The general secretary of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Stephan J. Kramer, called Monday on the German-Israel Friendship Society (DIG) to take concrete action against the growing anti-Israel boycott activity within its ranks.“Anyone who sees a boycott of Israeli goods as a legitimate answer to something or other has understood nothing, and should look in the mirror and leave DIG,” Kramer wrote in an email to The Jerusalem Post.

“I think supporting a call for a boycott of a democratic country, which Israel is, and at the same time being a member of DIG is an insoluble contradiction and a burden on DIG and its members. [deputy in the state government of Thuringia Bodo] Ramelow is part of a long tradition of anti-Israel leftists, and we can no longer whitewash this.”Ramelow, a DIG member and Left Party politician, wrote on his Facebook site that the Swiss Migros supermarket chain’s labeling of Israeli products from the West Bank is a “legitimate measure.”Dr. Shimon Samuels, the international affairs director for the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris, told the Post that Migros’s action is a boycott measure and must viewed as a “continuation of Nazism.”In a letter to the supermarket chain, Switzerland’s largest, diverse representatives of the country’s Jewish communities condemned the Migros action as “discrimination against the State of Israel.”Ramelow has been accused in Germany of using his DIG membership to delegitimize Israel and pretend that he is a friend of Israel. In an email to the Post on Tuesday, he wrote, “I have neither called for a boycott of Israeli goods” nor “signed the Pax Christi call” to boycott Israel merchandise. The German branch of the left-wing Catholic peace organization Pax Christi has mounted an aggressive campaign to boycott Israeli products, including setting up stands in pedestrian zones to encourage people to not buy Israeli goods.

When asked repeatedly by the Post to clarify his Migros statements, Ramelow wrote that “the Migros firm decided independently to demand from producers a designation of origin when they want to sell their products to Migros. I mentioned this and did not know that the mentioning of facts should be banned.”In response, Kramer, told the Post that Ramelow’s formulation regarding terming Migro’s action as a “legitimate measure” is clearly a call to boycott Israeli products.Ramelow added that when he visited Ramallah,”I saw that enough products were labeled ‘Palestine’ and I consider that a permissible origin designation.” He asked what is the problem with Migros labeling products from its suppliers.According to critics of Migros, including Swiss Jewish groups, Migros has singled out Israel for unique treatment in a pejorative sense.Melody Sucharewicz, a German-Israeli expert who has written extensively about anti-Israel actions in Germany, told the Post on Tuesday, “Not only should DIG have a clear policy of separating itself from members who support or justify even the most harmlessly presented form of ‘kaufverzicht,’ alias boycott against Israel. It should further make it a priority to expose such campaigns for what they are: destructive for the future of German-Israeli relations and destructive to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”Pro-Israel Germans have called on the head of the DIG branch in Erfurt, Thuringia, where Ramelow is a member, to expel him, as well as demanded that DIG national head Reinhold Robbe give Ramelow the boot and take action against anti-Israel sentiments within DIG and among German politicians.

https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/German-Jewish-leader-slams-boycott-activity

Today a Conservative party in Thuringia province Germany, voted with the AfD, which was a consensus-taboo till now, much like the “cordon Sanitaire” in the rest of Europe against any non-Socialist party, to get rid of a leftist regional premiere. Below, ANTIFA demonstrates to oppose the new, non-socialist pick.

https://vladtepesblog.com/

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to toughen sentencing guidelines for convicted terrorists after a newly-released prisoner carried out a jihadist attack in London.

On February 2, Sudesh Amman, a 20-year-old jihadist from Harrow in north-west London, stabbed two people in a knife rampage on Streatham High Road before he was shot dead by police. He had been released from prison just days earlier after serving less than half of his sentence for terrorism offenses.

Amman, who was carrying a 10-inch kitchen knife, wearing a fake suicide bomber vest, and shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is the Greatest”), had been under active police surveillance at the time of the attack, which London police described as an “Islamist-related terrorist incident.”

In December 2018, Amman was sentenced to three years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to 13 counts of expressing support for Islamist terrorism and possessing and sharing Islamic State and al-Qaeda propaganda. He was 18 years old at the time.

