[link removed]

In this mailing:
* Grégoire Canlorbe: The Exploding Islamization of the West: A Conversation with Alexandre del Valle, Part I
* Amir Taheri: Iran: Thinking the Unthinkable


** The Exploding Islamization of the West: A Conversation with Alexandre del Valle, Part I ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

by Grégoire Canlorbe • July 26, 2026 at 5:00 am
* One of the great successes of Islamist movements appears to have been to convince much of the third generation of Muslim families to break with assimilation. Many of that generation were beginning to become more integrated than their parents or grandparents.
* [B]y launching barbaric jihadist attacks -- such as Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, or the July 14 Nice attacks -- radical Islamists in fact aim to induce hostility toward Muslims and provoke a clash between Muslims and non-Muslims, to motivate Muslims to separate from their non-Muslim environment and de-assimilate.
* This strategy has been most effective. Islamic terrorism produces criticism of Islamism. The Islamists then say that the criticism is proof that they are victims of Islamophobia.... This community then functions as a counter-society against Western society, which is perceived as harmful, decadent, "Islamophobic," or "racist."
* There are networks that organize Islamization – it seems, mainly of three kinds. The first network consists of Islamist movements themselves.... Some states play an extremely direct role in this process: Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan, among others.... The institutions involved include the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which brings together 57 Muslim states and promotes an international Islamic order. One can also mention ISESCO, the Islamic counterpart of UNESCO. These structures help to spread a narrative that by adapting to Western culture... This narrative not only tries to adapt sharia to Europe, but tries to push Europe to adapt to sharia.
* The third network is... the dominant current within Western societies themselves, shaped by "political correctness." Out of fear of conflict, fear of not getting votes, or Western postcolonial guilt, many Europeans conveniently manage not to see the Muslim colonization of Turkey, Egypt, Albania, Kashmir, Cyprus and Israel. The last is where Jews have lived for nearly 4000 years and are therefore the indigenous population. Muslims did not even exist until the seventh century.
* Sometimes, simply out of a desire to buy peace in their neighborhoods, Western elites accommodate Islamist demands. Local elected officials, confronted with "difficult" neighborhoods, come to implicit agreements with a community's representatives just in order to preserve a form of peace.
* We are, in fact, creating "extraterritorial mini-caliphates."
* US President Donald Trump has spoken of "civilizational erasure." He is absolutely right.
* Many Islamists tell Muslims in Europe that their presence in a non-Muslim country can be justified only on two conditions. First, they must re-Islamize in order to protect themselves from the supposedly harmful influence of the unbelieving societies. Second, they must contribute to expanding the Muslim community until it one day becomes dominant. In this mindset, living in Europe becomes acceptable only if one works to transform it gradually into an Islamized space.
* A great mistake of the Western elites seems to have been to reduce "national interests" only to material interests. Many in the West appear to have believed that democracy and human rights would seduce all of humanity. They passed over in silence the dimensions of religion and ethnic values of the West — its shared culture, language and history, and its anchoring in Judeo-Christian priorities—in order to present democracy and human rights as a model exportable to the entire world.
* Much of the West no longer thinks of itself in cultural, religious, or civilizational terms. It thinks of itself rhapsodically as a space that is open to all ethnicities and religions, reduced to individual rights, democracy, and consumption -- and capable of extending over the entire world.
* Much of the West also no longer believes in its own civilization; many no longer even believe it is a civilization. Under these circumstances, how could it be capable of pursuing a policy of defense of Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian heritage?
* This loss of self-awareness might explain some serious strategic errors. If one believes that Europe has neither religion, history, shared values nor civilization, then Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait, or Turkey can appear merely as economic partners. Their investments, buildings, football clubs, and financial power are noticed; their ideological and religious roles are overlooked.
* If the West had preserved a vision of itself as a civilization, it could have maintained economic relations with these countries while prohibiting any religious interference. It could have said clearly: "We cooperate, but you do not finance the Islamization of our territories." The West, having stopped seeing itself as a civilization, allowed Islamist powers to finance mosques, associations, and networks of influence on its own soil.
* If you refuse to defend your civilization, you are disarming your nation. The West is a civilization shared by a number of groups, which are mainly the products of Judeo-Christian values. If a nation does not know its identity, how can it defend itself? If a nation renounces its value systems, its traditions, its historical religion, and its heritage, it implicitly accepts changing its population, identity and religion.

"[B]y launching barbaric jihadist attacks -- such as Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, or the July 14 Nice attacks -- radical Islamists in fact aim to induce hostility toward Muslims and provoke a clash between Muslims and non-Muslims, to motivate Muslims to separate from their non-Muslim environment and de-assimilate." — Alexandre del Valle. Pictured: The truck used by the terrorist Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel to murder 86 people in a July 14, 2016 ramming attack in Nice, France. (Photo by Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

Alexandre del Valle is a French author specializing in geopolitics.

Grégoire Canlorbe: What do we know, please, about the Islamization of Europe?

Alexandre del Valle: The Islamization of countries such as Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, or the Netherlands has, in my view, reached a critical threshold, perhaps even a point of no return. The reasons are at once demographic, cultural, and ideological. These recent minorities have not only reached a significant numerical weight; they also have much higher fertility rates. Above all, for the past twenty years or so, there has been not only a failure of assimilation, but a form of de-assimilation among populations that, until then, had seemed assimilated.

Continue Reading Article ([link removed])


** Iran: Thinking the Unthinkable ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

by Amir Taheri • July 26, 2026 at 4:00 am
* There is little doubt that for the first time since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic faces a grassroots opposition present in virtually all of Iran's 938 towns and cities. This opposition has formed local leaders and shown its ability to operate a horizontal campaign.
* The message is: We know this regime cannot last but don't know what to put in its place.
* In Iran today, thinking the unthinkable is no longer taboo.

There is little doubt that for the first time since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic faces a grassroots opposition present in virtually all of Iran's 938 towns and cities. This opposition has formed local leaders and shown its ability to operate a horizontal campaign. Pictured: Iranians protest against their regime on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Anonymous/Getty Images)

Until even a few months ago, talking of regime change in Iran would have exposed you to the charge either of utopian fantasies or anachronistic miscalculation. The Islamic Republic founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was supposed to last until the return of the Mahdi at the end of time, that is to say, longer than the thousand-year Reich imagined by Alfred Rosenberg.

However, a year after the current phase of the 47-year war between the Islamic Republic and the United States started, regime change is openly evoked inside Iran and in the 8-million strong diaspora -- as hope for the latter and fear for the former.

Last week, in a live interview on Iranian state television, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that last December a nationwide uprising had pushed the nation to the edge of regime change. He noted that several cities, among them Mash'had, the second most populous in Iran, had been on the verge of falling under the control of protesters.

Continue Reading Article ([link removed])

============================================================
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** RSS ([link removed])
** Donate ([link removed])
Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved.

You are subscribed to this list as [email protected]

You can change how you receive these emails:
** Update your subscription preferences ([link removed])
or ** Unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])

** Gatestone Institute ([link removed])

14 East 60 St., Suite 705, New York, NY 10022