Note the contrast: when Matteo Salvini, Italy's interior minister recently visited Jerusalem, which he hailed as the capital of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him a "great friend of Israel." Back home, however, Italy's liberal Jews denounced Salvini for, among other things, his Gypsy policy and his alleged "racism against foreigners and migrants."
 Matteo Salvini (L) and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, December 2018. |
A similar battle, pitting the mighty State of Israel against small and shrinking Jewish communities, takes place in many European countries, invariably arguing over the same subject: what the press calls far-right, populist, nativist, or nationalist parties – and what I call civilizationist parties (because they primarily aspire to maintain Western civilization). Israel's leadership unsurprisingly focus on these parties' foreign policy, broadly seeing them as its best friends in Europe, while Europe's Jewish establishment no less predictably emphasizes the parties' domestic profiles, portraying them as incorrigibly antisemitic, even auguring a return to the twentieth century's fascistic dictatorships.
However parochial and marginal this intra-Jewish battle may seem to the larger world, it actually matters greatly, potentially influencing the future course of Europe. That results from the unique moral authority bestowed by the Holocaust on Jews to judge who is a fascist and who is not. Or, in the more subdued phrasing of the Wall Street Journal, "While Jewish voters may represent a relatively small portion of the electorate in many European countries, winning their support could help improve the public image of far-right parties." If Jerusalem prevails, civilizationists can more easily and quickly join Europe's political mainstream, reach power, and tackle their priority issues of controlling immigration and combatting Islamization. If the local Jewish establishment prevails, civilizationists will struggle longer to gain legitimacy, and thus will reach power more slowly and attain their goals with far more pain.
Europe's Jews
Jews living in Europe (excluding Russia) number about 1.5 million in a population of some 600 million, or one-quarter of one percent; that's about the same as the number of Hindus and one-twentieth the number of Muslims. Unlike those new religious communities, Jews have endured a troubled two-millennium history in Europe marked by blood libel and other conspiracy theories, the Crusades, ghettoes, and pogroms, culminating in the Holocaust. Also unlike those growing immigrant communities, the simultaneous challenges of mass Muslim immigration, rampant antisemitism, and leftist anti-Zionism render European Jewry's condition so precarious that in France, where Jews make up less than 1 percent of the population they experienced nearly 40 percent of racially or religiously motivated violent acts in 2017. A recent poll finds 38 percent of Europe's Jews contemplating emigration from the continent.
 The Berlin Jewish Museum exhibit, "Jerusalem ist jetzt in Berlin" (Jerusalem is now in Berlin), shows a crescent and star, Islamic symbols. |
Jewish leaders also stay largely mute about mass immigration and direct their collective hostility to civilizationist parties, an act of Jewish civic virtue required by the European establishment if Jewish leaders are to stay respectable, keep their access to the government, and be treated gently by the mainstream media. In France, for example, Gilbert Collard of the National Rally may be "an unconditional defender" of Israel, but praise what he says and you'll find yourself promptly called a racist who is excluded from polite society.
To be sure, some civilizationists retain racial, conspiratorial, and bigoted views of Jews; vigilance is needed to ensure that their professed friendship is not just a tactic to win approbation and legitimacy. But civilizationists are not the Jews' major problem. On the political level, they do not promote unfettered immigration and a multiculturalism that tolerates or even encourages Islamization, the twin existential threats to Jewish life in Europe.
On the personal level, civilizationists do not pose the main danger to Jews; a massive survey of discrimination and hate crimes against Jews, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that "the most serious incidents of antisemitic harassment" are perpetrated 30 percent by "extremist Muslims," 21 percent by left wingers, and 13 percent by right wingers. In other words, Islamists and leftists together harass Jews four times more than civilizationists.
Despite this, many European Jews – and their leaders especially – engage in a humiliating courtship of the Establishment – political parties, media, educational institutions – paying homage to the moral superiority of precisely those forces ruining their lives. To use Bat Ye'or's terminology, they have adopted the behavior of dhimmis (the historic second-class status of non-Muslim monotheists living under Muslim rule).
 Pinchas Goldschmidt. |
Israel
The Netanyahu government appreciates that anti-Establishment parties bucking the verbally-warm-but-substantially-cool pattern of Europe's legacy parties: whereas the 3Ms (Theresa May of the United Kingdom, Emmanuel Macron of France, and Angela Merkel of Germany) speak positively of Israel, they more significantly participate in Israel's delegitimization at the United Nations and support the Iran deal that most Israelis see as a mortal threat. More generally, Israeli journalist Eldad Beck points to "the duality of the German position that sees Berlin declare its commitment to Israel's existence and security while at the same time throw its support behind bodies that undermine the existence and security of the Jewish state."
