It’s a lineup that was certain to raise hackles. French far-right politicians Jordan Bardella and Marion Maréchal were among the European right-wing figures who landed in Israel on Wednesday to share their views on the burning question: What is the best way to fight anti-Semitism?
Speaking to the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday ahead of the two-day conference, Bardella – who leads the National Rally (RN) party originally founded by former members of the Nazi Party's Waffen-SS – was quick to outline what he described as the new front line of the struggle against anti-Semitism in the 21 century.
“This resurgence comes from two phenomena that I fight against: Islamist fundamentalism and its best ally today, the French radical Left,” he said.
Leftists in France have often been vocal about the plight of Palestinians, which the far right has levied to accuse them of anti-Semitism. Left-wing parties have also been outspoken critics of Israel's campaign in Gaza, prompting criticism from right-wing figures of what they call "Islamo-Leftist" anti-Semitism.
"On one hand, Islamism in itself encompasses the hatred of Jews. This hatred is one of its raisons d'être. On the other hand, the radical Left has replaced the tricolour national flag with the Palestinian flag,” Bardella said.
Not everyone appreciates the far right's participation. The decision to invite figures from Europe’s right-wing parties to speak about the dangers of anti-Semitism was met with shock by some of the researchers and religious figures who have spoken at the conference for years.
The UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has pulled out of the conference, as has the British government’s adviser on anti-Semitism John Mann as well as French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who had been slated to give the conference’s opening address. The commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism, Felix Klein, and head of the Germany-Israel Friendship Society Volker Beck also withdrew upon learning that invitations had been extended to Europe’s far right.
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David Hirsh, a professor of sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London and the director of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, who has also decided not to attend, said he had been stunned by the decision.
“To be honest, I expected that there would be some [far-right politicians] – but I did not expect that they would appear to be the very heart of the meeting,” he said.
“And I might have been able to participate in an event in which there was a kind of extreme minority that worried me … but having this kind of speech being given next to researchers is dangerous – people might get confused.”
A ‘political mistake’
For historian Marc Knobel, who has attended the conference on a number of occasions, the invitations were “a political mistake”.
“When we’re talking about anti-Semitism, we need to talk about it with people who work on the subject – historians, sociologists, journalists,” he said. “Of course it’s possible to invite political figures, but not far-right leaders whose history has been underpinned by anti-Semitism for years and years, even if some of them may have evolved on this question over time.”
Knobel said that these political parties, who sit together in the European Parliament under the Patriots for Europe group headed by Bardella, share many of the same values and fight the same battles, not all of them compatible with the fight against anti-Semitism.
“They have common ground on the questions of security and the fight against immigration,” he said. “And when we’re looking at anti-Semitism, we have to look closely at the social projects that they’re proposing. And we have to give space to people who share democratic values.”
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Europe’s far-right parties were born from the fascist and anti-Semitic movements that proliferated across the continent in the darkest days of the 20th century. The National Rally is the successor to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, founded in 1967 by neo-fascists and former members of the Waffen-SS – all members of the far-right New Order movement.
Over the course of Le Pen's leadership of the party, the man known as “Le Menhir” was convicted on multiple occasions for anti-Semitic comments and Holocaust denial. He publicly defended France's collaborationist Vichy regime, called the gas chambers used by the Nazis as part of their extermination of six million Jews “a detail of World War II history” and threatened Jewish artists with being sent to the ovens “next time”.
It's a legacy that the rebranded National Rally has tried hard to distance itself from.
“It’s clear that today’s RN is not yesterday’s National Front, with Jean-Marie Le Pen’s anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying rubbish hammered home every three months or so,” Knobel said.
“They’ve understood that if they want to lift their image and rid themselves of the taboo, they need to change – at least in this area.”
The ‘kosher stamp’
While the National Front’s efforts at what the French call “de-demonisation” started in the 1980s, it wasn’t until 2010 that the party’s attempt to break from its past began in earnest. It was then that Jean-Marie’s daughter Marine Le Pen became party leader and launched a campaign to distance herself from her father, even expelling him from the party in 2015.
At the same time, she began to position herself as a staunch fighter in the struggle against anti-Semitism – framed as part of broader rhetoric against non-European immigration – as she denounced neighbourhoods in which “it’s not good to be a woman, homosexual, Jewish, or even French or White”.
Since the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7, Le Pen has become one of the state’s most vocal defenders, repeatedly slamming what she described as the “new anti-Semitism”. In November 2023, she marched alongside RN lawmakers in a mass demonstration against anti-Semitism – notable for the absence of both President Emmanuel Macron and the left-wing France Unbowed, which boycotted the event due to Le Pen’s participation.
