Tag Archive for: Italy

Jürgen Habermas, Celebrated German Philosopher, Defends Israel’s Response to Hamas

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While such deep thinkers as Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters denounce tiny Israel, for daring to defend itself so fiercely against the Hamas murderers, the noted German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has come out foursquare for the Jewish state’s military response. Among the thinking classes, his words carry weight. More on Habermas’ statement on Israel, Hamas, Germany, and antisemitism, can be found here:

Leading German Philosopher Jürgen Habermas Declares Support for Israel, Opposition to Resurgent Antisemitism 

by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, November 15, 2023:

One of Germany’s most storied political theorists has issued a statement supporting Israel’s military response to the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, decrying as well the surge of antisemitism in Germany during the intervening period.

The current situation, created by the cruel attack by Hamas and Israel’s response to it, has led to a cascade of moral and political statements and demonstrations,” Jürgen Habermas observed in the statement published on Monday on the website “Normative Orders,” which is devoted to philosophy and social theory. As well as Habermas, the scholars Nicole Deitelhoff, Rainer Forst, and Klaus Guenther all endorsed the statement.

“We believe that with all the conflicting views that are expressed, there are some principles that should not be disputed. They underlie the well-understood solidarity with Israel and Jews in Germany,” the statement continued….

The statement also urged Israel to observe the “principles of proportionality” in its response. However, the authors were in no doubt that the Hamas pogrom was carried out “with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general,” adding: “Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgment slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel’s actions.”

The statement emphasized that “Israel’s actions in no way justify antisemitic reactions, especially not in Germany. It is intolerable that Jews in Germany are once again exposed to threats to life and limb and have to fear physical violence on the streets.” Postwar Germany’s commitment to preserving both Jewish life and a secure existence for the State of Israel “is fundamental to our political life,” the statement asserted.

Commenting on the statement, the Italian columnist Ricardo Canaletti said that it was “difficult to overestimate Jürgen Habermas’ contribution to contemporary thought.”…

Canaletti noted that when “Habermas claims that the Federal Republic of Germany is also based on respect for the integrity of a state of Israel, he is saying something that in Italy, in a month of war, we haven’t heard yet.” He argued that Italy, like Germany, needed to base its postwar existence as a democratic republic on an awareness of its fascist period, which involved “racial laws, the hunt for Jews, and the political alliance with the Third Reich.”

Read more.

Canaletti reminds his readers that Italy too had its infamous “leggi razziali” (Racial Laws), its own history of persecution and murder of Jews during the Fascist period, when Jews were rounded up and sent to death camps in Poland, and yet this part of Fascist Italy’s history is often overlooked by Italians themselves, who identify murderous antisemitism only with the Nazis. Canaletti thinks that if they were made keenly aware of such events, they would place the defense of Israel among their government’s highest priorities.

In Germany, Habermas’ statement on Israel, his insistence that Israel must be supported, and that its military response has in his view been proportionate, will mean a great deal to the thinking classes.

AUTHOR

HUGH FITZGERALD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Italy: A great example of why I take mainstream media coverage of populism with a grain of salt

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The major newspapers seem to believe that the superiority of their political opinions is a self-evident fact that needs no explanation.

There was a time when journalists from respected media outlets like the BBC, the New York Times and the Guardian, at least made a sincere effort to distinguish between reporting the facts and reporting one’s political opinions. But that era is long over. We now live in a world in which journalists blithely dismiss political movements they disagree with as “extreme,” “hard-right,” and “fascistic,” as though the superiority of their own political opinions was a self-evident fact that needed no explanation.

This is perhaps nowhere more clear than in the response of Western mainstream media – in particular media that embrace progressive-leftist positions – to the prospect that Giorgia Meloni will be Italy’s first-ever female prime minister. From the tone of that response, one would think that Meloni was advocating the abolition of democracy, the abrogation of rule of law, or some sort of Putin-style military incursion into neighbouring territories.

Here is a sample of mainstream coverage of Giorgia Meloni’s election:

  • BBC: “Ms Meloni is widely expected to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War Two. That will alarm much of Europe…”
  • CNN: “Giorgia Meloni claims victory to become Italy’s most far-right prime minister since Mussolini.”
  • El País: “The strong result for the extreme-right obliges the EU to be smart in how it manages its relationship with Meloni.”
  • The Guardian: “Giorgia Meloni is a danger to Italy and the rest of Europe.”
  • New York Times: “The country’s hard turn to the right has sent shock waves across Europe after a period of stability in Italy led by Mario Draghi.”

Meloni, president of the conservative Fratelli d’Italia, or “Brothers of Italy”, party, swept to victory in Italy’s recent elections, and is now poised to become Italy’s first ever female prime minister. She is undoubtedly a controversial figure, and her style can be a bit shrill.

She defends a range of positions that are now viewed with disdain by many Western politicians and journalists, such as the primacy of the natural family, the importance of maintaining a birth-rate above replacement level, the ideal of heterosexual marriage, the sanctity of human life, the value of national identity and culture, the positive value of religion, the opposition to transgender operations for children, and the rejection of illegal immigration.

On the other hand, being a bit shrill or abrasive hardly makes a political leader a threat to democracy or a harbinger of political instability. And let’s not forget that the positions defended by Meloni were perceived as perfectly normal in many parts of the West a few decades ago, so it is hard to see why they would now put her outside the pale of civilisation or make her a serious “threat” to Europe.

The media’s intense hostility to Meloni, and by extension, the popular movement that brought her to power, can be explained by one simple fact: her opinions on “hot button” issues have put her directly at odds with the progressive-leftist movement that now dominates social media, mainstream media, EU bureacracy, and the Biden Administration. And that, for many self-styled progressives, puts her far beyond the moral and political pale.

One does not have to support Italy’s newly elected prime minister or her opinions to understand that mainstream media’s coverage of her is nothing short of reactionary. Progressive-minded journalists seemed unwilling or unable to understand how opinions different to their own could end up resonating with a sufficient number of Italians to propel the leader of a conservative, pro-life party into power.

Indeed, the crude, reactionary coverage of Meloni’s victory was quite reminiscent of the coverage of Trump’s election – a mix of perplexity and indignation at the prospect that a large number of voters might actually hold opinions radically at odds with those of progressive-leftist journalists and politicians. The only explanation that occurred to progressive-leftist analysts, in both cases, was that the voters in question were either ignorant or manipulated.

If journalists report on political elections almost exclusively as ideological cheer-leaders, dismissing opposing opinions as part of a “hard right” agenda that menaces the future of democracy, then they are not doing their jobs. They are not actually attempting to understand social reality as it is, nor are they attempting to empathise, even remotely, with voters who wear “the other shirt.” It becomes impossible for them to understand the motives and points of view of their fellow citizens, and it becomes impossible for them to respect the opinions of citizens who see the world differently from themselves.

