Shimon Refaeli is deputy head of the Institute for Security Policy at the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), and the host of the podcast “Journey Through Ideas.” From 2023 to 2025, he served as a policy assistant to Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs.
(Oct. 23, 2026 / JNS)
Citizens around the world are watching the disturbing scenes unfolding in the streets of France and elsewhere in Europe with astonishment.
The reality emerging through the smoke of burning tires and shattered windows is generally portrayed in the media as an authentic social protest against the rising cost of living, energy prices, education or the economic hardships weighing on the middle class.
However, a clear-eyed analysis quickly strips away this facade and reveals a deeper truth. The riots sweeping European cities are not local, domestic or fundamentally economic events. They are the eruption of a strategic process; the rotten fruits of the strategic and ideological alliance between radical Islam and the far-left, which can be defined as the “red-green alliance.”
An outside observer must ask a fundamental question: What is the connection between a protest over rent and food prices in France and the mass waving of Palestinian flags? Why, at the heart of a protest supposedly concerned with the welfare of the general public, are the French tricolor and the flags of European nation-states almost nowhere to be found, while symbols of a radical struggle overseas are waved passionately in their place?
The answer lies in the fact that over the past several years, a handful of European countries have chosen to grant unilateral recognition to a Palestinian state. Others have entertained the idea or demonstrated a hesitant and feeble position that failed to stand unequivocally alongside Israel and the fundamental values of the West.
In doing so, those countries sent the destructive message to all the forces of chaos and terror that violence, terrorism and the disruption of public order are effective tactics that produce results. The logic is simple: If radicalization produces results, why would radicals choose moderation? Thus, several European countries, led by France, encouraged and incentivized systematic mayhem.
Winston Churchill described this kind of appeasement as feeding a crocodile, hoping it will eat you last. In reality, feeding the crocodile only makes it larger, stronger and more dangerous.
This is precisely what we are witnessing in practice today. The capitulation and appeasement of European governments in the face of the organizers of violent demonstrations since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, coupled with those governments’ repeated criticism of Israel in its war against the terrorist organization that rules Gaza, have not brought stability or produced a period of calm.
On the contrary, they have incentivized violence, granted legitimacy to rioters and demonstrated to them that the West is weak—and in moral and ethical retreat.
The State of Israel is a litmus test for Western civilization as a whole. After all, the rioters setting streets ablaze in Paris and plundering property across European cities do not hate just the Jewish state. To them, Israel is merely the forward outpost of the Western civilization they truly despise.
Rioters aim to weaken the rule of law, individual liberty, tradition and the liberal values Europe has developed over centuries. French President Emmanuel Macron, who assumed that wavering in support for Israel would calm extremists and ease tensions, now finds the fire he tried to put out has reached his doorstep.
What we are witnessing in France may be a preview of what awaits Western Europe at large, as well as the United States. Surrendering to the forces of chaos, attempting to contain violence, or weakening the moral backbone of leaders, governments and their citizenry will not guarantee the security of the West.
The West must understand: The forces that justify terror against Israeli civilians in the name of a revolutionary ideology may tomorrow justify violence against the West’s own citizens in the name of that same ideology. The only way to restore security, stability and the rule of law to the streets is to stand firmly, resolutely and uncompromisingly against radical Islam and its allies on the far-left, while standing unequivocally for the shared values and heritage of free civilization.
Europe must understand what Israel learned at the cost of bloodshed: Surrender to extremism does not buy peace. It only raises the price of the next confrontation.