I believe it was none other than the Italian Communist party leader Palmiro Togliatti who is supposed to have observed that one of the three invariable characteristics of Communist regimes is that the leadership lies even when it doesn’t have to. (The other two characteristics, if memory serves, are that the economy is dysfunctional and the chocolate is bad.)
Well, it would appear that the same observation could apply now to the international media and the French Government, which is the presumptive source of much of what the media have been telling us about last Saturday’s terror attack in Paris.
Why in the world is the main victim of the attack being constantly described as a “German tourist” when, as previously reported on the Daily Sceptic, he was in fact a native of the Philippines who had only moved to Germany earlier this year?
It is technically true that Collin Christian Bröter (see photo below) was a German citizen: a status which, judging from his last name, he will have inherited from a German father. But why has this bureaucratic fact been allowed to eclipse his Filipino identity and, just as importantly, the Filipino identity of the two women he was with when he was attacked? Indeed, there is virtually no mention of the latter, one of whom was Bröter’s girlfriend Lyn, in coverage of the attack – as if they did not even exist!
The fact of the matter is that Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, the assailant, attacked a group of Filipino tourists. This is a potentially highly significant fact, which could provide insights into his motives, given that Rajabpour-Miyandoab has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a terror attack on Filipino Christians in the Philippines which took place literally just hours after Rajabpour-Miyandoab killed Bröter in Paris.
As touched upon in my report, the Islamic State sponsors an Islamist insurgency in the Philippines which aims to incorporate the latter into a global caliphate. (Further information on ISIS-Philippines, also know as ISIS-East Asia, can be found here, for instance, from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.)
But are we hearing about any of these connections in the mainstream media coverage? No. Instead we are hearing that, according to unnamed French police sources, Rajabpour-Miyandoab is supposed to have said that he acted to avenge the killing of Muslims “in Palestine and Afghanistan” or even, per the latest version, that he was triggered by the Eiffel Tower being lit up in the colours of the Israeli flag. The Eiffel Tower was lit up in the colours of the Israeli flag two months ago: namely, on October 9th, as a gesture of solidarity with the victims of the October 7th Hamas terror attack. Soon thereafter, the French Government would revert to form, blaming Israeli for its “disproportionate” response and pledging an additional €100 million (£85 million) in aid to Gaza.
But, in any case, if Rajabpour-Miyandoab was indeed triggered by the lighting of the tower, why did he not do something at the time? Why did he wait two months?
Moreover, we do not need to rely on unnamed French police sources to learn about Rajabpour-Miyandoab’s motives. As is the custom of Islamic terrorists, he laid out his motivations in a video recorded before the attack.
As the French- and Arabic- speaking specialist in Jihadism Wassim Nasr notes, Rajabpour-Miyandoab makes “no mention of Palestine or Gaza” in his video. Rather, in Nasr’s words, Rajabpour-Miyandoab “claims he is acting ‘to avenge Muslims’ and he salutes the jihadists of the Islamic State in all their zones of activity one by one”. Again, neither Palestine nor Gaza is included in this list. But East Asia is. There is no allusion to Israel or Hamas. But Rajabpour-Miyandoab explicitly mentions the “guardians of the religion in East Asia” – which would be, namely, ISIS-Philippines.
It should be noted, by the way, that Rajabpour-Miyandoab’s video has largely disappeared from X. See below, for instance. Why? Why is the evidence – and hence the ability of the public to judge for itself – being destroyed? The video, which was recorded in Arabic, remains available with French subtitles on Telegram here.
To summarise, according to the current version of events, based on anonymous but official sources, Rajabpour-Miyandoab, having been triggered when the Eiffel Tower was lit up in the colours of the Israeli flag two months earlier, is supposed to have murdered a German tourist to avenge the killing of Muslims in Palestine. What? A more absurd construction is hardly imaginable.
Why are French officials peddling such an absurd story? Why is the international media uncritically disseminating it? All that this version of events serves to do is to divert attention from the reality of global jihad and to make Israel into scapegoat.
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X.
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Poor old ‘Peter Hitches.’
Yep he´s right on so many things but so completely wrong on drugs.
The cons are right on this issue.
The thing is I don’t think Peter Hitchens has ever taken cannabis. He’s just read the scare stories and they sound ridiculous. He drinks wine and seem to be totally cognitively dissonant on the fact that alcohol is a substance which has a long history of associated violence. Apart from that, he seems like a kind man.
Peter Hitchens almost a national treasure if such things even exist.
Why one would want to impose this on them-selves voluntarily is beyond me. Grim. But Peter Hitchens was a big lockdown sceptic, and right in the middle of our darkest hour- the start of 2021. Well it felt like our darkest hour to me.
I’ve looked it up, I’ve thought about it…. but I still don’t understand the term ‘tractor porn’. I suppose there is no hope for me.
Agreed. The Urban Dictionary definition “Still or moving images of farm machinery, often viewed in an obsessively-voyeuristic manner. Tractor porn is often associated with the chronic inability to achieve any set task or other meaningful productive output in one’s work day.” doesn’t really cut it.
Can somebody kindly explain it, or at least give a hint, in an acceptable manner?
He claimed that he’d ended up on a porn site while looking for pictures of tractors. He’d be useful in a smoky room because he’s probably now an ex tractor fan
Yawn.