The Extreme Right in the EU: Why do Far-Right White Nationalists Support Zionism?

Wilders:Extreme Right, Nationalist or just an opportunist?

The success of Sebastian Kurz in Austria's recent election means that the extreme right Freedom Party, the FPO, will likely join the governing coalition. 

 Populist right-wing parties are on the rise in many European countries in recent years. 

These parties include the Party of Freedom in the Netherlands headed by Geert Wilders, the National Front in France headed by Marine Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats headed by Jimmie Akesson, and more. Although highly nationalistic in their politics, these right-wing parties are very similar to each other. They share an Islamophobic and xenophobic ideology, and very interestingly, they all share a strong support for Zionism and for the state of Israel.

 Michael Colborne wrote an article for the Haaretz newspaper with the title "Rise of a New Far-right: The European 'Philosemites' Using Jews to Battle Muslims," to address the seeming contradiction in the European far-right. Indeed, there really is no difference between philo-Semitism and anti-Semitism. 

There is no such thing as positive racism. The far-right groups did not replace their hatred of Jews with the hatred of Muslims. They continue to hate both groups. Richard Silverstein told The Real News about how the election of President Trump emboldened those groups in the United States.R. SILVERSTEIN I think that the anti-Semites in the United States are affiliated with the alt-right movement that you correctly associated with Breitbart, and this alt-right movement includes a very big cadre of anti-Semites, and they feel empowered by Trump's victory and his nativist, kind of populist, extremist kind of views. 

That's why a lot of the anti-Semitic attacks are happening, and they're very much linked to the attacks on the Muslim community, which is why American Jews should really be making common cause with Muslims. SHIR HEVER: White nationalism has its roots in Europe in the 19th century as it developed and took form in order to serve as justification for European colonialism. In those European countries that had smaller and fewer colonies, such as Germany, Italy, and Hungary, white nationalism turned inwards in the form of fascism, implementing the strict, hierarchical, colonial structure on their own citizens. It sought to find its enemies within and turned on minorities. 

During the Second World War, an unprecedented industrial genocide was perpetrated against Jews, against Sinti and Roma, against homosexuals and lesbians, against people with mental disabilities, and against others who were deemed enemies of the state. Since Jews were targeted above all other groups during this genocide, and since the State of Israel, which was founded three years after the Holocaust, defines itself as a Jewish state, it raises the question of why does the European racist right-wing support the State of Israel? 

Aren't they on completely opposite sides? There are two explanations for this. 

One is that the Zionist movement and the State of Israel seek to convince Jews from all over the world to migrate to the State of Israel. The prospect of European Jews and North American Jews leaving their homes and moving to the Middle East appeals to many racist groups. 

The second explanation for the alliance between the Western far-right and the State of Israel is that Israeli policies towards immigrants, towards Arabs and towards Muslims, are precisely the kind of policies that the European and North American far-right would like to implement. President Trump, during his campaign for the presidency, commented on Fox & Friends on how the US can and should imitate Israeli racial profiling.DONALD TRUMP: Our local police, they know who a lot of these people are. 

They're afraid to do anything about it because they don't want to be accused of profiling, and they don't want to be accused of all sorts of things. You know, in Israel they profile. They've done an unbelievable job, as good as you can do.

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Israel and the world: "Us and them"

From Antwerp to Warsaw, demonstrators’ placards have ranged from criticism of Israeli policy (“1,2,3,4, Occupation No More”) to denouncing Israel itself (“5,6,7,8, Israel is a Terror State”) to the most wounding anti-Semitism (“Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas”). In France, which has Europe’s largest Jewish and Arab (mainly north African) populations, trouble may be no surprise. But its extent—attacks on synagogues, raids on Jewish shops—has been shocking nonetheless. Even in Oslo, the Jewish museum closed its doors.

Clearly, Europe’s antipathy towards Israel is more than just loud protest. Many Israelis think they can no longer count on public opinion in Europe—and, to a much lesser extent, America—and that where popular sentiment leads, democratic politicians will sooner or later follow. They see the rising number and vehemence of demonstrations against Israel’s wars, and as a result fear “delegitimisation”: the turning of Israel into a pariah state, outside polite international society.

A global poll in and about several countries, conducted for the BBC long before the latest strife in Gaza, reported that negative views of Israel’s influence in the world outweighed positive ones by more than two to one (see chart 1). In aggregate, Americans saw Israel favorably; Europeans did not.

But plenty of Americans worry about Israel’s reputation. Barack Obama has fretted about his country’s “limited” ability to manage the “international fallout” were a Palestinian state no longer within reach. Delegitimisation, says Einat Wilf, a former Israeli parliamentarian and one of the authors of a three-year, as-yet-unpublished study of the topic at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) in Jerusalem, is becoming “a strategic threat”.

The concept of delegitimisation is not new. But it is acquiring new weight in parts of the world where Israel once felt itself anchored. The JPPI traces the turning-point to the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001, which brought 1,500 government and non-governmental delegations together under the auspices of the UN. Its draft declaration, subsequently amended, condemned Zionism as racism. Since then, says Michael Herzog, a former defence-ministry official and head of the JPPI’s project, networks of Islamist and leftist activists have spread the idea wide.

How wide is a matter of debate. Israel’s supporters paint a picture of rampant anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe, under the cover of hostility to Israel. A survey released this year by the Anti-Defamation League said 34% of eastern Europeans and 24% of western Europeans harboured anti-Semitic views—implying that the continent houses 165m Jew-haters. Others are less gloomy. Vivian Wineman, who heads the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the umbrella body of British Jewry, notes that spikes in anti-Jewish attacks correlate to bouts of fighting in the Middle East. His French counterpart, Roger Cukierman, says public attitudes are driven “by the images of Palestinian babies on television, which makes [people] very angry.”

Some of the Israeli government’s critics hit back by accusing its supporters of highlighting rising anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere to deflect criticisms of its own abuses of human rights. “Ninety-five per cent of demonstrators have nothing against Jews,” says a French government official and Jewish campaigner for a two-state settlement.

Read more:  Israel and the world: Us and them | The Economist