European Political News

A quote from the Italian press agency AKI, 2 April 2008

Swiss football referee Massimo Busacca vowed he would wear a whistle with the Swiss Cross symbol on it during of the Saudi championship on Wednesday, despite anger voiced in the Kingdom at the ‘crusader’ item. [...] Many in Saudi Arabia had called for Busacca to sport a different whistle to avoid offending Muslims.

A quote from the Dutch press Agency NIS, 2 April 2008

A school in Nijmegen yesterday cancelled a cartoon exhibition about discrimination following threats by Muslim pupils. Before this decision was taken, the exhibition was already literally destroyed. Muslim pupils of the ROC Nijmegen, a large school with largely immigrant pupils, pulled cartoons from the walls shortly before these were to be presented officially. They also threatened to set the school alight. The school management decided to call off the opening.

In the exhibition, artists expressed their vision on discrimination in a humorist manner. "My expectation was that the pupils would be able to laugh about it", Ralph Sluis stated. He heads a local anti discrimination organisation. Sluis was the exhibition's coordinator. […] In the cartoon, one niqabed woman tells the other: "You filthy Muslim". The other one replies: "Yes I know, I'll wash".

Fitna can, however, still be seen here:
 

A quote from Life Site News, 26 March 2008

The Dommuseum in Vienna, the art gallery attached to the historic Catholic cathedral of St. Stephen, is running an exhibition of works by a self-avowed Marxist atheist [Alfred Hrdlicka], titled “Religion, Flesh and Power”, that includes depictions of explicit homosexual sex acts in “religious” themed art. Prominent among the works is a rendition of the Last Supper with Christ and His Apostles depicted as homosexuals engaged in an orgy. […]  The director of the Dommuseum, Mr. Bernhard Böhler, said that visitors have asked “in a more or less emotional way,” why the Apostles are depicted copulating. According to the director, the artist responded, “There were no women around”.

Gloria Television made a short video of the works that shows Hrdlicka’s depiction of the flagellation of Christ with a nude Roman soldier performing a lewd act on the Lord's body. […]
 
Vienna’s Cathedral and Diocesan Museum was founded in 1933, and describes itself as “one of the exquisite gems amongst the many museums in Vienna”. It is located adjacent to the Archbishop’s Palace of Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, O.P.

 

A quote from Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 29 March 2008

The Dutch government has distanced itself from the strong condemnation issued by EU chair Slovenia of the anti-Qur’an film Fitna by far-right MP Geert Wilders. Slovenia says the film incites hatred, which in the Netherlands is an offence punishable by law. The Dutch government said the film only aims to hurt people’s feelings. […]

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also has issued a strong condemnation of the anti-Qur’an film. The UN chief said there was no justification for inciting hatred or violence.
 

A quote from the Italian press agency AnsaMed, 28 March 2008

“On behalf of the European Parliament I fully reject the interpretation contained in the film that Islam is a violent religion,” European Parliament President Hans Gert Poettering said […]. Poettering expressed his solidarity with the Dutch government, which “believes in an open and tolerant society”.

“The film’s content seems conceived with the purpose of offending the religious senses of the Muslims in Holland, in Europe and the world,” Poettering said. “The mutual respect and tolerance are the preconditions for Muslims, Christians and people of other faiths or without any to be able to live together in peace.” “Freedom of expression is a fundamental value of the EU and must go side by side with the respect for the profound religious beliefs of the others”.

  

See the film here.

Geert Wilders publishes Fitna The Movie on LiveLeak.com

 

A quote from Charlemagne in The Economist, 27 March 2008

Belgium's linguistic communities pay a high price for sticking together, resorting to fudges that range from the silly to the destructive. Put like that, you can see Belgium's new government not as a relief, but as an awful warning. A political union hatched together by a fractious elite, and answerable only to itself, is not a model for anybody to follow.