When journalists become completely tone-deaf to opinions at odds with progressive-leftist principles, or automatically dismiss such opinions as anathema to liberal democracy, their coverage of political events loses any appearance of impartiality and their work becomes largely irrelevant to a large swathe of the citizenry. Once journalists enter into “campaign” mode, many citizens tune out or treat their pronouncements with a grain of salt.

And rightly so.

This article has been republished with permission from the author’s Substack, The Freedom Blog.

AUTHOR

David Thunder

David Thunder is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society. More by David Thunder

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Italy: Populist Brothers of Italy Win Sweeping Majority, Smeared by Globalists as ‘Fascist’

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Italian voters have spoken: enough of globalist chaos; environmental lunacy creating a bad economy built on an unrealistic green agenda; open-door, unvetted immigration; rigid Covid mandates; and diminishing personal freedom. Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy coalition party has captured a sweeping majority in Italy. It’s being widely smeared as the most right-wing government since Mussolini. Other coalition members include Matteo Salvini’s League, noted for its opposition to an open-door immigration policy, and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

Here’s what Italy can immediately expect, based on the stated policies of the incoming government:

A review of rules on public spending and economic governance. Meloni has stated that her focus will be on “investments to boost Italy’s chronically weak economic growth but pledged responsibility in managing its debt-laden public accounts.” And as a fiscal conservative, she added: “I am very cautious.” She has also criticized the EU for its lack of foresight in pursuit of a green economy at any cost, accusing the EU of failing “to craft policies that would ensure available, affordable energy supplies. Sky-high energy prices, she declares, “have forced businesses and families down to their knees.”

The Brothers of Italy party is being attacked as far-right,  “anti democratic” and a threat to personal freedoms, but the truth is that globalist governments have themselves proven to be the worst threats to democracy and personal freedom, while accusing the Right of everything they do. It is globalists today who are the exponents of the socialist ideology and who are willing to use violence to cancel our freedoms (especially the freedom of expression) and drive capitalist economies into the ground.

The Leftist Atlantic, in an article titled The Return of Fascism in Italy, asserted….

Meloni would also represent continuity with Italy’s darkest episode: the interwar dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.

Ridiculous. Just as Hitler was socialist (the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party) yet is frequently referenced as “right wing,” Mussolini was also a socialist, called “right wing” when both were violent socialist Leftists.

Meloni refused to join Mario Draghi’s national unity government in February 2021, opposing his “tough coronavirus measures, notably the so-called Green Pass requiring workers to be vaccinated.” Meloni is also tough on open-door migration. Italy has been overwhelmed by North African Muslims illegally swarming in, and Draghi was lukewarm on the issue. AFP stated that Meloni’s party’s “anti-immigration positions and the protection of Italy from ‘Islamization,’” and also quoted Meloni as saying: “there is no room for nostalgic attitudes of fascism, for hypotheses of racism and anti-Semitism.”

The Associated Press describes Meloni as having a message that blends Christianity, motherhood and patriotism, while the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera says that her party “calls for the defence and promotion of Europe’s “Judeo-Christian” and classical roots.” Meloni has also been criticized by the Left for being anti-abortion.

A government that supports Judeo-Christian principles, rejects unvetted illegal migration and rigid COVID mandates, and is Eurosceptic sounds like a government on the right track. No wonder the Left is going heavy on the “far-right” and “fascist” smears.

Globalist EU leaders are now worried about a shift in the EU’s balance of power, as they should be, and about a Meloni alliance with Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has already congratulated Meloni on a “well deserved” victory.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

A New Sign of Our Times

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Robert Royal: The rise of populist Giorgia Meloni in Italian politics reflects a Europe-wide reaction against open borders and attacks on traditional culture, including the family. 

If exit polls hold, yesterday Italy elected its first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. The usual liberal voices will not be celebrating. Normally, Italian elections are of little interest. Since 1945, there have been seventy Italian governments – almost one a year, which might suggest instability. But Italians often say that the system is too stable. General elections just reshuffle members of the political class, which rarely change very much. Except maybe this time. A populist Italian prime minister (“extreme right,” “neo-fascist” in the mainstream media, of course) will have significant repercussions for Europe and America, and even the Catholic Church.

A prominent Italian theologian, now living in the United States has argued recently that Meloni’s election may “hurt Francis”: “The campaign has been vulgar and trashy, and all of the substantial issues – from the war in Ukraine to climate change – have been ignored.”

This account of “all the substantial issues,” like much political analysis these days, leaves out a lot. Namely, questions that daily concern most Italians – like crime, out-of-control inflation, and illegal immigration – in a country struggling economically and bewildered, as many Western nations are, by radical social changes, making their country unrecognizable to many citizens.

And Ukraine – about which Francis himself has been an uncertain trumpet – has in fact received considerable attention during the campaign. Italians, like other Europeans, don’t like Putin’s aggression, but are also deeply worried about crushing energy costs – multiple times their recent levels, even now, before winter.

The real problem with Meloni’s election for progressive Catholics appears to be that, “A new government in Italy could very easily strengthen opposition to Francis and severely limit the social and political reception of his pontificate’s core message.”

What is that “core message”?

For starters, openness to massive immigration. Even before “Who am I to judge?” Francis chose to make his first trip as pope to the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than Cuba is to Florida.

Thousands of illegal immigrants enter Italy there, after perilous crossings of the Mediterranean – or die trying. Italy is not an ideal destination, especially given the large differences in culture and religion (mostly Islam) of the new arrivals. Large majorities of Italians – and Europeans generally – feel inundated by what are essentially open borders.

The pope occasionally mentions that countries, of course, need to consider how many immigrants they can accommodate. But his “core message” is that Europe should be taking in far more.

There’s a real debate to be had about this; and it may now actually occur, if a right-oriented government has indeed come to power in Italy.

Secular Europe still accepts the Christian notion of “welcoming the stranger,” a moral principle that carries no little weight. But there’s a difference in both principle and practice when strangers arrive in the millions and place heavy burdens on peoples and cultures – which have their own problems and claims to consideration.

The UK left the European Union in part over immigration. Hungary and Poland have adopted policies (as perhaps Italy will now as well) aimed at preserving national identity, which European elites dub xenophobia and Islamophobia. Even France seems headed in that direction. Some churchmen (Francis among them, it appears) regard calls to limit immigration as mere greed, selfishness, and callousness.

It’s not that simple, however, as we know in America, when our poorest citizens and illegal immigrants compete for jobs and resources.

Europe has just witnessed another stunning political development: liberal Sweden has elected a populist/conservative government, “a new far-right surge” according to The Washington Post, but in reality ordinary Swedes reacting to soaring crime, hundreds of Islamist bombings, and the highest incidence of rape in Europe

But European populism isn’t only about immigration. It also involves the “culture war,” something Francis has studiously tried to tamp down.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, recently warned that the European Union has “the tools” to deal with Italy if “things go in a difficult direction.” Even heads of Italy’s liberal parties felt obliged to remind the EU “not to enter into Italian affairs,” as one put it.

