a cluster of nations bound by a common Judeo-Christian and humanist culture, but with different national identities.  Last January, British Prime Minister David Cameron delivered a speech in which he said that the EU needed to change.  He spoke about “the lack of democratic accountability,” “the excessive regulation,” and everything that is wrong in the EU.  And there are many things I agree with, but I do not share his belief that the EU’s nature can be changed.  Mr. Cameron believes that the EU can be transformed into—I quote—“a more flexible, adaptable and open European Union.” I do not believe this.  If an organization has as its explicit goal that it strives for “an ever closer union,” it simply cannot start moving in the opposite direction and relinquish the powers it has already acquired.

          We can see how the mechanism works in the way in which the EU deals with the euro zone crisis.  Rather than turning away from the destructive path that has so far been followed, Brussels is using this crisis to enforce an even tighter control over the member states.  The European Union simply cannot be democratized because the whole structure is built on a negation of democracy.  As President Klaus pointed out, there can be no European democracy because there is no European demos—no European people.  There can only be various European democracies—plural!—in the various European nations.  What the EU does is destroy these various democracies.  And, hence, my party’s position is very clear.  We opt for an exit from the European Union.  We want the Netherlands not just out of the Euro zone, but out of the EU altogether—including the so-called Schengen area, the group of 26 European countries that have abolished passport and immigration controls at their common borders.  We reserve the right to reinstall random border controls.

          We want to retain our independence.  We must have home rule.  We want to be the master in our own house!  We want to be the masters over our own borders.  We want to be the masters of our own money.  The Party for Freedom wants the Netherlands to leave the EU and join the European Free Trade Association EFTA.  But here is the good news, my friends.  As I have already indicated, public support of the EU is growing thin by the day.  For months now, my party has been the biggest in the polls.  And we are not the only one.  In Britain, UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, which wants to lead Britain out of the EU, has come second in many by-elections and local and county elections during the past two years.  It is polling an average of a quarter of the votes.  And it is growing.  In France last year, Marine Le Pen scored 18% in the presidential elections.  She has now overtaken President Francois Hollande.  She opposes the EU.  And her popularity is growing.  In Germany, it is still considered far too politically-incorrect to reject the EU.  Nevertheless a new party, the Alternative for Germany, wants to take the country out of the euro zone. And its appeal is growing.

          In Italy, both the country’s largest party, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, and the Lega Nord, the largest party in the North, want a referendum on a return to the Lira, while the Lega Nord has called the EU a failed project.  In Portugal a book advocating quitting the euro has become an instant bestseller.  A proposal that was taboo until recently is now discussed openly, with the country’s Chief Justice personally coming out in support of euro zone exit.  All over Europe, anti-EU feelings are growing.  All over Europe there are patriot parties that reflect the resurgence of nation pride in their countries, whether it be the Netherlands, Britain, France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Flanders, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the other nations currently trapped in the European Union.

          As I said, here is the good news.  Europe might be on the verge of a fundamental change for the better.  We seem to be on the eve of as major and truly historic event.  In Europe, the time is ripe for a glorious democratic and non-violent revolution to preserve our national freedoms and restore our sovereignty.  Exactly one year from now, the 27 member states of the European Union will be holding elections for the European Parliament.  People are finally ready all over Europe to rebel in the ballot box.  They reject the transfer union.  They no longer want to pay for corrupt states.  They reject the supranational experiment of the European Union.  They are ready to cast their votes for a restoration of nation sovereignty.  They are ready to defend their own cultural identity.  All they need is decent political leadership able to lead their nations out of the EU and towards a better future.  America’s first president George Washington has shown that when courageous and democratic politicians are available to lead their country, they can lay the groundwork for a lasting democratic framework that guarantees freedom and prosperity for centuries to come.

          My friends, my party in the Netherlands and several other parties in other European countries are preparing themselves for next year’s electoral landslide.  We can feel the heartbeat of the New Patriotism in Europe.  Winter is over.  Spring is coming. The European Spring is upon us.  And we are getting ready for it.  We are aware of our historical task. That is why I am especially happy to be here in California today because the great inspirer of our upcoming democratic revolution is one of yours.  Your hero, my hero, Ronald Reagan!—who in his presidential Farewell Address said that the achievement he was most proud of in his entire presidency was “the resurgence of national pride.” He called it “The New Patriotism.”  Next year’s European elections offer a unique opportunity to liberate the nations of Europe.  Next Spring’s European elections offer a unique chance to correct the fatal error made by previous politicians who sold away their taxpayer’s money and their national sovereignty to Brussels and delivered their countries to the evils of mass immigration and Islamization.