A quote from Yves Daoudal at his blog, 26 March 2008 [English translation here]

The [French] National Assembly resumed work on a bill that reiterates three directives from the European Union on the fight against discrimination. […] You will remember that the European Commission demanded in particular that France define indirect discrimination and specified that it is forbidden to enjoin someone to practice discrimination.

And in the first article they did as they were told:

An indirect discrimination constitutes a disposition, a criterion, or a practice that is neutral in appearance, but which is capable of causing, for one of the reasons mentioned in the preceding line, a particular disadvantage for persons in relation to other persons, unless this disposition, this criterion, or this practice is objectively justified by a legitimate purpose and the means to achieve this purpose are necessary and appropriate.

Discrimination includes the act of enjoining someone to adopt a behavior forbidden by Article 2.

You will note that the scope of “indirect discrimination” is so wide that they had to add a restriction: discrimination is not discrimination when it is “objectively” justified...
 
The language of the directives is so absurd that in the section on gender discrimination it was necessary to add a series of derogations indicating that in a certain number of areas “different treatment” because of sex can be justified...

A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 27 March 2008

According to 56 percent of the Dutch, Islam is a threat to the Dutch identity. As well, 57 percent named admitting large groups of immigrants as "the biggest mistake in Dutch history".

A quote from Lawrence Auster at his weblog, 25 March 2008

Muslims are a “disaster” for us. That’s what [Mark] Steyn said.

Now, if it is an illegal act of hatred to stir up animosity against a group, then to say that a certain group represents a “disaster” for us would certainly seem to fit that description. […] If there is any legitimate scope for anti-hate laws, statements such as Steyn’s would seem to come within it.

The problem with the anti-hate laws is that they assume that no group can be bad for us, that all groups are good for us. That is of course the very belief that makes it wrong to stir up hatred or opposition against anyone. It is a core premise of liberalism that all men are naturally good, that unregenerate evil and unappeasable enemies do not exist. But what if the liberal premise is not true? What if certain groups are not good for us, but bad for us? What if there is a certain group that is in fact a disaster for us? In that case, a law forbidding us to argue that the group is a disaster for us would render us helpless to defend ourselves from it. […]
 
 
A quote from a comment at the Samizdata blog, 10 March 2007

Mark Steyn did not “go quiet” – he got forced out of British newspapers. […]

Actually Steyn is a libertarian in many ways […] But he is a social conservative. Not in a censorship way - but in the sense that he supports, traditional culture, the family, religion (and so on).

People make a mistake with the name “Steyn”, it is not Jewish in the case of Mark Steyn (although, of course, many Jews are social conservatives – to judge Jews on the basis of Hollywood Jews is a mistake), it is Flemish. [This is not correct. Steyn’s father is Canadian, his mother is Flemish].

Many of the Flemish people are social conservatives, and it is not just a question of Mark Steyn having a Flemish name – he spent his childhood summers in a small town in Flanders (a town that is now falling to the Muslims and where some Flemish people have been killed by them).

The Flemish are denounced (by their enemies) for being “pro Nazi” (as so many of them hated the governent of Belgium), but they had a better record than almost anyone else of hiding Jews during World War II

At the risk of a “cultural sterotype” the Flemish (what the English used to call “the Flemings”) are a stubborn people – quick to take the unfashionable point of view, and the best way of (for example) to make them say a certain word is to tell them that they may not say it.

The Flemish know a lot about nonracial demographic conflict. They have been in conflict with the French speakers (racially no different from them) for centuries.

Normally the French speakers controlled the government (and most other things) in what is now Belgium in – so dislike of the “the power of the elite” is not something he just gets from being a conservative in Canada or the United States – it is something his family would have hated long before they set foot in North America (hatred of the elite did not mean hatred of high culture – if anything the Flemish loved it more than the people who, in their eyes, controlled everything). […]

When Mark Steyn says he could not care less what skin colour people are, he is concerned about about a cultural struggle, I believe him – one thing the people of Flanders do not tend to be accused of is being liars.

Steyn’s argument is that libertarianism (or any other political doctrine) can not prosper in a culture that it is violently hostile to it

A quote by Robert Spencer at Jihadwatch, 24 March 2008

By now the idea is spreading all over the place that there is no movie Fitna, and never will be - that Geert Wilders simply announced that there would be to expose Islamic intolerance. […]

And look what we have seen: for the mere announcement that he was making a film quoting the Qur'an and showing Muslims acting violently in accord with its words, we have seen threats from several Muslim countries, threats from Al-Qaeda, demonstrations in the Netherlands and around the world, and quailing dhimmitude from the august leaders of Europe, as they cringed before the anticipated Islamic wrath, and from Network Solutions, as they pulled Wilders's site while it was almost entirely devoid of content.

Note, meanwhile, that hardly a day goes by on which some Muslims somewhere do not commit an act of violence that they deem to be justified by the words of the Qur'an. […] Muslims in the West issue vague denunciations of “terrorism,” but never specifically explain whom they actually believe to be a terrorist, and there are no protests, no threats, no nothing against those who have supposedly “hijacked” their religion.

A quote from Corriere della Sera, 23 March 2008

An outspoken muslim author and critic of Islamic fundamentalism who converted to Christianity at the hands of Pope Benedict said on Sunday he realised he was in greater danger but he has no regrets. “I realise what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith” said Magdi Allam.

Writing in Sunday’s edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said: “... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual”. […]

“Conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Islam,” Cardinal Giovanni Re told an Italian newspaper. Still, Allam’s highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy’s Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it. […]

Allam defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith. He said he made his decision after years of deep soul searching and asserted that the Catholic Church has been “too prudent about conversions of Muslims”.

A quote from Life Site, 19 March 2008

A committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has now officially recommended that those few countries in Europe that still restrict abortions should guarantee unrestricted access to abortion. The draft resolution from the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men says countries should "decriminalise abortion, if they have not already done so." The Committee also recommended that sex education be made mandatory for young people. […]

The Committee criticised even those legal restrictions that did not specifically prohibit abortion, saying, "The repeated medical consultations required, the time allowed for changing one's mind and the waiting time for the abortion all have the potential to make access to abortion more difficult, or even impossible in practice". […]

The Council of Europe, distinct from the Council or Parliament of the European Union, does not have legal authority under European treaties to require compliance, but nonetheless is an influential part of the European legal machinery and its recommendations are taken seriously in member states and the drafting of EU laws.

Like most international and pan-European bodies, the Council of Europe is known among life and family advocates for its strong secularist bias and support for the full programme of the abortion and pan-sexualist movement and anti-Christian bias.

A quote from Aftenposten, 17 March 2008

The Norwegian government put forth a long-expected gay marriage bill on Friday, clearing the way for homosexual couples to secure the same marriage rights as heterosexuals. […] The new government minister in charge of children's and family issues, Anniken Huitfeldt of the Labour Party, called the proposed law "an historic step towards equality." […] Two of her colleagues in Norway's left-centre government coalition, however, exercised their right to dissent, and refused to endorse all portions of the controversial measure. Transport Minister Liv Signe Navarsete and the minister in charge of local government, Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa, wouldn't support the measure's proposal to also allow gay couples access to state-funded programs that help couples conceive children. They also refused to support proposed changes in biotechnology laws.

A quote from the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, in The Daily Mail, 17 March 2008

Over the years we’ve had murders, we’ve had assaults on clergy. Therefore we have over the past few years been beefing up our security and operations. But of course if you go out into the streets, if you belong to the community, if you’re a part of it, then you are vulnerable.

A quote from The Irish Times, 15 March 2008

Poland’s prime minister vowed yesterday to do his utmost to avoid a referendum in his country on the European Union’s reform treaty after being grilled by anxious EU leaders at a summit. […] Any referendum in Poland could trigger calls for similar plebiscites in other EU nations, notably Britain, and delay ratification across the bloc. Only Ireland is bound by its Constitution to hold a vote.

A quote from Swiss Info, 10 March 2008

According to Lathan Suntharalingam, a [Swiss] local politician campaigning against [forced] marriages, it is an integration problem which can't be solved through "multicultural do-gooding". […] There is evidence that such unions are taking place in Switzerland. The only study on the issue so far, by the Surgir foundation in Lausanne in 2006, estimates that there are around 17,000 forced marriages in the country. A third of those involved are under 18 years old, and the practice also affects men as well as women, Surgir found.

A quote from the minutes of the European Parliament’s Conference of Presidents (CoP), 6 March 2008:

CoP - 06/03/2008 - Item 4.4: Statements by the President: Movie on caricatures

The CoP heard Mr Blokland announcing the likelihood of the publication of a movie on caricatures on Islam by Mr Wilders on 28 March. It decided not to offer any space in the European Parliament for such a movie.

 

A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 8 March 2008

The police's National Diversity Expertise Centre (LECD) wants sex allowed in all public parks in the Netherlands. The police institute has advised the cities to follow the example of Amsterdam, [...] LECD is now calling on Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht to tolerate ‘cruising’ gays in all their parks. In a letter to the administrators of the three cities, the police institute says that by regulating sex in public, the safety of homosexuals from ‘queer-bashers’ can be better guaranteed.
 
A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 8 March 2008

Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders has given up on his efforts to persuade a Dutch television broadcaster to show his Koran film. Not a single broadcaster wants to show the film in full and without breaks, the MP confirmed Friday. […] It is also by no means certain that the film can be shown in the Nieuwspoort international press centre (IPC) in The Hague. The IPC wants Wilders to pay for the costs of extensive security measures, while nearby shops are threatening him with damages claims for loss of sales on the day – likely 28 March – that he wants to show the film in the IPC.

Wilders wants to depict his view in the short film that the Koran is a Fascist book that incites to hatred. The film will definitely be shown on the website fitnathemovie.com, for which the server is in the US.

A quote from Aftenposten, 7 March 2008

The crime rate in Oslo has been growing at an alarming rate and recent statistics show the Norwegian capital had 20 percent more robberies last year than in 2006.

See also:

Rape in Oslo, 13 December 2006

Norway: The Country of Peace Meets the Religion of Peace, 18 September 2007

A quote from the C-Fam website, 6 March 2008

A split in the European Union (EU) over abortion continued to shape negotiations at the UN this week during the annual meeting of the Commission at the Status of Women (CSW) in New York.  Last week non-EU member Norway, likely acting as a stalking horse for pro-abortion EU countries, proposed inclusion of the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” in the draft agreed conclusions. Norway’s move caused increasing dissent among EU members. […] While the majority of the EU member states strongly supported inclusion of “sexual and reproductive rights” in the document, Poland, Ireland and Malta broke ranks from their EU colleagues and called for the deletion of the Norwegian language.

A quote from The Local (Sweden), 6 March 2008

Sweden's state-run pharmacy chain Apoteket has announced that it is to begin selling sex toys in order to satisfy demand from customers.

A quote from MaltaMedia News, 1 March 2008

Malta and Poland broke rank with the European Union (EU) on the question of abortion [...] The dissension occurred at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) [...] The reaction of Malta and Poland happened after the EU tried to shift the meeting’s agenda to include the right to abortion. [...]

Malta firmly continues to maintain that any position taken or recommendations made regarding women’s empowerment and gender equality should not in any way create an obligation on any party to consider abortion as a legitimate form of reproductive health rights, services or commodities.” Radoslaw Mleczko, the Polish Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, told the gathering of UN Member States that Poland generally aligned itself with the EU but that any EU reference to sexual and reproductive health could not include abortion.

The split in the European Union is significant because the EU hardly ever splits on questions of social policy at the UN.

