From The River To The Sea

"We are getting more and more phone calls and conversations of concerned people — if it’s Israelis who invest in Ireland and are concerned about their investment, if it’s Israelis who have relocated to Ireland into different tech companies and either are requesting to be relocated somewhere else or asking to return to Israel."

"I think it sends the wrong message about the location and the centrality of Ireland as a tech hub when there are more and more people who are concerned about moving to Ireland. I don’t think that this is the message that Ireland wants to send to the world … And this is not what we want to see."

"[Many Irish sympathize with Israel] behind the scenes. I think there is a lot of potential in our bilateral relations, if it’s cybersecurity or health care, climate change. I hope to be given that opportunity to continue that."

Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich

Anti-Israel demonstrators stand outside the Israeli embassy after Ireland has announced it will recognize a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Molly Darlington

 A March poll by the Palestinian polling group elicited the data that seven in ten Palestinians approved of the October 7 sadistic barbarity that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist operatives inflicted on southern Israel's kibbutz residents. Poll results rendered the information that Palestinians in the West Bank outdid their Gaza counterparts with a greater number supporting Hamas as the duly constituted government in both territories.

Israelis, looking back in appalled anger at the carnage wrought by the Palestinian terrorist operation of October 7 are almost equal in numbers in rejecting a renewed Palestinian enclave in  Gaza. It seems that in the West, in European countries in particular, Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups are not held in any judgement. Israel, on the other hand, is held to a standard not expected of Palestinians. When Palestinians invoking their 'refugee' status as 'victims' everlasting as long as Israel exists, commit to the goal of destroying Israel, their ongoing violence against Israel and its population is considered irrelevant.

 

Israel's responses to deadly raids, however, are viewed through the magnified lens of international demands that restraint be the order of the day, not the wholesale intention of responding militarily to the rocket barrages, and suicide missions -- and above all the October 7 sadistic savagery with its death count, determined to prevent the promise of more October 7s, until Israel is destroyed -- by taking the initiative to destroy first those whose unremitting violence against Israeli existence must be final and complete.

 

Ireland has led the way in persuading Spain and and Norway -- all three countries known to be hostile to Israel -- to formally recognize the 'State of Palestine', rather than await a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority government on mutual recognition and a corresponding decision on conditions both agree upon, setting standards and boundaries as well as pledges of non-hostile cooperation. Israel has been available for talks in the critical issues involved, the Palestinians have evaded them.

Choosing instead their slow and steady scheduling of the poisoning of Palestinian minds against their Jewish neighbours, inculcating in those minds the need for 'resistance' against the 'occupation'; an occupation necessitated by the urgent call to protect Israelis of all ages against lethal attacks that Palestinians are taught by their governments it is their duty to carry out to martyrdom in the greater interests of opposing Israel's presence and committing to killing Jews.

Sovereignty recognition must pass some elemental standards, not the least of which under international law a state must have fixed borders, a permanent population, uncontested government with control of its security and commitments to amiable foreign relations. In light of the most recent of the ongoing attacks against Israel and its people, to proceed at this unresolved juncture to recognize a Palestinian state that refuses to negotiate with the neighbour it threatens, to agree on boundaries and future relations is beyond premature.

Granting that status for the Palestinians is not only premature, it represents a reprehensible decision to reward savagery committed against a neighbour where 1,200 lives of Israeli citizens were extinguished on one fateful day of carnage dedicated to terrorizing, slaughtering and hostage taking. Neither Palestinians, nor now Israelis favour the two-state 'solution' the West is anxious to hasten to reality, seemingly to solve a brutal, unresolved issue of two peoples rivalling one another in a competition for territory.

 

Israelis settled for a state on a small portion of their historical ancestral land mass; Palestinians rejected outright the opportunity offered them through the Partition Plan of the United Nations in 1947. Consistently since then when war after war broke out as surrounding Arab states attempted to dislodge the Jewish State from the Middle East, Israel successfully clung to its territory, militarily defeating its enemies and frustrating Palestinian aspirations to achieve a state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea.

 

Which is to say, without a presence of an Israeli state, leaving the entire area to the Palestinian Arabs. That remains the goal of both Fatah (West Bank Palestinian Authority) and Hamas (Gaza Strip). Fatah and Hamas oppose one another with a hostility born of ideological differences and factional rivalry. Their only area of agreement is the destruction of the State of Israel. That part of the West that is amenable to granting State status to Palestinian aspiration is effectively agreeing that the use of violent sadism was justifiable and awaited reward.

 

Countries that would never tolerate violence against their claims to sovereignty and against their populations, appear to feel that having suffered the intolerable, Israel should merely shrug and count its losses to satisfy the demands of a global community fixated with the entitlements and inalienable rights of a Palestinian population that chooses its method of persuasion, trumping lethal violence over the negotiating table. In the process the pretense for consumption by the West, frequent appeals to victimhood. Appealing for help from the international community to bypass normal international standards to qualify for statehood.

 

Looking ahead to the eventual agreement on statehood for 'Palestine', the issue of who would govern is critical to relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinians make no secret of the fact that the majority reject 88-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to his position as President decades ago, with no election keeping him in office for the past 20 years. Their choice of governance has been stated time and again in their admiration for Hamas's agenda. 

 

Ireland, Spain and Norway would never agree to live alongside another state with destructive tendencies and an agenda that included ongoing violence against a neighbour. Yet they deem it acceptable for Israel and they prefer to force the matter by supporting a Palestinian State that is loathe to bargain in good faith with Israel, since to do so would be to forego their ambition to have free reign from "The River to the Sea" in perpetuity.

 

 

Tremblors and Volcanic Eruptions: Devastation, La Palma

"We have a flow to the north that is moving quickly ... this lava comes from more interior areas of the crater and its temperature is about 1,250 degrees."

Miguel Angel Moreuende, director, volcano response committee, La Palma 

"The ash cloud originating from the volcanic eruption makes it necessary to maintain the temporary stoppage of flights to La Palma..."

"The flights scheduled for today have been cancelled."

Aena, Spain's airport operator

 

"Activity is picking up again. The volcano has been producing intermittent explosions with ash emissions from the new cone, at intervals of roughly every 10 minutes."

Update Mon 27 Sep 2021 12:07

"To put the eruption into perspective, the newly lava-covered surface of 221 hectares (2,21 sq km) corresponds to 0,3 percent of the island's total surface of 708 sq km."

"It is interesting to look at the volume of lava erupted so far: if an average thickness of the lava flows of 10 m is assumed and the total surface covered is 212 hectares (=100x100=10,000 sq meters), the volume is approx. 10x2,120,000 or roughly 20 million cubic meters."
"This does not include the volume of the cone and the erupted ash, but likely the latter are much smaller than the volume of the lava flows and can be neglected. In any case, the volume of erupted material is in the same order of size as the previously modeled magma volume estimate that had been intruded during the earthquake swarm (also around 20 or more million cubic meters)."
"If these figures are correct (which is far from certain), the eruption indeed might have exhausted the available magma, but the near future will certainly tell."

VolcanoDiscovery

The Cumbre Vieja volcano spews lava, ash and smoke as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane on the Canary island of La Palma in Sept. 26, 202 (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

A week after the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma erupted, the airport has been re-opened, but all flights in or out have been cancelled. The volcano continues to spout lava, emitting ash clouds over the area surrounding it, forcing people to cover themselves with umbrellas to keep from being entirely plastered with thick falling volcanic ash. "They laugh at us because of the umbrella, but if we don't use it, we end up covered in ash", explained Waldo Nasco, an engineer.

Two active lava flows are now in action, one is a swiftly-flowing mass to the north, the other a slower one flowing to the south. Drone footage capturing photographs for Reuters shows a rapid, wide stream of red hot lava down the crater's slopes, inching its way past homes with swaths of land and buildings entirely engulfed by the black mass of languidly moving, older lava.

In Todoque, the village church which had narrowly missed being engulfed in lava days earlier when lava stopped just short of it, was destroyed on Sunday, the bell tower crumpling under the weight of the flow. Director of the island's volcano response committee, Morcuende, declared that those people who had been evacuated from three towns under the volcano would now be safe to return to their homes; they are the fortunate ones whose homes are still standing.

People swept away volcanic ash from outside the environs of the church of Colegio Sagrada Familia de Nazaret, after mass on Sunday. Pope Francis, during his weekly blessing in St.Peter's Square, sent a message of "closeness and solidarity" to those affected on La Palma. 

 

A new explosive phase took place on Friday, as the uncertainty of when the eruptions would cease and the Cumbre Vieja volcano would return to its normally quiescent state consumed the minds of the 83,000 population of the island in the Canary Islands group.

Ash emission this morning, September 27 (image: Eva Kubelková)

Leaving Zion To Return To Spain

"They took everything from us -- our identity, our possessions, any property that we had."
"I don't have $6,000 a pop to do this [assemble qualifying materials and pay for the application process], and I don't see how it would benefit me."
"I was planted in the United States, and in the United States I'll stay."
Maria Apodaca, Sephardic Jew, Albuquerque, New Mexico

"It's almost like a huge, many, many months-long scavenger hunt."
"[An immigration case he worked on of a Venezuelan refugee claim to enter Canada was] 100 times more simple [than his own Spanish citizenship application.]"
"It's odd, but I felt the need to reciprocate. They cannot make amends through our mutual ancestors ... if the descendants do not take up the offer."
Daniel Romano, lawyer, Montreal

"There's definitely a lot of Jewish people that feel like their Spanish or Sephardic expression of Judaism is important to them, so being validated by Spain is something that's pleasing."
"But I think also Brexit is just having a big [impact on] young, liberal European-liking people who don't want to give that up if they don't have to."
Ben Shapiro, Interfaith Charity, London, England

"You had to do it [unusual 'family customs' such as not eating pork, washing hands before and after meals, covering mirrors at home after the death of a family member], but you never knew why."
"I always wanted to know who I was. I think this is something I had to do for my ancestors. They went through a lot of pain. They were expelled from their land ..."
"To me, it's not about, What I can do with that citizenship? It's more about restoring something that I love, or we loved, hundreds of years ago."
Juan Hernandez-Villafuerte, 41, Montreal 

A gift shop in the old Jewish quarters of Toledo, where Jews were expelled five centuries ago. Photograph: Gérard Julien/AFP/Getty Images

Juan Hernandez-Villafuerte was led to believe by his family that they were Christian, despite the peculiar customs his family observed, well known to the Jewish community as identifying features of Judaism, but unknown to him, though his mother suspected their family had once been Jewish. That would have been before the year 1492, when Spanish Jews faced the Inquisition, and expulsion from Spain. Some Jews had acquiesced to the demand they abandon Judaism and become Christian. But even these people, called Marranos, were suspected of secretly practising Judaism, and some were burned alive, in auto-da-fes, the lethal penalty of spurning Roman Catholicism by those seen as heretical.

He was curious enough to return to Mexico City where his family had lived for generations, where he sought out police and church records, discovering an old property record dating from 1610 with the name of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather as the owner of a property there. "I was actually able to touch it. I always wanted to now who I was." He had felt impelled to do that genealogical research when in 2015 the Spanish Parliament passed into law the granting of citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jewry who could produce documentation that they qualified.

Applicants had to prove connections with Spain going back centuries  AFP

Historically, Jews faced persecution, oppression, racist propaganda, pogroms and expulsion wherever they lived in the diaspora. And this modern-day 'change of heart' by a country that had made life impossible for Jews, and appropriated whatever assets and properties they might have had, while expelling them, discovered that with the detested Jews no longer to be relied upon for their trading, business and workmanship skills, their economies suffered, leading succeeding governments to invite the Jews to return.

Now, in our modern era, Spain and Portugal have done just that. As has done Sudan, beckoning former Sudanese-Jewish families to return to the places where they suffered intense human rights abuses. Come back, they say, where you belong, we miss you. They stand prepared to correct a historical wrong of immense proportions. Spain's economy is in ill health, its unemployment rate, particularly among the young, is sky-high. Just as it once closed its doors to Jews, it has more recently opened its borders to refugees and migrants streaming to Europe any way they can from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

As long as an applicant is able to provide documentation demonstrably proving their Iberian heritage that application will be considered. Census documents, birth records, baptism, marriage and death certificates. The records must be translated and the translator must be given official recognition by the Spanish government, they must pay the application fee of $6,000 and the applicant must be prepared to travel to Spain to sign their application alongside the signature of a Spanish notary.

The old Jewish quarter of Toledo was a major cultural centre in the Middle Ages AFP

A rabbi at a Sephardic synagogue in Vancouver receives up to dozens of requests monthly to write letters to accompany Spanish citizenship applications, with requests arriving from South Americans, Mexicans, and occasionally Canadians. Some of those people have in their possession original scripts dating from the Inquisition. "People really, really took this seriously", explained Rabbi Shlomo Gabbay of Vancouver's Beth Hamidrash synagogue.

Spain is facing the prospect of a steadily diminishing population with a low fertility and replacement rate among the Spanish just as is occurring all over the world as people prosper and become more educated and women put off childbearing in favour of putting careers first. Spain's fertility rate at 1.3 children per woman is below replacement level, projecting a declining population by 9.4 million between 2000 and 2050. Spaniards have been promised pro-natal government initiatives even while it has accepted increasing refugee numbers.

Despite which, one has to wonder whether the application process for Spanish-Jewish descendants has any focus beyond the obvious potential of economic enhancement for the country. Jewish repatriation applicants must pass a language and citizenship test, most must hire a lawyer and genealogist  to guide their claim forward, all details pointing to the fact that only the affluent could afford the time and the money it would require to fulfill all those mandatory details.

Andrés Villegas, a Colombian, found a Jewish ancestor who was born in 1595 AFP

The Spanish Citizenship Committee of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico received 50 to 75 calls daily from people making enquiries about Spanish citizenship. Some interested in pursuing citizenship never suspected that the customs their families had followed had anything to do with Judaism. "That s a bombshell that goes off in someone's head. That is a real identity crisis. Citizenship is like getting this badge: yes, we are who we are", explained Schelly Talalay Dardashti, with the Committee. Observing that some people resort to DNA testing.

"There's a sense certainly toward the Jews of some sort of historical debt, some sort of reckoning."
"But if I can be more cynical, I think there's also an element of an attempt to bring people with assets and affluence to the countries [Spain and Portugal] and also to offset some of the refugees that are arriving at these countries."
"Many of them are having an awakening that they have to have another place to go, and I think that Israel used to be that escape hatch, but now Israel is in as much chaos as the United States."
Howard Adelman, associate professor of history, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

The Unstoppable Force of the Migrant Tide

Moroccan migrants are seen on a dinghy as they cross the Strait of Gibraltar sailing from the coast of Morocco before disembarking at 'Del Canuelo' beach in Tarifa on Friday

"The Spanish government’s actions when it came to the Aquarius were good given all that’s happening in the Mediterranean right now."
"You can’t let people die and that’s why we needed that symbolic act of humanity and solidarity from the government. But the Aquarius also showed us what needs to be done in terms of intervention and reception. And that isn’t happening here."
"If they’d had the foresight to build a centre in all the years that have gone by, we wouldn’t have men, women and children – including babies – sleeping on the floors of sports centres in different cities, in the waiting room at Algeciras port or in police stations. This is a really awful situation.”
"I’ve seen what the wire [razor wire topping border fences at Melilla and Ceuta] does to people: it doesn’t cut you; it rips you."
“I’ve served as a chaplain at the CIEs [foreign internment centres] and it broke my heart every week when I went. They should not exist. Migrants who arrive have committed an administrative offence by arriving in Spain without the necessary documentation but they’re being locked up in a place that’s guarded by police and which, in many cases, has bars. They’re being detained."
Father Gabriel Delgado, Cádiz, Spain

"We’re taking them in on a daily basis [migrants off ships]. They’re just not called the Aquarius and they’re little boats. It may not be as striking as a boat drifting in the Mediterranean, but it’s the reality of what we’re seeing on the coasts of southern Spain on, sadly, a daily basis."
"[The maritime rescue service and NGOs are doing an extraordinary job]. Where we need help is with economic resources to improve and widen these capacities."
"But what’s fundamental is the need to come up with measures on development, dialogue, cooperation and improving things in the countries of origin and countries of transit."
Spain’s new prime minister, Pedro Sánchez

Spain's humanitarian dedication to welcoming migrants from Africa to its shores is now placing it in the position that Greece and Italy were mired in for years. When Italy's new government decided that enough was more than enough and refused to accept the Aquarius with its latest invasion of migrants to Italy, Spain stepped up and offered to take them in. That kind of selfless compassion has its cost; word spreads and Spain has become the latest easy entry point for those seeking to improve their prospects by leaving their failed countries of origin.

The first migrants from the Aquarius, a ship that was turned away by Italy and Malta sparking a major migration row in Europe, disembarked at the Spanish port of Valencia on June 17, 2018. (PAU BARRENA/AFP/Getty Images)

Europe is drowning in refugees and economic migrants; its generous impulse to share the advances it has made in providing a decent life for its populations suddenly in high demand by the world's less fortunate. There are, needless to say, official entry points where applications for asylum or immigration are formally made and considered by authorities of the host countries. But none of the tens of thousands of 'refugees' and asylum seekers have any interest in law and order and fairness, in acknowledging that there is an existing waiting list that their impulsive demands are complicating.

Spain's coast guard union is "overwhelmed", in their words, by the steep and never-ending rise in migrant crossings. A human tide requiring rescue from the flimsy rafts floating them over the Strait of Gibraltar, others coming overland in a violent spree of breaching borders. And in the last day, Spanish beachgoers were suddenly jerked out of their complacent enjoyment of a summer day when their beach was suddenly a little more crowded when a flimsy boat arrived to unload fifty Africans who speedily ran off after asking the beachgoers for food.

The Maritime Rescue agency urgently calls on aid so it can continue to cope with the "massive arrival of immigrants" on Spain's unprepared shores. More crew required to save lives afloat in an unfriendly sea. "An absolute overflow of work" for maritime resource centers has resulted from the "extraordinary upturn" in arrivals, cries out for more help for crews already operating with "insufficient" crew levels went the plea.

On Friday morning alone 35 rafts bursting with 627 people came in off the Strait of Gibraltar, raising the number that arrived in this week alone to 2,000. Spain is now considered to be the gateway of choice for migrants crossing the Mediterranean to access Europe. Over 20,000 such individuals breached Spanish shores this year, figures reached by the International Organization for Migration. Italy no longer can boast or groan, that it takes in larger numbers, and, in fact, no longer will agree to.

Thursday's violence at Ceuta, the outpost in Morocco, where over 600 migrants forced entry into Spain stands out for the vicious event it was, when once across the breached fence, migrants attacked the Guardia Civil stationed there with weapons and chemicals and fire. Despite which the attackers were not turned back, not arrested but ushered toward an migrant intake station to make their claims for haven, even while their forced entry was described by security forces as "unprecedented violence".

Reception centres in Spain are beyond saturated, and Spain now blames Italy's refusal to accept any longer those leaving Libya to cross the Mediterranean, where the new government has barred the docking of rescue ships. And while Spain mulls over the necessity of helping the countries that are bleeding citizens to transform them into places where their nationals will want to stay and aid in the building of nations where opportunities to flourish and human rights are respected, in Africa and the Middle East, the concerned nations themselves remain oblivious to any need to transform themselves.

Spanish beachgoers amazed at the sight of migrants spilling out of a boat and sprinting off.

Under Violent Invasion

"In an attempt to stop the Guardia Civil getting close to the break-in area, the migrants … [pelted] officers with plastic containers of excrement and quicklime, sticks and stones, as well as using aerosols as flame-throwers."
Guardia Civil statement

"I hope the EU is working on a global policy on this: it may be our problem initially, but tomorrow, or in a week’s time, or a month’s, it’ll be at the heart of Europe."
"We’ve never, ever, ever had 1,000 migrants arriving in Spain each weekend. And all this could just be for starters: there’s a lot of the summer left and there are thousands and thousands of migrants arriving on the coasts of north Africa and thousands and thousands more who have been waiting to cross for months or years."
Algeciras mayor, José Ignacio Landaluce

"Migrants are sleeping wherever they can: the police stations are full, the converted sports centres are full and the reception centres are full."
"There’s a reception centre for minors in La Línea de la Concepción that’s meant for 30 people. Right now there are 200 little kids there, sleeping on the floor. You’ve even got people sleeping on the decks of maritime rescue boats because there’s nowhere else for them."
Carmen Velayos, secretary general, United Police union, Cádiz

"We’re working on an emergency plan to reinforce the system and give more help to the NGOs working on arrivals."
"I know this is a problem and that the apparatus is being overwhelmed."
Magdalena Valerio, minister for work, migration and social security

Police officer keep watch over some of the people who managed to jump off the border fence between Spain and Morocco, in Ceuta, on Thursday. Photograph: Reduan/EPA

Ah, the sensibilities and sensitivities of Western nations. To them falls the responsibility of succouring the dissatisfied citizens of the failed nations of the world, those truly third-world 'authority' figures incapable of, or unwilling to stop stuffing their personal bank accounts in favour of responsibly administering the affairs of the countries they lead, in civil infrastructure, order and good government, education, health and the environment required for business to flourish, establishing trade with their neighbours and overseeing a future where their populations can aspire to advance their interests.

Spain, Greece and Italy, with their vulnerable, reachable shores in overland journeys and Mediterranean crossings, both risky to human life, have opened Europe to an invasion of economic migrants, heavy on young men prepared to undergo hardships for the prize of establishing themselves, not necessarily in Spain, Greece or Italy, but further along, in wealthier Europe with established social welfare programs and a humanitarian conscience urging them to open their doors wide and embrace those who now strain those generous welfare programs; in the process failing the needs of their indigenous populations.

When Italy stood its ground under a new administration, refusing to take in any more of the haven seekers, migrants and professed refugees that have burdened it beyond the capacity to manage the unstoppable surge, Spain stepped in magnanimously offering to take in the spurned sea voyagers. Generosity of spirit such as this through the universal humanitarian impulse that appears to have stricken Western Europe in particular speeds its welcome message through the grapevine of informal communication, spurring even greater numbers to head for that impulsively generous nation.

Police help people down from the the border fence between Morocco and Ceuta, Spain. Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters

Those countries with a conscience as wide as the world, with an economy struggling to catch its breath, and a culture, heritage and social life based on religious devotion remain oblivious to the long-term sea change they have invited, to transform themselves from what is familiar, comfortable and routine in a well-oiled national community, to one that will be overwhelmed in due time to become grossly unfamiliar, uncomfortable and routine in a welter of change that will encompass law and order subservience to a theocratic ideology whose prospects to endure while all others fall, becomes insurmountable.

Had they but paid attention, the Thursday event where the Spanish enclave of Ceuta was stormed so Moroccans could swarm in the hundreds over the border, overwhelming the capacity of Spanish border police to govern and protect the border from incursion reflected in large part the psychosis of violence and defiance to authority that will inundate Spain in due time. What news sources describe as an 'incident' saw 800 people viciously throwing sticks, stones, bags of excrement at the Guardia Civil stationed at the border.

The intruders used quicklime, aerosols whose use is as flame throwers to make their point that no authority, no amount of precautions, no human agency, no fences however impervious, will hold them from penetrating a border they aim to conquer. With the use of angle grinders and shears men focused on mayhem and insinuating themselves as 'migrants' in a sovereign nation that has no need of augmenting their population with such as they -- lawbreakers, criminals, self-entitled thugs -- spurning normal, legal routes to emigration, forcing entrance through the fence. Many took care to protect themselves with homemade shields and body armour.

To further demonstrate their intentions, once having broken through the fence those seeking haven in Spain -- or Germany, Sweden, Norway -- continued to mount attacks on border agents and their security vehicles. Bags of hashish and Molotov cocktails were later removed from the possession of the migrants by the Guardia Civil. And civil they most certainly were, although ten had to be taken to hospital for treatment to wounds the attacks against them caused. These were ten Guardia Civil officers sprayed with "some type of acid, lime or white liquid" causing burns, respiratory and cognitive issues.

And as a consequence of the violence they caused, did Spain summarily boot the 602 men who did succeed in barging through and over the border fence? Actually they were politely escorted into Ceuta's migrant reception centre, meant to be a temporary structure for processing, but on the basis of this ongoing, unstoppable invasion, obviously permanent in purpose, to begin the journey to exercising the 'right' of foreign intruders to be welcomed by civilized societies prepared to accept an invasion that will eventually overturn all that is 'normal' in their societies.

Spain, so far this year, has had its resources strained by the entrance of close to 20,000 asylum seekers, economic migrants, refugees from their national homelands. A country like Canada whose borders are so distant from those of Africa for example, could never be imagined to be vulnerable to a similar situation. Next door to the United States of America which has shut itself away from illegal migration, it acts nonetheless as a conduit for those same illegals to enter Canada. And Canada is now desperately attempting to cope with a similar number of entrants this year, from Haiti and Nigeria.

The 602 migrants who crossed into Spanish territory were transported to a temporary migrant reception centre in Cueta, which had already been over capacity  Credit: EFE News Agency / Alamy Live News

Spain's Season of Discontent

"[Three Catalonias exist]; you have the small or middle sized cities and towns where the support for independence is massive. Then you have all the cities surrounding Barcelona, where the majority of people speak Spanish at home, and where the support for independence is [comparatively] low."
"And then you have Barcelona, which is a mixture of both worlds."
Oriol Bartomeus, professor, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

"There are people who are pro-independence in a classical way -- they talk about Catalan culture, language and identity. But the success of the pro-independence movement is in the way that it has brought on board people from other identities and perspectives."
"It's not a nationalist movement, it's a movement about sovereignty."
Antonio Banos, former lawmaker

"It's a very pluralistic city and there is a lot of diversity of opinions in Barcelona."
"...If you compare it [Barcelona] with people in the heart of Catalonia, it's not as pro-independence."
"For many years, Barcelona has been a Mediterranean city, a global city, and thousands of people have always mobilized here for peace, or dialogue and for human rights."
"And that remains the case today."
Ada Colau, Barcelona mayor

Independence supporters gathered outside the Palau Catalan Regional Government Building on Monday following last week's decision by the Catalan parliament to vote to split from Spain. The Spanish government responded by imposing direct rule and dissolving the Catalan parliament. (Getty Images)

Popular sentiment in Barcelona appeared to go all out for independence, in an restive area of Spain that has been edging toward secession for a very long time. At the same time the October 1 referendum brought out an estimated 43 percent of the electorate of Catalonia to cast their ballots in a vote that the Spanish courts banned, an event that the central Spanish government did its violent utmost to halt. That reaction no doubt spurred the greater majority of those who came out to the polls to vote in favour of an independent Catalonia; they did so by their significant 90 percent support.

Spain has reacted by declaring the referendum illegal, an assault on the democratic values of the country, a claim that runs counter to using intimidation, anger and force rather than reason and debate. And because the Catalan autonomous government has been dismissed not only is the populace perplexed, but investors and business leaders view the current and impending destabilization as a signal to vacate a sinking ship. If the central authority is determined to run Catalonia they have their work cut out.

Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido, left, holds a meeting with the new chief of Catalan regional police, Ferran Lopez, right, in Madrid on Monday. Lopez has replaced the dismissed regional police chief Josep Lluis Tapero. (Angel Diaz/AFP/Getty Images)

The counter-rally defending Spanish unity was a massive display of pro-union sentiment. "Catalan leaders have broken the law. The central government has let this situation go for too long, for even 30 or 40 years, thinking that we were never going to arrive at this extreme, but here we are. Our society is fractured, there are family members and friends who no longer can talk about politics to avoid conflict", complained one retiree at the rally.

The atmosphere is both heated and concerned in Barcelona. The pro-Spain rally may have taken place in that most cosmopolitan and pluralist of Spanish cities, but in Catalonian towns elsewhere there is little evidence of a willingness to relinquish the dream of independence. Migrants from Andalusia and Extremadura decades earlier made Barcelona a more diverse population, unwilling to separate from Spain, whereas people born to Catalan parents urge for independence, though Catalans living elsewhere in Spain are pro-union.

"We have organized ourselves late, but we are here to show that there is a majority of Catalans that are no longer silent and that no longer want to be silenced", a pro-union Alex Ramos, head of the group Catalan Civil Society, stated as he marched along with hundreds of thousands of Catalans voicing opposition to Friday's declaration of independence. Regional leader Carles Puigdemont called for Catalans to engage in peaceful opposition to the central government's regional affairs takeover. He and his fired cabinet would keep "working to build a free country".

It is expected that Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont will likely have a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday, but it remains unclear whether he will ask for asylum in Belgium. (Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press)

The Uncertainty of Spanish Reaction to Barcelona Revealed 

"Who knows what will happen if the Guardia Civil comes?"
"If they tell me I can't be in a public school to exercise my democratic rights, they will have to take me out of here. I won't resist, but they will have to carry me out."
Quim Roy, activist, Barcelona

Riot police shoot rubber bullets. People form a line in protest in an attempt to cast their ballots in Barcelona. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

"[The use of rubber bullets by Spanish police against crowds of unarmed voters was shocking.] We did expect a normal democratic process."
"We knew that a lot of police were here but still, you know, there should be a respect for the will of the people to vote regardless of what you think of the referendum."
Ksenia Svetlova, member Israeli parliament, part of a delegation of 33 invited by Catalan officials to observe the voting process

"[The violence, while] unfortunate [and] unpleasant [was] proportionate."
"If people insist in disregarding the law and doing something that has been consistently declared illegal and unconstitutional, law enforcement officers need to uphold the law."
Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis

Police move back to their vans followed by members of the public after storming into polling station to confiscate ballot boxes and ballots in Sant Julia de Ramis, Spain, Sunday. - David Ramos,Getty Images

A deadline had been set; six in the morning on Sunday, police warning activists along with parents and their children in the Catalan schools they took to occupying to prevent the police from shutting them down from polling place activities three hours later. In Madrid there were protest marches against separation; balancing the thousands who marched in Barcelona to remain united with Spain. The Spanish parliament warned that the referendum should not, and would not take place, characterizing it as 'anti-democratic'; a rather surprising interpretation of democracy.

But the nation's constitutional court three weeks earlier had suspended the independence vote supporting the government's identifying it as illegal. Making it entirely expected that the police would be dispatched to stop the process to intervene by whatever means seen to be necessary to stop ballots being cast. They began by confiscating millions of ballots and posters. And the following, predictable course of action was indeed to haul people away from their intended vote.

Armed for business with truncheons and rubber bullets police from other regions were sent to put a stop to the voting, to confiscate ballots and in their zeal some were shot on video dragging people away from polling stations by their hair, others being pushed down stairways, being kicked and shoved to the ground. The physical violence was emphasized by peoples' frightened screams. One voter's amateur footage was of police attacking unarmed people and other locations revealed similar rough tactics, people being kicked, punched, thrown about, including the elderly with dogs, young girls and all manner of other people attempting to protect their heads from truncheon blows.

 An estimated eight hundred people were injured, some aeriously. They may have been peaceful protesters, unarmed civilians who felt it was their human right to cast ballots, but they came against well-armed and -instructed police who felt otherwise. Of the 2.26 million Catalans who managed to vote, 90 percent significantly voted "yes", to favour independence. Close to eight percent, a negligible number, rejected independence, while the other ballots were either voided or simply blank.

The region's 5.3 million registered voters made the most of their difficult opportunities to express themselves in the only way they could. The government of Spain penalized them with an amazing reaction, a violence that would make a tyranny proud of its capacity to quell rebellion. Of the ballots accounted for, there were others, confiscated by Spanish police during the violent raids planned to put a halt to the vote process.


The leaders of other nations in the European Union were undoubtedly dismayed and gap-mouthed at this undemocratic, violent display of raw anger and power to dissuade a significant proportion of a population that their opinion and their wishes in a purportedly democratic nation were of no value whatever; enforcing their loyalty and citizenship to a regime and a national process they no longer want any part of. There will be an appeal by the Catalan government to the European Union to focus on this abuse of human rights.

Purloined Fresh Olives

"We've always had some thieving here, but I've never seen anything like this. Looting has become the order of the day."
"Once we showed people that the thieves could be caught, things changed."
"People come during the day to choose where to steal from. They mark the trees for later."
"We are not racists; we're just sick of this thieving, and we have had Spanish people stealing too, but this is a powder keg and it's about to go off. Imagine what could happen if the wrong person finds someone stealing in a very remote spot... We will be in the news as the village where someone got lynched."
Antonio Masa Canada, olive farmer, Navalvillar de Pela, Spain

"...This is our living. We don't have a life at the minute; you come home from picking [olives]; have a shower and then go out again on patrol."
Rosa Arroyo Baviano, Masa Canada's wife

"If you stop the buyers, you stop the problem in 24 hours. People are picking earlier than normal this year due to the fear. If you wait, you get more oil in the olive. By February the fruit is shiny with oil almost oozing out."
"We reacted slowly [to the ongoing thefts], but in the end we got out here, and it's working. The thieves know we are here."
Paco, olive grove farmer

Stolen olives pouring out the back of a car  Photo: Guardia Civil

There are four thousand people living in the village of Navalvillar de Pela. And each family grows their own olive trees; they're small-time farmers. And they've got a fight on their hands. Their olive crops are being harvested by unauthorized people seeking to enrich themselves at the farmers' expense, and they have no intention of simply allowing this theft to continue without themselves doing something to stop it.

The olives have begun to ripen, and the time is right to defend their product. Romanian and Bulgarian thieves appear during the night-time hours and strip the trees. They beat the fruit off the trees with poles, then gather the fruit, pile them into sacks and drive off with them. Their looting of the olives has become a black market business that has proven useful for them and a considerable locus of pain and anger for the rightful owners.

In mid-November, 26,000 kilograms of olives were stripped from olive trees with an estimated value of $24,800. After processing, the best virgin oils are produced, valued on the retail food market. The olive grove farmers would not be as alarmed and defensive about their olives if it weren't for the wholesale nature of the thefts, stripping their trees entirely of their seasonal crops, leaving them nothing.

They were pressed to take their own initiative, unable to rely on local police, since there is only one Civil Guard patrol car tasked to patrol an area 40 miles wide. Once, the village patrol caught seven people, chasing the perpetrators by car down winding country roads, and taking seven people into custody to hand them over to the Civil Guard. To their dismay the seven whom they had discovered with 218 kilos of olives in their van were released and told to appear at a later date in court.

The small family olive growers in the village have a fairly good idea where their purloined olives turn up; at large producers whom they suspect of taking the olives and mixing them with their own crops before processing.

Olive harvest, Spain (file photo)  Photo: Alamy

The New Racists: Jew Hate by Douglas Murray August 17, 2015 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6355/spain-jew-hate Translations of this item: Portuguese Spanish If you had thought that the only qualification needed is to excel at your chosen art form and then see if you can gather audiences, you were wrong. That is not enough anymore -- certainly not if you are Jewish. The treatment of the reggae star Matisyahu is something new. For Matisyahu is not an Israeli -- he is an American. For a while, only Israeli Jews were made pariahs among the nations because of an unresolved border dispute involving their country. Now it is Jews born anywhere else in the world who can be targeted in the same way. They are singling out Jews -- Jews and only Jews. Habima performers were insulted and vilified while on stage at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, trying to perform "The Merchant of Venice." None of the protesters seemed to see the irony of vilifying Jews on stage during that of all plays. Spain has its own border issues. Perhaps Spanish performers should henceforth be quizzed about their political attitudes before they are allowed to perform abroad? Maybe the rest of the world should demand that all artists from Spain sign a statement or make a video supporting Catalan independence if they are to be allowed to perform in public? Only one country and one geopolitical question is addressed in this way. Turkish artists are nowhere in the world asked to condemn their country's illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus -- an occupation, lasting more than four decades, of half an EU member state. Their singling out of Jews, wherever they are from, makes their racist motivation abundantly clear. If the Rototom Sunsplash festival wants to take part in this racist BDS fever then it is them -- and not Jews -- whom the world must make into pariahs. Are you a performer who wishes to appear in public at any point in the future? If so, you might have to bone up on geopolitical affairs -- and then ensure that you have all the "correct" views. If you had thought that the only qualification you would need would be to excel at your chosen art form and then see if you can gather audiences, you were wrong. That is not enough anymore -- certainly not if you are Jewish. This week the news came in that a Spanish music festival had cancelled a planned performance by Matisyahu, an American reggae star. Matisyahu became famous as the "hassidic reggae star," although he left Orthodox Judaism in 2011. He no longer has a beard of wears a skullcap, but he does remain proud of his Jewish identity. Next weekend, on August 22, he was due to perform at the Rototom Sunsplash festival in Benicassim, north of Valencia. Unfortunately for anyone simply interested in music, a group of local Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists found out about Matisyahu's upcoming performance. They claimed that Matisyahu is a supporter of "an apartheid state that practices ethnic cleansing," and demanded that the festival cancel the performance. Matisyahu is of course not the first Jew to suffer this type of pressure. In Europe, and increasingly in America too, any and all performers who come from Israel can be abused and vilified in the name of "progressive" values. In London, the Jerusalem String Quartet and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra have been the targets of attempts to cancel their performances. When the performances have gone ahead, they have had to suffer obscene and threatening performance interruptions by protesters. The same has happened to Israeli theatre companies such as Habima – whose performers were insulted and vilified while on stage at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, trying to perform "The Merchant of Venice." None of the protesters seemed to see the irony of vilifying Jews on stage during that of all plays. Anti-Israel activists of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Spain demanded that the Rototom Sunsplash music festival cancel a performance by American reggae star Matisyahu, claiming that he is a supporter of "an apartheid state that practices ethnic cleansing." Festival organizers cancelled Matisyahu's performance. Jewish Israeli artists have become used to being targeted and vilified in this way. But the treatment of Matisyahu is something new. For Matisyahu is not an Israeli -- he is an American. Yet after the intervention of the BDS protestors, the festival's director tried what he presumably thought was a perfectly reasonable request: Filippo Giunta asked Matisyahu to produce a "signed statement or video" stating "in a very clear way" that he supported the creation of a Palestinian state. This was made a precondition of performing. "If you sign these conditions, you can continue the performance," the festival's director told the artist. Understandably, Matisyahu refused to respond to this ultimatum, and festival organisers cancelled his performance, which was due to be just one of a number of performance stops Matisyahu is making in Europe and America. It is to be hoped that everybody who believes in artistic freedom and rejects political intimidation can now make for the nearest performance by Matisyahu, whether they like reggae or not. Personally, the actions of the Spanish festival organizers have created the only inclination I have ever felt to attend such a concert. But perhaps we could also initiate some other geostrategic questions that might be demanded of all other performers in the future. Spain has its own border issues, as nearly every country in the world does. Perhaps Spanish performers in the classical and pop world should henceforth be quizzed about their political attitudes before they are allowed to perform abroad? The whole question of Catalonia, for instance, is deeply fraught and fought over in Spain, with exceedingly strong views over independence on all sides. Maybe the rest of the world should demand that all musicians from Spain sign a statement or make a video supporting Catalan independence if they are to be allowed to perform in public? We could go back and forth in our allegiances of course -- and make the Spanish artistic community jump to our every whim and U-turn. Perhaps then we could decide that citizens of other countries could be made to jump through our whims on the Spanish border questions too? Of course, such a course of action would be obscene, as it would be with any other country. But it is always instructive that only one country and one geopolitical question is addressed in this way. To my knowledge Turkish artists are nowhere in the world asked to condemn their country's illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus -- an occupation, lasting more than four decades, of half an EU member state. Such a demand would be far more appropriate in Spain or any other EU country. And it has certainly never been demanded of people of non-Turkish nationality that they call for the withdrawal of Turkish forces and Turkish people from Cypriot territory before they be allowed to perform in public. Nor do demands on the tortuous Western Sahara question come up in this way. Both of these issues -- to seize just two -- are far closer to home for Spanish citizens. One lies only a few miles south, while the other involves a fellow EU member state. But to demand such an action or statement from an artist as a prerequisite to perform would be not just outrageous, it would be regarded as surreal. Why then is the BDS campaign able to normalize such a demand, and for a festival to cancel a performance based on non-compliance with such grotesque demands? The answer is the fever of our time. For a while, only Israeli Jews were made pariahs among the nations because of an unresolved border dispute involving their country. Now it is Jews born anywhere else in the world who can be targeted in the same way. They are singling out Jews -- Jews and only Jews. And their singling out of Jews, wherever they are from, makes their racist motivation abundantly clear. If the Rototom Sunsplash festival wants to take part in this racist BDS fever then it is them -- and not Jews -- whom the world must make into global pariahs.

The Desperation of Migrants

"It seems like a movie but it is real life. It sometimes feels like the weight of all of Europe is on our shoulders."
Sub-Lt. Juan Antonio Martin Rivera, Spanish Guardia, Melilla, Spain

"[The influx of refugees is] like having a patient with terminal cancer and all we can do is apply a Band-Aid ... The people who come here are not immigrants. They are victims."
"It has become a trade [human trafficking] where people get very rich."
Col. Ambrosio Villasenor, commander, Guardia, Melilla

"Most of the women have been raped along the way and exchanged like property The women have had no control over their own bodies or of the disease they may carry. All the resulting psychological problems create a barrier and we cannot really see inside."
"[The ACOGE charity helps the women in] contact with people of other cultures. Otherwise they don't mix. They stay within their own small cultural groups."
Isabel Torrente, humanitarian worker, ACOGE charity

The image of two golfers playing as migrants scale a fence went viral late last year / IRN, Jose Palazon

According to newly released figures in a report by the United Nations, some 60-million people have fled war or poverty in 2014. Almost four million of those who have been displaced to become desperate refugees are Syrians. Many of the refugees look for haven in Europe. Most of them arrive in Europe through the Italian and Greek archipelagos, by a sea voyage in unreliable vessels, through the questionable aid of human smugglers becoming wealthy on the passage funding they demand.

Alternate routes other than travelling by sea are being used as well; long, arduous and dangerous detours west to Melilla, a small Spanish enclave bordering North Africa's Mediterranean coast. Some travel through Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco and finally reach Melilla, for to them the overland voyage "seems safer" than resigning themselves to the rigours and dangers of a sea voyage in rickety boats at the mercy of unscrupulous traffickers.

Those refugees who make it through to Melilla often carry "rented" Moroccan passports; they meld among the 35,000 Moroccans who make the crossing daily into Mellila to work and to shop. Others travel even longer distances than from the Middle East, starting out in Africa. Coming, for example from Guinea, refugees travel through Mali Burkina Faso, Niger, Algeria and Morocco, and baksheesh is extremely useful on those travels.

Roughly 20,000 Africans attempted the jump into Melilla in 2014. Moroccan authorities on one side and Spanish Guardia Civil on the other ensured that about ten percent only managed to succeed, reaching the city. Sometimes as many as 500 men storm the high wire fences in nighttime assaults. The Guardia must ensure the migrants do not get over the fences. But if they do, they must be treated well, and ensured humanitarian aid once they reach Melilla with its 80,000 residents supported by Madrid.

Sub-Saharan migrants scale a metallic fence that divides Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla   Photo: Santi Palacios/AP

Moroccan and Spanish mafias traffic in humans, leaping at the opportunity to profit from human misery. And there is human misery in abundance, particularly so for the women and the children refugees. Even greater numbers of Africans are gathering in Morocco to begin pushing on toward Melilla. There seems to be no end in sight, with conflicts, oppression, poverty and criminal threats endangering the lives of Africans and Middle Easterners, all fearful for their existence and anxious to escape.

The Normalizing of Bypassing Responsibility

"He only did it for very few second[s] before the plane could even move. There was no way for air traffic control to detect that."
"The man planned this. It was no spontaneous action."
Peter Pletschacher, president, German Aviation Writers Association

Investigators searching through the wreckage of the doomed Germanwings plane in the French Alps were forced to resume the hunt on foot as bad weather hampered helicopter flights. "The teams will get to the site via the path that is already in existence," said Yves Naffrechoux of the local mountain police.  Picture: EPA/YOAN VALAT

Some of the wild speculation now finally put to rest. It is now accepted that the co-pilot of the Germanwings Airbus A320, planning to commit suicide through a spectacular mass murder, took advantage of some slight and brief opportunities on the flight from Dusseldorf to Barcelona to practise using the plane's autopilot in a deep descent, on March 24.

It appears from deciphering the plane's recovered black boxes that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz practised diving the plane, and evidently satisfied with what he briefly accomplished then rectified, prepared to move from dress rehearsal to full commitment, ultimately setting the Airbus and its terrified passengers on an irreversible crash-course with death.

He set the autopilot controls to descend perilously low while briefly alone in the cockpit, then restored the proper settings to ensure that the change he had momentarily effected was over-ridden, and as such undetected. A 30-page report compiled by investigators set out the details. On the return trip he knew precisely what he was going to do.

After persuading the pilot to leave the cockpit for a bathroom break, Andreas Lubitz locked the cockpit door, then refused to respond to frantic calls from air traffic controllers and the pilot while Flight 9525 plummeted toward mountain peaks in southern France.

But this was not the only revelation to be brought forward. Finally, Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings, admitted to have been fully informed in 2009 of the circumstances surrounding the young employee's return from a months-long hiatus in his training. He had suffered an "episode of severe depression". 

This admission of knowledge was revealed shortly after the company insisted it had received no information relating to the co-pilot's medical condition, before the catastrophic crash. Having said which, the airliner has no wish to comment further, at this time. And little wonder it doesn't.



After the crash of the airliner, details began emerging relating to the psychological state of the 27-year-old man who was so devoted to the craft of flying planes. He had also, according to German officials, scanned websites prior to the crash, for the purpose of researching information on methods of suicide. The method he chose was nothing short of astonishingly cruel and fathomlessly horrible.

The plane was cruising at an altitude of 38,000 feet, entering a descent toward the Alps. A descent that was deliberately and catastrophically accelerated with recovered flight recorders evidencing the terrified screams of passengers realizing that their lives were coming to an abrupt and dreadful end.



The culpability of the airlines should not be buried under an avalanche of quiet 'regrets' and explanations of institutionalized respect for privacy relating to medical confidentiality that 'compromised' action on the part of the airline requiring that security of the passengers trusting that all would be well on a routine flight, belied reality.

Community Support

"For us, it makes it particularly difficult that the only victim from Montabaur is suspected to have caused this tragedy, this crash -- although this has not been finally confirmed, but a lot is indicating that -- and we have to face this."
"The co-pilot, the family belong to our community, and we stand by this, and we embrace them and will not hide this, and want to support the family in particular."
Pastor Michael Dietrich, Lutheran Church, Montabaur

A police car waits in front of the house of the family of Andreas Lubitz in Montabaur, Germany, Friday, March 27, 2015. Lubitz was the co-pilot on the Germanwings plane that crashed with 150 people on board on Tuesday in the French Alps. (AP Photo Frank Augstein)

Radar tapes indicate that Flight 9525 climbed normally after departure from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to the cruising altitude assigned it at 38,000 feet, a routine flight and a routine elevation that it maintained for a few minutes before a slight course correction. And then, suddenly, a steep but controlled descent took place of just over eight minutes duration. And then, that controlled descent resulted in the plane disintegrating with all aboard flying into biologically minute bits on impact with a mountain in the French Alps.

That precipitous, unauthorized descent was initiated, under the co-pilot's control after he had been given the temporary control of the flight cabin as the pilot stepped outside for a moment to relieve himself in the lavatory. Presumably, he had completed his mission before he fully realized that his co-pilot had plans other than the planned landing he had briefed him with before leaving the cockpit momentarily.

So when he returned and inputted the code to open the cockpit door, he understood it had been deliberately bolted from within. And then began his frantic pleading for entry. Obviously, the conversation picked up by the flight recorder of the verbal exchange between the two men at the landing briefing when Andreas Lubitz responded to Captain Sonderheimer on the Dusseldorf landing with "Hopefully" and "We'll see", wasn't taken seriously by the captain.

Perhaps an off-day for his co-pilot? Well, he was right. It was an off-day, and Andreas Lubitz presumably had plenty of those off-days. Enough so that various medical professionals examining his state of mind gave him a number of notes to be handed to his employers excusing him from work duty on a number of occasions. Including that fateful off-day. When he chose to aim the Airbus 320 into a mountain last Tuesday, taking 150 unwilling people to an early death.

A view of the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Monday, March 30, 2015. European investigators are focusing on the psychological state of a 27-year-old German co-pilot who prosecutors say deliberately flew a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people into a mountain, a French police official said Monday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, Pool)

According to the German newspaper Bild Am Sonntag, details from the recording transcript demonstrate that Mr. Lubitz had a predetermined plan; that his off-day hadn't been the result of a spontaneous decision, but one that had been hatched much earlier in time. The hour and a half recording has Mr. Lubitz suggesting that Captain Sonderheimer absent himself from the cockpit to relieve himself, and he would take over controls.

And he did just that. Mr. Lubitz said "You can go now", and Mr. Sonderheimer responded "You can take over". And this is precisely what Mr. Lubitz did. He took over, and it was final. That simple transaction sealed the fate of 150 people and one plane. No reentry for the pilot, no intervention possible to rescue 150 people from death. A mountain is an immovable object.

A plane's aluminum skin is relatively fragile, and certainly human beings are even more fragile, given to falling apart when high speed slams them against an immovable object.

Rescue workers work at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Monday, March 30, 2015. European investigators are focusing on the psychological state of a 27-year-old German co-pilot who prosecutors say deliberately flew a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people into a mountain, a French police official said Monday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, Pool)

Death, at least, was instant. No one suffered more than a few minutes of blazing apprehension and deadly fear. Days later, investigators gathered evidence in the co-pilot's Dusseldorf rented flat validating that he suffered from serious mental health problems. Psychiatric medication and additional evidence he was suffering "severe burn-out syndrome", was taken away from the flat.

That, on the psychological side; on the physical side serious problems with his eyesight leading to a 30% loss of vision. A makeshift road is being built through impassable mountain terrain so four-wheel-drive vehicles can be enabled to reach the crash site; far more efficient than the current access only by helicopter where DNA samples have been collected from almost half of the victims.

Gendarme Bruno Hermignies stands by a bulldozer clearing a path to the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Monday, March 30, 2015. European investigators are focusing on the psychological state of a 27-year-old German co-pilot who prosecutors say deliberately flew a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people into a mountain, a French police official said Monday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, Pool)

Well, of course human rights laws in Germany take the protective preservation of private information very seriously. Which, Lufthansa hints, made it difficult for them to obtain the information that might be required to understand that one of their young new pilots might be problematical from the standpoint of reliability and passenger safety. Nonsense, of course.

Amazing; the country that once distinguished itself as a genocidal war monger embroiling much of the world in a cataclysmic conflict and destroying half of the globe's Jews, has become a human-rights defender of outstanding principle; defending the mentally disadvantage at the expense of the greater public; how much more noble in atonement can they become?