The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.
"I am not afraid of retaliation. I have no kids, no wife, no car, no mortgage. It surely is a bit dramatic but I'd rather die on my feet, than live on my knees" - Stephane (Charb) Charbonnier, editorial director of Charlie Hebdo.
"They might have different names... but all of them are driven by the same hatred and blood-thirsty fanaticism. And all of them seek to destroy our freedoms and impose on all of us a violent, medieval tyranny. This is a global struggle. This is everybody's battle... And the first rule in fighting terrorism is to refuse to be afraid. The people of Israel embrace the people of France as brothers and sisters. We understand we are in a common battle for our values and a common battle for future and we refuse to be intimidated." - Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu
"This attack must instead free our speech about Islamic fundamentalism. We must not be silenced.- Marine Le Pen, Leader of France's Front National Party
"In the past year, 7,000 Jews have already left France and after this there will be many thousands more. We are not safe in France any more. There is no future for Jews here in France. We are finished in France." -Anonymous father of a Jewish survivor of the kosher supermarket killings
This week's winning essay, Jihad,Islam and The French Farce In Paris is my reaction to the events last week in Paris. Here's a slice:
By now the world knows about the latest atrocity carried out in Paris by jihad terrorists. The wholesale murder of the staff of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo including its editor 'Charb,' Stephane Charbonnier. The murders at the magazine, the shooting of a female police officer, a car bomb exploding at a local synagogue, a gunman invading a kosher supermarket filled with women and children and killing four shoppers and wounding a number of others..these have all been covered by the media and digested by the world at large.
For a couple of days, this made headlines, but by now the world has processed it. And it is last week's news,because to really focus on it would mean we'd have to actually do something about it.
Beslan, 9/11, Boston, Bali, Mumbai, London, Itamar, Jerusalem, Nairobi, Fort Hood, Sydney, a never ending list..and those are just the ones we notice,because they're either in the West, or involve the murder of Westerners. The ones that don't barely rate a mention. In Nigeria last week for instance, Boko Haram, who have already pledged their support and allegiance to Islamic State attacked the city of Baga, near Lake Chad. The known death toll from that one attack alone is over 2,000. And it may go higher, once the final figures come in.
Chant with me, why don't you..'black lives matter!' Except when they're murdered by Muslim terrorists.
I wonder if it has occurred to many of us how much our society has normalized terrorism committed by Islamist fascists? The limitations to our freedoms we've already accepted without complaint? The millions in additional tax dollars we're forced to spend? The handcuffs we've put on ourselves and the forces we enlist to protect us because we're unwilling to be honest?
We have become acclimated to accepting Islamist terrorism as the norm, as business as usual. We've been doing it for so long it barely moves us, let alone raises the revulsion and the resolve to stop it, the normal reaction. Instead, we hide behind inane rhetoric, insipid and cowardly rationalizations and yes, hash tags.
If we were really all Charlie Hebdo, or Theo Van Gogh, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or Molly Norris, or Kurt Westergaard, or Drummer Lee Rigby, or Daniel Pearl or the Fogel Family, this would have ended long ago, because we would have risen up en masse to demand that the political class do something to stop this once and for all.
We haven't. We simply ingest the latest atrocity and continue to sleepwalk. After a few words from our sponsor, of course. And the usual 'Muslims fear backlash' stories, although somehow that backlash never seems to occur.
A case in point is the recent 'Unity rally' in Paris. No one, of course, would dare call it a rally against Islamist fascism, a rally against 'radical Islam' or even a rally against terrorism. No, it was all about unity, with signs saying 'Je suis Charlie' and flags and forty world leaders marching together in the streets of Paris. Nice, until you look behind the facade.
Among the participants was the Emir of Qatar which openly funds terrorism. Also at the rally was Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu, who country has more journalists in jail than any other NATO member for what's labeled as 'un-Turkish sentiments', whose Islamist government is a haven for Hamas. It is also the country where at least one of the killers, Hayat Boumeddiene was allowed to enter France freely via a ticket from Istanbul to Spain and the country from which she was allowed to escape back to Syria.