A quote from Yale Daily News, 29 February 2008

Europe is a dying continent. I say this not as a criticism, but rather as a statement of fact. In Europe, an acute failure to produce the next generation has created a looming demographic crisis. […] Given present trends, within about a century, Europe will cease to be a white, Christian continent.

No one wants to talk about racial or religious issues, but it merits consideration that the vast majority of immigrants to the European Union are Muslims from North Africa, the Middle East and Turkey. By the year 2150, barring a major shift in either native European fertility rates or immigrant nationality, Europe will be a largely Muslim continent with whites and Christians as minorities composing less than 20 percent of the population. Much of Europe has come to terms with that possibility, but a significant portion of the population is uncomfortable about the prospect of a change in Europe's continental character, warranting wider spread support for xenophobic political parties across the continent.

Nicolas Sarkozy brought up the name of André Malraux in a recent interview with Le Parisien. Malraux was a well-known name in the 1960's in America. Novelist, art critic, adventurer, he became Charles de Gaulle's first minister of culture and it was in that capacity that he met President John F. Kennedy and Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy when they visited France in 1961, and later in 1963 in Washington, when Malraux arranged for the Mona Lisa to be brought to America for a special exhibit. Read the details of those "Camelot" days here.

President Sarkozy was careful not to quote another famous passage by Malraux on Islam that has made the rounds of the French websites many times over. It is posted in French at Armées (along with a picture of Malraux on the cover of Time):

The outstanding event of our time is the violence of the advance of Islam. Underestimated by most of our contemporaries, the ascendancy of Islam is analogically comparable to the beginnings of communism at the time of Lenin.

The consequences of this phenomenon are still unpredictable. At the outset of the Marxist revolution, people thought they could stem its tide through partial solutions. Neither Christianity nor organizations such as corporations or labor unions found a solution.

Likewise today the Western world is hardly prepared to confront the problem of Islam. In theory, the solution does indeed seem extremely difficult. Perhaps it would be possible in practice, if, limiting ourselves to the French aspect of this question, the solution were thought out and applied by a genuine statesman.

The current known facts of the problem lead one to believe that the various forms of Muslim dictatorship are soon to be established successively throughout the Arab world. When I say "Muslim", I'm thinking less of religious structures than of the temporal structures that flow from Mahomet's doctrine. As of now, the sultan of Morocco is out-dated and Bourguiba will only stay in power by becoming a dictator of sorts. Perhaps partial solutions would have been sufficient to stem the tide of Islam, if they had been applied in time...Now it is too late! The "wretched ones" have nothing to lose. They would rather preserve their wretchedness within the Muslim community. Their fate will probably not change. We have a vision of them that is too Western. To the benefits we claim to be able to bring them, they prefer the future of their race. Black Africa will not remain much longer untouched by this process. All that we can do is to become conscious of the gravity of the phenomenon and to try to slow down its progression.

André Malraux, June 3, 1956

Note: Bourguiba was president of Tunisia until 1987.

Notice that he points to the need for a "genuine statesman". One can only imagine what he would think of Sarkozy. He also limits the spread of Muslim dictatorships to the "Arab world." Possibly in 1956 he did not envisage the spread of Islam into Europe and America (it was almost unthinkable back then). Or possibly he did somehow foresee that the spread of violent Islam in the Arab countries would eventually spill over into France. Which is why he warns of the need to stop its progress.

Malraux was no angel. He led a tumultuous and tragic life, engaged in left-wing politics, but eventually denounced communism. His first marriage ended in divorce, his second wife was killed in an accident as were his two sons, his third marriage also ended. He became addicted to drugs towards the end of his life. But he established a reputation as a man of many talents, a kind of Renaissance figure who did not indulge in false hope or Utopian fantasies. His most famous novel is Man's Fate (La Condition Humaine).

