JERUSALEM (AP) — European far-right leaders were in Jerusalem on Thursday for a conference organized by the Israeli government aimed at combating antisemitism, which was shunned by mainstream Jewish leaders because of the divisive guest list.
The event illustrates a growing alliance between Israel — a country founded on the ashes of the Holocaust — and a European far-right that some critics say has not shed its links to antisemitism and Naziism during World War II.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads an ultranationalist government, has cultivated close ties in recent years with far-right populist leaders in countries like Hungary, Brazil and Argentina. Many of these leaders, including Netanyahu, have been greatly influenced by the policies and demeanor of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In a speech to the conference, Netanyahu commended Trump for his "decisive actions against antisemitism" and blamed U.S. campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza on “a systemic alliance between ultra-progressive left and radical Islam.”
“Antisemitism is a disease carried by barbarians” in “all civilized societies,” said Netanyahu.
Thursday's conference illuminated the increasingly strained relationship between Israel and its traditional allies in the West, which have grown uneasy with Israeli politics and the direction of the country's devastating war in Gaza. Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas and resumed the war earlier this month, and Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Jewish communities around the world have reported increases in antisemitic violence since the start of the war.
Also attending the event was Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik, even after a Bosnian court requested an international arrest warrant for him for his separatist policies.
During the conference, Dodik spoke out defiantly against the warrant.
“The Muslims from Sarajevo they want to punish me because I came here to Israel supporting Israel," Dodik told The Associated Press through a translator. "They are misusing the judiciary and the prosecutor office because they are in charge for that.”
Most speakers at the conference railed against antisemitism on the political left and in Muslim societies, with only brief mention of antisemitism on the right. Panels of speakers were set to focus on “How Progressivism Fell Captive to Antisemitism” and “How Radical Islam Fuels Antisemitism in the West.”
Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right French National Rally party, gave a keynote address in which he blamed rising antisemitism in Europe on migration and Islamism.
“Islamism is the totalitarianism of the 21st century. It threatens to destroy everything that is not like it,” he said.
David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel during Trump’s first term, also attended. Asked by the moderator about Trump’s plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza, Friedman said: “I love it! I love it. And I think it’s doable.”
Other far-right Europeans are attending from the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Hungary.
The European far-right’s anti-immigrant platform has focused heavily on immigration from Muslim countries, finding common ground in what Israel describes as a shared battle against Islamic extremism. Critics say this alliance often veers into Islamophobia.
Many mainstream Jewish leaders dropped out of the event after initially agreeing to attend, including Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, a leading U.S. nonprofit that battles antisemitism.
French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, German antisemitism czar Felix Klein and German politician Volker Beck also canceled their participation, while Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, also pulled out of the conference in favor of hosting a separate meeting of Jewish leaders who had originally come to the country for the conference, his office said.
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AP correspondent Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed reporting.
Julia Frankel And Leo Correa, The Associated Press
