Why Israel is joining hands with Europe's far right
When Jorg Haider’s far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) came second in the country’s 1999 national elections and subsequently entered government, the reaction across Europe was swift and severe.
The other 14 EU member states issued diplomatic sanctions, and the far right - still largely confined to the political margins - was broadly shunned by the international community.
At the time, this included Israel. Haider himself was banned from entering the country. Though he was well-educated and charismatic - and too young to have been a Nazi himself - Haider led a party whose origins and culture were unmistakable.
The FPO had been founded in 1956 by a former SS general, and antisemitism was deeply embedded in its political DNA, regularly surfacing in speeches, meetings and public performances. Israeli officials were keenly aware of this legacy.
Those days are now over. Extreme right-wing parties no longer linger at the fringes of European politics. Post-fascist and right-wing extremist parties have entered government, supported governing coalitions, or even assumed leadership roles across the continent.
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Central to this transformation has been a deliberate effort to normalise their image - less by abandoning exclusionary politics than by repackaging them through the dominant racist imaginaries of the present.
Where once these movements and their predecessors fantasised about a global Jewish conspiracy bent on world domination, they now claim to confront a different existential threat, using strikingly similar rhetoric. Muslims, according to this narrative, seek to “take over” Europe in coordination with globalist, woke elites. The conspiracy remains; only its targets have shifted.
Gaining acceptance
Against this backdrop, the European far right has worked persistently to gain acceptance in Israel. In 2010, for the first time in the 21st century, a delegation of far-right leaders from Austria, Belgium, Germany and Sweden traveled to Israel to meet with Israeli politicians.
The visit was facilitated by an Israeli businessman, and meetings were limited to marginal Knesset members from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party and a deputy minister from Likud. There was no official reception by the Knesset or the government.
Yet the visit marked a turning point. The delegation signed the so-called “Jerusalem Declaration”, signalling a strategic pivot away from explicit antisemitism and towards Islamophobia as the basis for alliance-building. The declaration boldly claimed that “we stand at the vanguard in the fight for the western, democratic community” against the “totalitarian threat” of “fundamentalist Islam”.
Put plainly, Israel is aligning itself with an authoritarian wave sweeping Europe to legitimise its policies of genocidal warfare and democratic erosion
The underlying objective of allying with Israel has been openly acknowledged by Kent Ekeroth, former international secretary of the Sweden Democrats: to “legitimise our parties in Europe”.
While Jewish communities have continued to struggle with the idea of normalising relations with parties rooted in Nazi collaboration and antisemitism, the Israeli state has fundamentally revised its own approach.
In February 2025, Israel’s ruling Likud party under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined Patriots for Europe - now the third-largest far-right group in the European Parliament - as an observer member. Less than a year later, on 25 January, Netanyahu’s 37th government officially welcomed a far-right delegation into its offices.
Netanyahu and Transport Minister Miri Regev - an Israeli army veteran who served as a brigadier general and spokesperson - received representatives of Patriots for Europe, including Hermann Tertsch of Spain’s Vox party, Fabrice Leggeri and Virginie Joron of France’s National Rally, Harald Vilimsky of Austria’s FPO, and a delegate from Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party.
The 45-minute meeting was described by the FPO as “historic”, marking the first official appearance of a party representative in the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Apocalyptic rhetoric
Netanyahu’s willingness to overlook his allies’ antisemitism - and his instrumentalisation of antisemitism accusations for political gain - now extends to alliances with openly racist actors who recycle the very tropes once deployed against Jews; only this time, they are targeting Muslims.
During the meeting, Netanyahu warned of a coordinated assault on the Israeli-western alliance by Muslims and the left: “The western Judeo-Christian civilisation is under attack. This is an effort carried out not by radical Islam alone, but in collaboration with forces which you know well: the deep radical left and the Islamists, who in theory should be rivals, but are united by one thing - the hatred of Israel and the Jews.”
He went on to stress that “we are not just allies and comrades-in-arms, we are brothers and sisters in the decisive struggle for the future of the world. The gravest danger that the world faces is the link between militant Islam and nuclear weapons.” His comments invoked Iran and echoed the apocalyptic rhetoric that has intensified since 7 October 2023.
This meeting was part of a broader diplomatic push surrounding the second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, which took place on 26-27 January, bringing together many leading figures of the global far right.
There, Netanyahu declared: “What Israel is doing today is not merely defending itself - it’s defending you … Because there would be no West in the Middle East if the Jewish state is destroyed. But there would be no obstacle to the further invasion of Europe if the Jewish state doesn’t exist.” He thus explicitly stoked fears of a Muslim invasion of Europe.
As one Patriots for Europe delegate put it, the struggle is against “socialism, Islamism and organised crime”. What was once framed as a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy has been reborn as an Islamo-leftist one.
The conference included multiple side meetings, including sessions in the Knesset, where Leggeri presented his views “on legislative tools against Islamism and radical movements”, alongside discussions with Israel’s diaspora affairs minister on combatting antisemitism in Europe. Across these encounters, “sovereignty, security and international cooperation” emerged as recurring themes.
With Regev now acting as the representative of the “Patriots of Jerusalem”, Israel has established the first official national branch affiliated with the Patriots for Europe group. This institutional link is likely to deepen political coordination between Israel and Europe’s far right.
And what does Israel stand to gain? Regev has been explicit: amid growing electoral support for far-right parties across Europe, she describes the alliance as “a strategic move” that “strengthens” Israel’s international standing and “presents a clear front against attempts of boycott and delegitimisation”.
Put plainly, Israel is aligning itself with an authoritarian wave sweeping Europe to legitimise its policies of genocidal warfare and democratic erosion, while Europe’s far right increasingly becomes normalised and mainstream.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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