Austria’s neo-Nazis find friends in Israel

Is there any Far-Right or Anti-Semitic Regime or Party that Israel is not friends with?

neo-Nazi Heinz Christian Strache pays a vist to Israel's holocaust propaganda museum Yad Vashem

In this article on Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah details the friendly relations between the Austrian state and Israel.  Austria has just elected a new Right-wing parliament with the Austrian Peoples Party the gaining the largest number of seats, 62, with the far-Right Freedom Party third with 51 seats, just behind the social democrats with 52 seats.  It is possible that Herr Strache’s Freedom Party will  become part of the governing coalition.

Strache was invited earlier in the year as a guest of the Likud party in Israel.  It is a party which is vehemently anti-Muslim but also ardently pro-Zionist.  It is hard to think of a serious far-Right party in Europe, apart from the Greek Golden Dawn and the Hungarian Jobbik who aren’t pro-Zionist.

Tony Greenstein

Ali Abunimah Power Suits 16 October 2017

Austria’s ambassador in Tel Aviv sees nothing wrong with Arab parties being excluded from Israel’s government.

As his own country looks set to put neo-Nazis in power in Vienna, this is yet another remarkable demonstration of the racist values shared by European and Israeli elites.

Just as in Germany, there are clear indications of ties between Austria’s neo-Nazi far right and Israel’s right wing.

Israel's new friends - the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO)

Ambassador backs exclusion

Last week Avi Gabbay, the leader of Israel’s ostensibly dovish Labor Party, declared that he would not join a coalition along with members of the Joint List, a grouping of parties made up predominantly of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“We will not share a government with the Joint List, period,” Gabbay said. “Let that be clear.”

Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Joint List, condemned Gabbay’s racism. “Someone who doesn’t view Arab citizens and their elected representatives as a legitimate group, doesn’t present a real alternative to the right,” Odeh said.

At the same time, Gabbay indicated he could team up with Yisrael Beiteinu, the far-right party led by Israel’s notoriously anti-Arab defense minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Lieberman believes Palestinians like Odeh should eventually be stripped of their Israeli citizenship altogether.

Gabbay’s racism is unremarkable in the Israeli context. It has long been a consensus among Zionist parties that the fifth of the country’s citizens who are Palestinians should have no real role in decision-making.

Austria's neo-Nazi Freedom Party - a solid supporter of Israel

Gabbay followed up with more belligerent comments on Sunday, declaring that “the Arabs have to be afraid of us” and that Israel need never evacuate any of its settlements built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law.

But what has also sadly become unsurprising is to see European diplomats, who frequently pretend to represent an enlightened “human rights” perspective, rationalizing this racism.

On Friday, Martin Weiss, the Austrian ambassador in Tel Aviv had lunch with Gabbay, and appeared to offer a warm endorsement of the Israeli Labor leader on Twitter:

Weiss and Gabbay were joined for lunch by several other European diplomats.

I asked on Twitter if the Europeans had raised the issue of Gabbay’s open anti-Arab racism during the lunch.

Weiss responded, pointing out fairly enough that the lunch had taken place the day before Gabbay’s remarks refusing to let Arab parties join a coalition were reported.

Weiss added, “But do you think members of the Joint List would really want to join a Labor government?”

The Austrian ambassador appeared to be deflecting attention from Gabbay’s racism by pointing out that citizens who are discriminated against might not want inclusion in the first place.

I wanted to give Weiss an opportunity to back away from this, so I challenged him to publicly condemn Gabbay’s racism.

“Thanks but no thanks,” the ambassador replied. “Seems to me that every political party has the right to declare with which other party they would cooperate – or not.”

This could not be a clearer endorsement of the longstanding racist exclusion of Palestinian citizens of Israel on the grounds of their ethnicity.

Heinz-Christian Strache, the neo-Nazi leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, left, with Yehuda Glick, a leader of the Jewish extremist movement that aims to replace Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque with a Jewish temple, in Vienna in June. (via Facebook)

Apartheid politics

It’s worth recalling that the landmark UN report on Israeli apartheid, suppressed last March by the UN secretary-general on American orders, found that while Israel’s political system gives nominal rights to the roughly 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, these add up to little in practice.