Amman was arrested in May 2018 after posting Islamist propaganda online. At the time, police said that he had expressed support for the Islamic State, sent beheading videos to his girlfriend, and asked her to kill her “kuffar” (non-Muslim) parents. He also wrote about carrying out a jihadist attack:

“If you can’t make a bomb because family, friends or spies are watching or suspecting you, take a knife, Molotov [cocktail], sound bombs or a car at night and attack the crusaders, police and soldiers of taghut[idolatry], or western embassies in every country you are in this planet.”

In a search of Amman’s computer, police found documents titled, “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”, “U.S. Army Knife Fighting Manual Techniques” and “Bloody Brazilian Knife Fighting Techniques.”

During Amman’s trial, police noted that he had a “fierce interest in violence and martyrdom.” Acting Commander Alexis Boon, then head of the Metropolitan police counter terrorism command, explained:

“His fascination with dying in the name of terrorism was clear in a notepad we recovered from his home. Amman had scrawled his ‘life goals’ in the notepad and top of the list, above family activities, was dying a martyr and going to ‘Jannah‘ — the afterlife.”

“It’s not clear how Amman became radicalized, but it is apparent from his messages that it had been at least a year in development. Whatever the circumstances, this case is a reminder of the need to be vigilant to signs of radicalization and report it.”

Amman’s attack is the second one in the British capital in the past three months. On November 29, 2019, Usman Khan, a 28-year-old jihadist from Stoke-on-Trent, stabbed and killed two people in a knife rampage near London Bridge. Like Amman, Khan had also been released early from prison.

A day after Khan’s attack, Boris Johnson announced a review into the license (parole) conditions of 74 terrorists who had been released from prison early. He also vowed to end the practice of automatically releasing serious offenders from prison before the end of their terms:

“The terrorist who attacked yesterday was sentenced 11 years ago under laws passed in 2008 which established automatic early release.

“This system has got to end. I repeat, this has got to end…. If you are convicted of a serious terrorist offense, there should be a mandatory minimum sentence of 14 years — and some should never be released.

“Further, for all terrorism and extremist offenses, the sentence announced by the judge must be the time actually served — these criminals must serve every day of their sentence, with no exceptions.”

A Sentencing Bill included in the Queen’s Speech in October 2019 would have changed the automatic release point from halfway to two-thirds for adult offenders serving sentences of four years or more for serious violence or sexual offenses. The bill, however, stalled due to a hung parliament, and was shelved later that month when new elections were called.

The latest attack sparked considerable anger. In an interview with Sky News, the editor of Spiked magazine, Brendan O’Neill, spoke for many when he said:

“The Streatham terror stabbing is a scandal. This man was an Islamist maniac. He was devoted to ISIS and he had planned to kill non-believers. And yet he was let out of jail after just 18 months. We’ve got to start taking Islamic terrorism more seriously.”

Paul Stott, a terrorism researcher with the London-based Henry Jackson Society, added:

“We need an immediate moratorium on the release of terrorist prisoners, whilst the government reviews each individual case.”

In an interview with the Daily Mail, an unidentified government source said that according to British law, Amman had to be released from prison early, despite the threat he posed to society:

“There had been concerns when he [Amman] was in prison but there were no powers for any authority to keep him behind bars.

“There was nothing that could be done to keep him behind bars under existing laws, hence why he was under surveillance and strict licensing conditions.

“He had served half of his sentence, which was more than three years, so he had to be released despite concerns over his conduct.

“The public will look at this case and say why was this individual not kept behind bars and the Prime Minister shares that view.”

After the latest attack, Johnson promised “fundamental changes” to the system for dealing with convicted terrorists. He said that terrorists currently in prison will lose their right to automatic early release halfway through their sentences. Johnson stressed that the legal concept of automatic early release for people “who obviously continue to pose a threat to the public has come to the end of its useful life.”

On February 3, Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland announced that the government would introduce emergency legislation — The Counterterrorism Bill — to end the automatic early release from prison of terror offenders:

“We cannot have the situation, as we saw tragically in yesterday’s case, where an offender — a known risk to innocent members of the public — is released early by automatic process of law without any oversight by the Parole Board.

“We will, therefore, introduce emergency legislation to ensure an end to terrorist offenders getting released automatically having served half of their sentence with no check or review.”

Buckland added that the changes would be retroactive and apply to jihadists currently in prison:

“We face an unprecedented situation of severe gravity and, as such, it demands that the government responds immediately and that this legislation will therefore also apply to serving prisoners.

