The End of Europe as We Knew It?
Ever since the murder of twelve Charlie Hebdo cartoonists by two Muslim brothers, Europe has, in the view of Zvika Klein, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, been quietly censoring itself, and changing its behavior in other ways, too, to avoid a violent Muslim response.
Eleven years after those murders, Klein argues that we can now see how Europe has changed. More on what he believes is its ineluctable transformation can be found here:
by Zvika Klein, Jerusalem Post, January 7, 2026:
Eleven years ago today [January 7], two brothers walked into the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 people for drawing cartoons.
Two days later, another gunman, this one pledging allegiance to ISIS, walked into a kosher supermarket and murdered four Jews buying groceries for Shabbat.
We thought we were watching an atrocity. We were actually watching the beginning of the end of Europe as we knew it.
These weren’t random acts of violence. They were tutorials. These were demonstrations of how terror rewrites the rules of free societies without the need to pass laws.
The lesson was easy to co mprehend: Publish what we don’t like, and we’ll kill you. Be visibly Jewish in public, and we’ll kill you. Once we’ve done it a few times, the fear will do the rest of the work for us.
That’s the evil genius of the strategy. You only have to strike once or twice before the inhibition becomes self-sustaining.
This procedure is what I call “censorship by Kalashnikov.” The gun fires in a Paris newsroom, and the blast impacts every editorial meeting in London and New York. This phenomenon permeates every university classroom in Berlin and Toronto. It is included in every synagogue security briefing in Los Angeles and Miami….
When a former head of state admits that terrorism successfully changed the behavior of a free press, he’s telling you the attackers achieved their strategic objective. The attackers’ strategic objective was not to kill 12 cartoonists or four Jews in a supermarket. It was killing the confidence of an entire civilization in its principles.
And that’s exactly what happened. The Europe that existed before January 2015, the Europe that believed it had settled the question of blasphemy in the Enlightenment, thought secularism was a done deal, and assumed Jews could live openly without armed guards at every synagogue, that Europe started dying that week….
The two countries in the Middle East that do not have blasphemy laws are Israel, a non-Muslim polity, and Lebanon, which has a large Christian minority.
After the decapitation of French high school teacher Samuel Paty for having shown, as part of a class on free speech, some of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Muhammad, teachers throughout France ceased to show, or even to discuss, those cartoons. And who can blame them? Why take a chance?
Eleven years is a long time to spend managing fear instead of defeating it. The people who were killed at Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher were casualties in a war over whether free societies can remain free.
The question remains whether journalists can continue to practice their profession. Whether Jews are allowed to buy groceries without calculating the risk. Whether any of us get to live in countries where the threat of murder looms over every editorial decision and every public gathering.
We can build memorials, light candles, and recite speeches about unity. Or we can recognize these murders [at Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher] for what they were: the opening salvo in the collapse of Western Europe. This is an enemy strategy that has proven far more effective than we are willing to acknowledge, that continues working every single day, and that depends entirely on our willingness to continue accommodating it.
We can decide to stop letting it work. But the time is running out. And Europe as we knew it is already gone. The question is whether the rest of the West follows.
The choice is still ours. For now.
This is, I think, much too gloomy a picture. It is true that many Europeans are now in the grip of self-censorship when it comes to Islam. Many things are not said because they will offend Muslims. But not everyone has been silenced. Think of Jordan Bardella, Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, Tommy Robinson, Alice Wiedel, Thilo Sarrazin, Henryk Broder, Geert Wilders, and many others in Europe who continue to speak their mind about Islam. Furthermore, those politicians who are alarmed about the Muslim presence in Europe and want to limit, or halt entirely, Muslim immigration, are coming in first in the opinion polls: Bardella of the National Rally, Wiedel of the Alternative für Deutschland, and Meloni of Fratelli d’Italia come immediately to mind. Europe may have been on a downward slope of self-censorship since the Charlie Hebdo attack, but there are many signs that the continent now coming to its senses. In fact, Charlie Hebdo itself is a perfect example of this: it has again been publishing cartoons that make fun of Islam.
Then there is the United States, where people continue to speak their mind about Islam without fear. There is, for example, this very website, and it is not alone, though I think it may be considered primus inter pares. Islam is subject to ever more criticism as Americans learn more about it. Perhaps Zvika Klein should take a closer look across the ocean. What he sees might give him hope.
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UK MP says that during her campaign against Muslim candidate,
‘I was told I was going to be beheaded’
Austria: Muslim migrant youth gang brutally attacks teen,
one forces him to kiss his hands and feet
Forcing their victim to kiss the hands and feet of his tormenter is designed to signify his submission and subservience. The duty to humiliate the unbeliever is central to Islam: “Fight against those do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29).
Victim of Violence (16) Forced to Kiss Attacker’s Feet
translated from “Gewaltopfer (16) musste Täter die Füße küssen,” Kronen Zeitung, January 8, 2026:
A brutal youth gang from Donaustadt filmed their attacks with a cell phone. One clip was particularly repulsive: The 15-year-old defendant forces a young man to kiss his hands and feet before the situation escalates.
During the questioning of the defendants in the Vienna Regional Court, the judge played the video that the 15-year-old, who is sitting in the dock with four other young people, recorded on September 20, 2025, in a park in Kagran, Donaustadt. The images are disturbing.
A young man with fear-filled eyes is shown having to alternately kiss the feet and hands of his tormentor, who is filming him. Before the perpetrator, in an explosion of violence, knocks the 16-year-old victim down and then brutally kicks the young man. The clip, which was promptly uploaded to Snapchat, is accompanied by Arabic music, smileys, and the text: “I f***ed his nose…, so cool.”
This is how the 15-year-old justifies the forced kissing and assault.
“I just wanted to protect my friend,” the young defendant argues defiantly. “From whom?” Mrs. Rat is also baffled by the bizarre responsibilities the five defendants – Austrian, Iraqi, and Romanian citizens – are attributing to each other in the trial. Besides the forced foot-kissing incident, the case also involves serious robberies and other assaults – including one allegedly committed at knifepoint.
Violence was involved in the attacks: an adult random victim suffered multiple facial fractures and the loss of four teeth. The first defendant is paying 2,800 euros in compensation during the trial. The loot in another case: a mere 15 euros.
The boys, four of whom were brought from pretrial detention, are partially confessing. Two receive a diversion program, while the other three receive partially suspended sentences. The 15-year-old, who forced his victim to kiss his feet, also receives a sentence of 15 months, twelve of which are suspended. The verdict is not yet final.