A quote from The Daily Mail, 27 February 2008

They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 20 vulnerable children. But Eunice and Owen Johns [from Derby, England] have been forced to abandon their good work because they refuse to tell children as young as ten that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. […] Mrs Johns, 59, a Sunday school teacher, said:

We started going through the assessment and were told that there was new legislation. They were asking: “What would you do if a 10 year-old child came home and said they had been picked on because they were homosexual?” They said, “Do you know you would have to tell them that it’s ok to be homosexual?”

But I said I couldn’t do that because my Christian beliefs won't let me. Morally I couldn’t do that, spiritually I couldn’t do that. I said I was there to explain that I would not compromise my faith. I said I would have to tell the child that as I am a Christian I don't believe in homosexuality but I can give as much love and security as I possibly can.

Mr Johns, 63, a metal polisher, said:

I would love any child, black or white, gay or straight. But I cannot understand why sexuality is an issue when we are talking about boys and girls under the age of ten.

[…] Sara Bolton, Derby City Council cabinet member for children and young people, said:

This is an unfortunate case. But these laws are in place for the good of the children in our care.

A quote from Victor Davis Hanson in the German weekly Junge Freiheit, 27 February 2008

[A]fter the fall of the Soviet Union, you [=Europe] diverged onto a secularized, affluent, leisured, socialist, and pacifist path, where in the pride and arrogance of the Enlightenment you were convinced you could make heaven on earth – and would demonize as retrograde anyone who begged to differ. Now you are living with the results of your arrogance: while you brand the U.S. illiberal, it grows its population, diversifies and assimilates, and offers economic opportunity and jobs; although, for a time you’ve become wealthy – given your lack of defense spending, commercial unity, and protectionism – but only up to a point: soon the bill comes due as you age, face a demographic crisis, become imprisoned by secular appetites and ever growing entitlements. […]

If we [=America] withdrew our troops, and cut the E.U. loose, then it would see that in a world without America at its side, creepy people like Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Dr. Zawahiri are not just bogeymen of a U.S. President. […] The irony is that while Europeans periodically chest-pound and loudly vie with each other in hating the United States for various alleged sins (fill in the blanks from global warming to Iraq), slowly, insidiously we in the U.S. are drifting away from Europe, […]

[Americans] are the naive ones. They spend billions trying to jump start democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, while being blamed as “imperialists.” They keep the peace on the high seas, whether in the Persian Gulf, the Aegean, or the Korea Sea, and run up enormous deficit in the international free commerce that ensues. And they open their markets to almost anyone, and run on enormous massive debts that encourage a China or India to enter the international system of commerce and trade. […]

[Europe’s] present notion of utopia – minimal defense, socialism, atheism and agnosticism, continental governance – is a prescription for disaster. When the individual believes in nothing transcendent, has no allegiance to a notion of nationhood, and believes nothing is worth sacrificing for, stasis sets in, lethargy follows, and an effete citizenry becomes as vocal in condemnation as it is impotent in matching deed with word. […]

Being powerful and rich, but weak militarily means all your eggs are in the U.N. basket, and such multilateral associations are as corrupt as they are weak – rusty chains that reflect the vulnerability of their autocratic weak links. So you offer low-hanging, enticing overripe fruit to anyone who chooses to pick it – whether radical Islam, Iran, Putin’s Russia, or China.

And you demonize the United States for our skepticism of such questionable multilateral institutions; but we suspect that your critiques are not based on principle, but the necessity of collective defense and decision-making in lieu of a credible military. How sad that you hate the liberal nation that defends you, and appease the illiberal forces who would intimidate or destroy you.

