Far-Right Parties in Europe Have Become Zionism’s Greatest Backers
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JVL
JVL Introduction
Support for Zionism has become a key pillar of the new far-right in Europe affirms Lena Obermaier writing for Jacobin magazine.
It’s not just that Israel provides a model of the ethno-nationalist state that the far right is addicted to.
There is also a sense of solidarity with Israel, “which is now imagined to share a Judeo-Christian heritage” and seen as “a highly militarized bulwark against Islam”.
The contemporary wave of support for Israel among the European far right is, argues Obermaier, first and foremost strategically motivated:
- “The support deflects from the Right’s own racism and Islamophobia by channeling the cause of Europe’s ultimate victims, the Jews, and it helps the Right to cover up its own extensive track record of antisemitic rhetoric.”
This article was originally published by Jacobin on Wed 8 Sep 2021. Read the original here.
Far-Right Parties in Europe Have Become Zionism’s Greatest Backers
The far right in Europe has a long and shameful history of antisemitism. Yet as the far right seeks to renew its image and make electoral gains, emphatic support for Zionism has become a key pillar of the project, while hatred of Jews has been supplemented with newer forms of racism and xenophobia.
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I think this phenomenon of an “axis” between the Far Right and Zionism is becoming increasingly common everywhere. Obviously Trump and his supporters
are very pro-Israel- the far Right incursion into the Capitol was accompanied by both Israeli and Confederate flags. Loyalist thugs in Northern Ireland are frequently staunch supporters of Israel and the middle class football hooligan and racist, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) has had legal fees and all sorts of other large donations paid by a number of Rightwing and Zionist groups and individuals in the USA and Australia.
It seems to me that the far-right is divided on the Jewish question, between, one the one hand, the old-fashioned classical fascists who still believe in the ‘world Jewish conspiracy’ and other such openly anti-Jewish prejudices, and, on the other hand, what I (rather naughtily) call ‘cultural fascists’.
The latter have a less racialised view of the world, and they will accept people who classical fascists see as inferior — so long as these people share their politics. So ‘cultural fascists’ will be happy to work with Jews, so long as these Jews are themselves of the same opinion, that is, are ‘cultural fascists’ themselves, or at least very right-wing in outlook. The state of Israel, with its hard-right governments, is seen by ‘cultural fascists’ as part of the ‘defence of the West’. Jews who are liberal or left-wing (or who wish to see Israel become a proper democracy) are beyond the pale, and are hated as virulently by ‘cultural fascists’ as much as Jews as a whole are hated by classical fascists. For their part, right-wing Zionists are quite happy with ‘cultural fascists’, and even with those who veer off into classical fascist territory, as with Hungary’s Fidesz Party with its openly anti-Semitic campaign against George Soros, on the basis that Soros is a liberal Jew and thus beyond the pale.
The Trumpers’ attempt to re-enact the Munich Beer-Hall Putsch earlier this year saw both ends of today’s far-right in attendance. Hence the remarkable displaying of the Israeli state flag alongside men wearing ‘6MWE’ — ‘six million wasn’t enough’ — tee-shirts. How either faction regarded the other… that I don’t know, but it would be interesting to know.