Von der Leyen mentioned how those “tools” (mostly withholding EU funds) were being used  against Hungary and Poland, not solely because of their immigration policies (Poland has generously absorbed tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, almost all Christians, for example), but because of their support for traditional families, advocacy for more children and national identity, and – perhaps the sorest points for the EU – efforts to limit abortion and LGBT+ propaganda directed at young children, all tagged as tending towards “fascism.”

Meloni, however, is a poor candidate for the label. A Tolkien enthusiast who sees her work as protecting the Shire – i.e., Italy – she’s said, “I consider power very dangerous. . .an enemy and not a friend.”

She’s been cagey about abortion – willing to tolerate existing Italian law, but wanting to reduce abortion – this in a country where many medical professionals already refuse to be involved in abortion on conscience grounds. Her coalition will clearly favor more traditional social policies, something that triggers the international elites who have come to consider their own extreme positions on abortion, gays, and trans people as moral imperatives.

Pope Francis has spoken about abortion as like “hiring a hitman” and gender theory as a kind of Western cultural imperialism. At the same time, he has been quite indulgent towards pro-abortion politicians, and homosexual and trans groups. He has no stomach for the kind of culture skirmishes needed to make a difference.

As a non-Italian, it would be hard for him to criticize a political coalition that enjoys broad public support. The Italian bishops themselves will now be in a difficult spot between papal preferences and popular sentiment. It will be interesting to see if they can all get past the slurs about “fascism” and help Europe come to grips with a populism that is not without its perils, but has its reasons – a challenging new sign of our times.

You may also enjoy:

Brad Miner’s Meddling and Puritanical Jacobins

Alessandra Bocchi’s Italy Returns to Masses

AUTHOR

Robert Royal

Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing article is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2022 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

VIDEO: ‘It is absurd to remove crucifixes from our classrooms, while entire neighborhoods have been taken over by sharia’

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Italian politician Giorgia Meloni: “I don’t believe we ought to hide our identity, in order to respect others. Which is what leftists believe. It is paradoxical to remove crucifixes from our classrooms, while accepting that entire European neighborhoods have been taken over by Islamic sharia. I don’t get it, honestly.”

Thanks to RAIR.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Italy’s Salvini and Hungary’s Orban meet, call for creation of a ‘pan-European anti-migrant alliance’

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Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orban met yesterday in Milan to discuss a historic alliance to save Europe from further invasion.

Keep an eye on Europe!  Is it just in time or too late?

“We are near a historic change on a continental level!” – (Matteo Salvini)

From Deutsche Welle:

Viktor Orban and Matteo Salvini strive to forge new European anti-migrant alliance

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini made no secret of their mutual admiration ahead of their meeting in Milan on Tuesday.

United in their anti-immigration policies and relentless bashing of the EU, the two right-wing lawmakers called for the creation of a pan-European anti-migrant alliance that would seek to prevent migration to Europe from besieged regions in Africa and the Middle East.

Salvini, who heads the far-right League party, the junior partner in Italy’s populist coalition, told reporters that Italy and Hungary would strive to forge a future union “that excludes socialists and the left, that brings back to the center the values and identity” that their parties represent.

Italy yellow shirts

Left-wing protesters in yellow shirts gathered in opposition to Salvini/Orban meeting.

“We are near a historic change on a continental level,” Salvini added.

Orban, meanwhile, called on the European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament to which his Fidesz party belongs, to adopt a hardline stand against illegal immigration. Salvini’s League party has since 2014 allied itself in the European Parliament with the likes of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Freedom Party of Austria.

What Hungary does on land, Italy does by sea

Orban described Salvini as his “hero and companion” for turning away migrant rescue ships, claiming that such actions were crucial for Europe’s security.

“Hungary has proven that migrants can be stopped on land,” said Orban. “And this is where Salvini’s mission starts: “(Italy) must show that migrants can also be stopped at sea.”

Continue reading here.

See my archives on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ by clicking here.

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Hillary’s ‘Libyan legacy’ still responsible for invasion of Europe as Italy panics

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Invasion of Europe news….

I’m not going to let you all forget that it was Hillary and her girls who were responsible for the overthrow of Libyan strongman Muammar Ghaddafi that resulted in the opening of the flood gates from Africa to Europe for tens of thousands of mostly economic migrants from the heart of Africa to countries like Italy geographically on the frontline of the invasion.

Left to right – Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power

Even Obama didn’t have the stomach for the slaughter of Ghaddafi.  I followed the whole sorry tale from its earliest days here at RRW.

Of course the Europeans made that fatal mistake in the earliest days of the invasion by not turning back (using safe methods) the first boats that were launched from the Libyan coast. Now they rescue each one sending a signal to people smugglers to keep ’em coming!

Susan Rice, Hillary and Samantha Power. Hillary admitted that in 2011 Obama was reluctant to follow Europe’s lead and get involved in Libya, but that she marshaled the forces (including Susan Rice and Samantha Power) to persuade Obama to help overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Ultimately, she said, it was the President’s decision thereby tossing blame back on Obama when the results of her actions have proven so disastrous.

Here is the latest news from Middle East Monitor:

hillary-clinton-benghazi-phone-transcripts-696x364Italy panics as North Africa migrants surge

Italy will host a meeting between European and North African countries next week in a bid to strengthen support for an agreement it struck with Libya to fight people smuggling as migrant arrivals surge.

The prime minister of the UN-backed government in Tripoli, Fayez Al-Seraj, will meet with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and interior ministers from eight European countries including Germany and France on Monday.

Last month, Italy pledged money, training and equipment to help Libya fight people smugglers, a deal that was endorsed by European Union member states.

But Libya is still far from stable. Two governments are vying for power – in Tobruk to the east and Tripoli to the west – and the country remains mired in factional fighting and lawlessness.

The authorities in eastern Libya have rejected the deal struck between Rome and Tripoli.

“I’m not so naive as to not understand the situation there,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti told reporters. “But we cannot remain immobile and wait for the country to stabilise.”

He said the Libya agreement and next week’s meeting were not just “talk”, but strategic steps toward managing mass migration to Europe.

So far this year more than 16,000 migrants – a 36 per cent increase on the same period last year – have been rescued at sea and brought to Italy after Libya-based people smugglers piled them onto flimsy boats.

Don’t miss Hillary cackling about her success in killing Gaddafi. She looks like an absolute loon here:

Another version of Hillary’s looney laugh, is here. Don’t you think it might be too early for her to come out of the woods!

Our archives on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ are here.

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IOM: Mediterranean migrant ships won’t stop until Europe finds ways to let them come legally

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Invasion of Europe News….

Sheesh! The International Organization for Migration (IOM) yesterday said, don’t stop the boats and the boat people from Africa and the Middle East, find ways for them to migrate legally to Europe. (See former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott tell the Europeans to turn back the boats, here.)

iom-bags

The IOM was for years a quasi-non-profit organization (getting most of its money from governments) and a US refugee contracting agency whose job it was, and still is, to get refugees ready to fly to your towns and cities. You will see refugees in US airports with blue IOM bags.