And of course, Palestine's unelected Dictator Mahmoud Abbas was there too. Yes, Abbas, the Holocaust denier with his history of terrorism as Arafat's second in command, Abbas who is allied with the genocidal Hamas in a unity government. Interesting how that came about.
Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu had wanted to show up in Paris to take part as one of the world leaders involved. You would think he'd be a natural participant, given Israel's history of combating Islamist terrorism, and especially since about a third of the victims of the attacks were Jews.
But the Israeli PM was told outright by the French government that he was persona non grata and unwelcome, since his presence was deemed 'divisive' and would 'make having the rally difficult.'
After mulling it over for a day, Netanyahu simply told the French he was coming anyway. My sources differ on whether Abbas had already been expressly invited (the Palestinian Authority insists he was, and a private meeting between Abbas and Holland scheduled the next day seems to bear this out) or whether he was invited simply out of spite towards Netanyahu,but the fact remains that the leader of a democracy with a free press and an admirable record fighting exactly the forces responsible for last weeks' carnage was insulted and initially shunned while nations that finance and support terrorism and rigidly repress any criticism were courted and invited.
Much more at the link. I guarantee you won't be bored.
In our non-Council category, the winner was Andrew McCarthy with Don’t Blame the Charlie Hebdo Mass Murder on ‘Extremism’ submitted by Joshuapundit.
With his usual merciless logic, the former prosecutor shreds the Leftist pretense that what happened in Paris has nothing to do with Islam and is just 'extremism.' A worthy read.
Here are this week’s full results:
Council Winners
- *First place with 5 1/3 votes! -Joshuapundit-Jihad,Islam and The French Farce In Paris
- Second place with 1 1/3 votes –The Independent Sentinel – Well, the Paris Rally Is over and Europeans Want to Ban Insults
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –Nice Deb – Daniel Bongino Rips Obama A New One For Lying About Secret Service
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –The Noisy Room – NoisyRoom.net Proudly Publishes the Mohammed Cartoons – Everyone Should Flood the Web With Them
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –The Glittering Eye -The Search for the Historical Mohammed
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –VA Right! - Hanover Supervisor Kelly-Wicek Photoshops Herself Into Event
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Bookworm Room – When it comes to Islam and politics, Leftist stupidity unfortunately has the bully pulpit
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Right Planet – So, You Don’t Like Mohammed Cartoons, Huh?
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Simply Jews – Jews Will Suffer Greatly At The BBC's Hands
- Fifth place with 1/3 vote –Ask Marion – US Must Arm Muslims Fighting Extremists ‘To the Teeth’ Says Judge Pirro as World Leaders, Sans Obama and Kerry, Gather in Paris
Non-Council Winners
- First place with 3 votes! –Andrew McCarthy/NRO – Don’t Blame the Charlie Hebdo Mass Murder on ‘Extremism’ submitted by Joshuapundit
- Second place with 1 2/3 votes –Christopher Caldwell/New York Magazine-Why History Will Eviscerate Obamasubmitted by Bookworm Room
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Foxtrot Alpha – Meet France's Elite Revolver-Toting Counter-Terrorism Units submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Melanie Phillips – The Paris massacre and Western funk submitted by The Watcher
- Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Nick Cohen/Spectator – Charlie Hebdo: the truths that ought to be self-evident but still aren’t submitted by Simply Jews
- Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Sic Semper Tyrannis – The 'hybrid' terror cell behind the Paris Attacks (part 1) by Patrick Bahzad submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Daniel Greenfield/FrontPage –Laughing At Mohammed submitted by The Noisy Room
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Steve Crowder -#FreeCommunityCollege – You Morons Can’t Afford It! submitted by Nice Deb
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Glenn Reynolds/USA Today – Clash between two Islams submitted by The Watcher
- Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -AIM / Cliff Kincaid – Why Was Putin a No-show in Paris? submitted by The Right Planet
- Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Hogewash – Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas. submitted by Rhymes with Right
See you next week!
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