US-European culture war puts Israel in a bind

 

By James M. Dorsey

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Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s embrace of the global far-right faces a difficult choice.

The question for Mr. Netanyahu is whether to maintain Israel’s boycott of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country’s second-largest political party, and Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) amid an escalating feud between the Trump administration and Germany over attitudes toward the far right.

So far, forging relations with the two parties was a step too far, given Germany and Austria’s Holocaust history and the two parties’ effort to rewrite World War II history. It may continue to be so.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government and Likud party have boycotted the two parties while building close ties to similar groups across Europe and in the United States, including France’s National Rally, Spain’s Vox, Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, the Sweden Democrats, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, the American Conservative Union, and Evangelists, who believe that Jews’ salvation is conversion to Christianity no later than on the Day of Judgement.

Mr. Netanyahu’s shunning of the AfD didn’t stop his son, Yair Netanyahu, from becoming the the party’s face in its 2020 election campaign.

Mr. Netanyahu’s affinity with the far right is ideological as well as because of the far right’s unquestioned support for Israel.

In March, Mr. Netanyahu’s instincts persuaded him to opt for far-right participation in a government-sponsored conference on combatting anti-Semitism even though prominent mainstream Jewish leaders and Western officials tasked with fighting anti-Semitism withdrew because of invitations extended to a plethora of right-wing figures.

The AfD and FPÖ were glaringly absent at the conference.

However, this week’s sharp exchange between senior Trump administration officials and Germany’s Foreign Office puts Mr. Netanyahu in a bind, even though the optics of siding with the administration would be damaging.

In postings on X, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, and billionaire and Trump associate Elon Musk condemned this week’s classification of the AfD as “extremist”  by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Mr. Rubio asserted, “That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.“

Mr. Vance chimed in, charging that the AfD is the “most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.”

Adding his voice to the mix, Mr. Musk, who supported the AfD going into Germany’s February election, warned that banning the party “would be an extreme attack on democracy." ,

Germany’s Foreign Ministry wasted no time retorting, “This is democracy... We have learned from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped.”

As part of the Trump administration’s culture wars, Mr. Vance signalled the widening gap with Europe in his first overseas speech less than a month after Mr. Trump returned to the Oval Office in January.

Addressing the Munich Security Conference in February, Mr. Vance accused European leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration, and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs.

“For years we have been told everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values; everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy, but when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others we ought to ask ourselves if we are holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard… In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Mr. Vance said in a stark defense of the far right.

Mr. Vance listed a string of cases that he claimed was evidence of this, railing against Romania for cancelling presidential elections, Sweden for arresting a man for burning a Qur’an in public, and Britain for detaining a man praying near an abortion clinic.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier highlighted the emerging culture war with the Trump administration even before Mr. Vance spoke.

“It is clear that the new American administration holds a worldview that is very different from our own. One that shows no regard for established rules, for partnerships, or for the trust that has been built over time. But I am convinced that it is not in the interest of the international community for this worldview to become the dominant paradigm,” Mr. Steinmeier told the conference.

On the face of it, logic would suggest that Mr. Netanyahu’s money would be on aligning himself with the Trump administration, particularly given that European attitudes towards Israel are a mixed bag.

Aligning himself with the Trump administration would be in line with Mr. Netanyahu’s endorsement of Mr. Orban despite his past toying with anti-Jewish tropes and neglect of the anti-Semitic antecedents of many of the prime minister’s non-Israeli far-right associations.

For Mr. Netanyahu, the far right is an anti-dote for growing European support for Palestinian national aspirations.

Spain, Ireland, Norway, and Slovenia are Europe’s sharpest critics of Israel’s Gaza war conduct and rejection of Palestinian national rights. The three states have gone as far as recognising Palestine as a state.

France and Britain, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have suggested that they may follow suit next month.

If the growing pro-Palestinian trend in Europe were Mr. Netanyahu’s prime concern, aligning himself with the Trump administration would be one and one is two.

After all, Messrs. Netanyahu and Trump have much in common.

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted, “Each is a wannabe autocrat…working to undermine the rule of law and so-called elites in his respective country…seeking to crush what (they) call a ’deep state of government professionals…(and) steering his nation…toward a narrow, brutish might-equals-right ethnonationalism that is ready to mainstream ethnic cleansing.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s problem is that siding with Mr. Trump would put him at odds with Germany, one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Europe.

Supporting Israel’s war conduct, Germany last year doubled its defense exports to Israel to US$164 million despite its embargo on arms sales.

Moreover, Germany has cracked down on pro-Palestinian manifestations and freedom of speech under the guise of countering anti-Semitism since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust.” Credit: Zeteo

Last week, a German court fined an activist US$1,700 for carrying a sign at a pro-Palestinian manifestation in November 2023, asking whether Germany had not learned the lesson of the Holocaust for incitement to hatred.

The court argued that the activist had “trivialized” the Holocaust because it compared the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. At the time, the death toll in Israel’s Gaza war was 8,500. Today, it has exceeded 51,000.

Furthermore, Germany requires new immigrants to pledge allegiance to Israel’s right to exist.

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, said after his party election victory in February that he would find “way and means” to invite Mr. Netanyahu to Germany, possibly for his inauguration, despite the International Criminal (ICC) warrant for the prime minister’s arrest.

Mr. Merz has also promised to lift the German arms embargo on Israel.

In April, Mr. Orban announced that his country would withdraw from the Court hours before Mr. Netanyahu arrived for an official visit in Budapest. 

This week, Hungary was only one of two countries, alongside the United States, that defended Israel’s Gaza war conduct in International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on Israel’s humanitarian obligations in the Strip.

Israel has blocked the entry into Gaza of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods since March 2.

International aid organisations have warned that mass starvation could be imminent and that intentionally starving civilians is a war crime.

Mr. Netanyahu is likely to remain publicly absent from the Trump administration’s escalating feud with Europeans over attitudes toward the far right.

Even so, that would be a de facto vote for Germany rather than Israel’s foremost ally, the United States.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.