Now the agency has been folded in to the United Nations and it is one more reason to sever our ties with the UN!

Here, yesterday, they reported on the number of illegal migrants who have arrived in Europe in 2016.

Switzerland – IOM on Friday (06/01) reported preliminary totals for all 2016 migrant and refugee arrivals to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, as well as estimated fatalities. Arrival totals were 363,348 split almost evenly between Italy and Greece, with much smaller numbers arriving in Malta, Cyprus and Spain. Fatalities and missing migrants reached at least 5,079 although IOM emphasizes that some incidents reported in the month of December and earlier have not been fully accounted for.

According to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, incidents off Spain, Morocco and Tunisia have been reported whose victim totals could add another 300 or more fatalities to the 2016 total. The year 2016 already is the deadliest for migrants ever recorded by IOM in the region.

The probable addition of several hundred more fatalities recorded in 2016 only deepens the tragedy, said IOM Director General William Lacy Swing, who added, Europe’s frustration with a seemingly endless cycle of migrant rescue followed by reports of shipwrecks and more drownings won’t end until governments throughout the region find a way to manage migration comprehensively.

“Migrants and refugees aren’t coming because they believe their lives will be rescued at sea once they leave Africa or Syria or wherever conflicts drives people to seek safety,” Ambassador Swing said. “They’re leaving because they believe their lives will be doomed if they stay. The answer lies in finding creative means to permit safe, legal and secure migration, be that through work visas, family reunification or temporary protected status. [UNHCR is searching for “alternative pathways” to move the third world to the first since most of these migrants are not legitimate refugees.—ed] Instead of doubling down on tactics that don’t work, let’s use this New Year to try something that’s actually new.”

mediteranean-arrivals

Map of Mediterranean arrivals of Muslim migrants. Italy and Greece suffer the most.

Read the whole article, these numbers are way down for Greece, but up for Italy.

See our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive by clicking here.

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Could the Allies have Bombed Auschwitz? Controversy and Reality

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Dr. Rafael L. Medoff, executive director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies once again on the eve Yom Ha Shoah 2016 raised the issue of why the allies couldn’t have bombed the death factory at Auschwitz Birkenau during 1944. A period when the USAAF 8th and 15th Air Forces were already bombing oil refineries and the Buna works less than five miles away. Medoff is the author of FDR and the Holocaust, A Breach of Faith.

Auschwitz-Burkenau Extermination Camp 8 15 1944What prompted revisiting this controversy was a Jerusalem Post article by Medoff critical of a  2015 book exonerating  FDR’s role in the decision not to bomb the Auschwitz- Birkenau, “New Whitewash of FDR;’s failure to bomb Auschwitz.”  Medoff wrote:

Alonzo Hamby is the author of a 2015 biography of president Franklin D. Roosevelt which defends FDR’ s failure to bomb Auschwitz, on the grounds that it was too far away for US planes to reach. George McGovern, the US senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, was one of the World War II pilots who actually bombed oil sites at Auschwitz – proving that it was, in fact, not out of reach at all.

Hamby is a prominent historian and the author of a biography of Harry S. Truman as well as several other well-received books [wrote]:

“The death camps were located in areas largely beyond the reach of American military power,” Hamby writes in Man of Destiny: FDR and the Making of the American Century. And: “Auschwitz was in a Soviet area of operations and at the outer limit of American bomber range.”

And yet, American bombers did repeatedly bomb German oil factories that were situated in the slave labor sections of Auschwitz.

On August 7, 1944, US bombers attacked the Trzebinia oil refineries, just 21 km. from the gas chambers. On August 20, 127 US bombers… struck oil factories less than 8 km. from the gas chambers.

A teenage slave laborer named Elie Wiesel witnessed the August 20 raid. A glance at Wiesel’s best-selling book Night would have enlightened Hamby. Wiesel wrote: “If a bomb had fallen on the blocks [the prisoners’ barracks], it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were no longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life. The raid lasted over an hour. If it could only have lasted ten times ten hours!”

There were additional Allied bombings of the Auschwitz oil factories throughout the autumn.

My late brother in law as serving officer during  WWII was involved with the planning and deployment of  US 8th Air Force B-17’s based on Poltava in the Western Ukraine less than 120 miles from Auschwitz that flew some of those missions. Another late acquaintance, who was lead navigator for Gen Ira Eaker of the 15th USAAF based at Foggia, Italy  recalled using the crematoria as aiming points for bombing missions on the I.G. Farben Buna-Monwitz  works less than five miles away.

What follows  are excerpts from my 2009  and 2012 New English Review articles  summarizing the controversy, feasibility and reality of whether USAAF bombing runs  could have destroyed the Auschwitz Birkenau complex in 1944.

The Bombing of Auschwitz controversy

On September 9, 2003, a squadron of Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-15’s flew over Auschwitz in southern Poland directly from Israel. The squadron flew the ‘missing man’ formation symbolic of the Six Million European Jewish men, women and children murdered in unspeakable ways by the Nazi death camp machinery in the Final Solution, the Holocaust, or Shoah. An Agence France Presse report noted:

The F-15s, emblazoned with the Star of David, were piloted by the sons or grandsons of Holocaust victims who perished in Poland, according to the Israeli ambassador to Warsaw.

An Israeli air force statement said that as the jets flew low across the sky the pilot leading the squadron, General Amir Eshel, said: “We pilots of the air force, in the skies over these camps of shame, have risen from the ashes of millions of victims. We are the voice for their silent calls. We salute their heroism and promise to be the shield of the Israeli homeland.”

Watch this You Tube video of the 2003 IAF flyover of Auschwitz Birkenau:

The flyover of Auschwitz by the IAF was objected to by the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum as inappropriate to venerate the 1.4 million Jews murdered at the death camp complex. It was nevertheless symbolic on several levels.

It demonstrated that a Jewish sovereign nation would not permit another existential annihilationist assault, as it had the ability to take up arms to pre-empt it. There was no Jewish nation with an Army, Navy and Air Force to prevent the madness of Hitler’s Holocaust during WWII.

It brought into question what Allied air power might have done to disrupt and destroy the killing machinery at Auschwitz Birkenau, when it had the intelligence, aircraft, and crews in Italy and the Ukraine in 1944, which could have undertaken missions that might have saved hundreds of thousands of Hungarian and other European Jews from death. Dr. David Wyman, a critic of Allied war efforts to destroy death camps, estimated that an air assault might have spared the lives of 150,000 Jews whose progeny today might number more than 2 million.

In 1998, during the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of Israel, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu visited Auschwitz on another Yom Ha Shoah and criticized the Allied lack of effort to save European Jews by striking at the death camp from the air:

All that was needed was to bomb the train tracks. The Allies bombed the targets nearby. The pilots only had to nudge their crosshairs.

You think they didn’t know? They knew. They didn’t bomb because at the time the Jews didn’t have a state, nor the political force to protect themselves.

