Why Israeli ministers in Netanyahu's government are joining France's far-right Marine Le Pen as she celebrates a shocking win in France's first round of voting
"The far right are at the gates of power": That was the trenchant warning by France's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal after last night's shocking results from the country's first round of voting in legislative elections.
Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally won over a third of the votes cast, around 12 million, more than any party has ever received in the first round for presidential or legislative elections. Now starts a frantic process by those committed to the 'Republican wall' – centrists, leftists, some rump conservatives – to block the far right from winning power.
France wouldn't be the first western European country in the last two years to fall to the far right: That 'honor' goes to Italy, now led by Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy. In Israel, of course, the first government to include and empower the far right – midwifed by Benjamin Netanyahu – was sworn in 18 months ago and its theocratic, annexationist, authoritarian platform is being implemented surely but steadily.
One key strategy adopted by the far right in France and Italy, movements riddled with racists, antisemites, Holocaust deniers and fans of fascism, was an effort to 'detoxify' their brand with public declarations of support for Jewish communities and for Israel.
That poisoned outstretched arm was grasped enthusiastically by Israeli right-wingers whose identification with their brand of populist, anti-Muslim nationalism easily overcame any qualms (if there were any) about their deep-seated, but not disguised, ill will for Jews. And their offer of allyship during the Gaza war, as Israel has become increasingly isolated internationally, is not exactly foreign to a long policy tradition in Israel of accepting support from the most unsavory regimes.
One of the chief Israeli cheerleaders for this pact of extremists is, with all irony intended, the minister for relations with, and the welfare of, the Jewish diaspora, who also holds the brief of combating antisemitism: Amichai Chikli.
Sometimes, just as regrettably, leading Jewish figures in those countries throw in their lot with the far right as well, whether out of misplaced appeasement or because they buy the delusional declarations of those nostalgic for fascism that they're committed to protecting Jews against a surging tide of antisemitism.
To only the most gullible people's surprise, the far right's 'detoxification' turns out to be superficial in the extreme. Just last week, an
undercover investigation by Italy's Fanpage reporters exposed how the youth wing of Meloni's party Sieg Heils, chants songs in praise of Mussolini, rants on about the 'Jewish race' and glorifies neo-fascist terrorists. It was evidence of the return of the repressed, or perhaps more accurately, revealing what was never really repressed at all. (TP-“Fascism” isn’t inherently anti-semitic, but became so in 1938 on Hitler’s orders. But before that, Mussolini’s government included Jewish Fascist Italians in it, as well as supported the Jewish fascists of the Revisionist Movement. What was an essential element was Carl Schmitt’s “Friend-Enemy Distinction,” so in favor in the post-WW II U.S. Conservative Movement also, as articulated so well by political theorist Willmoore Kendall, as the “Conservative-Liberal Distinction,” and he and his fellow Conservative Movement founders, Buckley in particular, did all they could to deny civil/constitutional rights for African Americans (not having Muslims to kick around yet.)
Once in power, the far right inevitably becomes normalized, pulling the Overton window rightwards: Their policies and language become mainstream and force the political debate to engage on their turf. And their access to the levers of government enable both noisy and stealthy 'achievements' subverting civil rights and liberal democracy.
In France now, the anti-Le Pen camp is trying to pull together to ensure not one more vote goes to the far right in the fateful second round of voting on July 7. It is both a desperate and impressive sight, a defense of liberal democracy. A stirring sight for Americans looking fearfully at November. It is the kind of mass mobilization to rehabilitate normative politics that Israel will sorely need when, and if, the country next goes to the polls.
Esther SolomonEditor-in-chief, Haaretz English