Three groups are competing for Europe: Integrationists, nationalists, and Muslims. While the first two have a cohesive narrative and flags, the nascent Muslim national movement is in its early stages of development.

Muslims who came to Europe from various cultures and locations are united on the one hand through voluntary separatism, and on the other, through European actions that force Muslims together: religious suppression, racism, and alleged rising anti-Muslim violence.

Both forms of Muslim collectivization are viewed as a threat to Europe.

But what if Europe can collectivize Muslims through a common bond that has nothing to do with Europe: Opposition to Israel?

As Europe is escalating its assault on the Jewish state, some argue that this is exactly what is happening: Throwing the Jewish nation under the bus in a desperate effort to save Europe.

Europe’s engineering of such a “replacement narrative” worked well in the past:

Nation building: through war vs through peace

In the mid-19th century, the father of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, first tried to unite a number of unrelated German-speaking kingdoms and principalities through the “German spirit”: German songs, banners, and dreams. 

This did not work, and Bismarck resorted to Plan B: Unite through a common enemy. Bismarck orchestrated what historians view as intentional wars – first against Denmark, then against Austria, and eventually against France.

This worked, and after a decade of wars, United Germany was established – not in Germany, but on French soil, in the Palace of Versailles.  

Theodor Herzl, who studied Bismarck’s efforts, fathered Zionism as an ideological exodus from Europe. He replaced the European value of voluntary wars with the Zionist value of peace through strength: Once free at home, Jews would advance humanity to such an extent that Europe and the world would need the Jewish state to thrive, he posited. 

Indeed, today innovations produced in Tel Aviv,  Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Jerusalem and throughout Israel are prolonging life, revolutionizing science, and altering humanity.

And yet, Europe and its proxies have been spending billions to block the light from Zion through sanctions, threats of renewed arrests of Jews, travel paralysis, and massive incitement of the global population against the Jewish state.

If Bismarck could unite Germans through opposition to France, perhaps Europe today could unite its Muslims through opposition to Israel.

This is even more so, given Europe’s successful identity-engineering experience in the Middle East over the last century.

European identity engineering

In the 1920s, the British were given a mandate by the League of Nations to usher in a Jewish homeland in Palestine. But the British wanted Palestine for themselves, and therefore resorted to the good-old “divide and rule” tactics deployed throughout their empire. 

With France obliterating the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria, the British forced a new identity on Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea: Palestinians. 

British diplomat Mark Sykes (of the Sykes-Picot agreement) even designed a flag.

This colonialist identity-engineering exercise was initially rejected by Arabs living in Palestine. Yet, during the following century, European powers successfully cultivated Palestinian nationalism in order to promote their own interests: The British as counterforce to the Jews, Germans as counterforce to the British in the lead-up to World War II, and in recent decades, the EU and European governments as a counterforce to the State of Israel and by extension to America.

Continuing this trend, Palestinian nationalism cultivated by Europeans in the 20th Century is now arguably exploited by Europe to deflect Muslim frustration away from Europe, and towards the Jewish state.

Moreover, the Sykes flag is now waved throughout the streets of Europe.

And so, European integrationists have a flag – that of the EU, the nationalists have a flag – that of their countries, and now the Muslims have a flag – that of Palestine.

But this is where European colonialist thinking of 2026 has not caught up with realities: Europe seems to believe that it can deflect Muslim frustration towards Israel, while convincing Muslims to integrate en masse. For example, it established “The Office of Promoting Our European Way of Life.”

Neither is happening, and Europe, through its own actions, is turning into a rising threat to global stability and to US national security. 

Europe’s hope: End the assault

Can Europe pivot and recognize that its assault on the Jewish state is harming, not benefiting Europe?

It could do so by asking US President Donald Trump to lead a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would halt the 2,300-year-old European-Israeli conflict, as suggested in a recent column article.

Moreover, there is still hope that a class of righteous Europeans would emerge that would force their governments to end this century’s assault.

Some argue that this is already happening – a concurrent shift within European countries, and from West to East; from “Old Europe,” which obsessively prioritizes opposition to Israel over self-perpetuation, to “New Europe,” which wishes to benefit from the crisp light emanating from Zion.

The writer is the author of the new book From Survival to Peace: Turning the Assault on Judaism around (2026). He is also the author of The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat is Coming from the West (2024), and of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (2022). He is chairman of the Judaism 3.0 think tank. For his geopolitical analysis, visit EuropeAndJerusalem.com.