The ‘what if’ question of ‘Could the Allies have bombed Auschwitz?’ and the killing machinery to save Jews, especially the nearly 433,000 Hungarian Jews who went to their deaths between May 2nd and July 13th, 1944 has been the subject of controversy since the liberation of the death camp on January 27, 1945. It has been the subject of intensive research and debate.

In 1978 Professor David S. Wyman brought the matter to a head in an article –“Why Auschwitz was Never Bombed,” Commentary 65, May, 1978  – on the feasibility of special air operations using the ‘wonder planes’ of WWII, the British Mosquitoes and the American Lockheed P-38’s. The speedy and highly maneuverable DeHaviland Mosquitoes were made out of marine plywood.  Wyman said if the RAF could use the Mosquitoes in special ops to free European resistance fighters, why not use it to stop the killing machinery in Auschwitz. Wyman later expanded on this in his 1984 bestselling book, “The Abandonment of the Jews.” Wyman further said:

 …there is no question that bombing the gas chambers and crematoria would have saved many lives. ….without gas chambers and crematoria, the Nazis would have to reassess the extermination program.

Within a year after the publication of the Wyman article, the first archival aerial photos of the Auschwitz Birkenau death camp complex were released based on an analysis by photo intelligence expert Dino Brugioni of the CIA. They clearly indicated that British and U.S. Air Forces had targeting information in their files as early as the spring of 1944 with which to develop possible missions.

In 2000, the National Holocaust Memorial published a symposium on the ‘what if’ question of “The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted it?’ edited by Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum pulling together the contending arguments and supporting data and information.

NSA Historian Hanyok’s conclusion, in a 2005 study, “Eavesdropping on Hell, was that institutional anti-Semitism in both London and Washington, DC, despite Churchill’s instructions to his Air Minister ‘to do everything possible’ and the overarching objective of destroying the Nazi war fighting capabilities led responsible officials to consider proposals for bombing the railway marshaling and, railway lines and the Birkenau killing center gas chambers and crematoria as a ‘diversion.”

Washington officials, especially Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy considered such requests as ‘impossible” and ‘risky,’ given the air war commitments in the European Theater of Operations. Later McCloy put the onus on FDR for making the decision not to bomb Auschwitz.

McCloy was quoted by Miller as saying:

bombing the camp would involve a diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations.”

A Mission to Auschwitz would be an Eight Air Force operation, a highly risky ‘round trip flight unescorted of approximately 2000 miles over enemy territory.

A 2012 study by the US  Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC reveals the opposition by WWII American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to bombing the Auschwitz Birkenau death complex in Southern Poland in the summer of 1944.  The findings of the USHMM study on wartime allied and Jewish Zionist leaders over the decision not to bomb Auschwitz were the subject of an EnerPub article, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Sin of Omission: Auschwitz” by former US diplomat, Martin Barillas.  Barillas noted the contrast with Britain’s wartime leader, Sir Winston Churchill:

 Churchill appeared interested in a military strike against the camps. He told Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden that Hitler’s war against the Jews was “probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world,” adding, “Get everything out of the Air Force you can, and invoke me, if necessary.” In July 1944 Churchill was told that U.S. bomber pilots could do the job best, but that it would be “costly and hazardous.”

The Feasibility of Bombing Auschwitz

In contrast to McCloy’s misleading statements, the reality was we could have done that and more. The resources involved-aircraft sorties, bomb ordnance and air crew losses were a finite fraction of overall air war capabilities of both the 8th and 15th USAAF. Moreover, if the bombing campaign had begun in June, 1944 for example, the weather and meager fighter aircraft and flak gun threats were most favorable to such a mission that could have destroyed the killing machinery at Auschwitz Birkenau.

The fact was that bombing Budapest on July 2nd by the heavy bombers of the 15th USAAF and intercepts by Hungarian intelligence of Jewish Agency requests from Geneva for bombing Auschwitz brought the death transports to a halt sparing the remainder of Hungary’s besieged Jews – approximately 300,000 – until Swedish businessman diplomat and hero Raoul Wallenberg arrived with the aid of the U.S. War Refugee Board and Joint Distribution Committee funds to put many Jews in Budapest in ’safe houses” until the Russians arrived in early 1945.

Based on several feasibility assessments in the Neufeld – Berenbaum study here is what could have been done:

8th USAAF B-17 heavy bombers flying from Operation FRANTIC shuttle bases at Poltava  in the Western Ukraine 150 miles away and 15th USAAF B-24 heavy bombers flying out Foggia, Italy 640 miles away could have raided Auschwitz Birkenau from June to September, 1994. Weather conditions and enemy fighter and flak gun threats over the ‘targets’ during this period were favorable for an Auschwitz Birkenau mission. There were available mission planning target folder and aerial recon photos from I.G. Farben Buna-Monwitz plant mission less than 7 miles from Birkenau killing center.

An estimated 300 sorties involving upwards of 75 heavy bombers dropping between 900 to 1,800 tons of bombs over a two to three week period would have accomplished the mission. This was equivalent to less than 7% of all sorties flown in July, 1944.

The July 2, 1944 15th USAAF raid on Budapest effectively stopped the ‘death transports’ when requests for bombing rail marshaling yards and rail lines leading to Auschwitz by the Jewish Agency in Geneva were intercepted by Hungarian Intelligence.  Unfortunately, by then, more than 433,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered, but 300,000 were ’spared”. Professor Wyman estimated that if an Auschwitz Birkenau raid had been attempted that would have spared an additional 150,000 Jews perhaps resulting in an additional 2 million, today.

However, the reality is that air war priorities and official indifference precluded the raids from occurring and that half of the Hungarian Jews were murdered before any raids could have been launched. It was left to courageous Jewish women supplying Sonderkommando at the Birkenau killing facility with explosives to destroy Crematorium IV on October 7, 1944 forcing the SS to eventually stop and destroy the death machinery in January 1945.

For more information view this comprehensive PowerPoint presentation by the author, “Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz”.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Proposed EU Quota for Distribution of Illegal Migrants Draws Fire

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The European Commission’s (EC) European Agenda for Migration has floated its proposals for dealing with the massive surge in illegal migrants being smuggled across the Mediterranean by human traffickers. That has created discord among the 28 EU members about the rescue burden placed on so-called front line countries in the Mediterranean like Malta, Italy, Greece and Spain versus the relocation burden on major members like Germany and Sweden. It has also given rise to UN criticism for a controversial plan to destroy the rickety boats of human traffickers in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa, originally proposed by EU Foreign Relations Commissioner, Frederica Mogherini. A side show has been the UN and European Parliament adverse comments of  the ’horrible’ national survey in Hungary opposing EU and UN setting allotments and quotas for distribution of asylees and refugees. Hungary’s PM Orban is a prominent member of the large center right European Parliament EPP coalition. The formal release of the EU Commission’s proposal is scheduled for Wednesday, May 13th.

