Don't be surprised: 50 ISIS supporters work as baggage handlers in Brussels
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but for reasons I will explain later in this post, it doesn't surprise me at all. Quoting Brussels police, London's Daily Mail report that there
at least 50 ISIS supporters working as baggage handlers at Brussels Airport.
In an astonishing open letter, the officers said they have warned about the terrorist sympathisers whose security badges give them access to planes, but they remain employed.
The airport police, who are threatening to go on strike because of security deficiencies, also said they have raised the issue of terrorists scouting the airport to plan possible attacks.
The extraordinary claims come after the Mail reported how the family of two of the bombers involved in the attacks last week said they had worked as cleaners at the airport.
‘Some people suspected of having fought in Syria came to the airport as “false tourists”.
We reported their presence but we do not know if anything was done with that information,’ the airport police wrote in their letter.
The officers said they had raised suspicions about certain staff members including those who apparently celebrated after the Paris attacks in November that killed 130 people.
‘When we checked these people, we were surprised more than once. It was men with a radical ideology and a long police history,’ the officers continued.
‘Even today, there are at least 50 supporters of the Islamic state who work at the airport. They have a security badge and have access to the cockpit of a plane.
‘In the past, a number of people had their badges revoked because they had IS sympathies. But clearly not everyone, especially in store personnel, cleaning services and baggage where we find the most suspicious people.’
Police raised concerns about inadequate security at the airport just four days before the attack took place.
The Belgian police union, NSPV, told the interior ministry on Friday 18 March that they would go on strike unless it was improved.
A disaster waiting to happen, God Forbid. So why am I not surprised at it? Long time readers may remember this story. I've mentioned many times on this blog my
July 2003 conversation
with an El Al security person at London's Heathrow Airport, who told me
that since Heathrow employees were involved in a suicide bombing at
Mike's Place in Tel Aviv in April 2003, El Al no longer trusts Heathrow security.
It's not just Heathrow. Until recently - and they may yet go back to it - if you arrived in Europe from the US on an American or European airline and you were connecting to El Al to go to Israel, you had to go down to the tarmac, claim your bags, open them and confirm to the security people that nothing had changed since you checked them in.
Two days after the Brussels attacks, I flew home to Israel from San Francisco. I won't say where I changed on the way, but I had about four hours in a European airport before boarding an El Al flight. I happened to sit down near my flight's gate before it was even posted, and I could hear El Al security speaking very conspicuously in Hebrew to someone down on the tarmac before the equipment arrived. It was clear to me that El Al is still doing its own security in Europe. I did not have to claim my bags in Europe.
So why do the Europeans tolerate the Islamists?
Victor Davis Hanson explains.
Many Westerners are more scared of being labeled as illiberal or
nativist than they are of being unsafe.
Islamic terrorists sense that Westerners are increasingly materialist
rather than spiritual. Europeans in particular are becoming more
secular. Their birthrates are declining. And they seem to believe more
in satisfying their appetites than in finding transcendence through
children and religion.
As a result, jihadists trust that they can cull a handful of
Westerners every few weeks from an otherwise indifferent herd. Their
only challenge is to keep the harvest of Westerners down to a few dozen
and not to get greedy in their bloodlust.
Terrorists seem to believe that as long as they avoid another 9/11-like
massacre, they can continue to take lives and insidiously weaken the
West without awakening it from its morally indifferent slumber.
And they may be right.
And the American elites are similar to the European ones. 'Westerners' includes both Americans and Europeans.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: airport security, Brussels terror attacks, El Al, Europe, Islamic terrorism, multi-culturalism, Victor Davis Hanson
Your tax Shekels at work: Hebrew University paying NIS 4,000 per student for Jews and 'Palestinians' to meet in 'warming' sessions
A couple of days ago, I was sent a link to
this Facebook page, which invites Jewish and Arab students at Hebrew University to meet socially at the Athens Bar, underneath the Frank Sinatra cafeteria (the site of a 'Palestinian' terror attack in ). The meeting is to take place on November 11 (next Wednesday) and is described as the first in a series of meetings of a group called "As One" which was founded at Tel Aviv University two years ago (the group's full Facebook page is
here).
The group was founded to 'break down barriers' between Jews and Arabs, and is described as a forum for Jews and Arabs to meet and discuss their world views. The goal is to create a 'pluralistic, equal and inclusive' student body.
The first meeting will include a 'warming' session in which the group will break off into pairs so that a Jew and an Arab can get to know each other better. The group describes itself as non-political, and is sponsored in cooperation with the Student Union.