Unlike such platitudinous policies, civilizationist parties (again, with a French exception) view Israel as a moral partner in arms and an ally against Islamism. They show this by fighting antisemitism, building Holocaust museums, denouncing the Iran deal, urging the move of their embassies to Jerusalem, learning from Israel's security services, and protecting Israel's interests within the European Union. Geert Wilders of the Netherlands lived in Israel for a year and subsequently visited it dozens of times. That Europe's Jews live more safely where civilizationists impose strict controls on migration only reinforces Israeli appreciation; as Evelyn Gordon notes, in 2017, "Hungary's 100,000 Jews didn't report a single physical attack, while Britain's 250,000 Jews reported 145."
 Jan. 2015: Two Belgian soldiers stand outside the Jewish museum in Brussels where an Islamist had killed four people in May 2014. (Image: Daniel Pipes) |
Responding to this warmth and security, Israel's government increasingly cooperates with civilizationists – but then faces the wrath of Europe's Jews whom it has vowed to protect, leading to something of an impasse. For example, Jerusalem clearly wishes to work with Austria's pro-Israel Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, the appointee of that country's civilizationist party, but Austria's Jews have strenuously denounced this prospect, going so far as to warn that "they'll fight" Jerusalem.
Conclusion
Two preliminary points: Of course, neither European Jewry nor Israel's government is monolithic. Paula Bieler in Sweden, Gidi Markuszower in the Netherlands, and Davis Lasar in Austria represent their civilizationist parties in parliament; Juden in der AfD supports Germany's civilizationists. In contrast, Israel's President Reuven Rivlin acts like a dhimmi: writing about antisemitism in a London newspaper, he politely avoided even mentioning Corbyn's name while elsewhere viciously characterizing civilizationists as "neo-fascist movements ... that have considerable and very dangerous influence" (this despite his acknowledging "their strong support for the State of Israel"). Consistent with this attitude, Rivlin refused to meet Salvini.
Second, this European tension has an American parallel: Israel's government has far better relations with the Trump administration than does the U.S. Jewish establishment. Symbolic of this, when Donald Trump went to Pittsburgh to mourn the massacre of 11 Jews at a synagogue, the local Jewish community protested his presence, leaving Israel's ambassador to the United States alone to welcome the president.
If the battle is heating up, the outcome is virtually fore-ordained: raison d'état eventually will propel Israeli governments to override local Jewish concerns and work with civilizationists while Europe's Jews will continue to emigrate, causing their voice to grow ever-weaker. This evolution will be a good thing, for civilizationists are not the 1930s-style threat portrayed by opposition politicians and the mainstream media, but a healthy response to an extraordinary problem. Indeed, the more rapidly the Israeli voice predominates, the better for everyone – Europe, its Jewish population, and the State of Israel. The only question is, how soon will this happen.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2019 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Jan. 27, 2019 addenda: (1) In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Benjamin Netanyahu agreed with one part of this essay:
Antisemitism from the right is not a new phenomenon there. What is new in Europe is the combination of Islamic antisemitism and the antisemitism of the extreme left which includes anti-Zionism, such as has recently occurred in Great Britain and in Ireland.
(2) In contrast, Deborah Lipstadt, an American historian, provided a perfect specimen today of diaspora criticism of Israel's government, writing that its
political leadership has donned blinders of its own as the [antisemitic] threat gathers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised Hungary's illiberal Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a "true friend of Israel" committed to "the need to combat antisemitism." ... Mr. Netanyahu has been similarly misguided and ahistorical in his outreach to Poland's own xenophobic, right-wing government.
Jan. 31, 2019 update: Despite the delicacy and controversy of this article's topic, I have encountered general agreement with pointed argument on one point only, namely the sentence that, "With the partial exception of France, Europe's Jews tend to adopt quasi-anti-Zionist views to appease Israel's critics." I realize in retrospect that I should have written "Europe's Jewish leadership," but even that is countered by Joël Rubinfeld, president of the Ligue Belge Contre l'Antisémitisme, who writes me:
Regarding your article "Europe's Jews vs. Israel," I disagree with the statement that "With the partial exception of France, Europe's Jews tend to adopt quasi-anti-Zionist views to appease Israel's critics."