We wrote in our NER article on this roiling debate in the May edition, “Stemming the Surge of Deadly Illegal Migration Across the Mediterranean”:

The EC proposed a pilot project to re-distribute 5,000 refugees who meet asylum requirements stranded outside the EU, as an attempt to fairly distribute the burden of asylees. That flies in the face of objections by major northern countries to further asylum quotas. In 2014, 626,065 refugees filed asylum claims, a 44% percent increase over 2013. As one example, Germany experienced a sharp rise is asylum requests over the first quarter of 2015 to 85,394, double over the same period in 2014. By contrast the U.S. received 47,500 asylum applications.

The majority of those asylum seekers hail from Kosovo, Syria and Albania. Germany currently has a backlog of over 200,000 applications. This has given rise to complaints by municipalities in Germany about the impact on facilities and community integration. In the most controversial proposal, the EC requested EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Federica Mogherini to develop rules of engagement enabling it to capture and destroy illegal smuggling vessels. Overall EC President Donald Tusk of Poland said the illegal migrant crisis is a” complex issue” that will “take time to tackle.”

The EUObserver reported  the leaked contents of the EC proposals and reactions:

Leaked documents, seen by EUobserver, indicate that both ideas are now back on the table in an effort to help ease pressure on select member states.

“The EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states,” notes the draft document.

Some 80 percent of all asylum applications are processed in six EU countries, with most refugees from Syria either ending up in Germany or Sweden.

Germany’s Angela Merkel reportedly backs the commission’s proposals but the issue has already generated a backlash elsewhere.

Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban on Friday described the commission plan as “mad and unfair”.

Earlier this month, he proposed setting up new national legislation to keep out immigrants even it runs counter to EU rules.

“If [other EU members] want to receive immigrants, they can do it. But then they should not send them back here, or through us,” said the Hungarian leader.

According to the leaked commission text, the EU executive wants member states to resettle around 20,000 new refugees every year, although the final figure could change.

An initial figure of 5,000 had been floated last month at the EU emergency summit, but was then dropped.

[…]

The number of relocated migrants to be taken in by each state would depend on the member state’s population size, economic strength, unemployment level and number of refugees already there.

“The commission will table legislation by the end of 2015 to provide for a mandatory and automatically-triggered relocation system to distribute those in clear need of international protection within the EU when a mass influx emerges,” notes the commission paper.

The proposed quota system would not be binding on Ireland, the UK and Denmark.

This has brought an immediate reaction from the newly elected Conservative government of UK Prime Minister David Cameron.  The Guardian reported:

“We will oppose any EU commission proposals to introduce a non-voluntary quota,” a spokesperson told the paper.

Britain is instead pushing for an UN-backed resolution to “destroy the business model of the traffickers” by sinking the boats and rubber dinghies used to ferry migrants across the sea.

The UK’s Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Bulwark and its three Merlin helicopters are already at port in Malta.

Debate at the UN Security Council session yesterday in Manhattan revealed criticism of the EU Foreign Commissioner’s proposal to attack the smuggler vessels engaged in trafficking of illegal migrants. The EU Observer reported:

Peter Sutherland, the UN special envoy on migration and a former EU commissioner, issued the warning at a meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) warned the EU that “innocent refugees”, including children, will be “in the line of fire” of any operation to sink migrant smugglers’ boats.

He noted that in the first 130 days of this year “at least” 1,800 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to get to EU shores.

“This total represents a 20-fold increase over the same period last year. At this pace, we are on course to see between 10,000 and 20,000 migrants perish by autumn”.

He said about half the people who make it have a legitimate need for EU protection.

EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Mogherini replied:

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini told the UNSC, also on Monday, that she’s been tasked “to propose actions to disrupt the business model of human trafficking networks across the Mediterranean”.

“We have in these [past] weeks prepared for a possible naval operation in the framework of the European Union Common Security and Defence Policy. The mandate of this operation is currently being elaborated with the EU member states”.

“We want to work with the United Nations, in particular with the UNSC”, she added.

She took pains to say the military plan is part of a wider approach.

She also pledged that “no refugees or migrants intercepted at sea will be sent back against their will”.

[…]

“This is not all about Libya, we know that very well. This can happen in other parts of the world. But we all know also very well that the vast majority of human trafficking and smuggling in these months is happening in Libya, or rather, through Libya”, Mogherini noted.

Given the divisions within the EU, it would appear the roiling political debate over how to handle the deadly illegal migrant surge of illegal migrants across the Mediterranean may be irresolvable. Much of the illegal migrant flight is driven by civil war and jihad conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Al Qaeda-linked terror groups in Africa. This despite the suggestions of  Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders that perhaps the only ways to deal with the surge is to adopt the Australian model of returning the stream of illegal migrants for possible relocation in North Africa and other areas in the Middle East. That is likely to be objected to by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees seeking to depopulate huge refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere across the Muslim Ummah. The Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council would clearly object to such a scheme involving the members of the GCC embroiled in a war against Iran–backed Houthi Rebels in Yemen.

The question is whether that means an increase in refugee resettlement  allotments  courtesy of the UNHCR  might be coming here in the U.S. The arrival of Syrian refugees in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is  already causing a rising debate among localities in the American heartland.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of illegal migrants picked up in the Mediterranean. Source: Migrant Offshore Aid Station

The Surge of Deadly Illegal Migration Across the Mediterranean

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The EU is in the midst of another refugee crisis in the Straits that separates Sicily from North Africa. The flash point of the humanitarian crisis is the Island of Lampedusa 297 kilometers offshore of Tripoli, Libya. 168 kilometers north of Lampedusa is the Island Republic of Malta which is also in the crosshairs of this crisis. Refugees from the Jihadist conflicts throughout the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, even South Asia pack into a flotilla of overloaded vessels which make a bee-line for this Italian landfall with less than 5,000 full time residents, where heretofore they received a welcome. Off-shore of Lampedusa now sits a flotilla of EU coast guard vessels on rotating duty alert for distress calls escorting floundering vessels to port on the Italian island and hence to Sicily and the Italian mainland. Unfortunately, these days Italian and EU coast guard vessels also search for the bodies of illegal migrants washed overboard.

The illegal refugee crisis in the Mediterranean reached a new peak in late April 2015 when thousands of illegal ‘migrants’ attempted the perilous journey. They were seeking refuge and access to generous welfare and absorption benefits from the EU. In one tragic instance, an overloaded 66 foot fishing vessel capsized on Sunday, April 19th when migrants rushed to one side of the deck hailing a commercial vessel responding their distress call. The result was over 800 downed, less than 49 survived and 28 bodies have been pulled from the water so far. Another ship disaster last week claimed 400 lives off Tripoli. The picket line of Italian and other EU coast guard vessels were pressed into service endeavoring to recover the remains. That week, an estimated 8,500 made the crossing on questionable vessels arranged by human traffickers. In 2014 more than 1,600 died during turbulent crossings. So far this year more than 900 lives have been lost. Frontex data shows that migration across the Mediterranean in 2014 peaked to a level more than twice as high as its previous peak in 2011. 170,760 migrants crossed the Mediterranean in 2014, compared with 64,300 in 2011, 15,900 in 2012, and 40,000 in 2013.

