In February, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar quietly told diplomats to begin talks with right-wing extremist parties in France, Spain, and Sweden, which, until now, have been boycotted by Israel.
Discussions began with France’s National Rally, the Spanish Vox party and the Sweden Democrats – all who have voiced their support of Israel since Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack and the ensuing war on Gaza. Outreach to Europe’s far-right began under Israel Katz’s term as foreign affairs minister.
These political parties are notorious for their fascist roots and anti-Semitic affiliations. For instance, National Rally’s ex-leader, the late Jean-Marie Le Pen, was repeatedly fined for his comments minimising the Holocaust – most recently in 2018 when he was ordered to pay $30,000 for calling the genocide a “detail” from World War II.
Vox’s candidates have been accused of Holocaust denial and involvement in Nazi organisations, like Jorge Bonito, who was part of groups swearing loyalty to Adolf Hitler and dedicated to the supremacy of the Aryan race.
The Sweden Democrats, the country’s second-largest party in parliament, was founded in 1988 by Nazis and neo-Nazis and has allied with white nationalist groups like David Duke’s National Association for the Advancement of White People.
The Israeli foreign ministry is still determining whether to dialogue with the Austrian Freedom Party and Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party, which reached second place with over 20% of the vote in last week’s election.
Despite accusations of anti-Semitism against the AfD, the party has remained staunchly committed to Israel. Following Hamas’ 2023 attack, Alexander Gauland, the honorary AfD chairman, said, “Israel is the West in an environment that rejects and fights the West. When we stand with Israel, we are also defending our way of life”.
While appearing contradictory, the above sentiment suggests Israel and European right-wing populism do share common goals.
“By diversifying its alliances, Israel has gained leverage within Western societies, pressuring governments through far-right movements that echo its rhetoric of a civilisational war against Islam,” Dr Ramzy Baroud, an American-Palestinian journalist, told The New Arab.
“The real danger then is the fact that these groups are now using Israel to advance their political position, without changing their ideological underpinnings.”
Describing it as a symbiotic relationship, Osama Al Sharif, a veteran journalist and political commentator, told TNA that both share an anti-immigrant, Islamophobic ideology.
“They’re supporting Israel because they want the Jews to stay outside the European continent, which is an ancient agenda for all the far-right, anti-Semitic movements that had evolved in Europe since the 1600s,” Al Sharif said.
“They want more Jews to immigrate to Israel,” he added. “Something, of course, Israel does not mind. It wants more Jews to immigrate because it has a demographic problem in Palestine/Israel, especially with regard to the Palestinians whom they want to displace.”
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Why now?
In addition to AfD’s meteoric rise, the far right has swelled in popularity in recent years. The AfD, National Rally, and Austria’s Freedom Party all achieved significant gains in last year’s European parliamentary elections, while a poll published in January 2025 shows Vox has increased in support for three consecutive months.
This seismic shift also aligns with Israel’s political climate, which elected the most far-right coalition in its history in 2022.
“It’s a combination of right wing-tilt in Europe, in the US, in Israel, and the condition in which Israel has been facing significant criticism after October 7th during the Gaza war. So it wants to find more allies for itself,” Nimrod Goren, president of the Israel-based, foreign-policy think tank, the Mitvim Institute, told TNA.
And while Israel has become a pariah state on the public stage, governmentally, it’s faring better, Goren adds.
“[There’s a] gap between what’s happened on the public level and what happened on the state level,” Goren said. “In the international community, the countries that engage with Israel, you don’t really see deterioration.”
Goren cited the rhetoric from last week’s Israel-EU Association Council meeting and continued Gulf states’ cooperation with Israel as examples of governments becoming more pro-Israel despite their constitiuents’ declining favour.
“Israel’s global standing in that aspect did not suffer to the extent that the more culture, civil society, academia, sports [arenas did],” Goren said. “If Israel is moving more to the right, maybe unfortunately, it’s coming closer to the leadership echelon within all these spaces.”
Israel’s long-term alliance with the European right
Israel’s trend toward partnering with Europe’s right wing isn’t new, though. As noted in the Green European Journal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought ties with the European radical right since coming to power in 1996.
A defining example is Belgium’s Flemish Interest party, tarnished by Nazi collaboration and Holocaust scepticism, which met with Israeli settler leaders in 2010 and issued the “Jerusalem Declaration”, confirming their support for “the existence of the State of Israel” and its right “to defend itself against any aggression, especially against Islamic terror”.
Again, this seemingly unlikely partnership is united by anti-Muslim views. Israel has long welcomed the infamously Islamophobic Dutch Party for Freedom, given its anti-Palestinian, pro-settlement stance.
“Europe’s far-right supports Israel’s rejection of Palestinian statehood and its hardline policies,” Baroud said, explaining that they see Palestinian statehood as a threat to Western civilisation.
“Geert Wilders [Party for Freedom’s founder and leader] remains a stalwart supporter of Israel since in his mind Israel is a line of defence against supposed Muslim extremists,” Baroud added.
And the dynamic works both ways.
“It’s an unwritten deal that Israel would get support for its settlement policies in the West Bank settlement within European spaces,” Goren said. “And by engaging with those parties, it would somehow legitimise them and help them confront claims for anti-Semitism.”
Israeli foreign policy’s now-open embrace of European right-wing extremism may also help to continue the Israeli push to drive a wedge in the EU over Israeli policies, Goren explains.
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“It began by utilising divisions within the EU between states to prevent consensus,” Goren said.
Most notably, this is seen in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s support of Israel by helping to block efforts critical of Israel in the EU, such as Hungary’s decision to not speak out against Israel’s plan to unilaterally annex swaths of the West Bank in 2020.
And Israel’s love affair with the European right may only intensify as global governments are becoming more conservative and xenophobic.
“We are seeing it in the rise of populist parties, Trump’s second term and its extreme anti-immigration policies, the supremacist rise in almost all of the Western world, including Israel,” Al Sharif said. “So it’s going to be part and parcel of Israel’s foreign policy for some time to come.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News
Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum
