Declaring your support for Israel has become a convenient way for antisemites to whitewash their reputation. The phrase “They can’t be antisemitic, they support Israel” has been used to absolve many a racist, and in fact legitimizes the chummy relationship Israel has with the global far-right, including outright neo-Nazi groups.
This was especially apparent during the Trump era, where despite his frequent antisemitic remarks –such as suggesting US Jews’ actual country is Israel– many cited his support for Israel as proof that the president couldn’t possibly be antisemitic. We remind you that this is in the context of a heightened wave of racist and antisemitic hate crimes inspired by Trump, where white supremacists openly marched in the streets chanting racist slogans such as “Jews will not replace us”. Even the Capitol insurrection of January 6th in support of Trump prominently featured antisemites and bigots of all persuasions.
The same politicians who called Obama an antisemite and the “most anti-Israel president in history” suddenly had very little to say about Trump, even as he picked known white supremacist Steve Bannon as chief White House strategist. All of these transgressions were swept under the carpet by invoking his support for Israel and his pledge to move the US. embassy to Jerusalem. Suddenly Trump, who refused to condemn white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, became the “most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel president in history”. Indeed, Israel was one of the few countries in the world where Donald Trump was viewed positively, with 71% of Israelis approving of him.
While Trump is perhaps one of the most well-known cases of an antisemite being embraced by defenders of Israel, he is far from the only one. Israel is a darling of the global far-right and white supremacists everywhere, despite the apparent contradiction of terms at first glance.
The love affair between Israel and far-right strongmen all across the globe has been widely documented. Viktor Orban, infamous Prime Minister of Hungary, is a prominent example of this. He promoted “anti-Semitic imagery of powerful Jewish financiers scheming to control the world” and spread conspiracy theories about George Soros wanting to “flood Europe with Muslims”. Orban also sought to honor Hungarian Nazi collaborator Miklos Horthy, who oversaw the killing of half a million Jews in Hungary. Yet he is a staunch supporter of Israel, which he invokes whenever anyone criticizes his bigotry.
Jair Bolsonaro also falls into this category; while he declares his love for Israel and waves its flag, his army honored a Nazi war criminal -decorated by Hitler himself- who had fled to Brazil. The AFD, Germany’s far-right populist party, also found support for Israel to be a convenient way to whitewash its antisemitism domestically.
But what is it that attracts these reactionary movements to Israel? Why do they profess love for Israel internationally while championing antisemitic and racist politics locally?
Far-right fascists love Israel for multiple reasons:
1) Israel serves as a model for the ethno-state that they seek to build. For the far-right, Zionism as an ideology and a movement is something to be emulated. White nationalist and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer proclaimed himself to be a “white Zionist”. He also went on to describe Israel as “the most important and perhaps most revolutionary ethno-state” — the “one that I turn to for guidance.” What is humorous here, is that this white nationalist possesses a more sober understanding of Zionism than most liberal Zionists do.
2) Israel and the far-right have in common their xenophobia, anti-migrant politics, and Islamophobia. They both see themselves as guardians of “Western civilization” and a bulwark against the East. Their political messaging is inundated with “war on terror” scaremongering, and a chilling obsession with demographics. Israel is more than happy to accommodate these groups, no matter how antisemitic they are, as long as they are supportive of Israeli policies. A prominent instance of such was a visit by a group of German far-right, anti-Muslim bloggers, who toured the streets of Israel expressing their desire to blow up mosques, and calling African refugees “invaders”. Unsurprisingly, as they visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust victims memorial, it became apparent that this group was full of Holocaust deniers, but since they spoke about the importance of supporting Israel’s fight against “the Muslim problem”, they were seen as friends and allies. Meanwhile, Jewish proponents of BDS have not been allowed entry at the border.
3) Finally, if all goes according to plan and these movements succeed in establishing their ethno-states, Israel would receive the Jewish population of these countries. In this way, these movements get to establish their racist entities, and Israel would benefit from the exodus of these Jewish communities to bolster its Jewish population. Unfortunately, the well-being or safety of these communities never enters into the equation. This is hardly a new position for the Zionist movement, as Ben Gurion in the 1930s famously said:
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
From a Zionist standpoint, this is clear to understand, as to Zionists only a Jewish state could ensure the long-term safety and prosperity of the Jewish people. Such thinking only reinforces the natural kinship between Zionism and other reactionary ethno-nationalist movements and parties.