“Voting rights lose their significance in terms of equal rights when a racial group is legally banned from challenging laws that perpetuate inequality,” the report states. “Israeli law bans organized Palestinian opposition to Jewish domination, rendering it illegal and even seditious.”

These formal restrictions on advocating for an end to state-sponsored racism are supplemented by the informal consensus among party leaders – from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that Arabs were voting “in droves” to Gabbay vowing not to include the Joint List in a coalition – that government is an exclusively Jewish matter.

Neo-Nazis embrace Israeli right

Ambassador Weiss’ defense of Israeli racism was perhaps a warm-up for the work he’ll have to do defending his own country’s government in coming months.

Following Sunday’s Austrian general election, a new right-wing government led by the youthful foreign minister Sebastian Kurz is set to take power.

It’s widely expected that Kurz’s conservative People’s Party will form a coalition with the far-right, anti-Muslim Freedom Party, headed by neo-Nazi Heinz-Christian Strache.

The Freedom Party’s success comes just weeks after the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany – known by its initials AfD – took about 100 seats in the Bundestag.

And just like AfD, Austria’s Freedom Party has discovered a recent affinity for Israel.

Last year, Strache, who used to march with a group imitating the Hitler Youth, visited Israel at the invitation of lawmakers from Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party.

Just like other assorted anti-Semites and far-right extremists, Strache apparently saw Israel providing a laundering service. As media reports in Austria put it, the intention of Strache’s visit – complete with a pilgrimage to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial – was “to make himself kosher in Israel” in the hope that this would give him respectability elsewhere.

Europe’s new fascists and Israel’s right have also found an alliance in their common hatred of Muslims.

In June, Strache welcomed to Vienna Likud lawmaker Yehuda Glick, a leader in the so-called Temple Movement, which aims to destroy Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple.

A photo posted on Strache’s Facebook page shows the pair in a friendly meeting.

European Jewish organizations have condemned Israeli outreach to Europe’s far right, including the Freedom Party. Last November, the leader of the Vienna Jewish community published a letter calling on Israeli politicians to shun such meetings and “to draw a very clear red line between us and those who represent hate, neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism.”

Recall that while Germany’s Jewish community expressed horror at AfD’s recent electoral success, Yehuda Glick defended the party.

There’s no mystery why: AfD leaders have given strong backing to Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Austria’s Strache is following a similar line, supporting the settlements and becoming a champion of Israel’s claims to Jerusalem that are rejected by the rest of the world.

Strache handed Glick a letter to be delivered to Netanyahu vowing to do all he could to push for Austria’s embassy in Tel Aviv to be moved to Jerusalem.

With his party set to join the government, Strache will have his chance.

Once again, Israel is showing that its closest allies in Europe are the worst enemies of Jewish people.

see also

Growing Far-Right Nationalistic Movements Are Dangerously Anti-Muslim — and Pro-Israel

The neo-Nazi group Britain First Supports Israel and Opposes ‘anti-Semitism’

Member of the Israel supporting Britain First 

Touching isn’t it?  They may not like Muslims, their members may murder ‘race traitors’ like Jo Cox MP, but when it comes to Israel they just love it!!  In this Britain First  join the English Defence League and the British National Party.  Isn’t it strange how holocaust denying and Hitler loving groups just love Israel?  They don’t mind that it is a Jewish state because it is the kind of state they admire.  Being Jewish in Israel is the same as being Aryan in Germany.  The Israeli state operates on the just the kind of principles they love and support.

Britain First counter-demonstrator confronts Palestine supporter 

Report on Britain First site of the neo-Nazi group joining Zionists in counter-demonstration in Downing Street - birds of a feather!