A quote from The Daily Mail, 29 February 2008

You can get away with a lot as President of the French Republic. […] But one thing is absolutely out of the question. You cannot make the entire nation feel foolish. And yet that is how millions of French voters feel […] Already [Nicolas Sarkozy’s] behaviour has become so unpredictable that one Spanish newspaper has described the French President as "sick", while the media coverage at home has accused Sarkozy of "turning the country into a magnificent toy for a child" or of "staging Desperate Housewives at the Elysee Palace". […] [Sarkozy’s] characteristically impulsive behaviour confirmed [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel’s low opinion of the President, whom she considers to be disrespectful, overfamiliar, hyperactive and boastful. When she heard about his passion for Carla Bruni she even nicknamed him "President Duracell", after the long-life battery.

A quote from Srdja Trifkovic at the Chronicles website, 26 February 2008

The Palestinians “should follow Kosovo’s example and unilaterally declare independence” if peace talks with Israel fail, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide to the PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared on February 20. “Kosovo is not better than Palestine,” he added. If the United States and the majority of the European Union “have embraced the independence of Kosovo, why shouldn’t this happen with Palestine as well?”

Dr. [Condoleezza] Rice, Mr. [Under-Secretary of State Nicholas] Burns et al would reply “because we say so,” but Israeli analysts are not impressed. Col. Shaul Shay, an expert on Islamic radicalism at BESA (Begin-Sadat) Center at Bar-Ilan, thus notes that when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended, terrorist infrastructures remained there and served as a basis for the Islamic terror activities in Kosovo:

Today, the Balkans serve as a forefront on European soil for Islamic terror organizations, which exploit this area to promote their activities in Western Europe, and other focal points worldwide ... [T]he establishment of an independent Islamic territory including Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania along the Adriatic Coast, is one of the most prominent achievements of Islam since the siege of Vienna in 1683. Islamic penetration into Europe through the Balkans is one of the main achievements of Islam in the twentieth century.

The main danger, as he and other prominent Israelis see it, is that the U.S. recognition of Kosovo endorses the principle that a solution to an intractable political and territorial quarrel can and should be imposed by outside countries,
 
 
A quote from Julia Gorin at politicalmavens.com, 22 April 2007
 
Below is an exclusive report from Tuesday’s open hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs:
 
At the hearing, titled “The Outlook for the Independence of Kosova” (the Islamic and dhimmi spelling of the province), Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) – Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee – said the following:

Just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led government[s] in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. The United States’ principles are universal, and in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.

[...] Clinton holdover Nicholas Burns, State Dept. Under Secretary for Political Affairs, was the special Witness. He reiterated the U.S. position that immediate independence without standards or compromise is the only acceptable solution, because the growing violence is what guides our Kosovo policy:

It’s our view that we have now [to] act resolutely in the coming weeks…we looked at this very carefully with our European friends. And we said, are we better off supporting a solution in the spring of 2007 or delaying a year or two? We became convinced in looking at it, all of us, that the prospects for violence would be greater if we waited. Because 92 to 94 percent of the people who now live in Kosovo are Albanian Muslims. They have been waiting a long, long time…And so we the international community must act.

The State Dept. representative has just asserted that explosive Muslims will attack if we don’t give them what they want – now. He also didn’t miss the opportunity to invoke the usual Nazi imagery in reference to the Serbs — who have been getting hacked to pieces over the past eight years by Albanians — while praising the Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku, an indicted Serb-slaughterer, as “impressive” and “worthy”.
 
[...] Amid this theater of the absurd, Diane Edith Watson (D-CA) stood out as a rare voice of dissent on Kosovo:

I know the undersecretary will probably stress how unique the situation regarding Serbia and Kosovo is. But I would ask my colleagues to reflect on this for a moment and think about the reality of this statement. There are a dozen such unique situations around the globe, yet I do not see the United States advocating the independence of Somaliland from Somalia, the independence of Taiwan from China, nor the independence of Kurdistan from Iraq or Turkey […]

Burns’ appalling response to Watson’s concerns:

…Kosovo is different… and we believe that achieving the independence of Kosovo will not lead others to justify similar treatment from the United Nations or from the United States itself.

