As the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party reached second place with over 20% of the vote in last week’s German election, Israel reversed its policy of nonengagement and began reviewing potential relations with three other European right-wing nationalist parties — but not AfD.

Israel is taking a case-by-case approach to the parties, in light of some of those on the nationalist right taking steps to counter antisemitism, along with embracing pro-Israel policies.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke about his decision to allow Israeli diplomats to meet with representatives of the National Rally in France, the Sweden Democrats and Vox in Spain.

During a visit last week to Brussels, where Sa’ar held meetings with his counterparts from the European Union, he also met with Jewish community and pro-Israel organization leaders and said that, following a review of Israel’s policy not to speak to far-right parties on the continent, he “didn’t see a reason not to” change Jerusalem’s approach to the three parties.

Sa’ar said the Foreign Ministry is examining the parties individually: “We check their attitudes towards Israel and their support for Israel. We are also reviewing their attitudes towards antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and other such matters.”

“Part of these parties have bad roots,” he added, “but we look at their deeds on the ground today. Do they denounce or ban party members with antisemitic statements? This is a substantial indication.”

Sa’ar said the idea behind the change is that Israel “do[es] not want to give up on friends in Europe, but we also don’t want to give legitimacy to parties that empower neo-Nazi phenomena.”

The foreign minister also said that Israel consults with Jewish leaders in the relevant countries before making a final decision.

The National Rally, the largest party in the French National Assembly, was established by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972 as the National Front, a party affiliated with the neo-fascist movement. Le Pen, nicknamed the “Devil of the Republic” for his xenophobic views, and other senior party members made remarks minimizing the Holocaust, forgiving the German occupation of France and admiring Vichy leader Philippe Pétain. In 2012, Le Pen’s daughter Marine Le Pen took over the party and began a process of “de-demonization” to moderate it and boost its popularity, which included throwing out her father and other open antisemites and renaming it the National Rally. Current party leader Jordan Bardella walked out of a Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, where he was due to speak last month, because former Trump advisor Steve Bannon gave what appeared to be a Nazi salute. 

Sweden Democrats are the second-largest party in the country’s parliament. Founded in 1988 as an anti-immigration party with the slogan “Keep Sweden Swedish” with Nazis and neo-Nazis among its founding members, they allied with white nationalist groups — including David Duke‘s National Association for the Advancement of White People — across the West. 

In the 2000s, a younger generation in the party took over and sought to purge the skinheads from its ranks and focus on national identity and integrating immigrants into Swedish society. In recent years, Sweden Democrats has made a concerted effort to try to be more accepted in Israel, with which leading party members have said they share Judeo-Christian and democratic values, and have made repeated visits to Jerusalem and meetings with Knesset members. 

Charlie Weimers, the leader of the Sweden Democrats in the European Parliament, told Jewish Insider that the policy change marked “an important day for the SD. We have worked hard to normalize relations with Israel.”

“This means that Israel officially recognizes that the SD is a party that has actually come to terms with its history from the early ‘90s when it had problems with extremists,” Weimers said. “Israel’s new approach to the Sweden Democrats means we can work together on issues such as the threat from Iran and anti-Semitism.”

In Spain, Vox was founded in 2013 as a socially conservative party calling for a stronger central government and opposing Catalan and Basque separatism. Within a few years, it shifted to emphasize nationalism, Euroskepticism, and traditional values — opposing abortion and supporting bullfighting, for example. 

Vox opposes immigration from Muslim countries while viewing Latin American immigration as more legitimate and supports the acceptance of Ukrainian refugees. The party has also fielded candidates with neo-Nazi affiliations, as well as Holocaust denier Fernando Paz, who ended up resigning. Vox has supported Israel and has included opposition to the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement in its platform for years, and received a perfect score from the Spanish pro-Israel group ACOM before the 2019 election. That year, a Likud official expressed support for Vox, but was forced to retract following complaints from the Spanish Jewish community and in light of Vox’s anti-LGBT stance. 

National Rally and Vox did not respond to JI’s requests for comment by press time.

Emmanuel Navon, CEO of the European Israel advocacy organization ELNET, said that, broadly, “it’s the right policy to always look into the evolution of political parties in Europe and not be stuck in paradigms from 30-40 years ago.” 

Navon suggested that Israel apply clear criteria to parties before deciding whether to engage with them or not: namely, if they support the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, if they recognize their government’s collaboration with the Nazis, when relevant, and if they are “pro-Putin conspiracy theorists.” 

The third criterion, Navon said, was because parties aligned with Russia “want to undermine the U.S.-led order … and are generally antisemites who believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that Jewish manipulate the West, etc… and also have an anti-Israel attitude. The deep far-right European antisemites are pro-Russian and want Putin to lead the West, generally.” 

The National Rally “was really a far-right antisemitic party … that Israel should have nothing to do with” when it was founded in the 1970s, Navon said. 

However, Navon added,  while there are still “bad apples” in the party, its current leadership, Marine Le Pen and Bardella, are not antisemites, are very pro-Israel and have moderated on a variety of issues.

Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, Managing Director of AJC Europe, said that NR “made a huge effort to overcome its past, first to change its name and then to clearly say that it wants to combat antisemitism — that being said, only when it comes from the far-left or Islamists — and to have a more pro-Israel stance.”

Much of the Jewish community in France still views NR negatively, Rodan-Benzaquen said, and ahead of last year’s election, “every single day, one of their candidates came out as problematic, with Nazi affiliations, glorification of Vichy or other extremely problematic statements. There is no doubt the leadership is trying to make a shift, but the party is still problematic.”

Rodan-Benzaquen expressed concern that NR will view relations with Israel as a kind of “kosher stamp,” when it still has a long way to go to uproot antisemitism from the party.

In France, the dynamic is such that the anti-Israel far left, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, accuses Jews of being far-right colonialists, and warming up to NR could exacerbate that, Rodan-Benzaquen said.

In Sweden, Rodan-Benzaquen said the situation is more complicated because the Sweden Democrats are part of the government.

“Even the local Jewish community can’t hold up their purist views, because the party is gaining power,” she said. “The Jewish community in Sweden is rather split on how to approach the Sweden Democrats. It’s a complex situation.”

Navon said that the Sweden Democrats “have some bad apples, but generally speaking, I think they’re kosher.”

Vox is pro-Israel, Navon said, for the same reason many other European right-wing parties are, because “they see Israel as a symbol of what is at stake in European politics.”

“If you’re in favor of the free market economy, strong birthrates, a traditional society that knows how to defend itself from radical Islam — conservatives in Europe look at Israel and say it’s the model,” Navon said. “The reason the woke left is so anti-Israel is because they understand that Israel represents one of the pillars of Western civilization that they want to deconstruct … They say ‘Zionism is racism,’ because how can you be nationalist in an age of universalism?”

Navon said he knows “some Jewish community leaders in Spain who are very favorable to Vox, think they’re completely fine and there’s no reason not to engage with them.” 

As for Alternative for Germany, which received an endorsement from Elon Musk and whose leader met with Vice President J.D. Vance before the election last month, Rodan-Benzaquen said they are “clearly more radical” than the parties that Israel has decided to engage.

AfD was founded in 2013 in response to the European financial crisis, has a nationalist anti-immigration stance and has expressed antisemitic and anti-American positions. Leading figures in the party have spoken out against the Berlin Holocaust Memorial and the Holocaust “guilt cult.” Others have said Germany should “stop being a slave state” of the U.S., and said the countries are “ruled by a war-hungry globalist elite.” They have also opposed arms shipments to Israel. Party officers have been investigated by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as extremist threats.

AfD is “different because they’re in Germany and have some neo-Nazi roots,” Navon said. 

They’re also “very ambiguous on World War II and have … a lot of conspiracy theorists,” he warned. 

“Even Marine Le Pen doesn’t want to sit with them in the European Parliament,” Rodan-Benzaquen said. “They are far less pro-Israel than the other right-wing parties. They are more pro-Russian.”

Traditionally, post-Holocaust, Jewish communities have viewed European nationalist and anti-immigration movements as a possible threat to their safety.

Yet, Rodan-Benzaquen said that today, “in Western Europe, with the issue of Islamism, most Jewish communities are very concerned and don’t necessarily see themselves in the same category … You have more and more Jews who are so desperate, like the rest of European society, that they feel the answers given by the governing parties have been insufficient.” 

Rodan-Benzaquen said that “governing parties have not addressed the fundamental problems of immigration, integration, identity and Islamism … If you leave a vacuum, it is filled with more extreme elements. It’s the responsibility of governing parties to do their job, which they haven’t.”

“The answers given by the far-right parties are not necessarily mainstream in the Jewish communities, either, because they’re so broad that [those answers] don’t only concern Islamists but Muslims in general — there’s a racist element that most Jewish communities in Europe say doesn’t sound right for them,” she said.

Navon pointed out that “the parties that hate Israel today are generally on the far left. They are wooing immigrants because blue collar workers no longer vote for them. They used to be very anti-religious, but now they are in bed with radical Islam, and that goes with hatred of Israel.”

“Jews don’t have a problem with immigration per se,” Navon said, “but they have a problem with immigration that is hateful of Europe and Western civilization and Jews and want to impose their way of life instead of accepting the European way of life.”

Though the Israeli Foreign Ministry said they spoke with the relevant Jewish communities, Rodan-Benzaquen said “they more or less informed” them, and “I don’t think it’s sufficient at this stage. It’s really important to understand the complicated situation of Jewish communities on the ground.”

When it comes to reaching out to the European far right, Rodan-Benzaquen said: “I entirely understand that, given the circumstances … it’s important [for Israel] to reach out to all friends, but it is important to be careful and reach out to Jewish communities. It’s not only Israel that suffered, but also Jewish communities have suffered greatly from the antisemitism that exploded” after Oct. 7, 2023.