“The earliest point at which the offenders will now be considered for release will be once they have served two-thirds of their sentence and, crucially, we will introduce a requirement that no terrorist offender will be released before the end of their full custodial term unless the Parole Board agrees.”

A total of 353 convicted and suspected Islamist terrorists were released from prison between June 2012 and June 2019, according to Home Office statistics cited by the Daily Mail.

In October 2018, the Islamist firebrand preacher Anjem Choudary, described as Britain’s “most dangerous extremist,” was released from prison after serving only half of the five-and-a-half-year sentence he received in 2016 for pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.

Prison authorities could not prevent his release: under British sentencing guidelines, prisoners — even those who are still a risk to the public — automatically become eligible for release under license (parole) after serving half their terms.

In an essay published by the Daily Mail, Philip Flower, a former chief superintendent with the Metropolitan Police, warned that the fight against violent Islamism in Britain was being hampered by political correctness:

“As a retired senior police officer involved in containing terrorist and other threats during a 40-year career, I want to tell you of the intense frustrations that will be felt today across British policing. They will feel utterly let down by the judicial system.

“When I was a constable, I could arrest and process a suspect in an hour, maximum. Today, it takes a day or more.

“The police are mired in bureaucracy, while the judicial system has become an institutional cloud-cuckoo land.

“As a society, we have to decide how to deal with terrorist suspects. It takes around 32 police officers to maintain around-the-clock surveillance of a single terror suspect.

“It is insane to attempt to maintain this level of supervision of the thousands of individuals known to be of interest to the security services and counter-terrorism police. It seems as though the Streatham perpetrator was being watched by armed police, yet still he managed to stab shoppers….

“If we are to release convicted terrorists from jail early, then we would have to recruit thousands and thousands more police to oversee them, which of course will never happen because there is not enough money and we would find that level of intrusion unacceptable in a free society.

“There is a wider problem of maintaining the morale of the officers charged with keeping the public safe from fanatics.

“Bluntly, how would you feel if you were told to keep track of known terrorists who have been released from prison to satisfy the politically correct assumptions of our justice system?”

Ian Acheson, a veteran prison officer who in 2015 led an independent review of Islamist extremism in British prisons, told the BBC’s Today program that the UK’s risk-management system is fundamentally broken:

“We are going to have to accept that we have to be much more skeptical and robust about dealing with the risk of harm.

“We may need to accept that there are certain people who are so dangerous they must be kept in prison indefinitely….

“I am still unconvinced that the prison service itself has the aptitude or the attitude to assertively manage terrorist offenders.”

gatestoneinstitute.org/15536/uk-jihadists-released-early

Björn Höcke has risen to AfD kingmaker by causing an internal political sensation with the unexpected election of the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich as the new Thuringian prime minister in the German state.

The AfD parliamentary group leader organised an unofficial electoral alliance with the CDU and FDP, sending off the red-red-green government with its popular head of government Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) to man the opposition.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany president Josef Schuster told AFP that he was “horrified” by the vote outcome.

As one of the founders of AfD Thuringia, Höcke became Member of the Landtag after the 2014 Thuringian State Elections. Höcke is the speaker of the parliamentary group of the AfD and he is the spokesman of the Thuringia regional association of his party. He is said to be part of the “national-conservative wing” of the AfD and his faction is known as the Flügel [the Wing].

In September 2019, a court ruled that Höcke could legally be termed a “fascist” as the description “rests on verifiable fact”.

The AfD member duped all parties in the most recent ballot: while the Left, SPD and Greens celebrated Bodo Ramelow as the possible election winner, in reality they had lost their absolute majority. Around 100 days after the state election at the end of October, the real election winner has been determined: Björn Höcke.

Höcke succeeded in presenting the non-party candidate Christoph Kindervater as an alternative to incumbent Ramelow, but in the decisive third ballot the CDU and FDP did not vote for him, finally electing Kemmerich as prime minister.

It is a coup that is unparalleled in the history of parliament in Germany. But it is a democratic, legally valid election, not defrauding voters, despite accusations of breaking the taboo.

It remains to be seen whether and how the Erfurt earthquake will affect the Grand Coalition in Berlin. CDU and SPD members organised a crisis meeting in Berlin on Saturday to discuss the issue.