Italian President Renzi and Maltese PM Muscat requested an emergency EU Summit to address these deadly illegal migrant ship disasters. It was quickly added to the agenda of the EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.  According to a USA Today report Renzi said, “How can it be that we daily are witnessing a tragedy?” Muscat seconded Renzi calling “it the “biggest human tragedy of the last few years.” The illegal migration problem was discussed at the Informal meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the EU and the Southern Mediterranean countries held in Barcelona on April 13th to discuss the future of the European Neighborhood Policy.

However, there was a new development. In one illegal crossing, 12 Christians from Nigeria and Ghana were thrown overboard from a sinking raft by Muslim compatriots, because they wouldn’t recite the Shahada – the profession of faith or other Qur’anic verses. The perpetrators were arrested by Italian police. Onshore, ISIS followers in Libya beheaded 30 Ethiopian Orthodox Christians seeking to make the illegal passage across the Mediterranean, yet another outrage. That sparked anger from the Obama Administration. However, in the 20 months remaining of President Obama’s final term in office, the priority is engagement with Iran over its nuclear program via the P5+1 process hoping to deprive the Islamic regime of nuclear weapons. That priority leaves a legacy for his successor to deal with, a welter of crises.

Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels in a 10 NewsDK blog post noted the scandal of EU cooperation with North African human traffickers:

Last weekend the EU coast guard transported 8,500 people from North Africa to Italy alone. EU says that it “saves” the “refugees” (many of them turn out to be jihadis or fake refugees) from the dangerous travel across the Mediterranean. However, it is the EU that lures millions to do this potentially deadly trip by promising Western welfare to those willing to take the chance. The EU should either start offering free transport from Africa to Europe or start sending all refugees back to local camps. I advise the latter option, and not just because it would make us able to give safety to more people for the same amount of money – which is more compassionate. But also because it would dissuade people from taking the deadly chance. Thereby nobody would die in the attempt to reach EU shores. That is how Australia does it – and since Australia introduced this policy, the amount of drowned boat-refugees decreased to zero.

It is obvious that the situation is unsustainable, but as long as our politicians continue to obey the EU and the UN, the human tsunami of refugees seeking the help of European tax payers will continue. According to humanitarian agencies “up to half a million migrants may try to cross the Mediterranean this year – a figure that would dwarf the 170,000 who reached Italy last year.”

According to a report from Express, North African Human smugglers are alerting EU authorities they are sending illegal people across the Mediterranean:

Trafficking gangs ferrying immigrants into the European Union are tipping off officials so Italian and EU coast guard vessels   can pick up their boats. …

Gangs are so certain their boats will be picked up they’re even putting less fuel in the tank because naval vessels will pick them up, a former UK immigration manager has revealed.

Of the 270,000 migrants who arrived in Europe illegally last year, more than 220,000 of them came through North Africa.

Many of those attempting the dangerous crossing in overloaded un-seaworthy craft were propelled by sectarian conflicts in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria involving ISIS, Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, Al Shabaab and Boko Haram. Muslims among these illegal migrants are being welcomed into what the scholar Bat Ye’or called Eurabia: the Euro Arab Axis. In her book, Bat Ye’or warned about the consequences of EU bureaucracies engaged in outreach to Muslim countries on the periphery of the Mediterranean via the Barcelona Process of the 1990’s. That led to the establishment of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) in Paris on July 13, 2008 at a meeting of 43 heads of Euro-Mediterranean States. Subsequently, Foreign Ministers of the UfM met in Marseilles in November 2008 and established a headquarters in Barcelona. In 2010, senior member states of the UfM approved the Statues and Barcelona Headquarters in accordance with Spanish Law. According to the website of the UfM its vision and mission/mandate are:

The UfM is a multilateral partnership aiming at increasing the potential for regional integration and cohesion among Euro-Mediterranean countries. The Union for the Mediterranean is inspired by the shared political will to revitalize efforts to transform the Mediterranean into an area of peace, democracy, cooperation and prosperity.

The UfM was promoted by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy as a means of contending with the problems of rejectionist émigré Muslim communities engaged in internal disturbances attributable to mass immigration. Add to that are the contemporary problems of thousands of EU Muslims traveling to Syria to join the Islamic State to fight and build the self-declared Caliphate. A Caliphate engaged in ethnic cleansing of infidels: Christians, ancient religious minorities and what are deemed heterodox Muslims.

Fjordman, Norwegian blogger Peder Jensen, author of Defeating Eurabia  said in an email exchange:

While the Mediterranean is flooded with illegal immigrants, including Islamic Jihadists, the EU elites are creating a Union for the Mediterranean. Europe needs a Union for the Mediterranean just like it needs a beheading. This is, coincidentally, just what it might get. It is doubtful whether most Europeans want a Union with North Africa and the Middle East, but then the EU elites never cared about what ordinary Europeans think. There is no reason for them to start now.

The Syrian Civil war displaced nearly 4 million registered refugees. UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) administered camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt hosting 3.2 million. 22 countries have agreed last December to accept 100,000 of the more than 320,000 Syrian refugees most at risk in 2016. The UNHCR has requested absorption of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees by major EU countries and even here in the US.

The consequences of these refugee and illegal migrant flows caused by sectarian Jihad warfare in the Muslim Ummah heartland are ironic. The Eurabian bureaucracies have in effect acquiesced to the Islamic doctrine of Dar al Hijrah – the land of immigration, a reflection of the Prophet Mohammed’s migration from Mecca to Medina that kick started the first grand Jihad. That has given rise to calls by center right parties in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, Sweden and the UK to reject further mass Muslim migration, whether legal or illegal. This is a reflection of rising concern over Muslim citizens traveling to join the cause of the Islamic State or Al Qaeda only to have some return to commit massacres like the Charlie Hebdo mass shooting and the Hyper Cacher Kosher Supermarket in Paris that killed 17 in January 2015. As both Sennels and Fjordman have stated, the EU citizens will pay the price of this massive wave of illegal Muslim emigration across the Mediterranean spawned by Jihad.

Geert Wilders’, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV)  in the Netherlands, drew attention to this dilemma in a speech April 29, 2015 at the Washington, D.C. Conservative Opportunity Society:

The UN plan to resettle 1 million immigrants in Western nations will provide jihadis an opportunity to infiltrate Western countries, including the US. It will give terrorists the opportunity to settle in our countries without the extra scrutiny involved in obtaining a visa or a residence permit.

We should not do this. The vast majority of the European citizens disapprove of the way their governments are handling immigration. Moreover, there are plenty of other safe countries where immigrants bound for the West can go to, including the wealthy Gulf States that have almost zero asylum-seekers today.

Immigration, especially Islamic immigration, had devastating consequences. It has made our countries less safe.

Tunisian Captain and Syrian first mate of capsized fishing vessel off Libya, April 19, 2015.