In various capacities since 2007 – president of the Belgian Jewish community, vice-president of the European Jewish Congress and co-chairman of the European Jewish Parliament – I have had the opportunity to meet Jewish leaders from most European countries. Yes, they differ in opinions when it comes to Israel, but they are all united in an unshakable commitment to the idea of Zionism and, more or less vocally, in their support for Israel's right to defend itself. There do exist, in several countries, small "quasi-anti-Zionist" Jewish groups, but they are in the single-digits of percent and this outlook remains largely marginal.
That said, we sometimes do have to deal with political pressure. I experienced this personally at the height of the 2008-09 Gaza War and the ensuing surge of antisemitism in major European cities. I met as part of a group with Hans-Gert Pöttering, the then-president of the European Parliament. In response to my urging him to make a public statement against rising antisemitism, Pöttering advised us to decrease antisemitism in Europe by criticizing Israel and its defensive war against Hamas terrorists! Few European Jewish leaders, however, give in to this kind of pressure.
Feb. 10, 2019 update: Gol Kalev reviews the tension described above, then offers an unlikely parallel from Austria in 1897, when the Viennese
elected an anti-Semitic mayor. To the relief of Vienna's Jews, the emperor refused to approve Karl Lueger, but [Theodor] Herzl lobbied the prime minister to accept the people's choice, arguing that boycotting the populist leader would only increase hatred of Jews. "If you deny him, you will be responsible for the whole of Jew hatred," he told the prime minister.
Lueger served as mayor of Vienna until 1910. Kalev concludes from this that
today's Israeli politicians would do well to heed a lesson from the country's ideological forefather—that snubbing right-wing Austrian leaders is not necessarily the wisest move if their goal is fighting anti-Semitism and keeping Jews safe.
Comments: While I agree with the gist of Kalev's argument that Israel should engage with the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), I have three reservations:
- What indication is there that allowing the foul Lueger into office for 13 years turned out to be better than denying him the mayoral position?
- Lueger, a vicious antisemite, cannot be compared with the leadership of the FPÖ. This is a distortion.
- What has that remote circumstance of a large and cowed local Jewish population to do with today's, when an Israel that is similar in population and economy to Austria, and vastly greater in terms of demographic rates and military strength, is the issue?
Mar. 2, 2019 update: Cnaan Liphshiz has a courageous article in the Times of Israel, "Polish, Hungarian Jews say communal leaders use anti-Semitism to avoid scrutiny: Hiding behind claims of racism is an easy way to divert attention from muddy financial affairs, say local Jewish critics."
Mar. 3, 2019 update: I referred above to the "verbally-warm-but-substantially-cool pattern of Europe's legacy parties" and singled out Angela Merkel as a leader in this regard. Today, Manfred Gerstenfeld looks in depth at this topic at "Germany Promotes Antisemitism and Anti-Israelism."
Mar. 15, 2019 update: I visited the Berlin Jewish Museum's "Welcome to Jerusalem" exhibit today.
The good news: That logo I pictured above is gone, replaced by one showing a menorah.
 A sign in the elevator of the Berlin Jewish Museum. |
The bad news: Neturei Karta's bizarre anti-Zionism dominates one room.
 Neturei Karta's bizarre anti-Zionism dominates one room of the Berlin Jewish Museum. |
June 14, 2019 update: Good news: Peter Schaefer, the director of Berlin's Jewish Museum, has resigned.
Sep. 27, 2019 update: This article has now appeared as a chapter, "Diaspora und Israel: Über die politischen Auswirkungen einer Dichotomie," in Was Juden zur AfD treibt (Verlag Antaios). The title translates as "What drives German Jews to the AfD." Artur Abramovych translated it.
Feb. 18, 2020 update: Martin Lichtmesz, who identifies himself as a freelance publicist and translator, has written a critique of this analysis, "Die Versprechen des Daniel Pipes" (The Promises of Daniel Pipes). Curiously, his critique requires more than twice the number of words as does my original article. He is particularly annoyed by the post-Holocaust moral authority of Jews.
Aug. 8, 2020 update: Yonatan Shay, a Jewish Agency representative in Germany, excoriates the Central Council for tarring him with an AfD brush and fighting him every step of the way, also for its focus on fighting civilizationists rather than the Jews' real enemies.
