Originally written in response to the silence around Ryan Al Najjar’s murder, this piece aims to challenge the ideological paralysis of Europe’s elites.

On May 18th, 2024, in the Dutch town of Joure, 18-year-old Ryan Al Najjar was kidnapped by her own family, bound with 18 meters of tape, and drowned in a canal. Her father and brothers, angered by her refusal of a forced marriage and her embrace of a Western lifestyle, called her “shameful.” Her mother wrote on social media, “God willing, we will see her wrapped in a shroud.”

Despite having previously begged police for help, Ryan’s protection was revoked shortly before her death. Her father fled to Syria; her brothers were arrested. This wasn’t Afghanistan or Iran. It was the Netherlands.

And still, there was no global outcry, and not even sufficient media coverage for the incident.

Ryan’s case is not an isolated tragedy. It reflects a broader failure to confront Islamist extremism within Europe. In Germany alone, multiple incidents highlight this growing threat. According to The Washington Post and Euronews, on May 18th, 2025, a 35-year-old Syrian asylum seeker, Mahmoud M., attacked five people outside a bar in Bielefeld using a cane with a concealed blade. Four victims were seriously injured. Authorities are treating the attack as potentially religiously motivated and as an assault on Germany’s democratic order. The suspect was arrested after a two-day manhunt.

Just a few months earlier, on February 21st, 2025, at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, another Syrian asylum seeker, 19-year-old Wassim al M., stabbed a Spanish tourist, reportedly after expressing a desire to “kill Jews.” Police found a knife, a Quran, and a note quoting Quranic verses on him, suggesting a jihadist motivation.

Meanwhile, in France, in early May 2025,

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