The apocalyptic scenes in France at the weekend will surprise no one who has read Douglas Murray’s 2017 book The Strange Death of Europe. In his all-too-prophetic bestseller, Murray writes that Europe is ‘committing suicide’ by opening the door to uncontrolled mass migration from the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. These new arrivals seek to impose their own customs, traditions, politics and religion on a continent in the grip of a crisis of confidence, faith and identity.

The Left’s reaction to Murray’s book was entirely predictable. Personal highlights include Murtaza Hussain (I had to look him up) of The Intercept (I had to look that up, too) describing his prognosis as ‘relentlessly paranoid’, and The Guardian’s equally glowing review, which ran under the headline: ‘Gentrified xenophobia’.

I suppose they would view the torching of an imposing 19th-century town hall in Limoges at the weekend as yet more evidence of relentless paranoia cooked up by conservative commentators. The desperate woman pleading with balaclava-clad rioters not to loot a supermarket was practically dripping with gentrified xenophobia.

The mainstream media would certainly have us believe that the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. Students, trade unionists and gilets jaunes (yellow vests) mobilised to vent their legitimate frustrations over the rising cost of living. Opportunistic looters, encouraged by rabble-rousing hard-left politicians, then hijacked the protests, and anarchy ensued.

I can accept that hundreds of thousands of protesters marched peacefully on Saturday – taking to the streets is a feature, not a bug, of the Fifth Republic, after all. But that doesn’t explain what happened. To believe it does is a dangerous delusion.

I can sense the hackles rising among progressives who may have unwittingly stumbled upon my article. Blaming hard-left agitators for the riots is one thing, but attributing them directly to uncontrolled mass immigration is quite another.

But neither cramped classrooms nor the cost-of-living crisis gets to the heart of why masked men waved Palestinian flags as historic buildings went up in flames. What does a war in the Middle East have to do with the very real social and economic pressures bearing down on the French population? Even if I were willing to accept the Left’s animus towards Israel and its response to October 7, which I’m not, it still wouldn’t answer my question.

The picture starts to look clearer when we consider what the Palestinian flag has come to represent: nihilistic hatred towards the West and a jihadist assault on both Judeo-Christian values and the Enlightenment ideals sown on European soil. It is a symbol of the civilisational struggle between open and closed societies.

I’ll grant that not everyone who waves a Palestinian flag in the West is a jihadist sympathiser. But its appearance against a backdrop of anarchy raises profoundly uncomfortable questions about ideological motivations.

It makes perfect sense for young men steeped in Islamist ideology who feel no real ancestral connection to France to fly such a flag – and to do so with pride. These ‘split loyalties’, as my colleague Colin Brazier recently put it in his monologue, can manifest themselves in pernicious ways.

He notes how Frenchmen of North African origin seemed more upset, and more prone to rioting, when the countries their grandparents came from failed to win the World Cup. This example sounds trivial, but it isn’t. Tribal loyalties are often revealed in the beautiful game, in the ecstasy of victory and the violence of losing.

Extrapolating from this example to Saturday’s riots will be a bridge too far for many on the Left and mild-mannered conservatives still clinging to the centre ground. It will strike them as conspiratorial: a convenient scapegoat with which to advance my supposed ‘far-right’ bigotry.

It doesn’t help that determining the precise demographic composition of the rioters is virtually impossible due to France’s colour-blind principle.

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There are many qualities about the Left that I find undesirable, but the one that really sticks in my craw is this tendency to treat voters as though they have no agency, moral or otherwise - as though they are mere vassals, incapable of thinking or acting independently, and therefore must be managed.

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Michael, whose documentary The Guardians of Israel captured a society on a war footing a year after the attacks, and Adam, who wrote about visiting the Nova memorial museum, discuss the unanswered questions over how the attacks were allowed to happen, how October 7 reshaped the Middle East, and the attendant rise in antisemitism at home and abroad. They also weigh Israel’s response in Gaza and compare the attacks to 9/11.

The spectacle of the world's most inoffensive superstar breaking down after being bullied by the pro-Palestine mob may just turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

I’m of course referring to Ed Sheeran’s hand-wringing mea culpa during his Philadelphia show on Saturday night.

In what played out like a hostage video, the Shape of You singer opened his show by addressing the significant criticism he has attracted online over the axing of Macklemore from his Loop Tour.

Pressure had been building on the rapper from Jewish groups and concertgoers ever since he led a “Free Palestine” chant last week at Sheeran’s concert at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

Despite Sheeran insisting that the decision to drop Macklemore ultimately rested with the tour’s promoters, all four remaining supporting acts for upcoming dates swiftly withdrew in “solidarity” with the rapper.

This was the first clue that an attempted cancellation was underway. Words such as “solidarity” are the vernacular of the new McCarthyites, who blacklist anyone outside the progressive class.

Addressing the row over Palestine that had engulfed him, a visibly upset Sheeran told the audience: “This is not usually how I would open the show, but before I play some songs tonight, I hope it’s okay if I say a few words.

“I’m used to my music being criticised … This week the criticism was about something much more important ... I am making mistakes and I am so so sorry.”

Sheeran continued: “I don’t want to disappoint fans, and I’ve never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important, compassionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet.

“But this is a humanitarian issue, and I cannot hide how I feel about it any more.”

What was his mistake exactly? The blame lies squarely with Macklemore. He can insist that the platform he’d been given was simply too big not to share his unsolicited opinions about a place he wouldn’t be able to locate on a map, but no one in “the arts” influences anything outside of Beverly Hills.

Aside from bleating in an echo chamber, this sanctimonious display is the ultimate form of solipsism; it’s a way for the most privileged to pat themselves on the back before returning to their mansions, safe from rocket fire and ideologies that seek to destroy them.

The irony is not lost on me that those who have benefitted the most from capitalism end up defending those who deem it the root of all evil. The useful idiots that came out of the woodwork after Osama bin Laden planned and executed the worst terror attack on US soil did the same on October 7, when Islamists gave Israel its 9/11. I’m sure Hamas would have welcomed Macklemore with open arms that day.

Given the terror group's impeccable record on women's rights, I'm sure they would have been equally respectful to Paloma Faith, who, in a deranged rant responding to the Sheeran controversy, demanded that he quit his tour and revealed that she tells her children "Free Palestine" every night before bed.

I should probably declare my self-interest here before my detractors do it for me. I happen to view the way Jews have been treated in the West since October 7 as a moral emergency.

But my defence of Israel does not cloud my judgement. I’m entirely consistent on this point. If I take my children out for the night to see a musician known for mawkish pop ballads, I wouldn’t appreciate it being hijacked by pro-IDF chants.

And yet that’s exactly what happened to Jewish families, who had forked out for a night of escapism only to be lectured on how to feel about the deadliest day for their people since the Holocaust.

As I alluded to at the start of this piece, perhaps salutary lessons will be drawn from the witch trials of Ed Sheeran.

The relentless hounding of the singer has felt particularly mean-spirited because he has built a reputation as the nicest guy working in the music industry today.

Take the fact that his apology only added fuel to the fire: the usual suspects, Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana among them, branded Sheeran a "coward" and told him to "spare us the crocodile tears" over his "blood-soaked millions”. It proves you can never appease the mob.

It's one thing to go after Morrissey, whose entire brand is provocative and edgy, but going after innocent old Ed is like taking a flamethrower to a litter of kittens.

It also speaks to the madness of the current moment, where neutrality on any given issue is the ultimate transgression, where slogans such as “silence is violence” are used to browbeat the unwilling into conforming.

The hope is that by picking on the nicest guy in the playground, the bully has been so obviously unmasked that it will force a long-overdue reset on this endless politicisation.

One that ushers back in the age of innocence, when you could go to see your favourite artist and just feel a primal connection to the music and the crowd.

Unfortunately, Sheeran’s promise to “listen and learn” because he “does not know enough” about the Middle East is the worst thing he could have said. By giving an inch, the bullies will notch this up as a win. Expect more political lectures at a stadium near you.

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