Her strategy has met with some success. In the last days before the 2024 snap legislative elections, historian and former Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld stunned the French public by calling for voters to cast their ballots for the RN. Citing Le Pen’s unflinching support for Israel, Klarsfeld said that far-right parties that left their anti-Semitic pasts behind them could no longer be considered far-right.
Read moreFrom colonial fighter to far-right leader: Jean-Marie Le Pen’s life in pictures
Now, the party’s efforts at de-demonising itself have borne fruit beyond France’s borders – including Bardella’s invitation to speak in a country where the RN and its representatives have long been persona non grata.
“It’s a big win for the National Rally,” Hirsh said. “But I don't think Israel should give them this kind of stamp of approval that they are, quote, ‘Not anti-Semitic’. It’s not up to the state of Israel to give them a sort of 'kosher stamp' to take back to France for the election,” he said, referencing France's next presidential vote in 2027.
Israel's government did not respond to FRANCE 24’s request for comment. But a number of senior Israeli figures have weighed in on the controversy.
“It is important for the fight against anti-Semitism to include all political camps – from Left to Right,” former interior minister Natan Sharansky, who will be attending the conference, wrote on Facebook.
“Those who continue to hold onto their anti-Semitic views obviously have no place in conferences against anti-Semitism. However, those who claim to have changed their views towards Jews certainly deserve to be heard.”
Building bridges
The man behind the decision to extend invitations to Europe’s far right is Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party and a self-professed Jewish supremacist.
“We’re not dealing with someone soft,” Knobel said. “He’s said very controversial things in Israel on the Palestinian Authority, and on homosexuals.”
Knobel said that Chikli seemed set on finding allies for Netanyahu’s increasingly isolated government.
“He took the decision to invite these far-right parties, certainly with the approval of Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Saar, because Israel is diplomatically isolated. In France, the left has been very critical of contemporary Israeli politics – I’m not talking about the far left, which is flirting with anti-Semitism – so they considered that they needed to open up the political spectrum. They’re trying to find allies where they can.”
In February, Netanyahu’s Likud became the first non-European party to become an official observer to Patriots for Europe – a group of right-wing and far-right parties that includes France's RN, Hungary's Fidesz, Austria’s Freedom Party, Italy’s Liga and Spain’s Vox.
And while direct communications between Israel’s European embassies and far-right parties in Germany and Austria remain off-limits, Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Saar has authorised Israel’s diplomats in Sweden, Spain and France to enter into discussions with those countries’ far-right groups.
Hirsh said that the choice to form alliances with far-right parties was not just based on pragmatism.
“Chikli likes them – he’s inviting people who are in his own political space,” he said. “And certainly, in the rhetoric of some of these right-wing populist parties, there is support for Israel – although my feeling is that they support an Israel of their own imaginations, the same way that the anti-Zionists hate an Israel of their own imagination … they agree that Israel is an implant of European values in the Middle East, and that Israel is incredibly strong and violent against Arabs and Muslims … But it’s a false picture.”
'Stabbing us in the back'
The controversy over the conference seems to be widening a gulf between the Israeli government and the global Jewish diaspora – particularly in Europe, where the history of the Holocaust carried out by far-right governments still weighs heavily on the collective consciousness.
Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, warned on Monday against what he condemned as the leveraging of the fight against anti-Semitism to propel the ascendant RN to power. Marine Le Pen responded by calling on the council to be “de-Leftified”, accusing the umbrella group of having been taken over by left-wing figures.
Gilad Kariv, the chairman of the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs, wrote in an open letter to Netanyahu, Saar and Chikli that the invitations would cause lasting harm to Israel’s relationship with the world’s Jewish communities.
“Inviting representatives of extremist parties with anti-Semitic roots undermines the foundations of the Israeli, Jewish and international fight against anti-Semitism,” he wrote. “It harms Israel's relations with Jewish communities in the diaspora and can harm Israel's strategic relations with its Western allies and with leading political parties.”
Ariel Muzicant, the president of the European Jewish Congress, also savaged the decision.
“This Chikli conference is a major problem for Jewish communities in Europe,” he wrote in a letter to the Jerusalem Post. “It is harming the Jewish existence in the Diaspora. It is as if members of the Israeli government are stabbing us in the back.”
For Knobel, the decision to host far-right figures at the conference reflected a growing disconnect between the Israeli government and European Jews who are increasingly nervous about rising domestic support for the continent’s radical Right.
“I have the impression that the Israelis are ignoring what a number of Jews in the diaspora are feeling, namely concern about the far right,” he said. “French people of the Jewish faith don't have the same opinions on what's happening in Israel, they don't vote the same way in elections here, they don't think the same way, they don't live in the same neighbourhoods.”
“I don't want to take part in leveraging either side. The fight against anti-Semitism is a serious matter. Anti-Semitism takes many forms. I don't need to hear whatever lesson Bardella wants to give us on the subject.”
This article has been translated from the original in French.