Will Le Pen’s National Front join the rest of the European fascist parties in supporting Israel?
Le Pen’s daughter is poised to take over his notoriously antisemitic neo-fascist party and she’s working on revamping her image by hiding her hatred towards Jews and focusing on Muslims. The question is will she join Vlaams Belang and the English Defense league in pretending to support Israel?
She is determined to make France’s National Front a respectable party, and is likely to take over its leadership from Jean-Marie Le Pen in next week’s vote. But do Marine Le Pen’s moderate image make her a more insidious threat than her father?
…..she is torn between her wish to create a new, decent image and her inability to disassociate herself from her party’s anti-Semitic old guard.
Several attempts by Marine to come to Israel, including as part of a delegation from the European Parliament, were torpedoed by the Israeli government. The same is true of attempts “to turn a new leaf” with the Jewish community in France. “My conclusion was that Israel is suffering from a surplus of friends,” she laughs bitterly.
Richard Prasquier, president of CRIF, the umbrella organization of the French Jewish community, believes that, if only because of the success of her “de-demonization” effort, she is more dangerous than her father. The Israeli Embassy in Paris shares his opinion that as long as she doesn’t reject and condemn the statements of Jean-Marie Le Pen, there should be no contact with her.
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Prasquier’s fears are even more profound: “The circle of her voters is liable to be joined by Jews who are disappointed by Sarkozy, who bear a grudge against him for intervening in the peace process and for the pressures he is applying to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” he says.
Actually, Le Pen has already managed to forge ties with the Kahanists in France, members of the Jewish Defense League, who consider the leaders of the community “traitors who deserve to die.”
Read the whole thing. There’s a lot of nuance.
The Kahanists from the Jewish Defense League have already aligned with the English Defense League so it’s not surprising to see them making friends with Le Pen’s National Front as well.