 
[…] As Sherrie Gossett wrote recently in The New Individualist magazine:

In October 2005, some six years after Kosovo became a UN protectorate, Norwegian Ambassador to NATO Kai Eide published a review of how Kosovo was meeting UN-set standards. “With regard to the foundation of a multi-ethnic society,” Eide wrote, “the situation is grim.” …The report also cited “widespread illegal occupation of property.” Prosecution of serious crimes was said to be hindered by “family or clan solidarity and by the intimidation of witnesses as well as of law enforcement and judicial officials.” Failure to prosecute crimes targeting minorities was said to result in a climate of “impunity.”

The piece de resistance on Tuesday came from Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY):

And I want to in a bipartisan fashion commend President Bush and the administration, President Clinton as well. Both presidents understand that this issue needed and needs to be resolved. And the president, President Bush, has been steadfast in saying that this really needs to be done now.
 
…And I couldn’t agree with you more, Mr. Burns, that the possibility of violence if we delay is something that increases as we delay. People there have been waiting for years, and now really is the time.

 
At the height of the March, 2004 Kosovo pogrom against Serbs, in which another 4,000 Serbs fled the province and scores of homes, churches and monasteries were set ablaze, Engel – who has said he wants to be the first U.S. lawmaker to stand on independent Kosovo soil – addressed the House of Representatives:

When there is no resolution of the final status, the people in a country become restless because they see no future… Right now there is rampant unemployment. Right now there is very little hope for a future…Self-determination and, ultimately, independence for the people of Kosovo is the only solution. When people do not see a chance for self-determination, tensions fester beneath the surface when you do not move to resolution… What we have seen…is this ridiculous plan called standards before status.

These are the same words used to excuse or justify terrorism against Israelis. For a Jewish congressman to be advocating statehood before standards is interesting indeed. Let the record show that Engel is for rewarding terror with independence. Palestine, take note.
 
Also from Engel at Tuesday’s hearing: “[T]he Kosovars are pro-American, so pro-American it isn’t funny, and they will be a strong ally of the United States and of NATO and of the European Union.”
 
But an officially sanctioned narco-terrorist gangster state that was won with material help from al Qaeda will hurt us as much as it will pretend to help. Are we really supposed to operate under “the illusion that concessions to violence and the threat of violence can promote the creation of a moderate Muslim democracy?” asks Jim Jatras of the American Council for Kosovo.
 
Burns joined in this charade:

…There’s a street named after President Clinton; there’s a street named after Congressman Engel, and I hope there’ll be a street… named after President Bush because this has been a bipartisan effort, Democrats and Republicans.

There are also avenues named for Bob Dole and Wesley Clark, two highly prized Albanian purchases. But when good will is acquired by doing someone’s bidding, pro-Americanism is won for the wrong reasons, and the gratitude will turn on a dime the moment we stop furthering that party’s agenda. In Kosovo, it began happening as early as 2000, when the Kosovars started calling for the UN and NATO “occupiers” to get out. Nor do the American and British flags hanging upside-down from Pristina’s Victory Hotel bode well for the future of pro-Americanism in “Kosova”.

A quote from Carl Mortished in The [London] Times, 27 February 2008

Your greed is not good, say Britain and Germany, pointing accusing fingers at thousands of very wealthy clients of LGT, the Liechtenstein bank at the centre of a row over tax havens. But bend your ear and you might just hear, beneath the cries of moral indignation over alleged tax evasion, a compromise – sotto voce. Greed is not good, say Europe's finance ministers, unless we can have 40 per cent.

The state is on the march, in search of ever more cash to oil its creaking machinery. It will even buy stolen property – in this case the client details of thousands of LGT customers, hawked by a thieving employee – if it leads to another treasure trove. Britain invented income tax to pay for the war against Napoleon. Two hundred years on, money is again needed to finance foreign wars, to fund the distribution of bread to the poor and to pay for Olympic circuses that entertain. The hunger of government for more of the national cake is acute and it is becoming a problem.