          As a European politician, I am fully aware of my duty to grab this chance.  The European elections next May must deal a blow to the parties that sold us out to the EU.  Not just in the Netherlands but everywhere in Europe.  That is why I do what is in my power to forge an alliance of democratic parties standing for the restoration of the sovereignty and freedom of their nation.  I want to bring these parties together in a common endeavor to defend our identity and our values.  I do not know whether I will succeed, but I am trying.  It is my conviction that we have to work together because we are all in the same boat. 

          My friends, it is easy to despair.  Time is running out for Britain, for France, for Germany, for the Netherlands, for all the other great nations of Europe.  The present situation in Europe is bleak.  If we do nothing, it will become even bleaker. If we do nothing we will be swept away by economic and demographic disaster.  But it is wrong to despair.  The present is bleak, but the future looks bright because the future depends on our actions.  We are the actors on the stage of history.  That, too, is a lesson from Ronald Reagan, who said: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow.”

          I went to Paris recently to talk to Marine Le Pen and see for myself who she is and what she stands for.  She is not her father.  She is not Anti-Semitic.  She cares about France, its identity and its sovereignty.  I went to Prague to talk to President Klaus.  In the coming weeks and months, I will try to see as many patriot leaders in Europe as possible.  And I always ask them for their views on Israel because Israel is the litmus proof.  The Jewish people did exactly the opposite of what the Europeans did after the Second World War.  They drew the right conclusion.  They realized that without a nation-state of their own there could be no safety for their people.  Without a nation-state, without self-governance, without self-determination there can be no security for a people or preservation of its identity.  This was the insight that led to the Zionists to strive for the re-establishment of the State of Israel. Theodore Herzl said that there had to be a Jewish State in order to encourage—I quote—“a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.”  Indeed, a soul needs a body.  The spirit of a people cannot flourish outside the body of the nation-state. The nation-state is the political body in which we live.  We must preserve and cherish it so that we can pass on to our children our national identity, our democracy, out liberty.

          My friends, what we need today is a Zionism for the nations of Europe.  The Europeans need to follow the example of the Jewish people and re-establish their nation-state.  And that, my dear friends, is why every patriot, apart from being a democrat, by definition also has to be a true friend of Israel.  A patriot cannot be Anti-Semitic.  My friends, the great Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky said about the Jewish people: “We do not have to apologize for anything.  We are a people as all other peoples; we do not have any intentions to be better than the rest. We do not have to account for anybody.  We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change, nor do we want to.”  And so it is for all the peoples.  We do not have to apologize for being good to ourselves.  We do not have to change if we do not want to change.  The peoples of Europe resent the permanent alienation of power from their nation-states.  They care about their nations because they care about democracy and freedom and the wellbeing of their children.  They see their democratic rights and their ancient liberties symbolized in their national flags. They are proud of their flag.  And as long as their pride lasts they will have a future. 

          Let us emphasize this commitment to the resurgence of our national pride with a symbolic gesture. Let us do so by endorsing the Jewish nation-state and move the embassies of our countries from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Let us fly the flags of all the free and proud nations of the world over embassies in Jerusalem, the only true capital of Israel and the cradle of our Judeo-Christian civilization.  Israel deserves our support. Not only because it is the frontline against the totalitarian threat of Islam, but also because it shows how important it is for a people to have its own homeland.

          My friends, today a new threat is confronting us but history shows that we can withstand it if we stand together.  We need an alliance, not only of patriots of Europe, but also an alliance between America and Europe.  We need the help and support of American patriots such as you.  Such an alliance brings out the best in us, and allows us to beat the totalitarian menace.  This was proven by the alliance between Roosevelt and Church in the 1940’s.  It defeated Nazism. It was proven by the alliance between Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980’s.  It defeated Communism.  Today, Islam is a threat to all of us, to Israel, to Europe, and to America but together we can withstand it.  And we have to stand together or we will be defeated.  We have no other choice.  As the great Margaret Thatcher said: “Defeat—I do not recognize the meaning of the world” and neither should we!  



















Σάββατο 15 Ιουνίου 2013

Ο ΑΔΕΛΦΟΣ ΜΑΣ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ ΑΝΑΓΚΗ ΤΗΝ ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΗ ΜΑΣ.










ΠΑΡΑΚΑΛΟΥΜΕ ΟΠΟΙΟΣ ΜΠΟΡΕΙ ΝΑ ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΗΘΕΙ 
ΓΙΑ ΤΟΝ ΑΔΕΛΦΟ ΜΑΣ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟ
Ο ΟΠΟΙΟΣ ΠΕΡΝΑ ΜΙΑ ΠΟΛΥ ΔΥΣΚΟΛΗ ΣΤΙΓΜΗ
ΣΤΗΝ ΖΩΗ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΖΗΤΑ ΤΙΣ ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΕΣ ΜΑΣ.

