What Makes People Tick?

The Times of Israel reports that Pope Francis spoke out about anti-Semitism: In comments made to veteran Portuguese-Israeli journalist Henrique Cymerman Thursday, Francis was quoted as saying that “anyone who does not recognize the Jewish people and the State of Israel — and their right to exist — is guilty of anti-Semitism.” Source: ‘Not recognizing Israel as Jewish is anti-Semitic, Pope says’ | The Times of Israel | 28 May 2015 Below, the Tweet from international journalist Henrique Cymerman: In an email we got from Pope Francis:"Whoever does not recognize the Jewish People and the State of Israel falls in antisemitism" — Henrique Cymerman (@Henrique_B_C) May 28, 2015 Seventy years after the end of the Holocaust, as the internet connects and unites the world and people are able to make up their own minds based on the information freely available to them online, isn't it about time that we all kick anti-Semitism to the curb? The Nazis and those who helped th...

In 2014, when Hamas attacked innocent Israelis with numerous rockets day in day out, the world was mostly silent. Or I should say: The world quietly applauded the so-called Palestinian 'freedom fighters' and their despicable terrorist acts, calling them heroes and courageous people.  What is courageous about terror and hatred? What is courageous about killing innocents? What is courageous about sending rocket after rocket at men, women and children simply trying to live their lives? What is courageous about terror tunnels meant to attack non-combatants? What is courageous about hating Jews because an old book tells you that you should? Yet when Israel fought back, when the Jewish people responded by protecting their own instead of waiting to be slaughtered the way the world seems to think they should, the world reacted. The world shouted about the 'evil Jews' and the supposedly horrible acts they committed. The world shouted about 'concentration camps' in Gaza...

If you care about what happens in the world, in the United States, in Israel, in the Middle East, in Europe... If you care about the survival of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of opinion and free press... Watch this video of (former mayor of New York) Rudy Giuliani speaking out about world issues, the danger of power in the wrong hands and how to make the world a better place.  I am - shock horror - quite a fan of (American president) Obama and very much appreciate that he is attempting to bring the entire world together or at least that he's trying to talk to the Arab / Muslim world, not just to white / European / western / Christian countries. What I think is ridiculous is that the American president does not seem to want to link terrorists motivated by (their particular version of) Islam to Islam as a global religion .  I refuse to blame all of Islam (as a religion) or all Muslims for the horrible and despicable acts of a relatively small gro...

Seeing this image makes me so sad. The Turkish soldiers are RIGHT THERE yet they are standing by while people just across the border are being slaughtered. That is Kobani behind those soldiers, that is how close they are, that is how close reinforcements could be for the Kurdish fighters. And yet they battle on alone, aided by friends from another continent while their neighbours leave them to die. This doesn't just make me sad, it makes me mad and it disgusts me.  Post by I'm against ISIS .

Nederlandse media rapporteert dat een groep van ongeveer honderd Koerden maandagavond het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer bestormd hebben. De Koerdische betogers vragen met hun actie aandacht voor de situatie in Koerdistan. Terroristische organisatie IS (Islamitische Staat / ISIS) voert momenteel aanvallen uit op de Koerdische stad Kobani in Syrië, dichtbij de Turkse grens. De Volkskrant meldt dat veel van de betogers in het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer familie en vrienden hebben in Kobani. Teletekst meldt dat de betogers het gebouw inmiddels verlaten hebben na een gesprek met Kamervoorzitter Anouschka Van Miltenburg. Ook buiten het gebouw van de Tweede Kamer stonden mensen, volgens verschillende bronnen ongeveer 150 (Volkskrant) of "zo’n drie- à vierhonderd man - een eerste inschatting. Een derde daarvan is politieagent" ( NRC.nl ). Den Haag is niet de enige plek waar gedemonstreerd werd. Koerdische betogers verzamelden ook in onder andere Wenen, Bern, Kopenhagen, Stockholm, ...

