Here is the translation in a reusable block:
A new instance of the normalisation of Islamist terrorism in Europe occurred last Wednesday, when extremist activists carried out a provocation in the heart of London. On Wednesday evening, they unveiled a statue of the convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti in Parliament Square, next to the statue of Nelson Mandela. The demonstrators covered the statue with a cloth and held a brief protest ceremony during which they referred to Barghouti as “Palestine’s Mandela”. The Metropolitan Police intervened within minutes and dismantled the installation, but the audacity of these “Palestine activists” illustrates how secure they feel in their promotion of and admiration for murderous terrorists. Barghouti, as is well known, has the blood of at least 14 innocent people on his hands.
The comparison with Mandela constitutes a familiar device within Palestinian-Arab and radical left-wing propaganda. Mandela fought apartheid by means that included violence, but ultimately led a process characterised by national reconciliation. Barghouti, by contrast, has never abandoned terrorism against civilian targets as a method of struggle.
The incident in London is not an isolated case. Once again, Western cities are being transformed into stages for the glorification of controversial figures and the imposition of Islamism in the public sphere, while their violent backgrounds are rendered invisible. With countless lawless zones in France where the police dare not enter, and similar situations in England, where Islamists openly erected a statue of a mass murderer, there can be little doubt as to who feels victorious in this “peaceful” jihad war.
From Lebanon, active terrorism continues with the clear objective of killing as many Jews as possible in the war against Israel. This impression was reinforced by Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem on Thursday, when he rejected the principles of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel. This may be regarded as a message from Iran to Trump that any attempt at an agreement will succeed only if it is concluded on Iran’s terms.
The brief defensive war conducted by Israel and the United States against the Iranian terror regime was undoubtedly a high point in modern warfare. A few months later, we observe that the Iranian terror regime, despite enormous losses, remains capable of survival. It is attempting to pressure Trump into accepting its conditions, hoping to exploit the time until a possible new president from the political left takes office. In this way, it can continue to secure the regime’s demands and freedom to practise international terrorism, oppress its own 93 million inhabitants, continue the occupation of Lebanon through Hezbollah, and pursue the regime’s overarching objective: the destruction of the State of Israel and the world’s Jews.
The Regime’s Ideology and Power
The political ideology that Ruhollah Khomeini brought to Iran centres on how the regime can prepare the ground for the return of the Twelfth Mahdi, so that Shia Islam may be imposed upon the entire world. If Khomeini is to be believed, the Mahdi will, upon his arrival, exterminate the world’s Jews and punish Sunni Muslims.
According to this Shia ideology, it is forbidden for the regime to capitulate unless it faces an existential threat. In such circumstances, it may conclude a “Muhammad’s Hudna” with the enemy until it is strong enough to attack again. This forms the backdrop to the regime’s steadfastness and unwillingness to sign agreements with the United States unless the agreement unequivocally presents Iran as the victorious party.
The regime is aware that only around 50 per cent of the population are ethnic Persians. Other peoples are waiting for the opportunity to break away and avenge nearly 50 years of oppression. Azerbaijanis, Kurds and Baloch are examples of peoples who have consistently refused to assimilate into the Shia Persian “ummah”. In response, the regime maintains its own army of 500,000 soldiers in the Basij and 150,000 in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in order to maintain control over the entire population. In addition, it commands Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. It was Iraqi Hezbollah militias that were transported to Iran to participate in the shooting of demonstrators in 2009, and this year, by all appearances, troops from Afghanistan also took part in the mass killings of January 2026.
The man who wields the greatest power over the regime’s security apparatuses and who has thus far received little attention is Ahmad Vahidi. He is the terrorist who helped build the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, Hezbollah and Iran’s nuclear programme. Since the 1980s, he has been involved in terrorism, and he was responsible for the terrorist attack against Jews in Argentina in 1994. Vahidi is wanted by Interpol, but Israel has not yet succeeded in neutralising him. There is every reason to believe that this powerful terrorist, who represents the regime’s most radical faction, stands behind the strategic negotiating game with the United States and Hezbollah’s opposition to a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Iran Is a Genuine Global Threat
The regime’s power should not be underestimated, despite its current weakness. Despite the war, it is already close to completing a nuclear weapon, and it constitutes a threat to the global economy. Countries under pressure, particularly in the Middle East, largely fear a scenario in which Iran takes control as it has done in Lebanon. Hope for a rapid and effective military solution by the United States and Israel that would permanently solve the problem is now beginning to fade.
The concern is justified, since Iran has threatened that if its enemies damage Iranian energy infrastructure, it will eliminate the infrastructure of all countries that support the United States and Israel directly or indirectly. Iran has also threatened to cut the fibre-optic cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz. In this way, Iran has strengthened its position as a genuine global threat.
The Islamists understand that the West seeks immediate solutions here and now. This includes Trump, who operates on the belief that loud rhetoric can produce rapid results. In the Shia Muslim world, however, matters do not work in this way. The historical struggle between Sunni and Shia Muslims has taught them to pursue long-term objectives, in which the willingness to sacrifice the population has never been subject to ethical reservations. We saw this in the wars between Iran and Russia, when Iran lost vast territories it occupied and an unknown number of lives. The same can be said of the Iran–Iraq War; loss of life was never regarded as an obstacle, but as a resource the regime could deploy as needed.
The West’s Appeasement of Islamist Terrorism
The terror regime knows that, in the West, parts of the political left stand with the United Nations on its side. Not a single country has severed diplomatic relations with the regime. No one has protested with sufficient force against the regime’s killing of tens of thousands of demonstrators or against its extensive global terrorist networks. Nor is there meaningful protest against the fact that Lebanon is de facto completely occupied by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, and certainly not against the Iranian regime’s extensive terrorism against the small State of Israel and the world’s Jews.
The regime is likewise aware that the West fears confrontation. The spread of Islamism in the West, in countries such as France and the United Kingdom, has led Europeans to retreat step by step in order to avoid conflict. The example of 1983, when a small number of suicide bombers succeeded in forcing both French and American forces out of Lebanon, is still used today as proof of what can be achieved with limited terrorist resources.
The West has forgotten that it took six years to defeat the Nazis. Just as Nazism was confronted far too late, the West is now committing precisely the same mistake with regard to Iran. Israel has made the same mistake in its dealings with the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. It was only after the October massacre that Israel finally awoke from the state of dormancy in which the country’s leaders had existed since 1992 and launched a comprehensive defensive war against Hamas and Hezbollah. The PLO remains spared despite extensive terrorism against Israel.
The West holds the key to forcing the terror regime to its knees, if only it wishes to do so. One or two years of a complete blockade of the regime and its allies would turn global terrorist activity on its head, but little willingness can be discerned among today’s leaders. They lack both historical insight and backbone. It appears that the West still refuses to recognise that this is not merely about Israel’s existence, but about the stability of the entire Middle East and large parts of the Western world.
An inconsistent attitude towards Islamist terrorism has not only unleashed a wave of antisemitism that threatens the safety of Jews throughout much of the West, but also harms society as a whole. This also affects the many Muslims who have fled terrorism to the West, only to discover that even democratic states governed by the rule of law do not provide sufficient protection against extremism.
Israel’s war against Iran is not over. The results achieved during only a few days of defensive combat against the regime are undoubtedly impressive, but the regime still exercises control over the country and remains a genuine threat to the outside world. One of the regime’s strongest assets is the goodwill it encounters in the West from actors unwilling to bear the costs of confrontation. The corrupt United Nations has become a refuge for dictatorships and unsavoury regimes, most of the West is failing Israel, and the Middle East’s only democracy has no one to rely upon but itself.