FAR-RIGHT political parties in Europe are associating themselves with Israel with a renewed vigor even as they have fine-tuned their anti-Muslim stance.
Recently, Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front compared Muslims who pray outside crowded mosques in Paris among other cities to the World War II Nazi occupation.
Le Pen, who is considered by political analysts to be the next far-right challenger for the French presidency, compared overflowing mosques in France with the Nazi occupation. She made the comments on a TV show that was watched by an estimated 3.4 million viewers.
She reiterated what she said later when she said: “My comments were absolutely not a blunder, but a completely thought-out analysis.” She was merely saying out loud what everyone thought privately, she added in the news conference.
Meanwhile, Oskar Freysinger who supports Switzerland’s ban on minarets, told a far-right meeting in Paris on Dec 18 that a demographic, sociological and psychological Islamization of Europe was happening.
Speaking to Reuters, a news wire agency, Geert Wilders, whose party supports the Dutch minority government said he was organizing an ‘international freedom alliance’ to fight Islam. Wilders visited Israel and backed its West Bank settlements, saying Palestinians there should relocate to Jordan. Several others including German, Belgian, Swedish and Austrian leaders who share Wilders’ stance on Islam were in Israel at the same time.
“Our culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism and (the Israelis) are fighting out fight,” Wilders had said then. “If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next.”
In his speech in Tel Aviv during his visit to Israel, Wilders said: “It is not Israel’s duty to provide a Palestinian state. There already is a Palestinian state and that state is Jordan.”
Four other European rightists – Heinz-Christian Strache from Austria, German Freedom Party head Rene Stadtkewitz, Sweden Democrat MP Kent Ekeroth and head of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party Filip Dewinter – who were on a tour to Israel defended the country’s existence and ‘its right to defend itself against all aggression, especially Islamic terror.’
However, the leaders denied they were stoking Islamaphobia with their statements.