“The republic is in danger,” said Katja Kipping, a leader of the far-left Linke party.

Will the SPD implode now that it was booted out in Thuringia? The permanently weakened CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is at a loss because her party friends in the state have violated the federal decision not to work directly or indirectly with the left or the AfD.

“This is a bad day for Thuringia, a bad day for Germany,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said in Strasbourg and immediately called for new regional elections as a way out of the “crisis”, a call echoed by other mainstream parties. She also blasted regional politicians for breaching the party’s policy of no cooperation with the AfD.

Thus the chances for a black-green alliance after the next federal election have not improved.

The FDP in the state could seize the opportunity and provide the AfD with content. If the ban on contact and exclusion against the AfD is not lifted, Kemmerich will have a hard time in governing Thuringia. And since he stumbled into high office completely unprepared, those who rant about an agreed maneuver between the AfD, FDP and CDU have not been refuted yet.

The FDP, which only entered the state parliament when the ballot was recounted, must now seek parliamentary majorities. Red-red-green will refuse, but the CDU is ready for dialogue, as is the AfD.

The question is whether the CDU, FDP and especially the new prime minister will jump over their parliamentary shadows and seek talks with the AfD.

Actually, the new prime minister has no choice, since the alternative would announce his failure. Kemmerich still speaks of a “firewall” against the AfD. On the other hand, he recently brought up “colorful majorities” because “you have to rethink” politics.

AfD co-leader Joerg Meuthen told the German daily FAZ that the vote showed that there was “less distance” between the CDU, FDP and AfD than other parties.

freewestmedia.com/2020/02/06/in-historic-coup-afd-rises-as-kingmaker-in-thuringia/

The Democrats have two problems.

1. Their 2020 presidential field is a trash fire.

2. They needed a Republican senator to defect and vote for impeachment

Romney bailed out the Dems on 2, why not 1?

Now, I’m sure that The Bulwark or Jennifer Rubin will propose this any hour now, so let me be the first and claim copyright on the hot take.

Romney’s wealth was a problem last time, but this time he’s just a millionaire in a field with two billionaires. He’s been pro-abortion before. RomneyCare helped create the ObamaCare mess. And, most importantly, he believes in whatever the media consensus is.

So he’s perfect.

Unlike Biden, Romney can deliver a speech from a teleprompter, without groping random young girls, or repeating sayings from 1896. Unlike Bernie, he isn’t a Communist, until the New York Times decides that we should all be Commies. And he has a tiny bit more personality and personal warmth than Bloomberg. Not that much. But somewhat.

All Romney has to do is endorse illegal migration, again, late term abortion, freeing all the drug dealers from prison, castrating children, and whatever else is in vogue right now, 

And he’s in.

Romney 2020. 

frontpagemag.com/point/2020/02/it-too-late-mitt-romney-join-2020-dem-primaries-daniel-greenfield/

By Richard Jack Rail

As expected, Greta Thunberg has been nominated for the Nobel Prize.  At an age when most girls are mooning about boys, young Miss Greta is grousing about the weather a hundred years from now.

It needs single-mindedness of purpose to be as dense as this diminutive fatuant has proven herself.  She hasn’t lived long enough to know that your first doubts should concern those who agree with you, not those on the other side.  The reason is hoary old confirmation basis.  You double- and triple-check what you think to ensure you’re not blinded by your own wishful thinking.  Greta says the science is “crystal-clear.”  What’s crystal-clear is that climate change activists are some of the most prolific liars and frauds out there today.

Then there’s the issue of whether anybody should even pay attention anymore to the Nobel committee.  The prize has become another meaningless trophy that lefties confer on each other to strut their bona fides as members of the in crowd.  It began losing luster back when they bequeathed it to Lê Đức Thọ and Henry Kissinger for, allegedly, ending the Vietnam War.  We all know that that war actually ended when the U.S. Congress cut bait and left our South Vietnamese allies in the lurch.  Profiles in cowardice.

That particular act of cowardice stained the Nobel Peace Prize forever.

Then there was the Peace Prize for Yasser Arafat, the worst peace-monger since at least Che Guevara.  Showing that their leftism wasn’t limited just to phony peacemakers, the Nobel people would in the fullness of time recognize leftist liar Rigoberta Menchú for literature in the early nineties of the old century.  Then came Al Gore and his slide show, setting the stage for Greta in the propagandaclimate change field.

The ultimate in degradation of the Nobel Prize was the one foisted on Barack Obama.  This guy did less to deserve a prize than anybody before Greta Thunberg, but with him it was established beyond doubt that politics, not merit, decides Nobel laureates.  Where once an effort was made to recognize genuine achievers, now it’s reduced to another game of let’s pretend.

Greta hasn’t actually gotten the prize yet, so it’s possible that somebody will sneak in at the last minute and carry the thing off.  That’s just not conceivable, though.  Imagine the indignation in all the best places were the snarling young activist thus snubbed.  It would be like Clark Gable not getting an Academy Award for Gone with the Wind because the role was too much like the man himself and so he didn’t really do any acting.  That would reflect reality.  But it’s not to be.  Little Greta meets all the warm, cuddly criteria and has the adoration of all the right people.

The committee that gives Greta Thunberg a Nobel Prize will merely be announcing the winner of the world’s most self-important participation trophy.  How far the great name of Nobel has fallen when it is used to legitimize such outright fraud.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/greta_jockeys_for_the_nobel_prize_for_fraud.html

The German Foreign Ministry will celebrate the 41st anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran – a regime classified as the leading state sponsor of terrorism, Holocaust denial and antisemitism, according to the US State Department and the Anti-Defamation League.The Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday from foreign ministry sources that “The usual practice in diplomatic relations also includes the celebration of national holidays in the other country. As the Federal Republic of Germany continues to maintain diplomatic relations with Iran, this also applies to the coming national holiday.”

February 11 is the “Islamic Revolution’s Victory Day,” a national holiday with regime-sponsored demonstrations in every city. The government decision to honor Iran’s regime comes just days Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, including Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, commemorated the liberation of Auschwitz.The Foreign Ministry sources added that “As in previous years, the diplomatic missions abroad were instructed to leave the event immediately in the event of anti-Israeli or antisemitic agitation and to explain the reason for this to the hosts.”The Federal Republic regularly addresses critical issues in all areas very openly to Iran.”In February 2019, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Deputy Foreign Minister Niels Annen faced criticism for honoring the Iranian regime. Annen and a diplomat who oversees the Iran desk participated in a celebration of the founding of the Islamic Republic at Tehran’s embassy in Berlin. Annen said he had “no regrets” about celebrating the regime. The Bild paper later wrote that Annen helps make “antisemitism socially respectable” in Germany.Post queries to Annen were not returned. Maas said he went into politics “because of Auschwitz.” His foreign ministry has been plagued by accusations of stoking Jew-hatred. The Simon Wiesenthal included Germany’s UN ambassador Christoph Huesgen on its 2019 top 10 list of worst outbreaks of antisemitism and anti-Israel activity. Maas approved Heugen’s anti-Israel voting record at the UN. Heusgen said he delivered a personal statement that compared Israel to the terrorist entity Hamas.

The Post sent a media query to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, asking if he planned to again congratulate Iran’s regime in the name of the German people. Steinmeier was also cited by the Bild as a contributing factor in making antisemitism socially respectable for his congratulatory note to the Mullah regime last year. Steinmeir also raised the Iranian regime flag at his palace residence last year.The German president spoke last month at Yad Vashem for the remembrance of the 75th commemoration for the liberation of Auschwitz.When asked last year if Merkel’s administration classifies Iranian regime calls to wipe Israel off the map to be antisemitic, her government told Post it is merely “anti-Israel rhetoric.” Merkel’s government declined to comment on the foreign ministry again honoring the Iranian regime on February 11.

https://www.jpost.com/International/German-govt-will-celebrate-Irans-antisemitic-revolution-again-616626

A pro-business politician has been elected as the governor of the eastern German state of Thuringia in a surprise result after a far-right party threw its votes behind him. Thomas Kemmerich of the Free Democrats, a party that only just made it into the state legislature in a regional election in October, threw his hat into the ring after left-wing incumbent and election winner Bodo Ramelow failed to secure a majority in two rounds of voting. Ramelow had hoped to carry on as governor leading the same three-party, left-leaning coalition he headed for the past five years. 

wnky.com