News and Views 31st July 2026 

Islam in Europe

• Germany in denial about Berlin terror attack. The Islamist who carried out last Saturday’s Berlin 'Pride' attack that left one woman dead and at least 29 others injured, some of them life-threatening, had pledged allegiance to the ISIL (ISIS) armed group. German politicians called for unity and insisted that such violence had no place in a civilized society; they and the media framing the incident as an isolated tragedy. But there has been a pattern of vehicular assault or stabbings by Islamists across Europe, and especially in Germany - each motivated by the same jihadist ideology, which justifies violence against those it deems enemies.
• Germany's Islamist crisis can no longer be ignored. Polls reveal that almost half - 45.1% - of Muslims in Germany under the age of 40 hold Islamist attitudes, meaning that nearly half of respondents display either open or underlying support for ideas that conflict with Germany’s democratic framework. Such shocking truth led Brendan O’Neill to write: “Frankness is essential now. The truth is that hundreds upon hundreds of people in Europe have been slaughtered by Islamists. They’ve been slain for the sin of enjoying pop music in Manchester or a pint in London or gay pride in Berlin …No more ‘Islamophobia’ bollocks. Only the complete freedom to speak and the firmest of action will suffice now. Read also here.

Antisemitism

• Barrage of Israel ‘genocide’ charges by top UK politicians. Amidst tentative revelations that Hamas has agreed to a plan that involves surrendering its weapons in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, opposition to Israel’s handing of the Gaza conflict continues unabated. Sadiq Khan – who is set to become Britain's best-paid politician as he hints he will claim the £390-a-day tax-free House of Lords allowance on top of his £170k London Mayor salary – stated last week that Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza, and that the country’s military action is a war crime. He further declared that he would lobby Andy Burnham to arrest Netanyahu should he ever step foot in London. Just days prior, less vocal on the issue, the new Prime Minister nevertheless failed to challenge Gary Lineker when he casually threw the ‘genocide’ charge at Israel in his first interview as PM. And Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has refused to retract comments in which he insisted that Israel is "committing war crimes before our very eyes".
• ‘Global tsunami of lies’. Things have been no quieter on the other side of the Atlantic, where, in an angry rant against Benjamin Netanyahu last week, New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, proclaimed that the Israeli Prime Minister was a war criminal, the architect of genocide, responsible for killing more than 73,000 in Gaza, for maiming tens of thousands of children, for targeting neonatal hospitals, for blocking food and aid, and for gunning down hundreds of aid workers and journalists.

Church Matters

• Barnabas Aid executive destroys 20,000 books. It has emerged that 20,000 volumes of Christian books and ministry resources — comprising seventeen pallets’ worth - have been summarily destroyed under Barnabas Aid International’s incoming chief executive, Colin Bloom, who said they were occupying costly warehouse space. Many of the books were written by the late Barnabas Aid founder and director Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, internationally recognized for his scholarship on religious freedom, Christian persecution and Christian-Muslim relations. More recently, Sookhdeo had been embroiled in controversy which saw him suspended from the charity he started after accusations of financial mismanagement and toxic work culture. He died in May, aged 79.
• Questions raised regarding accountability and stewardship. Other books reputedly pulped by the charity include the second volume of the autobiography of former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, a personal friend of Dr Sookhdeo, 12 boxes of new King James Bibles, and ministry resources donated for Christian education, evangelism and the support of the persecuted Church - collectively representing decades of charitable investment and the generosity of many individual supporters. Questions have been raised in the interests of accountability and good stewardship – such as why destruction was considered preferable to donation to other organisations, and what purpose was served in erasing the memory of the man who founded the Barnabas ministry that took this action.

Climate change

• Europe’s wildfire wrangle. Most readers would have thought Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley was stating the obvious when they read his article headlined ‘Climate change is real – we only have to look out of our windows’ in Monday’s paper. But The Daily Sceptic’s Paul Homewood has strongly challenged Stanley, stating “All his ‘facts’ are wrong.” He claims that in Britain, “Last year was a long way from being the driest on record …. there are no trends towards either wetter or drier summers.” Even Stanley’s own Telegraph colleague, David Frost, says he doesn’t agree “that we need to run around shouting that we are in a 'climate emergency' or stop thinking seriously about the problems.” Both Homewood and Frost also take Stanley to task for his rather naïve views on Net Zero. Read also. 
• Is Europe on fire? Ross Clark, writing in Spiked takes the ‘Europe on Fire’ argument further, claiming that although France has had an especially bad year for wildfires, “Spain has had worse years.” He maintains that “across Europe as a whole, 2026 has been the least-bad year recorded since 2012”, and that, “The same, remarkably, is true of every continent – Africa, the Americas, Oceania, Asia.” Update 31.07: Data from the European Forest Fire Information Service, however, shows that 2026 is indeed tracking as one of the worst years for wildfires in Europe, second only to 2022. Claims of a "quietest year" rely on misleading charts that lump in massive non-European territories like Siberia or count routine agricultural burning.

Good News

• Rotherham churches unite in public baptism event. 20 churches from across Rotherham and the surrounding area came together for a landmark public baptism celebration at Manvers Lake last Sunday. More than 80 people publicly declared their faith in Jesus Christ. The annual public baptism, launched in 2025, has quickly become one of the largest visible expressions of Christian unity in South Yorkshire.
• Jesus tent revival sweeps the USA. In America, a tent mission begun in 2019, in Kokomo, Indiana, has been moving across the nation, impacting thousands of people in scores of locations. Initiated by Dr Braden Andersen, a primary care physician and evangelist, who sold his medical practice and house to take the tent revival nationwide. The ministry partners with local churches that host the revival to provide coordinated follow-ups after each service. Many have testified to changed lives, with over 300 people being baptized in just a single weekend in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Meetings are currently being planned for Canada. Read also this further good news story.