New report makes stark warning over far-right philosemitism

“With the Holocaust still in living memory, the far right is resurging by attempting to befriend Jews. That’s an extraordinary shift, and one that must be seen for what it is, no matter how much they try to woo the Jewish community.”

The concept of philosemitism has been used for centuries as a term for non-Jews who have an appreciation of Jewish people and their culture.

But in The New Philosemitism: Exploring a Changing Relationship Between Jews and the Far-right, Ms Rose suggests far-right philosemitism revolves around a fundamental re-imagining of Jewishness — whereby Jews and Judaism are understood as native European, pro-Israel and anti-Muslim — in order to legitimise their ideologies.

Her research paper also details how radical right populist leaders such as Marine Le Pen in France and Andreas Molzer in Austria have attempted to distance themselves from their countries’ historic Holocaust complicity by claiming the Shoah and its extreme antisemitism belonged to ideas held in the previous century.

A central argument made in the study is that the far-right has attempted to “reframe Jewishness in three ways.”

First, there has been the construction of Israel as the last European frontier against the Arab and Muslim world. Geert Wilders in Holland has in the past described Israel as “the West’s first line of defence against Islam” — which Ms Rose suggests helps build the image of the Jewish state’s unique status among the new far-right.

She says such comments also help reframe Zionism away from any Jewish framings as a national liberation movement with religious roots.

Secondly, it is argued that the populist right have also sought to reframe Jews as victims of a Muslim invading force.

All Muslims are portrayed as being part of a violent jihadist movement. Ms Rose accepts that there is indeed evidence of rising antisemitism within the Muslim world and there is a growth in the number of Muslims living in Europe.

But she writes that it cannot be proven that these facts are interrelated.

The third element of far-right philosemitism is the binding of Judaism to Western Judeo-Christian culture.

Ms Rose warns that “by attempting to is a fundamental misunderstanding of Jewish ethnography.

She notes that while the majority of Jews in Germany, Austria and the UK can trace their roots through Eastern or Central Europe, the French Jewish populationis Sephardi or Mizrahi.

In Israel, only 36 per cent of the population can trace its roots through Europe.

She also concludes that the rise of apparently Jewish-friendly radical right ideology has helped fuel similar, or competing, ideologies on the far left.

While far-right leaders such as Mr Wilders have been able to adopt Israel as a European nation — Mr Wilders once declared “we in the West are all Israel” — this narrative is reciprocated by far-left and Islamist ideologies which attack Israel’s Europeanness as evidence of its colonialist nature and lack of legitimacy.

The report uses the example of the far-left academic David Miller, who has claimed that “parts of the Zionist movement” are among the “five pillars of Islamophobia”.

“This theory, both celebrated in far right circles and condemned in far-left ones, is a further example of reciprocal radicalisation,” writes Ms Rose.

The study also gave the example of the photograph of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, standing on an Israeli tank on a visit to the Middle East as an example of propaganda shared by the far-right and the far-left for different reasons.

The report also notes: “Similarly, far- left former Labour activist Peter Willsman commented that a cross-political and cross-communal group of rabbis who raised concerns about left-wing antisemitism were ‘Trump fanatics’.

“Some Jewish people’s support for Trump and, indeed, Trump’s participation in certain aspects of far-right philosemitism have thus been used to homogenise the Jewish community as far-right and thereby justify antisemitism as merely anti-fascism.

“In these ways, Jewish people have become a political football in far-left and far-right ideological battles over nationhood and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

With both extremes defining themselves by their opposition to the other, far-right philosemitism and pro-Israel sentiments may have generated increased far-left antisemitism and anti-Israelism in a process of reciprocal radicalisation.”

Crucially, the study also looks into Jewish support for the new far-right parties — noting the founding of Jewish divisions in Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, and support for the English Defence League in the UK.

It suggests that actual support among Europe’s Jews for such parties is often smaller than suggested, although no accurate polling has been carried out on this issue.

Among the 500 members of an EDL “Jewish division” social media group it subsequently emerged that very few were Jewish. But the report accepts that the radical right has enjoyed “increasing success in pitting Muslims and Jews against each other.”

Accepting that Jewish institutions and communal organisations have strongly opposed the far-right, the report adds “they have yet to tackle the root causes of their support bases within the Jewish community, a task that demands attention and courage.”

But Ms Rose also notes that Jewish people have “legitimate grievances” over the “rise in Islamist antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments” which need to be addressed by mainstream movements.

She calls for “promoting solutions  that seek to bring communities together rather than polarise them”.