Τρίτη 11 Ιουνίου 2013

MIDDLE EAST GENOCIDE.


MIDDLE EAST GENOCIDE
by Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters

Dear People,

            Following 9/11, I have done a great deal of study about Islam; its holy book, its teachings, its prophet, and its history since it violently broke onto the states of human history in 632 AD.  I have a copy of the Koran and twenty two plus books on Islam in my personal library.  Those books plus the books of the lives of countless Orthodox martyrs that were put to the sword by the followers of Mohammed ever since the advent of Islam in the seventh century of the Christian era.  This coupled with the many stories I read about my ancestors living under tyranny for four hundred years, makes me qualified to comment on the reality of the danger that Islam poses to our Judeo/Christian civilization in the twenty-first century. One of my internet friends sent me the following essay on the genocide of the Christian and Jewish populations of the Middle East.  It is one of the most comprehensive explanations of the true face of Islam that I have ever read.  I believe that every Christian in America should read what Colonel Peters has to say about Islam.  Again, Colonel Peters is most qualified to speak objectively about Islam because he has seen its face up close and it is not pretty.  May the Creator of this universe shed His Grace upon the leadership of this country so that it will see clearly the enemy that seeks to annihilate us.

+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones, June 7, 2013, USA

            “We are witnesses to murder, and our governments are accomplices.  The relentless destruction of the last remnants of the Middle East’s Judeo-Christian civilization is well under way.  And we are silent.  Captives of political correctness, our governments cater to radical immigrant tantrums as our leaders contort the truth to deny the existence of Islamist terrorism.  Meanwhile, our Middle Eastern allies and foes alike eradicate thousands of years of Jewish and Christian heritage.  Our diplomats treat the persecution as a minor embarrassment, best ignored.

            The banishments and butchery aren’t new, but the breakdown of the last rotting order in the wake of the Arab Spring has empowered psychotic fanatics who do not even value the lives of the faithful, let alone the lives of unbelievers.  This is the end-game, the final persecution of Christians clinging to lands they’ve called home for 2,000 years. Except for Israel and the rarest exceptions elsewhere, Jews are already gone from the realms that nurtured them since the early years of their faith.  A thousand years ago, there were more Christians in the Middle East than in Europe, and Jewish communities prospered from the Nile to the Tigris.  Even a century ago, more than 20% of the region’s population was Christian, and Jews still adorned Arab cities with their talents.  Today, estimates put the Christian population of the region at under 5% and sinking rapidly—and only that high because of the 9 million Copts who remain, for now, in Egypt.

            The birthplace of Christianity, Bethlehem, now has a Muslim majority of as much as 80%--a reversal that coincided with the West’s decision to embrace Palestinian terrorists as partners for peace.  A few decades ago, Lebanon had a Christian majority.  Now, with Christian numbers fading, it’s tugged between Shia Hezbollah and Sunni fanatics. Slighted by the US occupation—as our government pandered to Muslim hardliners—the Christian population of Iraq has fallen by two-thirds over 10 years.  And the most ferocious elements in the Syrian insurgency see no place for Christians in Syria’s future. Even Jordan, struggling to appease its own Islamists, has cracked down on Christian activities.  The Jews, of course, are already long gone.  But the stones of ruined Churches cry out, and vanished synagogues haunt decayed Arab neighborhoods.

            If you read the New Testament or study the formative centuries of Christianity, there are few references to western cities other than Rome.  The names that dot the Epistles of St. Paul and histories of the Church are now in Muslim hands.  Alexandria, Damascus, Tarsus, Carthage, Ephesus, Nicaea, Constantinople and so many others.  Even Mecca and Medina had thriving Christian and Jewish quarters before the first jihads.  But all they possess does not suffice for Islamist fanatics.  Israel must be blotted from the earth and the last Christians must be driven out.  This is an old story, nearing its end. We shroud it in lies to excuse ourselves from taking a stand, even accepting the preposterous Arab claim that Muslim failures today are the fault of the Crusades, a brief interlude when Christians occupied a coastal strip hardly larger than Israel.  In fact, it was the Mongols, then the Muslim Turks, who shattered Arab civilization.  And as for conquests, Muslims occupied Spain in all or part for 800 years—and brutalized the Balkans for half a millennium. The Crusades were hardly a burp.

