Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/18/2024

A Congolese migrant in France claimed that he was forced to rape because he does not have a girlfriend. Meanwhile, a US district judge ruled that the federal prohibition on firearm ownership by illegal immigrants is unconstitutional.

In other news, a German entrepreneur has been fined for putting up a billboard that makes Green party politicians look bad.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Daniel Greenfield, Dean, Fjordman, Insubria, JW, Reader from Chicago, SS, Upananda Brahmachari, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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Olaf Scholz Meets With Benjamin Netanyahu

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday in Jerusalem. Below is a brief report on the press conference following the meeting.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Jüdische Allgemeine:

Netanyahu and Scholz: Hamas must be eliminated

“We have no future if Hamas, which is determined to carry out genocide against us, remains intact,” stressed the Israeli head of government.

March 17, 2024

After a conversation with the German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu explains that he and his German guest are in agreement that “Hamas must be eliminated”.

There will be no peace as long as the Islamist terror organization remains in the Gaza Strip, said Netanyahu on Sunday in a joint press conference with Scholz in Jerusalem. “We have no future if Hamas, which is determined to carry out genocide against us, remains intact.”

On Friday Netanyahu approved a ground offensive in the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border. Before a planned offensive in Rafah, the civilian population will be brought to safety, Netanyahu said. Israel is also undertaking every effort to enable aid deliveries for the people in the Gaza Strip, “over land, over sea, and from the air.”

At a meeting with Netanyahu, Scholz emphasized that Israel has the right to defend itself against the terror of Islamist Hamas. At the same time, he expressed doubts as to the military action of Israel in the Gaza war in view of the high victim toll. He urged Netanyahu to rethink his strategy in the Gaza Strip.

In the five months or so of the war, the number of civilian victims has reached an extremely high level. “Many would say too high,” said Scholz. “No matter how important the goal may be, can such a terribly high cost be justified, or are there other ways to reach this goal?” Scholz asked.

Scholz arrived in Israel for a visit on the same day, the second since the start of the Gaza war on October 7.

In addition to Netanyahu, Scholz wanted to meet with President Isaac Herzog and Minister Benny Gantz, as well as relatives of hostages. It is believed that there are still about 100 of them alive. He previously met with Jordanian King Abdullah II in the Jordanian seaside resort of Akaba.

The federal Chancellor first traveled to Israel ten days after the Hamas attack to assure the nation of German solidarity. “Israel’s security and that of its citizens is a German state interest,” he said then. “Our responsibility growing out of the Holocaust makes it our duty to stand for the security and the existence of Israel.”

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A Report From Martin Sellner on His Arrest in Switzerland

I reported yesterday on the arrest of Martin Sellner, the leader of Identitarian Movement Austria (Identitäre Bewegung Österreich, IBÖ), whose event in Switzerland was shut down by police. Since then he has been released, but is being forced to leave the canton where he was arrested.

Mr. Sellner recorded the following video just before he was deported from the canton of Aargau to the canton of Zürich. Many thanks to Brunhilde for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/17/2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin was re-elected to a fifth term with 87% of the vote. In possibly unrelated news, Moldovan police arrested a man who attacked the Russian embassy with two Molotov cocktails as voting was taking place there.

In other news, almost 500,000 foreigners are living in Germany without residency permits or asylum status.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Daniel Greenfield, Dean, Insubria, JW, LP, MM, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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Windmills Tilting at Us

Wind turbines are widely disliked by the general public in all countries where they are erected. They are a blight on the landscape, and their noise when operating is unpleasant, and even harmful, for those who live nearby. They are notorious for killing large numbers of birds, including endangered species such as eagles.

Recent research in Sweden has revealed that wind farms cause even more environmental damage than previously thought, notably through the erosion of toxic chemicals from the blades, which are dispersed into the environment surrounding the turbines.

Many thanks to our Swedish correspondent LN for translating this article from Samhällsnytt:

Study shows: Wind turbines can be major environmental offenders

by Mats Dagerlind
March 16, 2024

Wind power is marketed as the climate and environmentally friendly energy option. However, there is a growing body of evidence that this is a truth with major modifications. A new study has now been published which, in addition to what is already known, indicates that wind power is associated with pollution in the form of high levels of hazardous substances around wind farms.