After television, newspapers and social media reported about many #saveKobani demonstrations around the world yesterday and today, I got thinking about Kurdistan and the plight of the Kurdish people. It got me thinking that I want to do my bit to help, even if all I'm doing is writing a blog post. Kobani is a city in the Syrian part of Kurdistan, very close to the Turkish border. The Islamic State terrorist group has been trying to capture Kobani for weeks. Kurdish forces have bravely defended the city and their territory, however IS(IS) has been gaining ground. Turkey seems to be very intent on helping the Islamic State terrorist group. As ABC News reports: Lightly armed Kurdish fighters in the Syrian border town of Kobani have for weeks held off an ISIS onslaught, but the battle has moved to the streets of Kobani as the president of Turkey warned today that the town was about to fall to the Islamic militants. The fight for the Kurdish city and its surrounding villages has ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on 29 September 2014. The Times of Israel published the full text of his speech online. May the world listen, for a change, and see the truth of what Israel's Prime Minister is saying. "Our hopes and the world’s hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march.  It’s not militants. It’s not Islam. It’s militant Islam.  Typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds — no creed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it’s rapidly spreading in every part of the world." The past few months have shown very clearly that the 'Islamic State' does not care about Christians, Jews, Yazidis or Kurds. It does not even care about other Muslims who happen to think for themselves and disagree with the terrorist group's extremist views. American and British journalists were ...

English soccer team Liverpool sends and then deletes a Rosh Hashanah Tweet after protests against the Tweet as the Jerusalem Post reports. Rational people might ask why. The answer is given by the article's title: Liverpool deleted the tweet after 'anti-Semitic posts'. Yes, you did read that right. “ Liverpool FC would like to wish all our Jewish supporters around the world a happy new year. #RoshHashanah ,” the tweet read. A few hours later, the tweet was removed after the anti-Semitic abuse ensued. The story was originally reported by The Guardian.  “Due to a number of offensive comments that were attached to a tweet on the official LFC twitter account, the tweet and comments have since been removed from the account,” the club told the Guardian. Source: English soccer club Liverpool deletes Rosh HaShanah tweet after anti-Semitic posts , The Jerusalem Post  Source: Jerusalem Post How judgemental is our society that wishing Jewish people the world over a happy ...

The website United with Israel reports that Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Liberman, met with US Secretary of State John Kerry last Wednesday to discuss the ongoing threat posed to all humanity by the Islamic State terrorist group. I don't always agree with Liberman's words, however today, I agree with Israel's Foreign Minister one hundred percent. Liberman noted that the war against terror, in all its forms, is the most important task of the Free World today. Reiterating the Israeli government’s stance regarding the regional terror threat, he said:  “We cannot differentiate one form of terror from another. The Hamas terrorist activities against Israel and against the people of Gaza are no different from the terror of ISIS. The difference is only semantic, and in the media approach adopted by the organizations. Ultimately, the aim of all Islamic terror is one and the same: the destruction of Western civilization. Hence, just as we cannot negotiate with ISIS, we ...

A women's clothing store in the United Kingdom named after an Egyptian mythological figure becomes the target of hate mail and harassment, as the UK's  Daily Mail reports . Source:  Isis Boutique  Facebook page Jill Campbell is the owner of women's clothing store Isis Boutique in Malvern    (Worcestershire). Her store is named after the Egyptian goddess Isis. Ms Campbell came up with the name after leaving Oxford in 2007, explaining "The river in Oxford is named locally as ISIS and it is also the Egyptian goddess of magic, mystique, beauty and femininity which is everything the shop is all about." The boutique has been in business for seven years. The past few months, as the western world has been getting to know the terrorists and murderers in Iraq and Syria known as "ISIS", Ms. Campbell's store has been coming under threat. Not because she supports ISIS or anything like that but because the name of her boutique sounds similar to one of th...

ISIS, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, the al-Nusra front... No doubt there are groups just as bloodthirsty that are not on this list because I can't think of them off the top of my head. These are all names of organisations I wish I'd never heard of. Because these names belong to terrorist groups that seem to find it necessary to kill, hurt, harm and maim; to execute people, to enslave and rape women, to terrorise and kill and cause destruction in an effort to further their own cause.  The cause they are attempting to further (to impose / to enforce) is Islam. Or rather - their own radical and violent interpretation of Islam with current actions seemingly geared entirely toward the spread of (their version of) Islam through any means. While I am a student of the world's peoples and religions and consider myself someone who attempts to walk in another's shoes to understand them and learn what it'...

In October 2001, almost thirteen years ago, Robert Worth published an article in the New York Times entitled "The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror." In the article, he quotes Princeton professor of Near Eastern Studies Michael Doran who talks about terrorist group Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. Remember, this article was published only a month after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. ''Many Americans seem to think that bin Laden is just a violent cult leader,'' said Michael Doran. ... ''But the truth is that he is tapping into a minority Islamic tradition with a wide following and a deep history.''  Although many Muslims are horrified at the notion that their faith is being used to justify terrorism, Mr. bin Laden's advocacy of jihad, or holy war, against the West is a natural extension of what some radical Islamists have been saying and doing since the 1930's. These radicals were jailed, tortured and oft...