{"id":620113,"date":"2026-09-18T15:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/620113\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T15:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:26:09","slug":"israel-moves-closer-to-austrias-freedom-party-founded-by-former-ss-members-and-nazi-party-affiliates-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/620113\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel moves closer to Austria\u2019s Freedom Party, founded by former SS members and Nazi Party affiliates | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent Israeli offensive in Gaza<\/a>, Israel has stepped up contacts with various far-right parties in Europe and Latin America, including Spain\u2019s Vox. However, last Thursday, the Israeli government took that policy a step further when its foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said the country seeks \u201ca substantive, open and sincere dialogue\u201d to establish ties with Austria\u2019s far-right Freedom Party (FP\u00d6), the Israeli daily Haaretz<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The FP\u00d6, created in 1956, not only counted former SS members<\/a> among its founders, but \u2014 according to leaders of Austria\u2019s Jewish community \u2014 still includes numerous supporters of the ideology behind the extermination of six million Jews between 1933 and 1945.<\/p>\n

Saar spoke after a meeting at the European Parliament headquarters in the French city of Strasbourg, organized by the Austrian far-right party and hosted by the extremist parliamentary group Patriots for Europe, which brings together parties such as Vox, Matteo Salvini\u2019s Lega, the formation of former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n, and France\u2019s National Rally (RN), led by Marine Le Pen<\/a>, among other populist far-right parties. In February 2025, Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>, joined the group as an observer member at Vox\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

In his speech, FP\u00d6 leader and former Austrian interior minister Herbert Kickl condemned the Hamas attacks of October 7 as \u201ca crime against humanity.\u201d He also adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, Saar noted. That definition is disputed because it equates most criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism.<\/p>\n

The FP\u00d6 leader later acknowledged \u201cthe historical connection of the Jewish people with Judea and Samaria\u201d \u2014 the biblical name for the Palestinian territory of the West Bank<\/a>, occupied by Israel since 1967 \u2014 and expressed \u201chis declared intention to move Austria\u2019s embassy to Jerusalem\u201d if the FP\u00d6 enters government, as well as \u201chis commitment to deepen practical cooperation and build a new partnership with Israel,\u201d a move praised by Saar, as cited by Haaretz. Such a move would amount to recognizing Israel\u2019s occupation of East Jerusalem, which it has also held illegally since 1967. That is why most Western countries, with the exception of the United States, keep their diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

Until now, Israel had maintained a formal boycott of the Freedom Party because of its Nazi past and the history of its leaders who have expressed antisemitic views. Those relations have softened in recent years alongside Israel\u2019s rapprochement with other European far-right parties. Saar\u2019s remarks now point to a likely normalization with the FP\u00d6, despite Austria\u2019s Jewish community\u2019s outright rejection of the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than a turning point, this [Kickl\u2019s speech] was crossing the Rubicon,\u201d Amichai Chikli, Israel\u2019s minister responsible for Diaspora Affairs and combating antisemitism, later wrote in a tweet. Chikli said the rapprochement follows \u201ca long process of building trust, deepening cooperation, and creating a genuine political bridge between Israel and Austria\u2019s Freedom Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chikli, who is seen as the main architect of Israel\u2019s tightening ties with the global far right, called the Patriots for Europe meeting in Strasbourg\u2019s Eurochamber \u201ca historic turning point in the relationship between Austria\u2019s Freedom Party, the State of Israel, and the Jewish people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rejection<\/p>\n

When the FP\u00d6 failed in its bid to form a governing coalition in Austria in February 2025, after winning the September 29, 2024 election with 28.8% of the vote<\/a>, Oskar Deutsch, president of Vienna\u2019s Jewish community, said he felt \u201cgreat relief.\u201d Earlier, while the extremist party negotiated that possible coalition with other right and center-right formations, Deutsch had said he feared his community might \u201chave to start packing their bags.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Deutsch avoided explicitly calling the party \u201cNazi\u201d at the time, he stressed that there were many supporters of Third Reich ideology among its ranks and even among its leaders. When Harald Vilimsky, the FP\u00d6 leader in the European Parliament, was received at Netanyahu\u2019s office in Jerusalem earlier this year, Deutsch told Haaretz the meeting had been \u201cextremely worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, Netanyahu himself had said Israel would avoid contacts with far-right ministers in Austria. Much earlier, in 2000, when the FP\u00d6 first entered the Austrian federal government, Israel withdrew its ambassador.<\/p>\n

That policy has changed over time, especially since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, when Israel\u2019s government \u2014 the most far-right in the country\u2019s brief history since its creation in 1948 \u2014 promoted rapprochement with foreign far-right parties that share its rejection of Islam, migration, and the left. That cooperation offers parties such as the FP\u00d6 the opportunity to whitewash their Nazi past, analysts say.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent Israeli offensive in Gaza, Israel has stepped up contacts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8247,49,85,46,151583,280397,43,89889,252515,280396],"class_list":["post-620113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-austria","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-matteo-salvini","tag-news","tag-viktor-orban","tag-vox","tag-waffen-ss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}