The reckoning of the West
The problem is not radical Islam alone, but the convergence of
radical Islamist ideology with Western institutional weakness and
deliberate amplification by foreign adversaries.
JNS
Jan 1, 2026
Pro-Palestinian
demonstration march held on the occasion of 1st anniversary of Hamas attacks in support of Palestinians and condemn the Israeli attacks on
Gaza, in the streets of New York on October 7, 2024.
History is filled with ignored warnings,
but only rarely does it deliver a moment so clarifying that denial
becomes more dangerous than confrontation. Fifteen years ago, I argued
that radical Islam threatens Western civilization not through military
conquest, but through “slow jihad”: demographic pressure, moral
confusion and normalization within open societies. In its early stages,
this process was sustained by institutional guilt and a media culture
that reflexively equated scrutiny of Islamism with bigotry. As Muslim
populations grew in key regions, moral paralysis gave way to political
calculation, as politicians increasingly courted Muslim votes, often at
the expense of assimilation, social cohesion and liberal norms.
Long-developing civilizational pressures
rarely provoke action until a single, undeniable shock crystallizes
them. That shock came on Oct. 7, 2023. It marked the moment when denial
became untenable—not only for Jews, who have long understood the
pattern, but for the broader West. The atrocities themselves were
barbaric enough. What followed—the celebrations, justifications and
moral inversions across Western capitals—was something more: a revelation.
The question is no longer whether the warnings were correct, but
whether this moment represents the point at which the West finally acts
while it still can.
For decades, liberals and the left
stigmatized a defense of Christendom or acknowledgment of a
civilizational clash with political Islam as veiled far-right bigotry.
That rhetorical shield is now collapsing as global events strip away
denial, expose the scale of radical Islam, and sharpen the contrast so
starkly that the Judeo-Christian world is at last beginning to recover
its voice.
The barbarity of Oct. 7 was neither
abstract nor ambiguous. Hamas deliberately targeted civilians in their
homes and at a music festival. Families were murdered together. Women
were raped. Parents were forced to witness the killing of their
children. These were not acts of war but acts of ideological ritual.
What followed in the West was as revealing as the attack itself. University campuses
across the United States became sites of Jewish intimidation and
celebration of violence. Protesters chanted slogans calling for Israel’s
destruction and the “globalization of the intifada.” Campus buildings
were blockaded. Jewish students were warned to avoid certain areas “for
their own safety.” Student groups openly declared that Zionists were
unwelcome—using “Zionist” as a newly acceptable proxy for Jew—as
administrators invoked “free expression” while Jewish students were
excluded from academic life.
Across Europe, the pattern was more
advanced. In the United Kingdom, authorities suppressed criticism of
Islamism while accommodating Islamist demonstrations. Grooming-gang rape
scandals long suppressed in the media—documented in multiple
investigations and involving thousands of working-class girls—continued
to surface, exposing decades of institutional cowardice driven by fear
of appearing “Islamophobic.” Comparable failures have unfolded in
France, Germany, Norway, Belgium and Sweden. Oct. 7 did not create these
realities; it forced their recognition.
In the weeks following Oct. 7, the jihad
was unmistakably globalized, exported into Western cities and campuses
where demonstrations crossed from protest into intimidation and
celebration of violence. That legitimization emboldened escalation until
violence became inevitable, and many in the West began to realize this
was more than they bargained for.
What is ultimately at stake is not Israel
alone. Israel is the front line, but the target is far larger: the
Judeo-Christian civilization that gave rise to modernity
itself—individual rights, equality before the law, secular governance,
scientific inquiry and moral accountability. Oct. 7 was not merely an
assault on Israel; it was an assault on the ethical foundations of the
West.
The urgency is not emotional; it is
structural. Civilizations rarely collapse suddenly; they erode over
time. One of the clearest indicators of civilizational decline is
demographic trajectory. Trends in Europe and North America cannot be
ignored. Time does not favor the West. Muslim fertility rates in Europe
remain well above replacement level, while native European birth rates
have collapsed. In the United States, overall fertility has fallen to
historic lows, even as populations carrying illiberal norms grow more
rapidly. Demographics are not destiny, but they are momentum.
The problem is not radical Islam alone,
but the convergence of radical Islamist ideology with Western
institutional weakness—and with deliberate amplification by foreign
adversaries. Islamist regimes in the Middle East, along with Russia and
China, exploit social media, bots and online propaganda to accelerate
radicalization, deepen polarization and undermine social cohesion within
open societies.
For years, Western elites insisted this
threat was imagined and, when it became undeniable, that it was marginal
or provoked. Oct. 7 tore away the protective cloak that had long
insulated radical Islamism from scrutiny. Within hours, murder was
reframed as “resistance,” victims as oppressors and barbarism as
grievance, revealing an ideological alignment that could no longer be
denied.
Words matter because they prepare the
ground for action. Western democracies already understand that words can
kill; yet when eliminationist logic is voiced through Islamist
language, the West suddenly discovers an absolutist devotion to free
expression. The long era of debating whether a substantial faction of
Islam poses a genuine danger to the West is mercifully over.
What distinguishes this moment from all
prior warnings is that the balance has begun to shift. Israel’s
post-Oct. 7 victories have punctured the myth of Islamist invincibility;
the Chanukah mass shooting on Bondi Beach and the public backlash
against Australia’s leadership exposed the cost of appeasement; and in
Britain, figures once dismissed as pariahs—Nigel
Farage, even Tommy Robinson—now command growing support, while Douglas
Murray and other defenders of Western civilization have moved firmly
into the mainstream. Across Europe, governments have moved from rhetoric
to action: Hungary,
under Viktor Orbán, has fortified its borders and reasserted a
Christian national identity; France has tightened immigration,
conditioned welfare and dismantled Islamist organizations; Sweden has
slashed asylum intakes. Germany has accelerated deportations and begun
expelling radical imams; and Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, has curtailed NGO rescues. Iran and its proxies are weakened, Saudi Arabia again edges toward peace with Israel, and the West, albeit shaken, has begun to recover its voice.
Resistance is not bigotry. Lawful
self-preservation is not persecution. What’s at stake is the survival of
modernity itself and the Western civilization that produced it.
Cultural pluralism cannot mean the institutionalization of parallel
societies governed by incompatible norms.
If this moment is to mean anything, it
must translate into policy. The West need not abandon liberalism to
defend itself, but it must rediscover its boundaries. Deportation of
radical clerics, which is already underway in Germany, should become
standard practice across Western democracies. Assimilation must be
restored as a requirement of residency. Parallel societies cannot be
tolerated indefinitely within nations founded on shared civic norms.
None of this is racial. None of it targets faith. It is the ordinary
exercise of sovereignty—long deferred, but entirely lawful—and the
minimum necessary for a civilization that intends to survive.
Civilizations rarely receive infinite
chances. The danger is no longer abstract; it is visible, vocal and
violent. Oct. 7 and its aftermath may prove to be the moment when the
West finally stops mistaking tolerance for virtue and denial for
compassion.
History will not ask whether the West was warned. It will ask whether it acted.
