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France’s Double Battle: Facing Islamist Threats at Home, Undermining Allies Abroad

French President Emmanuel Macron is seen at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Photo: Reuters/Martial Trezzini

France’s recent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood marks a long-overdue defense of Western liberalism. A leaked intelligence report exposing the Brotherhood’s covert penetration of French institutions reflects a serious governmental shift — one that rightly sees this Islamist movement not as a misunderstood religious organization, but as a subversive ideological force bent on eroding secular democratic norms from within.

For nations like the United States and Israel, this is a welcome change. Yet France’s simultaneous drift toward antagonizing Israel exposes a deep contradiction in its foreign policy — one that threatens both the coherence of Western alliances and the broader struggle against political Islamism.

The French report highlights how the Brotherhood operates through “entryism” — embedding within institutions like schools, local governments, and NGOs — to reshape society along Islamist lines. This is not religious practice; it is political infiltration, designed to weaken the secular state and replace it with one governed by Islamic law. France’s determination to confront this head-on deserves credit. But the fight against Islamism cannot be confined to domestic policy — it must also inform international posture, particularly toward those democracies on the front lines of this ideological conflict.

France’s increasingly hostile stance toward Israel is deeply problematic. Even as Israel defends itself against Hamas — a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood — France has escalated its rhetoric, threatened sanctions, and backed premature recognition of a Palestinian state. This is not principled diplomacy; it is a strategic blunder. It undermines a key democratic ally battling the same forces France claims to resist, and it emboldens the very actors seeking to dismantle the Western order from within and without.

The context matters. In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 atrocities — an unprovoked terrorist onslaught targeting civilians — Israel launched a necessary and lawful campaign to dismantle the group’s military and political infrastructure in Gaza. Yet rather than standing unequivocally with a fellow democracy under siege, French President Emmanuel Macron responded by warning of punitive measures unless Israel altered its military approach. Such moral equivalence dangerously misconstrues the nature of the conflict. Hamas embeds itself in civilian areas precisely to manufacture these dilemmas. To pressure Israel instead of condemning Hamas’ tactics outright is to reward terrorism and punish self-defense.

Moreover, Macron’s push for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, co-sponsored with Saudi Arabia at the UN, sidelines the only sustainable path to peace: direct negotiations. Statehood cannot be imposed through diplomatic fiat. It must be earned through renunciation of violence, institutional reform, and mutual recognition. France’s proposal bypasses all of this, incentivizing Palestinian intransigence while further isolating Israel in multilateral forums.

This imbalance raises a troubling question: why does France, so quick to sound the alarm over Islamist subversion at home, tolerate and even empower radical Islam’s most virulent expressions abroad? If the Muslim Brotherhood poses a threat to the secular French Republic, how can its ideological twin — Hamas — be treated as a legitimate political actor or representative of Palestinian aspirations? The contradiction reveals a failure to apply France’s newfound clarity consistently.

This inconsistency also weakens the broader Western effort to counter political Islamism. Israel is not just another Middle Eastern actor — it is the region’s only liberal democracy, a frontline state confronting threats that extend far beyond its borders. As Brotherhood-inspired movements gain ground across Europe, from radicalized suburbs to university campuses, their international legitimacy is often buoyed by diplomatic gestures like those France now champions. The message is clear: ideological extremism may be denounced domestically, but rewarded diplomatically.

France’s position also threatens to erode its credibility among allies. Israel, already wary of rising antisemitism and radicalization in Europe, sees in these developments not just diplomatic friction, but strategic abandonment. The demonstrations sweeping across French and other European cities in support of Hamas, often laced with virulent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric, are no accident. They are the domestic fallout of decades of permissive attitudes toward Islamist activism — precisely the kind of threat France now claims to be confronting. A principled stand abroad must match the urgency at home.

To be clear, confronting political Islamism must never come at the expense of individual rights or religious freedom. Discrimination against Muslims is unacceptable. But there is a profound difference between protecting believers and tolerating movements that seek to replace liberal democracy with theocracy. France, through its doctrine of laïcité, upholds one of the clearest boundaries between faith and state. That clarity must extend beyond the domestic sphere if it is to be meaningful.

If France is serious about safeguarding Western values, it must rethink its posture toward Israel. Constructive diplomacy — one that prioritizes the hostages’ release, Israeli security, and a negotiated end to conflict — must replace coercive measures and inflammatory declarations. Hamas, not Israel, is the obstacle to peace. Recognizing this is not only a moral imperative; it is a strategic necessity.

Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx

The post France’s Double Battle: Facing Islamist Threats at Home, Undermining Allies Abroad first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld

US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

President Donald Trump’s administration will release more than $5 billion in previously approved funding for K-12 school programs that it froze over three weeks ago under a review, which had led to bipartisan condemnation.

“(The White House Office of Management and Budget) has completed its review … and has directed the Department to release all formula funds,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the U.S. Education Department, said in a statement, adding funds will be dispersed to states next week.

Further details on the review and what it found were not shared.

A senior administration official said “guardrails” would be in place for the amount being released, without giving details.

Early in July, the Trump administration said it would not release funding previously appropriated by Congress for schools and that an initial review found signs the money was misused to subsidize what it alleged was “a radical leftwing agenda.”

States say $6.8 billion in total was affected by the freeze. Last week, $1.3 billion was released.

After the freeze, a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states sued to challenge the move, and 10 Republican US senators wrote to the Republican Trump administration to reverse its decision.

The frozen money covered funding for education of migrant farm workers and their children; recruitment and training of teachers; English proficiency learning; academic enrichment and after-school and summer programs.

The Trump administration has threatened schools and colleges with withholding federal funds over issues like climate initiatives, transgender policies, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Republican US lawmakers welcomed the move on Friday, while Democratic lawmakers said there was no need to disrupt funding in the first place.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon separately said she was satisfied with what was found in the review and released the money, adding she did not think there would be future freezes.

The post Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.

“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.

The post Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.

i24 NewsUS President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.

“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.

The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.

Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”

On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.

Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.

The post Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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