            We also accept extravagant claims that civilized Arabs rescued the classical texts that formed our civilization.  That’s utter nonsense.  The Arab hordes that burst out of barren Arabia in the 7th century were composed of illiterates. Conquering at a time when the warring Byzantines and Persian empires had exhausted themselves, the new rulers found that tribal practices didn’t suffice to run provinces.  So they took over the existing bureaucracies, staffed by Greek-speaking Christians and Jews.  It was those officials who saved the Greek classics for Europe’s future Renaissance—and their descendants designed Islam’s greatest monuments.  Yes, some Arab rulers came to value learning—but the Arab world never produced a Homer, Plato Sophocles or Thucydides whose appeal transcended their culture.  Islam was a religion spread by war.  It was only a religion of peace where it had conquered.  True, Islam sometimes proved more tolerant of minorities than Europeans, but that was at the zenith of the faith’s power.

            There’s yet another illusion of ours—that Islam is gaining strength.  Islam is on the ropes.  What we’ve seen in the pogroms and outright genocides over the last 150 years has been the spleen of a once-triumphant faith whose practices and values can’t compete in the modern age.  Consider today’s Middle East apart from Israel.  Despite the massive influx of oil wealth, there isn’t one world-class university.  Nothing of quality or technological complexity is manufactured between Morocco and Pakistan.  Not even Saudi Arabia has first-class health-care.  Research is nil.  Patent applications are statistically zero. Women are regarded as lesser beings, wasting half of the region’s human capital.  Not one Arab society is a meritocracy.  And corruption cripples all.  A handful of glitzy hotels and shopping centers do not make a civilization (especially when the merchandise is all imported). 

            Should Islamist fanatics succeed in driving all minorities from the region, they’d be left with a human wasteland of comprehensive failure, seething with hatred and uncontainable violence.  The self-segregation of the Islamic heartlands would be a tragedy for humanity—but, above all, for Muslims.  Birth rates are a red herring.  More mouths to feed are not magic sources of strength in lands of scarcity and poverty.  The Middle East is self-destructive, morally brittle and falling ever further behind a world that’s charging ahead.  Islamists can’t even get terrorism right—today, we’re terrorizing the terrorists.  So they turn on the weak in their midst, the last minorities.

            The initial wave of destruction and slaughter began almost a millennium ago, when the Muslim world first felt itself under threat.  But, more recently, as the West shot to power (thanks to science, learning, hard work, religious tolerance and organization), the creaking Ottoman Empire could not shake off its centuries-old stupor to keep up.  Enraged by failure the Ottomans turned on their most-productive–whose successes outraged yesterday’s fanatics.  Beginning in the 1880’s and accelerating in the 1890’s, pogroms against Armenian Christians stunned Western witnesses. But European leaders turned a blind eye, just as we do today.  So during the First World War, the Young Turks who had seized power decided to finish the job.  It was genocide. At least a million Armenians—perhaps twice that number—were systematically exterminated…although not without being tortured, raped, starved and death-marched first.  The scale of the butchery was such that it obscured other, concurrent genocides, most notable that of Assyrian Christians at the hands of Turks and other Muslims.  Estimates of Assyrian deaths run from just under 300,000 to one million.  Nor did the slaughter stop there.  In British created Iraq, massacres of Christians recurred from 1933 to 1961.   City names we know from our recent wars, such as Mosul, Basra or Tikrit (Saddam’s home town), once were centers of Christian culture, with bishops, cathedrals and monasteries famous for learning.  They are gone. And the last pale ghosts, those Christians holding on to homes their blood knew for centuries, are soon to go. Meanwhile, our president assures us that Islam is a religion of peace.

            Mr. President, go to Iraq and speak those words in the bomb-torn Churches and desecrated graves.  Mr. President, go to Egypt and explain to the brutalized Copts why our embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood government is good for them.  Then go to Israel, Mr. President, where Christians worship freely, and tell the Israelis they should return Palestinian land after Muslims seized the homes that sheltered Jews for 3,000 years.  Explain to Jews why their temples were profaned and obliterated by the adherents of that religion of peace.  Of course, the real tragedy for the Arabs in the last century wasn’t the Naqba, Israel’s close-run struggle to survive attacks by an arc of Arab armies.  The tragedy was that the most-backward, intolerant and indolent Arabs, primitive tribesmen, got most of the oil wealth and used it to spread their Wahhabi cult throughout the Islamic world. The intellectuals in the great Arab cities never had a chance. 

            My wife and I spent our honeymoon on a long trip through Turkey; a country for which I have great, if frustrated affection.  All went fine amid splendid hospitality…until we reached the east.  Along the roadsides in what had been Armenia (the first Christian kingdom, by the way) desolate villages, razed to their foundations, scarred the landscaped between drab modern towns.  When asked what those ruins were, a Turk would avert his eyes and mutter, abandoned. Those villages weren’t abandoned.  They were the site of the last century’s first great genocide.  No one stood up for those inconvenient Christians.”