The Arutz Sheva website (operated by rightwing West Bank settlers) reports on a visit by European far-right politicians who toured settlements in the territory.
The delegation included 35 senior European parliamentarians from Austria, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and Sweden, including some who are believed likely to one day head their countries. Germany, Austria and Italy, under extreme right-wing parties, were at the heart of the Axis that fought a genocidal war against the Jewish nation and a war of conquest against the Allied Powers in the 1930’s and 40’s.
A spokesman for the Shomron (Samaria) local authority explained that most of the visitors were from what is known as the “New Right” in Europe. These are parties that support Israel, renounce anti-Semitism and see the Islamic takeover of Europe as a clear danger, the Samaria spokesman said. Most of the touring parliamentarians were Christians, while some were Jews. The visitors agreed that Judea and Samaria constitute Jewish land.
The group included Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the [Austrian] Freedom Party, who is seen as a likely candidate to become the next chancellor of Austria; Filip Dewinter of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party; MP Frank Creyelman, who heads the Belgian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee; René Stadtkewitz, Chairman of Germany’s Freedom Party; and Claus Pandi, editor-in-chief of Krone Zeitung, the biggest newspaper in Austria. The visit coincides with that of Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders in Israel.
We’ve reported many times on Geert Wilders and his anti-Muslim party. And Israeli Jews prepared to accept the friendship of Vlaams Belang should look into their recent history.
(Via Karl Pfeifer, who writes that the participation of Strache, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party– formerly led by Joerg Haider— should alarm all democrats. He notes that it is a party in which fervent antisemites are active and it does not deserve a “teudat kashrut” [kosher certification].)
