For decades after World War II, far-right political movements in Europe stirred up for Jews images of skinheads and Nazi storm troopers marching across the continent.
But in recent years, as European xenophobia has focused on the exploding growth of Muslims on the continent, right-wing anti-Semitism has been replaced in some corners by outreach to Jews and Israel.
It’s part of an effort in such movements to gain broader support for an anti-Muslim alliance opposed to the idea of a multicultural Europe.
Indeed, in the anti-Muslim manifesto attributed to Anders Behring Breivik, the accused perpetrator of the July 22 deadly attacks in Oslo and the nearby Norwegian island of Utoya, the author expresses sympathy for Israel’s plight and cites numerous critiques of the Palestinians.
“Aided by a pre-existing anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, European media have been willing to demonize the United States and Israel while remaining largely silent on the topic Eurabia,” the author writes in his manifesto, titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.”
Later, he lists four potential political allies among Israel’s political parties: Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, and National Union.
Other far-right leaders around Europe share Breivik’s apparent proto-Zionist viewpoint.
“The Arab-Israeli conflict illustrates the struggle between Western culture and radical Islam,” Filip Dewinter, the head of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang Party, said last December during a visit to Tel Aviv.
“Israel is of central importance to us,” German Freedom Party head Rene Stadtkewitz told JTA last year. What Israelis do to fight terrorism, he said, “is what we would have to be doing here.”
But after the attacks in Norway, which authorities say left at least 76 dead, the dangers of making common cause with movements where extremists like Breivik can find a home, and where some supporters are known for being violent, are all too clear, some Jewish figures are saying.
“A large-scale hate crime attack such as the one in Norway demonstrates the clear and present danger of incitement against political, ethnic and religious groups,” said Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations. “Hate crimes are among the most insidious of dangers to democracy.”
To be sure, Breivik is an extreme example of the anti-multicultural tide rising in Europe, and far-right leaders say they eschew the killing of innocents in their crusade to restore Europe to its pre-heterogeneous state.
But some watchdog groups say European far-right movements provided ideological underpinnings to Breivik’s attack, and must be held to account.
“Breivik was clearly influenced by an ideological movement both in the United States and Europe that is rousing public fear by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith,” warned the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman.
That Breivik attacked those he viewed as collaborators with Muslims rather than Muslims themselves shows how dangerous extremist ideology can be, the ADL suggested in a statement.
Jewish leaders in Europe, who have taken pains to distance themselves from Breivik’s proto-Zionism, long have warned that even far rightists who do not espouse anti-Semitism are dangerous for Jews.
Far rightists “want a Sweden for the Swedes, France for the French, and Jews to Israel,” Serge Cwajgenbaum, secretary general of the European Jewish Congress, told JTA last October.
“Islamism certainly is a danger to the Jews and to Western democracy,” Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told JTA last year. “The way to fight [Islamists] is not, however, to demonize and ostracize all Muslims.”
Not all Jews have gotten the memo, however. Polls show that a minority of European Jews supports some far-right parties, and a few far-right figures have gained a measure of respectability among some Jews.
When Geert Wilders, the leader of Holland’s Freedom Party, spoke at an event in Berlin last year, former Israeli Knesset member Eli Cohen of the Yisrael Beiteinu party was one of the other featured speakers.
Wilders also has Jewish fans in America. One is Daniel Pipes, a columnist and director of a think tank that warns of the dangers of domination by radical Muslims, or Islamists.
In a column last year for National Review titled “Why I Stand with Geert Wilders,” Pipes called him “the most important European alive today,” the man “best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent.”
Pipes’ writing was quoted extensively in Breivik’s manifesto. Reached by JTA, Pipes declined to comment for this story.
“That the fight against Islam is conducted by a violent psychopath is disgusting and a slap to the face of the global anti-Islamic movement,” Wilders said in a statement. “We fight for a democratic and nonviolent means against the further Islamization of society and will continue to do so.”
Of course, not all far-right parties in Europe are trying to make common cause with Jews. Many, like Jobbik in Hungary, lump Jews with Gypsies, Muslims, and others as undesirables.
Far-right parties in Europe have varying degrees of support, but polls show their political backing is rising across the continent.
In Norway, the anti-immigrant Progress Party is now second largest in parliament. In Hungary, Jobbik won nearly 17 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections last year, making it the country’s third-largest party.
In France, Marine Le Pen — leader of the anti-immigrant National Front party and daughter of Holocaust-minimizer Jean-Marie Le Pen — has a lead in some polls of French presidential contenders.
In June 2009, far-right parties across Europe captured a sizable share of seats in the European Parliament, a development attributed to rising xenophobic sentiment fueled by the global economic downturn.
Among the winners were the neo-fascist British National Party and the Austrian Freedom Party.
The appeal of far-right political positions is not relegated to the political fringes. Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim stances have permeated mainstream political discourse and influenced government policies.
In Switzerland, the far-right Swiss People’s Party is the largest party in the National Council, one of two federal legislatures. Two years ago, the party helped spearhead a national referendum that outlawed construction of minarets on newly built mosques.
Earlier this year, France outlawed the wearing of the niqab, the Muslim full-face veil. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared last fall that Germany’s experiment with multiculturalism had failed.
How the attack in Norway will affect Norwegian and European politics will depend on how well far-right parties can draw a distinction between Breivik’s violence against multiculturalists and their own opposition to immigrants, Muslims, and multiculturalism.
Loading ...