Israel and Europe’s Far-Right: A Marriage of Convenience with Dangerous Consequences

Israel’s increasingly brazen alliances with far-right movements in Europe represent one of the most underreported yet deeply unsettling political strategies of recent decades. While much attention is given to Israel’s role in Middle Eastern geopolitics, its deliberate cultivation of far-right partnerships in Europe reveals a broader and more calculated agenda—one that threatens not just Muslims, but also the long-term safety of Jews worldwide.

 

For years, Israel’s intelligence services and Ministry of Strategic Affairs have quietly worked to influence European politics at the highest levels. The goal? To create a network of allies among Europe’s rising far-right parties, ensuring political support for Israeli policies while undermining progressive and centrist governments that might recognise Palestinian statehood. This strategy has been implemented with surgical precision and spans decades.

 

A case in point is Gideon Markuszower, a dual Dutch-Israeli citizen who was poised to become Deputy Prime Minister and Immigration Minister in the Netherlands under Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party. However, Dutch intelligence services blocked his appointment, citing concerns over his ties to a foreign intelligence service—widely believed to be Mossad. This incident exposed the deeper game being played, where Israeli operatives and sympathisers are embedded within European political systems.

 

The endgame is clear: Israel seeks to replace centrist, liberal-democratic governments with far-right regimes that share its ethno-nationalist vision. In this imagined future, Europe would be led by governments that mirror Israel’s hostility toward multiculturalism and its treatment of Muslims as existential threats.

 

The Far-Right’s Embrace of Israel

This isn’t a one-sided courtship. Far-right parties across Europe, from Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in the Netherlands to Spain’s Vox and France’s National Rally, have reciprocated Israel’s overtures with enthusiasm. For these groups, Israel represents a model of an ethno-nationalist state—one that is unapologetically exclusionary and hostile to Islam.

 

Figures like Wilders openly laud Israel as a “beacon of light in a sea of Islamic darkness.” Such rhetoric reflects a worldview where Muslims are treated not as individuals, but as an existential threat to Western civilisation. This narrative is echoed not only by fringe extremists but also by mainstream far-right figures cosplaying conservatives like Suella Braverman and Douglas Murray, who promote the so-called “Great Replacement” theory—the belief that Western populations are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants with incompatible values.

 

The parallels are hard to miss. Israel’s policies of demographic engineering and territorial expansion are held up as blueprints for Europe’s far-right, who dream of similarly exclusionary policies at home. Both movements reject multiculturalism and share a fixation on preserving ethnic and cultural homogeneity.

 

Echoes of the 1930s

History offers a chilling precedent. The antisemitic propaganda of the 1930s, which paved the way for the Holocaust, bears striking similarities to today’s Islamophobia. Just as Jews were scapegoated as enemies of European society, Muslims now occupy that role in far-right narratives.

 

What’s even more disturbing is that some Jewish leaders and organisations have chosen to align themselves with the far-right, either out of fear of the pro-Palestinian left or a misguided belief that such alliances provide protection. But history warns us otherwise. Fascists may court alliances when it suits them, but their true nature always emerges. Once they’ve dealt with one scapegoat, they inevitably turn on the next.

 

Complicity and Consequences

The alignment between Israel and Europe’s far-right has already sown division and fear. In Britain, slogans like “Stop the Boats” and “Reclaim the Streets” reflect the far-right’s growing influence on mainstream politics. Jewish leaders who embrace these alliances risk enabling the same forces that once targeted their own communities.

 

When demonstrations in London included far-right thugs under the banner of supporting Israel, it laid bare the moral hypocrisy of aligning with fascists. Complaints about being caught between the far-right and the pro-Palestinian left ring hollow when such alliances are actively courted.

 

A Fragile Peace Under Threat

The long history of Jewish-Muslim coexistence is being distorted by Israel’s policies and alliances. From Andalusia to the Ottoman Empire, Jews and Muslims lived side by side in relative harmony. Yet today, Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank stoke divisions that ripple far beyond the Middle East, poisoning relations in diaspora communities across Europe.

 

When violence erupts in Palestine, fear and mistrust spread like wildfire. And while grassroots communities often retain bonds of solidarity, political elites exploit these tensions to further their own agendas.

 

A Future Written in Shadows

The most troubling aspect of this strategy is its short-sightedness. The far-right’s current focus on Muslims is not the endgame. Once they achieve their goals, they will look for new enemies—and Jews, as history has shown, are never far down the list.

 

 

Israel’s gamble with fascist alliances risks reigniting the very forces it claims to guard against. The lessons of the 1930s are clear: appeasing or enabling fascism is never a winning strategy. It may offer short-term gains, but the long-term consequences could be catastrophic for Jews, Muslims, and all marginalised communities across Europe.

 

 

#Snarchy #Anarcos #AntiFascism #Israel #Gaza #EU #Politics #Genocide

 

GLOSSARY

 

• Fascism (UK: /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) n. [uncountable] – Authoritarian and nationalist ideology that suppresses opposition.

• Islamophobia (UK: /ˌɪzlæməˈfəʊbɪə/) n. [uncountable] – Prejudice against Islam or Muslims.

• Mossad (UK: /mɒˈsæd/) n. – Israeli intelligence agency.

• Ethno-nationalism (UK: /ˌɛθnəʊˈnæʃənəlɪzəm/) n. [uncountable] – Belief in the superiority of one ethnic group over others.

• Zionism (UK: /ˈzaɪ.ə.nɪ.zəm/) n. [uncountable] – Movement for the re-establishment of a Jewish nation in Israel.

• Great Replacement Theory (n.) – Far-right conspiracy theory claiming migrants will replace native populations.

• Demographic engineering (UK: /ˌdɛməˈɡræfɪk ɛndʒɪˈnɪərɪŋ/) n. – Policies aimed at altering the ethnic composition of a population.

• Multiculturalism (UK: /ˌmʌltɪˈkʌltʃərəlɪzəm/) n. [uncountable] – Support for the presence of multiple cultural or ethnic groups in a society.

• Propaganda (UK: /ˌprɒpəˈɡændə/) n. [uncountable] – Information used to influence public opinion.

• Diaspora (UK: /daɪˈæspərə/) n. – Communities of people living outside their ancestral homelands.