And as a bonus Israel hates Muslims too.  They cage them up in the Gaza Ghetto in much the same way that the Nazis imprisoned Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.  True Israel doesn’t exterminate the Palestinians (though much of its Orthodox rabbinate would like to) but compared to any western country Israel is just about as hostile and anti-Islamic as it can.  It has just banned the Northern Islamic Movement and imprisoned its leader, Sheikh Raed Salah.  Netanyahu regularly goes on about Islamic terror.  Israel has the kind of anti-Muslim policies that Britain First can only dream about.

Karel Dillen of Belgium's racist Vlaamsblok 

That’s why anti-Islamic politicians and parties throughout Europe fall over themselves in support of Israel.  There’s Geert Wilders of the Freedom Party in The Netherlands, Belgium’s Vlams Beelang, Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s Freedom Party not forgetting of course Marine Le Pen’s Front Nationale.

Britain First demonstrator with Zionist

Below is a report on the Britain First website of how the party joined in a demonstration with Zionist hoodlums at  Downing Street when Palestine solidarity activists protested the visit of Netanyahu last year.

Tony Greenstein

Britain First Jewish activists take part in counter protest against pro-Palestine extremists in London

Clashes broke out yesterday when pro-Palestine extremists protesting Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s UK visit faced opposition from pro-Israel groups outside Downing Street, which including several members of Britain First (pictured below).

Britain First demonstration outside East London Mosque

The pro-Palestine protest was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) with the support of various groups including War on Want, Palestine Forum in Britain, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Stop the War, the British Muslim Initiative and several other leftwing, pro-Islamist extremist groups.

Geert Wilders of Netherland's far-Right Freedom Party

Pro-Israeli demonstrators came out to oppose the demonstration and show their support for Netanyahu and Israel, saying they wanted to promote peace in the region.

As tensions mounted between the two groups, heated words were exchanged.

One man told police he was called a “dirty Jew” by pro-Palestine protesters.

The “Left” and the Islamic community are fiercely opposed to the existence of Israel.

Heinz Christian Strache of Austria's pro-Israel fascist Freedom Party

The same Muslims and white socialists that oppose Britain First also show unremitting hostility to Israel.

Britain First Jewish activists were proud to oppose the motley gaggle of communists and Islamists that gathered outside Downing Street. 

Just Fancy That! Pegida leader, Anne-Marie Waters Joins the BNP and EDL in Supporting Israel

Yet more Fascists and Racists Declare their Love for Israel

Pegida UK rally

When Zionists proclaim that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism I find that it is only necessary to point out the fact that nearly all fascist and racist groups, many of them deeply anti-Semitic, support the Israeli state.  Why do the professional racists support Israel?  Because Israel is seen as the most racist anti-Muslim/Arab state in the world.  Israel is a state where ‘death to the Arabs’ (& in the eyes of fascists Arabs and Muslims are synonymous).  In Israel the Northern Islamic League has just been banned.  Mosques are regularly stormed by the army and the worshippers batoned and tear gassed.  Mosques are burnt down and the Islamic religion is insulted (slogans like ‘Mohammad is a whore’) where fascist organisations like Lehava campaign openly against mixed race relationships and back that up with beatings to Arab males seen in ‘Jewish’ areas.

EDL supporters attack Birmingham PSC Campaign - with Israeli flag in one hand and giving Hitler salute with other

Israel in short is the ideal type of society that the fascist is seeking to build.  It has everything that they could want, including extreme racist bigots in the Knesset and Cabinet.  So we can go from Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party to Christian Strache of Austria’s Freedom Party (fascists seem to like the Freedom label and they like crushing freedom even more) to Marine Le Pen of France’s Front Nationale.

Tony Greenstein

Austria's Freedom Party

UK anti-Muslim leaders embrace Israel

Hilary Aked 9 June 2016

Israeli flags on display at PEGIDA UK rally in Rotherham, in the north of England, on 4 June. (via Facebook)

The leaders of a UK far-right organization have announced plans to visit Israel, highlighting the appeal of the country to anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant bigots.

Anne Marie Waters, a leader of PEGIDA UK, has pledged to go to Israel on a “fact-finding” mission in the wake of the row over mostly trumped-up accusations of anti-Semitism in the UK’s main opposition Labour Party.