Smuggler Profiteering of Illegal Migrant Trafficking

The massive surge in the deadly illegal migrant trade across the Mediterranean figured in the emergency meeting of EU Foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The loss of over 1,200 in two separate trafficking ship disasters spurred on deliberations requested by Italian President Renzi and Maltese PM Muscat. April 22, 2015 charges were brought in Italian courts against the 27 year old Tunisian captain and 25 year old Syrian mate of the 66 foot fishing boat that capsized off Libya with a loss of 800 crammed into the flimsy vessel. NBC news reported:

The Tunisian captain of the boat — 27-year-old Mohammed Ali Malek — was arrested along with a Syrian crew member, 25-year-old Mahmud Bikhit.

Sicilian prosecutors said Tuesday that Malek has been charged with culpable shipwreck, manslaughter and aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Bikhit has been charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration, the statement from Catania’s prosecutors said.

The question is who benefits from this deadly smuggling business?

The answer is the jihadists in Libya who have profited from the turmoil in the region. A Wall Street Journal report revealed how profitable the business of trafficking illegal migrants is worth taking the risks involved as deadly as the results have been to their customers seeking refuge in the EU. This is the bottom line of the WSJ report: “Brazen, multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias and tribesmen proves hard to combat.”

The WSJ wrote:

Various armed groups in Libya are aggressively advertising their services to would-be migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and Syrians fleeing conflict in their country, presenting the collapse of order in Libya as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to secure safe passage to Europe, says Arezo Malakooti, the director of migration research for Paris-based Altai Consulting, a consultancy that works with the International Organization for Migration and other migration-related groups.

“The profits from human trafficking have consolidated a new balance of power in the Sahel and Libya,” says Tuesday Reitano, head of the Geneva-based Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

How a Saharan tribe profits:

The Saharan Tebu tribe, for instance, is now making “a killing,” according to Ms. Reitano, who estimates the tribe pockets some $60,000 a week by charging West African migrants for a seat on four-wheel-drive cars that take them to Agadez, a major city in Niger. From there, they ferry the migrants to the central Libyan city of Sabha and then proceed to northern Libya ahead of their sea journey to Italy and Malta.

The profits are such that tribes normally at war cooperate at times in getting migrants from one place to the next.

Mustapha Orghan, an activist who has worked with aid groups to track smuggler operations said:

Tebu and Tuaregs used to smuggle goods. The new alternative is human trafficking…and now both Tuaregs and Tebu are trying to get their share of the cake.

Mr. Orghan said Ghat, a southern Libyan town near the Algerian border where he lives, is the first entry point from Algeria for Africans. There, he said, “African migrants get sold from one smuggler to another.”

He said the trafficking business has become increasingly lucrative since chaos in Libya sharply reduced traditional sources of income in the region: heavily subsidized oil, food and other goods from Algeria.

“Farming” migrants to make profits:

In Sabha, African men typically spend months working as laborers, and women as housemaids, to earn the roughly $1,000 to pay for the crossing from Libya’s northern coast. If there is no demand for their services in Sabha, smugglers farm them out to cities further north and west for approximately 700 Libyan dinar, or about $500.

Discrimination among “customers” leads to deadly trips:

Ismail, an African migrant who declined to give his full name and nationality, tried to cross three times in recent weeks but was thwarted by overcrowding and breakdowns of the cheap plastic boat of the sort usually provided for Africans. Syrians, who can often pay more and aren’t discriminated against by the overwhelmingly Arab smugglers, typically make the crossing in sturdier wooden boats.

According to the Frontex agency the EU has arrested 10,000 involved in the illegal migrant trade, mainly truck drivers and many migrants involved in navigating the flimsy crafts. Italian authorities have arrested 1,000 smugglers since 2014. However of these, less than 100 have been convicted. They simply lack the resources in contending with the mushrooming human trafficking business as Libya devolves into a failed state.

Watch this WSJ video dramatizing the journey of an Eritrean illegal migrant across Africa to Libya and his perilous transit via smugglers to his ultimate destination in the Italian island of Lampedusa:

EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg may have surfaced calls for safe and secure channels to reduce the deadly toll of illegal migrants, but going after the lucrative smuggling trafficking business at its source means contending with warring militias and the criminal activities of tribal groups in Libya. Note this ironic comment from the UN Human Rights Commission head:

“Europe is turning its back on some of the most vulnerable migrants in the world, and risk turning the Mediterranean into a vast cemetery,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein Monday. “Migrant smugglers are the symptom, not the cause of this wretched situation.”

The European Commission Proposals

The Brussels meeting of the European Commission (EC) on April 23, 2015 proposed a number of temporary measures to deal with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. The EC recommended doubling of Southern European border–control missions of Spain, Malta and Italy from the present level of $3.2 million monthly to effectively “increase search and rescue operations.” The EC will also provide additional resources to Spain, Malta and Greece. Another EC proposal would provide assistance to Tunisia, Egypt and Niger in buttressing their land border controls. The EC proposed a pilot project to re-distribute 5,000 refugees who meet asylum requirements stranded outside the EU, as an attempt to fairly distribute the burden of asylees. That flies in the face of objections by major northern countries to further asylum quotas. In 2014, 626,065 refugees filed asylum claims, a 44% percent increase over 2013. As one example, Germany experienced a sharp rise is asylum requests over the first quarter of 2015 to 85,394, double over the same period in 2014. By contrast the U.S. received 47,500 asylum applications.

The majority of those asylum seekers hail from Kosovo, Syria and Albania. Germany currently has a backlog of over 200,000 applications. This has given rise to complaints by municipalities in Germany about the impact on facilities and community integration. In the most controversial proposal, the EC requested EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Federica Mogherini to develop rules of engagement enabling it to capture and destroy illegal smuggling vessels. Overall EC President Donald Tusk of Poland said the illegal migrant crisis is a” complex issue” that will “take time to tackle.”

However in the immediate future the southern tier of EU nations may yet see a further spike in illegal migrants. In the final Week of April 2015, more than 10,000 refugees from the conflict in Yemen fled in rickety boats across the Bab al Mandab to the Republic of Djibouti placing a further burden on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Djibouti borders Eritrea where a number of migrants have followed the smuggler network to Libya and the dangerous passage to Italy and Malta on fleets of unseaworthy boats.

Conclusion

Jihad conflicts in the Middle East and Africa are driving hundreds of thousands annually in desperation to pay top dollar for a deadly ride on those rickety boats whose owners mage large profits. Nature abhors a vacuum when chaos creates rich opportunities to rake in enormous wealth from trafficking illegal migrants. The successful smugglers even alert EU officials that they are bringing another shipload of hapless migrants to fatten their margins from this deadly trade. The EU and the Union for the Mediterranean proposals for dealing with illegal mass immigration will surely cost billions of Euros. In the meantime, Italian and other EU coast guards continue to provide a picket line of vessels daily monitoring these dangerous trips in flimsy craft across the Mediterranean from the failed state of Libya.

 EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. Also see Jerry Gordon’s collection of interviews, The West Speaks.