Furthering the 'Far-Right International': Likud joins the Patriots for Europe

Middle East Eye

15-03-2025

In the 1990s, Europe's post-fascist and post-Nazi political parties were clear in rejecting Israel on the grounds of their antisemitism.
Seen largely as an extension of the United States' neocolonialism, these parties mobilised against the US as a leader of the liberal world order.
Similarly, Israel rejected the leaders of the far right. Consider Jorg Haider, one of Europe's first successful far-right leaders, who was barred from entering Israel.
Much has changed since then.
While an untypical far-right leader like Geert Wilders openly embraced Israel from the start, positioning himself as a defender of Jewish life in the Netherlands, it took the traditional far right much longer to become accepted by Israeli policy circles.
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Shifting alliances
In December 2010, a historic trip took place when the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), Belgium's Vlaams Belang, the German Freedom Party, and the Sweden Democrats travelled to Israel and signed the so-called "Jerusalem Declaration".
This declaration affirmed Israel's "right to defend itself" against terror, stating: "We stand at the vanguard in the fight for the western, democratic community" against the "totalitarian threat" of "fundamentalist Islam".
Islam, they alleged, was the common enemy of both Europe and Israel.
According to this new logic, Jews and Europeans would become victims of a rising fascist Islam - forging a new alliance between Israel and Europe's far right to counter these perceived threats
As one German far-right activist said in 2011: "I guarantee you that Kristallnacht [Night of Broken Glass] will return. But this time, Christians and Jews will be driven through the streets, persecuted and killed by Islamists."
According to this new logic, Jews and Europeans would become victims of a rising fascist Islam. Hence, a new alliance should be forged between Israel and Europe's far right to counter these perceived threats.
At the time, only a few ultra-right members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, welcomed the far-right delegation to Israel. No official Knesset visit was scheduled.
The far-right delegation visited settlements and effectively questioned the Palestinian right to the land, referring to it as Judea and Samaria.
Judea and Samaria is the Israeli term for the occupied West Bank.
This marked a shift in ideology - from denying Israel's right to exist to denying Palestine's right to exist.
A far-right bloc
Fifteen years later, the far right has taken further steps to normalise its ties with Israeli forces.
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With several far-right parties having been in power and securing significant electoral support in their countries, they emerged as the third largest political group in the European parliamentary elections of June 2024, forming the Patriots for Europe (PfE).
Led by the French National Rally's Jordan Bardella, this bloc includes major political forces such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz, Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini's Lega, Wilders' Party for Freedom, the Austrian FPO and others.
Although some far-right parties, such as the Brothers of Italy and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), remain in other conservative political groups, PfE has successfully aligned itself with other conservative and far-right political forces worldwide.
The AfD may yet join them.
In February 2025, none other than Israel's ruling Likud party, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joined the PfE as an observer member.
Given the far right's focus on anti-immigration policies, primarily targeting Muslims, this alliance comes as little surprise.
By welcoming a political party whose chairman is indicted for genocide after a brutal war that left the Gaza Strip in ruins, displaced more than a million people and killed tens of thousands, the PfE sent several messages.
Not only does it demonstrate its likely indifference to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Netanyahu, but it also signalled to its electorate that the genocidal actions of the Israeli prime minister are in line with far-right fantasies of a genocidal defensive war to "make Europe white again".
A new era
Seeing Muslims as the primary threat in its "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, genocide may simply be viewed as the last line of defence - an idea already put into practice by far-right extremists such as Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in 2011.
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Calls from far-right members to "cleanse" Europe of Muslims and commit a "Srebrenica 2.0" are now symbolically reinforced by the backdrop of Israel's war on Gaza, carried out by the leader of a party that now holds observatory status in the PfE.
It is the far-right utopia of a Muslim-free continent that the PfE aspires when it mimics the US president's rhetoric by adopting the slogan "Make Europe Great Again".
With increasing signs of an illiberal world order emerging under the current US administration, it seems to feel increasingly emboldened.
When DOGE manager Elon Musk performs Hitler salutes and complains that there is "too much focus on past guilt" (ie the Holocaust) while addressing members of the far-right AfD, it is no surprise that Orban's blatant antisemitism - key to his electoral success - will be conveniently forgotten.
The far right in Europe is entering a new era, bolstered by its counterparts in the US and Israel.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.