Before the recent Gaza crisis, there were indications that much water had flowed under the bridge regarding the packaged and ready-made Western perspective on the Arabs' just causes, foremost among them - naturally - the Palestinian cause.
Or at least, the entry of Islam - in its Western version - into reshaping the political and cultural scenes in the Western world, both European and American.
Who would have believed - for example - that Ralf Brinkhaus - the leader of the parliamentary group of the conservative Christian Democratic Union - would not rule out in an interview with "Idea" that a Muslim might lead the party and serve as Chancellor by 2030, the highest political office in Germany?
Or that Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz would shout - in May 2024 - "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," as if she were a Palestinian fighter.
The first model is not disconnected from the second, as they both carry significant symbolic weight regarding the "shock" transformations in the Western political society: the political representation of Muslims in Europe and consequently, the "biases" – at least relatively better – in favor of the Palestinian cause, on the one hand, and the explicit and direct confrontation with the hard-core bloc of the Zionist lobby, which for decades has dominated all public opinion-forming institutions and major sovereign decisions regarding the Middle East and the Arabs at its heart, on the other hand.
This waste of energies presented to the Arabs continued until the last decade of this century when the extensive Islamic representation in legislative and executive institutions in European capitals was not politically or legally invested, nor transformed into a platform to elicit Western emotions towards the Arab "injustices."
The West is changing, demographically, culturally, and politically in turn; due to the presence of the second version of the East "Muslims of Europe and America," not as a "decoration" on the sidelines of political action, but at its core. However, the Arab reaction remained confined to the spectator stands.
I do not know if the Arabs have suddenly discovered that Europe, which remained exclusive to the "Darwinian" man or the "super white," has shaken its confidence in monopolizing the world and its interests, a partner that has either immigrated to it or emerged from its core, which could be the Arabs’ long arm within international and regional decision-making institutions, relieving the Arab world of much of the oppression and harm over the last five decades at least.
Europe, which was devoid of the Islamic voice, now includes nearly 11 political parties founded by Muslims or composed mostly of Muslim members. Established in countries such as France (Political Equality and Justice Party PEJ, and the French Democratic Muslim Union UDMF), Austria (New Future Party NBZ), the Netherlands (DENK Party, which won three seats in parliament), Spain (Coalition for Melilla Party and Coalition of Cabayas Party), Bulgaria (several parties with a Muslim majority), Greece (Friendship, Equality, and Peace Party), and Finland (Finnish Islamic Party Suomen islamilainen puolue).
These parties have remained busy with their priorities and internal concerns such as combating "Islamophobia" and discrimination against Muslims in Europe, and the Arab political capital has not benefited from them as political platforms to enhance dialogue between Arabs and the West, nor as lobbying groups that mimic the American pro-Israel pressure tactics in Europe like AIPAC.
Or they did not take advantage of the experience of the ELNET network, which is a pro-Israel lobbying network in Europe established in 2007. It employs dozens of staff and has six European offices (Paris, Berlin, Brussels, London, Warsaw, and Rome), in addition to its headquarters in Tel Aviv and a branch in New York. ELNET attracted wealthy Europeans sympathetic to Israel and encouraged them to participate in political spending campaigns similar to the AIPAC model, while developing other forms of influence, such as fully funded trips to Israel for politicians.
Interestingly - also here - that since the early twentieth century, the Arab world has not benefited from European influencers who converted to Islam, such as Sir Marmaduke Pickthall, a novelist, travel writer, and English Islamic scholar who announced his conversion to Islam in 1917. René Guénon, a prominent French thinker and philosopher, who converted to Islam in 1912 and later moved to live in Cairo.
Also, Martin Lings, a researcher, orientalist, and English author who worked at the British Museum and the British Library. He was influenced by René Guénon, converted to Islam, and authored the book "Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources," which is widely considered one of the best modern biographies of Prophet Muhammad - peace be upon him - in English. And Roger Garaudy, the famous French philosopher and former high-ranking member of the French Communist Party, who later converted to Islam in the 1980s.
This waste of energies presented to the Arabs continued until the last decade of this century, where the extensive Islamic representation in legislative and executive institutions in European capitals was not politically or legally invested, nor transformed into a platform to elicit Western emotions towards the Arab "injustices."
Muslims have reached high-ranking ministerial positions and have assumed the position of "mayor" in politically and demographically significant European cities, influencing local elections and beyond. Meanwhile, the Arab accounts - both official and popular - towards this reserve and institutional support within the core of Europe remained as cold as a London or Paris winter.
The situation did not differ much on the opposite face of Europe across the Atlantic: the latest Gallup update - published on February 27, 2026 - states that since 2001 until 2025, Israelis have maintained a significant lead in American sympathy towards the Middle East, with an average gap of 43 points between 2001 and 2018.
However, public opinion began to shrink in 2019, years before Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza. The cumulative effect of the gradual changes in American attitudes since then has led to a decline in sympathetic views towards Israelis.
This occurred in parallel as Gaza became a political burden on the former American President Biden before the 2024 presidential election, before giving way to Vice President Kamala Harris, as if Gaza had become a "swing" state in the presidential election. It even became central in opinion polls after the geography of public protests against the United States' direct involvement in the genocide committed by the Zionist entity expanded.
In this context, I was astonished when the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced on August 20, 2026, the release of what it called "The 2026 Guide for Elected Muslim Officials," which documents a record number of 255 elected Muslim officials serving in 26 states at nearly all levels of government.
The center limited itself to monitoring and documentation, while its statement lacked any reference to any form of Arab political investment in this new American Islamic youth clay as a cultural and political intermediary conveying the Arab pain from beneath the ruins of devastated Gaza to the forefront of the American scene shoulder to shoulder with the Zionist lobby there.
Mitchell Bard attempted in his book "The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance Undermining America's Interests in the Middle East" to prove the existence of an "Arab lobby" in the United States, but his statements were rhetorical, elastic, and vague, limited to issuing accusations regarding what he described as "many hidden and unofficial channels" working in favor of the Arabs, without specifying their names.
The term "Arab lobby" is misleading; it is difficult to talk about "pressure groups" united to work in favor of 22 Arab countries, whose political and strategic interests vary.
And if the failure to establish a unified and influential "Arab lobby" in the West - similar to other influential ethnic pressure groups - is due to a mix of deep geopolitical divisions, the varying identities of Arab communities abroad, reliance on paid contracting companies instead of grassroots popular mobilization, in addition to the unfavorable Western political climate, another reason may be the Arabs' lack of enthusiasm to engage in what is called "futurology" or futures studies, which deals with the "likely and possible."
In contrast to this Arab/Islamic yawning, the future of Europe has been subjected, with the growing symbolic presence of Islam and its translation - in reality - into significant and influential political representation, to future studies conducted by European and American thinkers, such as American "Daniel Pipes," Italian "Oriana Fallaci," American "Ralph Peters," and Canadian "Mark Stein."
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