In 2014, two Turkish-born Dutch politicians were expelled from the Dutch Labor party over their opposition to its new policies regarding the integration of immigrants. The pair went on to found an independent Muslim party, which now holds three seats (out of 150) in the nation’s parliament and has had successes in recent municipal elections—as have two or three other Muslim parties. Manfred Gerstenfeld notes some troubling aspects of the new parties’ rhetoric and even more troubling attitude toward Jews:

In Rotterdam before the 2018 municipal elections, three left-wing parties—Labor, Green Left, and the Socialist party (SP)—intended to cooperate with the Muslim party Nida. It then became known that Nida had called Israel a terror state in 2014 and would not refute this. Labor and Green Left backed out of the agreement, but the socialists remained. . . .

Earlier this year, almost all parties in the Amsterdam municipal council signed, at the request of the Jewish community, a document entitled the “Amsterdam Jewish Accord.” It states that Jews have a right to security paid for by the city government, that anti-Semitism needs to be fought, and that the Jewish elements of Amsterdam’s history should be taught to the general population. Two parties refused to sign the agreement: Denk and BIJ1, a party comprising mainly immigrants of African ancestry. A candidate in the Amsterdam elections claimed on behalf of Denk that Israel and the West had played a role in establishing Islamic State.

The pro-Israel organization CIDI has stated that Denk’s parliamentary questions and promotion on Facebook are riddled with anti-Semitic symbols, suggestions, and insinuations, hidden as criticism of Israel. . . .

Last year Israeli schoolchildren visited the Dutch parliament. [A] Muslim council member in The Hague, Abdoe Khoulani, called the students “Zionist terrorists in training” and “future child-murderers and occupiers.” A Dutch judge dismissed a court case against Khoulani, saying his remarks did not constitute incitement to hate.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwack considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.