The yet-to-be-published study almost didn’t see the light of day. Strong political and economic forces do not want the image of wind power as the environmentally and climate-friendly alternative to produce electricity to be tarnished by further negative publicity.

As a result, pressure was applied to withdraw funding for the study. However, the researchers at the Universities of Gothenburg and Linköping managed to find money elsewhere, and the study is now complete. And its contents reveal why some were prepared to go to great lengths to stop it.

The list of disadvantages of wind power is long

Wildlife damage has been reported in the past; birds — including protected eagles — are decapitated by rotor blades. Marine life is disturbed by offshore wind turbines.

Worn-out rotor blades cannot be recycled and accumulate in large scrap yards without anyone knowing how to dispose of them. Nature and recreational values are destroyed in the vicinity of wind farms, so that the tourism industry is affected and other outdoor activities cannot be practised.

The local environment is destroyed for residents by the noise of the wind turbines. Those trying to move away find that the market value of their houses has dropped dramatically. And so on.

In addition, wind turbines have low reliability and only produce electricity when the wind is blowing. When there is too much wind, they produce too much electricity instead, which is also a problem, and wind operators are then offered tax money to switch off turbines. Storing wind-generated electricity is not possible today nor in the foreseeable future.

Now the list of poisoning of flora and fauna is expanding

The new study adds new disadvantages to the list. They are also of an uncomfortable nature, as they involve the pollution and poisoning of nature on land and in waterways, pollutants that can find their way into the food chains of animals and humans.

The findings are so serious and numerous that the researchers behind the study wonder why this has not been investigated before. The answer may lie in the fact that neither the wind power industry nor the various players in the green political movement have wanted to find out what the situation is.

The researchers have found that dangerous particles from wind turbine blades are probably an environmental problem that other researchers and authorities have chosen to underestimate. Helen Karlsson is an adjunct assistant professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Linköping University and one of the initiators of the study.

She says that she became interested in the issue of erosion from wind turbine blades when she realised that there were discrepancies between the wind power industry’s figures and other calculations. Initially, she and her colleagues did not believe that they would find as many rotor blade fragments as they did.

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A Fine Synthetic Brogue

When Dymphna died, she took almost all of the Irishness of this blog with her, since I have no more than a wee dram of Irish blood in my veins. However, to honor her memory and keep up the traditions, here’s a small St. Patrick’s Day post.

I’ve posted this poem before, but it’s been (I think) fourteen years, so it’s time for an accord of repetition. It’s by the late great Ogden Nash, who I suspect was no more Irish than I am. But still, he did a good job of poking a finger in the eye of the modern commercialized cult of St. Paddy’s Day:

It’s a Grand Parade It Will Be, Modern Design

by Ogden Nash

Saint Patrick was a proper man, a man to be admired;
Of numbering his virtues I am never, never tired.
A handsome man, a holy man, a man of mighty deeds,
He walked the lanes of Erin, a-telling of his beads.
A-telling of his beads, he was, and spreading of the word.
I think that of Saint Patrick’s Day, Saint Patrick hadn’t heard.

The saint was born a subject of the ancient British throne,
But the Irish in their wisdom recognized him as their own.
A raiding party captured him, and carried him away,
And Patrick loved the Irish, and he lived to capture they,
A-walking of the valleys and a-spreading of the word.
I think that of Saint Patrick’s Day, Saint Patrick hadn’t heard.

He defied the mighty Druids, he spoke them bold and plain,
And he lit the Easter fire on the lofty hill of Shane.
He lit the Easter fire where the hill and heaven met,
And on every hill in Ireland the fire is burning yet.
He lit the Easter fire, a-spreading of the word.
I think that of Saint Patrick’s Day, Saint Patrick hadn’t heard.

Saint Patrick was a proper man before be was a saint,
He was shaky in his Latin, his orthography was quaint,
But he walked the length of Ireland, her mountains and her lakes,
A-building of his churches and a-driving out the snakes,
A-building of his churches and a-spreading of the word.
I think that of Saint Patrick’s Day, Saint Patrick hadn’t heard.

