Gaza Herald_ The diplomatic landscape of Europe is witnessing an alarming realpolitik convergence: the official laundering of Europe’s neo-fascist right by the Israeli state. Once treated as international pariahs due to their direct ideological descent from mid-century Nazism, parties like Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) have successfully pivoted from anti-Semitic outcasts to celebrated partners of Tel Aviv.
This rapprochement, vividly demonstrated by the Israeli government’s warm embrace of FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl following his speech in Strasbourg, exposes the cynical alignment between European white nationalism and Zionist expansionism. Far from a diplomatic anomaly, this shift represents a calculated geopolitical transaction born of Israel’s growing global isolation following its genocidal war in Gaza.
From Nazi Successors to Israeli Allies
When the FPÖ first entered Austria’s governing coalition in 2000, Israel withdrew its ambassador from Vienna. Founded in the 1950s by former SS officers and Nazi Party functionaries, the FPÖ was universally recognized as an unrepentant haven for anti-Semites. Under figures like Jörg Haider, the party routinely deployed anti-Semitic tropes, prompting an official Israeli boycott.
Two decades later, that firewall has utterly collapsed. In exchange for international legitimacy and diplomatic absolution, European hard-right parties have enthusiastically embraced Israel’s occupation policies. Kickl’s recent rhetoric marks the culmination of this strategy: by endorsing the expansionist terminology of “Judea and Samaria” to erase Palestinian statehood, adopting disputed definitions of anti-Semitism, and promising to move Austria’s embassy to occupied Jerusalem, the FPÖ has offered unconditional backing to Israel’s colonial project.
The response from Tel Aviv was immediate. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Kickl’s remarks as an “important and positive development,” while Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli hailed the far-right gathering as a “historic turning point.” Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, which recently took observer status alongside the extreme-right Patriots for Europe bloc, sent senior representatives to publicly praise the FPÖ as true “friends of Israel.”
The Strategic Foundations of an Ideological Convergence
This cynical marriage of convenience is propelled by four distinct strategic imperatives. First, over the past fifteen years, Europe’s radical right has repackaged its native white supremacy under the guise of defending “Judeo-Christian civilization” against a manufactured Muslim threat, finding in Israel’s military campaign against Palestinians a convenient model for institutionalized Islamophobia. Second, as evidence of war crimes and genocide in Gaza mounts, Israel faces unprecedented diplomatic isolation across the Global South and Western civil society. Securing allies among Europe’s rising far-right parties, which now govern or lead polls in Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Austria, ensures Tel Aviv retains sympathetic vetoes within international institutions.
Third, as Netanyahu’s coalition leans ever further into open ethno-nationalism and illegal annexation, the ideological divide between Likud and European neo-fascists has effectively vanished, rendering European ultra-nationalists natural peers rather than adversaries. Fourth, for parties like the FPÖ and Germany’s AfD, unconditionally supporting Israel’s genocidal war provides an invaluable shield against their own fascist heritage, allowing them to dismiss accusations of anti-Semitism while weaponizing the concept against pro-Palestinian activists.
Whitewashing Fascism in the Name of Occupation
The Israeli government’s willingness to embrace movements with deep historical roots in Nazi ideology reveals a stark reality: for the political establishment in Tel Aviv, whitewashing historical anti-Semitism is a small price to pay for international backing of its ongoing genocidal war. By trading moral legitimacy for geopolitical cover, Israel has made common cause with the very ideological forces that once sought the destruction of Jewish life, united now by a shared commitment to ethno-nationalist domination, militarized borders, and the total subjugation of marginalized populations.
