Faraj Alexandre Rifai, at The Blogs

Faraj Alexandre Rifai

May 27, 2026, 4:01 PM

A Society Obsessed with Hatred Cannot Be Happy

Faraj Alexandre Rifai at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
A place he was taught to hate long before he was ever allowed to understand it.

I grew up in a society where hatred of Israel sometimes occupied more space than love for our own lives. Over time, I came to understand something essential: when a society builds its collective imagination around resentment and the...

Dec 30, 2025, 1:51 PM

Syria: Western Illusions Meet Israel’s Hard Reality

I am watching the current Syrian sequence with a very specific sense of concern. Not because Syria is foreign to me — it never has been — but because I recognize, once again, this dangerous moment when the West believes...

Dec 15, 2025, 10:41 PM

From Sydney to October 7: The same hatred, the same Western blindness

An antisemitic shooting in Sydney, during Hanukkah. Jews murdered for being Jews. Families celebrating light, cut down by hatred. How can one not think of October 7? Same logic. Same hatred. The same pogrom—geographically displaced. This crime is the culmination of an ideological climate...

Dec 10, 2025, 1:51 PM

Featured Post

A year into al-Sharaa’s regime: Is the West celebrating a mirage?

https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/media/photo/P-065139/00-02

Visit of Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner, to Syria (Courtesy European Commission)

To avoid their mistakes of the past, the US and Europe must tie normalization with Syria to real and transformative measures

Oct 9, 2025, 11:46 AM

Trump, Macron, and the night of the deal: courage Vs. rhetoric

That night, history turned quietly.While most Western capitals slept, a message whispered through the corridors of the White House: “There’s a deal.” A few hours later, Donald Trump confirmed what many had dismissed as impossible — Israel and Hamas had reached...

Aug 31, 2025, 7:06 PM

Emmanuel Macron: From Blindness to Complicity

In his recent letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, French President Emmanuel Macron crossed a line of intolerable ignominy. He began by assuring that France would continue to protect its Jewish citizens, only to immediately urge Israel to halt its “illegal...

Aug 18, 2025, 3:22 PM

Featured Post

From Damascus to Paris: How I found antisemitism twice

March against antisemitism, Paris, November 12, 2023 (Wikimedia Commons)

The French Republic taught me not to hate, but the nation that reconciled me with the idea of possible coexistence is changing

About Me

I am Faraj Alexandre Rifai. I am a graduate of ESSEC Business School and the founder of Ashteret, a multilingual platform dedicated to intercultural dialogue, combating Islamism, and fostering coexistence. I am frequently invited to speak at conferences, synagogues, and intellectual circles in France and Israel. Fluent in French, Arabic, and English, I am able to address multiple audiences at once. My style is both personal and political, literary yet accessible — often going against the grain, but always rooted in lived experience.

Contact Me