Map of Euro far-Right parties

PEGIDA UK is the British arm of the Islamophobic street movement “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West,” founded in the eastern German city of Dresden.

In Germany, the movement has merged with neo-Nazi elements, among them such figures as Karl-Heinz Statzberger, who planned to carry out a bomb attack on a Munich synagogue in 2003.

PEGIDA UK’s Waters admitted to a pro-Israel blogger that the inquiry ordered by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “won’t find as much that is outwardly anti-Jewish, as is outwardly anti-Israel,” but made clear that she thinks “it is anti-Israel sentiment that we must confront.”

She has called for “a new and powerful pro-Israel argument” to be made in the UK and reportedly plans to write a book called “In Defense of Israel” following her trip.

Speaking to Canadian podcast Real Clear Israel, Waters said that she is planning to join the April 2017 “Ultimate Mission to Israel,” an annual propaganda tour of Israeli military facilities organized by Shurat HaDin, a lawfare group with close ties to the Mossad spying and assassination agency.

She characterized support for the Palestinian struggle for equal rights as “Islamic jihad against Israel” and “a Quran-inspired Jew-hatred” which “aims to wipe out Jews.”

Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn

Conspiracy theories

Waters, who was nearly selected as a Labour Party candidate in 2013, joined the anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party in 2014. She was removed as a candidate for the London Assembly, though not as a party member, for her links to PEGIDA.

She founded a group called Sharia Watch UK, which has propagated bizarre conspiracy theories including the claim that halal meat sales fund terrorism.

Its launch was hosted in the UK’s House of Lords by Caroline Cox, a member of the unelected chamber who was once co-president of Jerusalem Summit, a group that has denied the Nakba and supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Waters also attempted to host a “draw Mohammed” cartoon contest in London last year but could not find a venue willing to host it.

Waters also said her fellow PEGIDA UK leaders will also be visiting Israel.

They include Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known by his pseudonym Tommy Robinson, founder of the Islamophobic street movement the English Defence League, and far-right politician Paul Weston who admitted in 2014 that “I am a racist”.

Previously, anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders has spoken at PEGIDA rallies across Europe and has expressed support for Israeli settlers.

Some of his funding has come from a key player in the US Islamophobia industry.

Wilders is the figurehead of the “counterjihad” movement, a growing strand of the far-right which distances itself from traditional neo-Nazism by claiming to abhor anti-Semitism and offering vocal support for Israel.

At PEGIDA UK’s most recent demonstration, in the northern English town of Rotherham on Saturday, several Israeli flags were clearly on display.

Pro-Israel, anti-Muslim

Whether the movement actually opposes anti-Semitism is questionable, as PEGIDA’s ties to neo-Nazis in Germany attest.

A Swastika was seen at a PEGIDA UK demonstration and Nazi salutes have been observed during marches organized by Robinson’s old outfit the English Defence League.

At a demonstration in Birmingham in April, PEGIDA UK gave a platform to Lutz Bachmann, founder of the original German PEGIDA, which at its height attracted 25,000 people onto the streets of Dresden.

Bachmann resigned as leader of the group in January 2015 after photos of him posing as Adolf Hitler emerged, but he soon re-joined the group’s leadership, claiming the images had been doctored.

Anti-Semitism and support for Israel clearly co-exist in sections of the far right. These developments also underscore the kind of friends that Israel attracts: proto-fascists who idolize the country for its ultra-nationalist, highly-militarized and anti-Muslim practices.

These politics chime well with Israel’s current government, the most right-wing in its history, and underscore the growing links between anti-Muslim and pro-Israel movements.

PEDIGA UK leader Paul Weston has visited Israel once before, in 2010, as part of a delegation of far-right European leaders.

Adar Primor, columnist for the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz, described the visit as part of “the very unholy alliance between figures on Israel’s right and extreme nationalists and even anti-Semites in Europe that is gaining momentum in the Holy Land.”