But the silver-tongued announcer is a coy, facetious rogue;
He ushers in Saint Patrick with a fine synthetic brogue,
He spatters his commercials with macushlas and colleens,
Begorras, worra-worras, and spurious spalpeens.
I hope one day Saint Patrick will lean down from Heaven’s arch
And jam the bloody air waves on the Seventeenth of March.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Mention “Remigration”

Martin Sellner is the leader of Identitarian Movement Austria (Identitäre Bewegung Österreich, IBÖ). Yesterday, during a visit to Switzerland, Mr. Sellner’s event was shut down and he was arrested, all because he advocates remigration — that is, the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Sellner posted about the incident on Twitter (in English):

Today the police in the Kanton of Aargau, Switzerland stormed a speech, turned off the electricity, handcuffed me and performed a push back. I am not allowed to enter Aargau for 2 months. The reason?

  • I presented my book about #remigration. The police claimed that this presentation was a danger to Swiss security and public order.
  • According to the police, it was the first push back like this in 10 years, while 50.000 Illegals entered the country in 2023!
  • This is a disgrace to Swiss democracy. But it still is a win for our movement. They can handcuff me, but not our ideas. Remigration is inevitable!

The following video shows what happened when the event was raided by the police. Many thanks to Oz-Rita and Brunhilde for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling.

Note: the audio in the original is of very poor quality. The translators agreed that the text of their translation should not be considered absolutely reliable:

Video transcript:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/16/2024

According to a recent poll, if snap elections were called today, Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally party could win an outright majority in the French National Assembly. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to the German Chancellery to consult Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the situation in Ukraine.

In other news, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker transiting the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen reported two explosions near the ship. It was the third merchant vessel attacked in the past two days.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Caroline Glick, DV, Insubria, LP, McN, Reader from Chicago, SS, Upananda Brahmachari, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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“The AfD is the Only Party in Germany That Recognizes Reality”

The AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) is on the verge of being banned, if not at the federal level, then by one or more of the states. The German establishment has decided that the AfD is dangerous, and appears to be unleashing its full power to stop the populist upstarts.

The following campaign ad by the AfD features several immigrants who express their support for the party. It’s interesting and encouraging to see these advocates for political sanity, but I doubt it will have any effect on the push to destroy the AfD.

Many thanks to Brunhilde for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/15/2024

A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Odesa killed 16 people, among them a medic, and wounded 55 others. Meanwhile, the Estonian defense ministry said that €120 billion a year in military aid is necessary to ensure that Ukraine will win the war.

In other news, a primary school in Germany has banned children from drinking water in their classrooms out of consideration for Muslim pupils fasting during Ramadan.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Dean, DV, JW, McN, MM, Reader from Chicago, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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A Small Country Far Away

Our Israeli correspondent MC sends an update from Sderot, preceded by a reflection on the history of appeasement.


British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain shakes hands with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in Munich, September 1938

A Small Country Far Away

by MC

Most people who are blind to Hamas’ atrocities probably think along the lines of Israel being “a small nation, far away”, with little understanding that Hamas is only as far away as the nearest CAIR or Muslim Council office. When Chamberlain waved his piece of paper in 1938, everybody (except the Czechs) heaved a sigh of relief.

What the world did not understand was that the Nazis (and all other socialists) are liars, and deceit is part and parcel of being a social humanist as well as being an Islamist.

Lying is a natural way of life. One reason the Ten Commandments were so revolutionary was that they forbade both ‘false witness’ and murder.

A corollary to the Ten Commandments and Torah is that every word and action that we take adds to or changes Creation and thus can we be judged at the appropriate time.

Kibbutz Beeri was a ‘socialist’ kibbutz as kibbutzim go, but Hamas is no respecter of any Western political nuances. The ‘useful idiots’ are always disposable once they become ‘useless idiots’, maybe even dangerous idiots, because they think they are deserving of rewards and privileges.

Both Communism and Nazism had the tendency to make that reward a bullet in the back of the neck…

Jews have been with us for some thousands of years. Thus there must be something unique behind Jewish culture. Those who do not believe that God is behind that culture should appreciate that there must be something special at the root of Judaism that makes it so persistent.

Secular humanists should take note: Socialism failed in France and turned to mass murder. It failed in Russia and turned to mass murder. It failed in Germany and turned to mass murder. Same with Cambodia and Cuba. Chinese communism resorted to mass murder even before firmly in power.

Is there a noticeable trend here? One would think not, judging by the avidity with which people try to repeat the socialist ‘experiment’ and hope for different results.

But Islam is probably the biggest mass slaughterer of all time, and we call it a “Religion of Peace”. Is this existential irony a part of that same insanity?

Those Ivy League universities which allow the persecution of Jews because woke-fake propaganda says that Jews are colonialists and settlers should read the real history of Israel and the Jews. The idea of the modern “Jewish Homeland” entered international law with the San Remo treaty in 1922. This treaty was included in the United Nations Charter under article 80, so EVERY signatory of the United Nations Charter accepted that Israel has the right to exist.

Gaza and “Judea and Samaria” were illegally occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively when the world left Israel to the wolves and vultures in the 1948 War of Independence, when the Arab world tried to continue the work of the Holocaust, but were beaten back.

There has always been Jewish occupation of the land. If you dig a hole in Israel you find mainly Jewish, but also Roman, Philistine or Canaanite remains, but not ‘Palestinian’, because the current iteration of ‘Palestine’ was only invented in 1963.

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Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

Our friend Covid-19 is four years old today — hard to believe, isn’t it?

Not everybody celebrates the anniversary on the same date. Some people identify the 16th as the day the “pandemic” began, when a lot of the lockdowns kicked in and the school closings started. But I prefer the Ides of March. It was a Sunday in 2020, when church was cancelled for the first time.

Happy Birthday, Wuhan Coronavirus!

Boy vs. Man

This is a little exercise in compare-and-contrast. A lot more could be said on the topic (two topics, actually), but we’ll start with this simple comparison.

First, French President Emmanuel “Toy Boy” Macron, who really, really seems to want a direct military confrontation with Russia. From Sky News:

Europe should prepare for war if it wants peace, French President Emmanuel Macron has said.

In an interview on French national television, Mr Macron said Vladimir Putin’s Russia was an adversary that would not stop in Ukraine if it defeated Kyiv’s troops.

“If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility will be reduced to zero,” Mr Macron said.

He added: “If war spread in Europe, Russia would be to blame.

“But if we decided to be weak, if we decided today that we would not respond, it would be choosing defeat already. And I don’t want that.”

He went on to say Europe’s security was “at stake in Ukraine”.

Mr Macron said it was important for Europe not to draw red lines, which would signal weakness to the Kremlin and encourage it to push on with its invasion of Ukraine.

But he refused to give detail on what a deployment to Ukraine might look like.

Mr Macron also reiterated his position on sending Western troops into Ukraine should not be ruled out but added that today’s situation did not require that.

“We’re not in that situation today,” he said, but added that “all these options are possible”.

Europe’s security is “at stake in Ukraine” only in the sense that interfering with what Russia considers its existential security issues is VERY bad for the security of the EU.

Time was, European political leaders (think: Bismarck) had a very well-developed sense of Realpolitik, of what was possible, and what might be accomplished within the constraints posed by the strengths and weaknesses of the competing great powers. But nothing remotely like that is in evidence today. Western leaders seem to fall all over themselves to strike a match next to the pool of gasoline that the Ukraine war represents.

There is a lot of speculation about why Mr. Macron is engaging in this flagrantly inflammatory rhetoric. One theory holds that he (and other EU leaders) are aware that the USA is about to cut its losses and bail on Ukraine, leaving the Europeans holding the bag. The collapse of the Ukrainian project will have devastating political consequences for the European Union, the full ramifications of which are not yet visible.

OK, that was the boy. Now consider one of the few adults on the European political scene.

The following report gives a representative account of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from the point of view of the Western establishment — specifically, the media component of the Deep State known as The Washington Post. For many years I have assiduously avoided reading the WaPo, but I suppressed my gag reflex long enough to read this article in order to get an idea of the Conventional Wisdom on Mr. Orbán.

Some excerpts:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/14/2024

Al-Shabab terrorists attacked a popular hotel near the presidential palace in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu today. No information on casualties is available yet. Meanwhile, gunmen who seized 286 students and staff members from a school in northern Nigeria are demanding 1 billion naira ($620,432) for their release.

In other news, a commission drawn from the European Parliament and Council plans to create a database to track millions of guns thought to be in civilian hands in the EU.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Dean, DV, LP, McN, MM, Reader from Chicago, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

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