{"id":146001,"date":"2026-06-18T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146001"},"modified":"2026-06-19T07:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:38:12","slug":"the-bridgehead-jonathon-van-maren-europes-christians-increasingly-squeezed-between-islamists-and-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146001","title":{"rendered":"(The Bridgehead) Jonathon Van Maren&#8211;Europe\u2019s Christians: Increasingly Squeezed Between Islamists and the Left"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As riots triggered by migrant attacks convulse the UK, the debate over immigration in Europe is reaching a fever pitch. The same question is asked, time and again: If nobody voted for this, why does it keep on happening? In the past two years, migrant violence has been recorded\u2014and in some cases triggered violent public backlash\u2014in Germany (a toddler and man&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c70k6x1x67ro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stabbed to death by an Afghan<\/a>); Belfast (a man&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/international\/article\/2026\/06\/09\/in-belfast-protesters-blocked-roads-and-set-vehicles-on-fire-after-a-knife-attack-attributed-to-a-sudanese-refugee_6754291_4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stabbed in the street<\/a>&nbsp;by a Sudanese refugee); France (a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/mulhouse-knife-attack-terrorism-france-immigration-debate-algeria\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">deadly stabbing<\/a>&nbsp;by an Algerian in Mulhouse); as well as Poland, Sweden, and Spain, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By contrast, the steep rise in anti-Christian hate crimes, meticulously tracked by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, has gone largely unreported. In May alone, OIDAC Europe&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu\/publications\/monthly-analysis-may-2026-violent-incidents#c144\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;37 hate crimes targeting \u201cChristian places of worship, religious symbols, religious spaces, Christian institutions, and Christian individuals,\u201d including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>13 arson-related attacks (the highest in 2026 thus far)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>10 cases of vandalism<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3 cases of deliberate \u201cdesecration\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3 cases of physical violence<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3 thefts of religious objects<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3 cases of \u201cvandalism and violence\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1 case of incitement<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1 case of disruption of worship<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the incidents are deeply disturbing. A Polish nun was attacked both physically and verbally at a bus stop, with the cross around her neck torn off. The windows of the Holy Spirit Church in Hanau, Germany were shattered after attackers fired steel balls through the window while hundreds of worshippers were inside. Two Catholic students in Austria were attacked and badly injured by \u201calleged left-wing extremists\u201d in Innsbruck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thebridgehead.ca\/2026\/06\/17\/europes-christians-increasingly-squeezed-between-islamists-and-the-left\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Europe\u2019s Christians: Increasingly Squeezed Between Islamists and the Left<br><br>Europe\u2019s Christians are increasingly squeezed between the pincers of Islamist incomers and home-grown leftist extremists. Finland\u2019s P\u00e4ivi R\u00e4s\u00e4nen has faced 7 years of criminal prosecution for quoting and\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sCw4QfgxQE\">pic.twitter.com\/sCw4QfgxQE<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Jonathon Van Maren (@JVanMaren) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JVanMaren\/status\/2067263136424399336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 17, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As riots triggered by migrant attacks convulse the UK, the debate over immigration in Europe is reaching a fever pitch. The same question is asked, time and again: If nobody voted for this, why does it keep on happening? In<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146001\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,133,108,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-history","category-religion-culture","category-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146001"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146005,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146001\/revisions\/146005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}