TNA Staff
The New Arab / March 27, 2025
Israel initiated a conference on fighting antisemitism, with the attendance of politicians from Europe’s far right driving division within the Jewish community.
Israel on Thursday kicked off a conference on fighting anti-Semitism, with the attendance of politicians from Europe’s far right driving division within the international Jewish community.
Among those invited to the symposium are a member of Hungary’s Fidesz party and France’s National Rally (RN), whose cofounder was known for his anti-Semitic comments.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar addressed the conference, decrying what he claimed was a “new anti-Semitism” stoked by “a disturbing alliance between the radical progressives on the far-left and Islamist fundamentalism”.
“In the name of so-called ‘human rights’, the progressive movement fell captive to those seeking the destruction of the Jewish people,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is later due to speak, as well as the current RN president Jordan Bardella, capping an unprecedented trip to Israel by a leader of his party.
Analysts say the invitation of parties that have themselves been accused of anti-Semitism demonstrates the willingness of Israel’s right to cultivate new relationships with unlikely supporters, amid pressure from traditional allies over the Gaza war.
Bardella on Wednesday visited sites where Hamas operatives carried out their October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
He first travelled to a memorial marking the site of the Nova music festival, where Hamas fighters killed more than 370 people, including French nationals.
“I came here first and foremost because I believe it’s vital for us to never forget what happened on October 7, 2023, here in Israel, what Islamism and the Hamas terrorist movement were capable of,” he said.
Since Hamas’s attack on Israel, the RN has sought to present itself as a bulwark against anti-Semitism.
The party was cofounded as the National Front by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier this year, and who was charged and convicted in a French court for downplaying the Holocaust.
His daughter, Marine Le Pen, has moved to distance the movement from her father’s legacy, renaming the party and seeking to make it more broadly electable.
When asked about his party’s past during Wednesday’s visit, Bardella responded: “I don’t do politics in the rearview mirror.”
‘Black and white’
Thursday’s conference will focus on fighting what has been claimed as a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world.
Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has often sought to conflate criticism of Israel and its brutal war on Gaza with anti-Semitism.
The guest list for the symposium, organised by right-wing Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, also includes Bardella’s fellow MEP Marion Marechal, who leads another far-right movement and is the niece of Marine Le Pen.
Earlier in the week, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, a Kremlin ally, said he was travelling to Israel where he would attend the conference, but it was unclear whether he was in attendance.
“The Serbs and the Jews are peoples that others have sought to annihilate,” the president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated statelet of Republika Srpska said on X. “That is why we stand together.”
Bosnia on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for Dodik, who is accused of flouting the constitution.
“The current Israeli government sees the world in black and white,” said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at the Open University of Israel.
Some in Israel feel the country is currently isolated, and needs “new friends”, even if it deems them distasteful, he added.
Israeli media reported on guests who cancelled their appearances in protest of the far-right politicians’ presence, including Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.
Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the UK government’s independent adviser on anti-Semitism, John Mann, have also withdrawn.
On Wednesday, Bardella visited Netiv Haasara, on Gaza’s northern border, where he met with a Franco-Israeli survivor of October 7 who lost her husband and son in the attacks.
During their conversation, Bardella described Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed over 62,000 Palestinian civilians, as a fight between “civilisation against barbarism”.
“We have always stated with the utmost consistency… that its retaliation and response were legitimate, but that it had to be carried out in accordance with international law,” he said.
Bardella rejected the idea of “unconditional support” for Israel, but said he was in favour of close ties with “all nations fighting against Islamic terrorism”.