But there's more to this than meetings. The notice I pasted above, in Hebrew and Arabic, informs the students that those who attend these 'warming' sessions will each receive a NIS 4,000 (a bit more than $1,000) grant in exchange for attending 84 academic hours' worth of sessions (one three-hour weekly meeting on 28 Tuesdays during the course of the year. The group is limited to 14 students - seven Jews and seven Arabs - and is moderated by a Jewish woman and an Arab woman.
Hebrew University is a public institution, which means that this program is being paid for by the Israeli government, and by you, the Israeli taxpayer (and overseas donor).
For those of you who wonder why this kind of program is problematic, please consider
this article published in the New York Daily News by Dr. Daniel Gordis three weeks ago:
We have a young language instructor at Shalem College in Jerusalem,
where I work. She's a religious Muslim who wears a hijab, lives in one
of the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem and is a graduate student at
Hebrew University. She's fun and warm, and a great teacher — the
students like her a lot.
Late last spring, when things here were quiet, some of the students
mentioned to the department chair that as much as they'd spoken with her
over the past couple of years, they'd never discussed politics. They
were curious what someone like her thought about the conflict in this
region, especially now that she was teaching at an unabashedly Zionist
college, had come to know so many Jewish students and had developed such
warm relationships with them. How does someone like her see things here? How did she think we would one day be able to settle this conflict?
"So ask her," the department chair said. "As long as you speak to her
in Arabic (she's on staff to help our students master the language), you
can talk about anything you want."
They did. They told her that since they'd never discussed the
"situation" (as we metaphorically call it here in Israel), they were
curious how she thought we might someday resolve it.
...
"It's our land," she responded rather matter-of-factly. Stunned, they
weren't sure that they'd heard her correctly. So they waited. But that
was all she had to say. "It's our land. You're just here for now."
What upset those students more than anything was not that a Palestinian
might believe that the Jews are simply the latest wave of Crusaders in
this region, and that we, like the Crusaders of old, will one day be
forced out. We all know that there are many Palestinians who believe
that.
What upset them was that she — an educated woman, getting a graduate
degree (which would never happen in a Muslim country) at a world class
university (only Israel has those — none of Israel's neighbors has a
single highly rated university) and working at a college filled with
Jews who admire her, like her and treat her as they would any other
colleague — still believes that when it's all over, the situation will
get resolved by our being tossed out of here once again.
Even she , who lives a life filled with opportunities that she
would never have in an Arab country, still thinks at the end of the day
the Jews are nothing but colonialists. And colonialists, she believes,
don't last here. The British got rid of the Ottomans, the Jews got rid
of the British — and one day, she believes, the Arabs will get rid of
the Jews.
I have three children who have gone or are going through the Israeli university system. I would not be happy about them having 'warming' sessions with Arab students - certainly not in pairs. Yet my government is paying students to do just that.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Arab-Israeli conflict, Arabic, Hebrew University, multi-culturalism
Ankara (Turkey) Mayor calls Marie Harf a dumb blonde
This is what happens, dear West, when your mind is so multi-culti open that your brains fall out. This is the result of years of coddling Islam. Now, Islam is biting you back. The Mayor of Ankara, Turkey, who answers to Barack Hussein Obama's Best Friend Forever Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says that State Department spokescritter Marie Harf is a
dumb blonde (Hat Tip:
Joshua I).
The mayor of Turkey’s capital has challenged a U.S. State Department
spokesperson by referring to a pro-government media report that slammed
her as “stupid blonde.”
“Come on blonde, answer now,” Ankara
Mayor Melih Gökçek said in a tweet early April 29. The tweet also
included an image from the recent riots in Baltimore, as well as the
photo of Marie Harf and a caption that reads: “Where are you stupid
blonde, who accused Turkish police of using disproportionate force?”
Gökçek
was referring to a report on Ensonhaber.com, a staunchly pro-government
online news website. “U.S. police displayed a harsh attitude against
the activists in Baltimore. But U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie
Harf, who had been repeatedly criticizing Turkey during the Gezi
incidents, is now silent,” it said.
Many national and
international organizations had criticized Turkish police officers for
using disproportionate force during the massive Gezi Park protests in
2013.
I can't say I disagree with his
assessment of Harf. Still, any of Obama's predecessors (with the exception of Jimmy Carter) would have called in the Turkish ambassador over this.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Marie Harf, multi-culturalism, political correctness, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey
