Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Islamism is exploiting Britain’s political vacuum
When observing this downward spiral, it’s fashionable to blame America; it is, after all, the nation that birthed the mantra of multiculturalism. But if America created the seeds of today’s chaos, the European climate allowed it to blossom. It is no coincidence that the European surge in Islamism came just as the continent’s dechristianisation began to take hold. This surging fanaticism was met with a spiritual vacuum — and therefore thrived.The Moral Bankruptcy of the West: Accepting Terrorist Propaganda as Truth
Faced with the arrival of a new community with such a strong belief system, Europe’s political elites sought refuge in the soft bigotry of low expectations. Denying them agency, we shrouded Muslim immigrants in a rhetoric of victimhood. A set of false assumptions were developed to characterise them as a casualty of exclusion and discrimination. It became just another form of “common sense”.
After 2001, when Jihadi terrorism started to take place in Europe, and survey after survey showed that most Muslims quietly supported the belief system that justified the terrorists’ activities, European leaders doubled down on those assumptions. Rules were relaxed, standards were lowered, and excuses were made whenever their estrangement tipped over into violence.
Meanwhile, the phenomenon of data manipulation became the political norm. Academics and think-tankers lined up to produce reassuring outcomes on paper that refused to acknowledge the rising tide of Islamisation, either by ignoring it completely or downplaying the number of Muslim migrants. The establishment of Sharia tribunals was barely registered, while we were told the construction of gigantic Mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centres were led and manned by moderate Muslims. Those brave enough to still speak out — for example over grooming gangs — were silenced or expelled.
This is the backdrop to the rise of Islamist attacks in Europe and the West, but it is also the cause of today’s political crisis in Britain. Across the country — from Rochdale to Tower Hamlets, Salisbury to Manchester — we are starting to witness what happens when Islamism is given licence to flourish. Many were fooled into thinking that 2024 would be a “boring year” for Britain: that, after the turbulence of the Tories, the reign of Starmer would, at worst, be benignly insipid.
But this was always a fantasy. Starmer, like so many of his predecessors and counterparts in Europe, is simply focused on the short-term goal of winning the general election. And, again like so many of them, he now finds himself wrestling with a Muslim base that will require compromise if he’s to win their vote: only yesterday, he called for a “ceasefire that lasts” in Gaza, without explaining how that might come about. It is, in other words, increasingly starting to feel like 2005 redux: a replay of the VVD’s electoral conundrum, and an allegedly “common-sense” response that inevitably backfires.
It’s hard not to conclude that this is the “new Britain” promised by its next Prime Minister, where scenes like those we have witnessed in Rochdale become repeated over and over again. This is, after all, what happens when a nation’s foundational principles are eroded — and when, faced with a moral and political vacuum, Islamism is the only potent force in town.
The U.S., UK and Europe all are warning Israel not to go into Rafah, even though Israeli hostages were rescued there last week - and despite knowing that destroying the Hamas infrastructure there is key to ensuring that it will not be able to rebuild. Instead of asking why two Israelis were being held in Rafah, the media was more focused on claims by a terrorist organization that people had been killed during the rescue operation.Jonathan Freedland: Those Who Attack Jews in the UK Are Behaving as Antisemites Always Have
The Western media continue to lap up the falsehoods and fabrications that Hamas regularly spins. This is evidence of moral bankruptcy. There is something seriously wrong when people are willing to accept lies by a murderous terrorist group over claims made by a democratic, liberal, progressive country. How does it make sense that people think it's normal for hostages to be held against their will and that a country shouldn't do what is necessary to get its people back?
Most of the condemnations today come from the U.S., the UK and Europe. They don't come from Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, or Saudi Arabia. Why do you think that is? The answer is that these Arab countries want Israel to succeed in removing Hamas, while the other countries appear to want Israel to fail.
While I don't expect the world to stand on the sidelines and applaud the IDF, we should be able to expect some semblance of integrity. Sadly, there isn't, and Western media, thinkers, and politicians continue to accept Hamas propaganda as the truth. It's an incredible double standard soaked in a deep undercurrent of antisemitism.
Many Jews in Britain can hardly bear to hear the news, not least because they're in it so often. 2023 saw more than 4,100 episodes of anti-Jewish hate across the country, most of which came after Oct. 7. Some of the incidents involved knives, others saw Jews struck with metal bars. Some victims were punched or kicked or spat on, others had stones, bricks or bottles thrown at them. Slogans were daubed on walls, windows were smashed. Hundreds of incidents involved children, whether making their way to or from school or inside it.
When some people want to express their apparent anger at Israel's actions, they direct it at Jewish targets. They are holding a British minority responsible for the actions of a foreign government several thousand miles away, a response that does not seem to happen with other distant conflicts: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian Orthodox churches in Britain did not brace themselves for attack.
The biggest surge in anti-Jewish activity came immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks, when Israelis were still counting their dead and missing and had scarcely responded at all. This indicates that it was in celebration of Hamas' attack, rather than anger towards Israel's military response in Gaza.
Most Jews feel bound up with Israel. They are deeply connected to it. Given the central place of the Land of Israel in Judaism's holiest texts, as ancient as the Jewish people itself, it could hardly be any other way. They recognize that Israel is the world's largest Jewish community, the world's only Jewish country. More deeply, they hold to the idea that after two millennia of endless and deadly persecution, the Jewish people need one place, a haven, where they can govern and defend themselves.
When British Jews are attacked, their attackers are not striking a blow for the Palestinians. They are placing themselves alongside the antisemites and racists who have always treated Jews this way, reminding Jews why they needed a refuge in the first place - and why they need it still.