Sadly, none of what was described above is new. Historically speaking, some of the most dedicated supporters of Zionism have been raging antisemites themselves. Even the infamous Lord Balfour implemented anti-Jewish laws, and saw the Zionist movement as a way to:
“Mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a Body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb.”
Naturally, these racist views and prejudices extended to other “races”:
“We have to face the facts. Men are not born equal, the white and black races are not born with equal capacities: they are born with different capacities which education cannot and will not change.”
Yet somehow, many Zionists today are under the delusion that a colonial, racist Empire massacring natives all across the globe, and ruthlessly squashing liberation movements, chose to support the creation of Israel out of the goodness of its heart. Instead of correctly viewing the patronage of Zionism as a continuation of imperialist policy, they choose to deceive themselves into thinking it is some grand gesture aimed at redemption.
Support for Zionism in the United States had similar colonial roots. Zionists, understanding the need for Western support, emphasized how similar they were to the American pioneers in their desire to “tame” the wild land, and vanquish the savage natives. This was before the liberal Zionists of today tried to re-frame colonial ethno-nationalism as an indigenous rights movement.
These pleas resonated the most among Christian Zionists, who until today form the largest body of support for Zionism and Israel in the United States, if not the world. Christian Zionists offered their support to the Zionist movement not out of any humanistic or altruistic considerations, but out of religious ones. According to their beliefs, Israel needed to be restored before the second coming of Christ so Armageddon could occur. During these events, the Jewish people would be forced to convert to Christianity or die.
With support for Israel dwindling among Jewish youth in the United States -to the point where ~40% of them agree that Israel is an Apartheid state- maintaining the support of Christian Zionists becomes paramount. Even though groups like Christians United for Israel (CUFI) hope to see the Jewish people either convert or die, Israel would rather cater to them than the Jewish people it claims to represent. Quite simply, just one of the many Christian Zionist organizations such as CUFI has more members than the entirety of the Jewish population in the United States. This is a support base that is dogmatically committed to Israel, and is not swayed by considerations of human rights or international law.
Overall, the Christian Right has been found to constitute the largest social movement in the U.S and the largest voting bloc within the Republican Party, and its support for U.S. imperialist policy vis-a-vis Israel for years has culminated in billions of dollars of aid. This is in addition to the millions evangelicals have poured into West Bank settlement projects over the past 10 years, estimated at somewhere between $50 million and $65 million.
Ultimately, we find ourselves in a situation where antisemites who are supportive of Israel come to be branded as “allies of the Jewish people”, and Jewish critics of Israel are called the new “antisemites”. Meanwhile, Palestinians can’t sneeze without being accused of inciting genocide.
Time and time again, Israel, the self-proclaimed Jewish state, has been shown to throw world Jewry under the bus if it furthers its aims. It would ally itself with the most reactionary forces on earth if it was deemed beneficial to the state. We must refute Israel’s claim to represent the Jewish people worldwide and reject its false accusations of antisemitism whenever it is rightly denigrated. Ultimately, we must reject Israel’s claims to moral authority on what does and does not constitute antisemitism, as this authority is seriously unearned.
- Kayyali, Abdul-Wahab. “Zionism and Imperialism: The Historical Origins.” Journal of Palestine Studies 6.3 (1977): 98-112.
- Hughes, Matthew. “From Law and Order to Pacification: Britain’s Suppression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936––39.” Journal of Palestine Studies 39.2 (2010): 6-22.
- Jegic, Denijal. Israel: A model for the far right. Al-Jazeera. January 2nd, 2020. [Link]
- Decolonize Palestine, Faithwashing. [Link]
- Clark, Victoria. Allies for Armageddon: the rise of Christian Zionism. Yale University Press, 2007.
- Aderet, Ofer. Holocaust Deniers at Yad Vashem: German far-right tour Israel. January 10th, 2017. [Link]