Aug. 25, 2021 update: Orit Arfa writes in JNS:
most German-Jewish leaders cannot criticize the government since their institutions, including security, depend on state funding. This is particularly true for the umbrella Jewish organization, the Central Council of Jews in Germany. ... The co-dependent relationship between Jewish communities and the government leaves Jews in a Catch-22: When politicians seem to endanger Jewish life, they can't speak out for fear of disrupting Jewish life. "Official Jewish institutions are nothing but the mouthpiece of the government," said [German-Jewish writer Chaim] Noll.
Sep. 12, 2021 update: I apply this argument today to one country at "Germany's Jewish Leadership vs. Israel." The topic is a disgraceful document initiated by Germany's Central Council of Jews (Zentralrat der Juden), a dependency of the German state, that 68 other Jewish organizations endorsed. Titled "Jews against the AfD," it calls on Germans to vote for any party other than the AfD.
Dec. 3, 2021 update: During a trip to Warsaw at the invitation of the Polish government, Marine Le Pen, leader of the France's civilizationist party, the National Rally, visited the monument to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto in Warsaw. One might expect Jewish spokesmen to welcome this gesture, especially coming from the daughter who stood up against the antisemitism of her father. But, alas, no. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, no doubt speaking for his European counterparts, called her presence at the monument "political chutzpah" and "an affront to the memory of the victims who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto."
Feb. 10, 2022 update: The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the U.K.'s top mainstream Jewish umbrella organization, tweeted in Hebrew that it "reject the abominable views and the hate-provoking ideology of [the Religious Zionism party leader] Bezalel Smotrich. We call on all members of the British Jewish community to show him the door. Get back on the plane, Bezalel, and be remembered as a disgrace forever." This came in response to Smotrich visiting British and French Jewish communities to rally opposition to Israeli governmental plan to reform state-controlled Jewish religious practices.
Feb. 17, 2022 update: Marco Koska argues in "Fracture ouverte chez les juifs de France" that the response to Eric Zemmour reveals the split between the Establishment and everyone else in the French Jewish community.
Apr. 19, 2022 update: As the second round of presidential elections takes place in France, the country's two leading Jewish institutions go all-out for the establishment candidate:
As during her previous two presidential runs in France, the country's main Jewish groups have gone partisan and called on Jews to vote against the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. But this time the call has triggered a community-wide debate about the role of French Jewish institutions that has highlighted the growing polarization of French Jewry.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, or CRIF, a group that lobbies the French government on Jewish issues, and the Consistoire, which provides religious services and employs the country's chief rabbi, have become increasingly partisan over the past decade, amid a rise in the popularity of the far-right, which they and many other French Jews consider dangerous.
June 8, 2022 update: Josef Schuster, president of the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland (Central Council of Jews in Germany), bizarrely announced that "Jewish life in Germany continues to be massively threatened. The greatest danger comes from the right-wing extremist scene."
Mar. 24, 2024 update: Rina Bassist updates the civilizationist-Israel tie at "How Israel's far-right is courting European populist, nationalist parties."
Apr. 10, 2024 update: In a variation on this theme, European Jewish Congress President Ariel Muzicant has stated that "Each time that Ben Gvir makes these statements [about Jewish settlement in Gaza], you see a spike in antisemitism."
June 17, 2024 update: In the aftermath of civilizationist gains in the European Union parliamentary elections on June 9. European Jewish Association chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin noted that it's "absolutely" possible that a civilizationist party's rise is good for Israel but bad for the Jews of that country, adding that "We could work with some of them, but it has to be in a very specific, very practical, very detailed way." Interestingly, Margolin offered Hungary's Prime Minister Victor Orbán as a model European leader from the Jewish perspective.
June 27, 2024 update: Shirit Avitan Cohen writes, in an article titled "Who is Israel's foreign minister? It depends on the country,"
In a departure from Israel's traditional foreign policy, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli has been quietly cultivating relationships with far-right parties across Europe, many of which have shown unprecedented support for Israel following the October 7 attacks. ...
In recent months, he has visited France and Hungary and addressed an official conference of the national right-wing Vox party in Madrid. Last month, he traveled to the United States, meeting with several senators to bolster support for Israel. His future plans include visits to Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. ...
Chikli has emerged as a new de facto foreign minister, consistently cultivating official government relationships with those who have become prominent supporters of Israel in its war against terrorism. ...
Chikli finds a receptive audience among parties like Vox in Spain, Marine Le Pen's National Front in France, Viktor Orbán's government in Hungary, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the Conservatives in Britain, and many others.
