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** 'What Radical Islam Would Seemingly Like to Extend to the West': A Conversation with Alain Destexhe ([link removed])
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by Grégoire Canlorbe • November 18, 2025 at 5:00 am
* In the Middle East, the attempts at "crimes against humanity," for more than 70 years, have been targeted at Jews. Defending oneself by responding after a major massacre is not a genocide. If you do not want your people killed, do not attack your neighbor. The October 7, 2023 massacre, if Lebanon and Iran had joined in, was probably intended as a genocide.
* Israel has found itself swarmed for the past two years on seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran. That looks more like a genocide.
* As for Gaza, there is no genocide: there is no intention from Israel to exterminate the Palestinians, even though there are, obviously, civilian casualties. What is targeted is the destruction of a terrorist group, Hamas, and its fighters.
* [T]here exists, in a part of Islam, a fierce hostility towards the West. When Muslims become the majority in a society, it undergoes profound transformation. Other citizens — Christians, secularists, or others — then become, in a way, second-class tolerated citizens, dhimmis.
* What the terrorists did to Israel on October 7, 2023, is just part of what radical Islam would seemingly like to extend to the West. They do not have the means to do so at the moment, but if they had, I am convinced they would act accordingly. In this regard, we are extremely naïve to think that this will not happen. For Europe, this prospect remains distant, but demographic upheavals could accelerate the threat.
* [T]he crux of the problem lies in the idea of submission — Islam means "submission" to Allah and His Word, as stated in the Quran and the Hadiths. From there, the sacred text is no longer up for discussion. Whatever one may say, this text is quite harsh: the will to convert the entire world to Islam, apostasy punishable by death, Jews and Christians presented as dhimmis, "tolerated," second-class citizens, or as people to be fined or converted.
* [A] majority of Muslims can always say: "it's written in the Quran" — meaning said by the Almighty, like the Ten Commandments in the Bible — and consider that any other reading must therefore be erroneous... Apostasy is central and regarded as punishable by death.
* The European left regrets the "good old days" of the Labor Party — Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, etc. — which coincided with the dominance of social democracy both in Europe and in Israel. It was this group that brought Israel the Oslo Accords, which only succeeded in legitimizing the Palestinian Authority and its ongoing "pay-for-slay" terrorism.... It seems these circles have never accepted that the Israeli majority has turned away from the "peace now" narrative put forth by Rabin and Peres, or that it has rejected the idea of a Palestinian state, although since the attacks of October 7, 2023, the idea of a Palestinian state next to Israel appears over for everyone.
* Netanyahu... is, objectively, a major statesman. He... led the country in a simultaneous confrontation with several actors—Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, the Houthis from Yemen, Hamas.... Netanyahu's track record at the helm of Israel remains positive and remarkable.
* What is fundamentally reproached about Netanyahu is having tolerated Qatar's financing of Hamas — those planes filled with cash, transiting through Israel, ended up in the pockets of the movement. Netanyahu made a misjudgment — he is not the only one—in thinking that at some point Hamas would choose peace, the development of Gaza, and renounce the war against Israel.... it was a bet that turned out to be lost. It was a mistake because Hamas used that money to prepare and wage war. But no one really protested, certainly not even the EU, which was aware that Hamas received funds from Qatar.
* Gaza could resemble Tel Aviv.... But Hamas chose war and the misery of the Palestinian people, fully knowing that Israel would retaliate.
* [A]fter 77 years, [the Palestinians] are no longer refugees; it is the UN that perpetuates this myth.
* So I do not blame Netanyahu at all for October 7. The major failure was that of Israeli intelligence — reputed to be excellent — which saw nothing coming. The problem is having mistakenly believed, in hindsight, that Hamas could be appeased. This obviously does not make Netanyahu responsible for the attacks of October 7. That accusation is absurd.
* I spent a total of twelve years at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in various roles, and I am sad at what MSF has become. In Gaza, MSF is working with a totalitarian organization. Hamas controls Gaza. Working in Gaza means working with — and under the control of — Hamas. Therefore, in my view, Doctors Without Borders has become complicit with Hamas throughout the war and should have withdrawn, stating: "We do not operate alongside a totalitarian movement and regime."
* [Doctors Without Borders-MSF] cover for everything Hamas does. The organization not only condones the diversion of humanitarian aid but also the conduct of the war. All Doctors Without Borders' posts on X, regarding the conflict, targets Israel, I have not seen one clear call for the release of hostages. However, the release of the hostages was key to ending the conflict: the war would have stopped much earlier if Hamas had agreed to release them. Doctors Without Borders did not ask for this because the organization operates under Hamas's control: calling for the release of hostages would have risked confronting them.
* Among the "new Asian tigers" (excluding Australia and New Zealand), Taiwan possesses the most advanced democracy: a free press, regular elections, and, since 2000, political alternation.... Taiwan actually ranks alongside European countries in democratic assessments. Supporting Taiwan and its 23 million inhabitants is therefore a geopolitical, strategic, and democratic imperative.
* [A]ccess to Belgian nationality was particularly easy: three years of residence — two for refugees — with few requirements for linguistic, cultural, or economic integration. All of this has produced a spectacular demographic transformation of the country... Today, statistics show that our capital is one of the three most crime-ridden cities in Europe.
* Belgium — although primarily Brussels — serves as a laboratory for what Europe might face tomorrow: drug trafficking, insecurity, a weakened state, electoral clientelism, deterioration of public services, widespread dissatisfaction, housing shortages, political impotence ...
* In politics, I act like a doctor. I start by making a diagnosis: here, population change. Then I propose a treatment: here, measures such as drastically reducing family reunification and asylum.... In Brussels, demographic evolution is practically irreversible, especially since the Belgian middle classes continue to leave the city: this situation is only amplifying.

Pictured: Alain Destexhe pictured during a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, on February 20, 2019. (Photo by Paul-Henri Verlooy/AFP via Getty Images)

Alain Destexhe (MD), an honorary senator in Belgium, is a former secretary general of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), former president of the International Crisis Group, and former president of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank & IMF. He has written 15 books on Belgian politics and international issues, including Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. He is a regular contributor to Gatestone, Le Figaro and several media outlets in France. He also practices medicine overseas and in France.

Canlorbe: As someone who studied the genocide in Rwanda, would you say that a genocide is also underway in Gaza?

Destexhe: A genocide targets a particular group — ethnic, racial, or religious. We can speak of genocide in Rwanda because the extermination targeted the Tutsis as a group. Certainly, some Hutu opponents were also killed, but they were not targeted as members of a group.

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