European far-Right parties ‘seeking anti-Islam coalition with Jewish groups’

Not surprising but encouraging that most European Jewish groups have rejected the overture:

Right-wing European political parties are seeking to sow religious discord in Europe by approaching Jewish organisations in a bid to form an anti-Islamic alliance.

Speaking to Newsweek on condition of anonymity, a senior figure in one of Europe’s largest Jewish organisations has revealed that their group has been approached in the past year by MEPs, including members of the Austrian Freedom Party, seeking to create a coalition to combat the rise of Islam in Europe. They emphasized that all approaches had been flatly refused.

Last week, Marine Le Pen and other far-Right politicians met with Vadim Rabinovich, the chairman of the European Jewish Parliament (EJP), prompting criticism from European Jewish leaders.

Now the source says that far-Right’s rapprochement with Jewish groups is far from new as politicians from various parties have attempted to court their group, offering to “be friends with Jews” if Jewish groups “help us in our fight against Muslims”.

… The meeting drew criticism from prominent Jewish leaders and led to one member of the EJP, French rabbi Levi Matusof, resigning after the meeting which he called “opportunistic and inappropriate”.

The European Jewish Association, which claims to be the biggest federation of Jewish organisations in Europe, said that the EJP risked “magnifying the problem” of anti-Semitism by “giving a platform to those seeking to spread messages of hate”.

Dr Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, said he was shocked that the EJP met with “fig leaf racists and anti-Semites” and added: “It goes without saying that these people [the EJP] are as unrepresentative of the vast majority of European Jews as this collective of Le Pen’s MEPs is of the vast majority of European citizens.”

In a statement on the EJP’s website, Rabinovich said he was “very surprised” by the negative reaction from other Jewish groups.

“The meeting with the [Europe of Nations and Freedom] opens the new dialogue, which, in our firm conviction is what Europe needs today – a dialogue of everybody with everyone, in order to preserve peace and tolerance and combat anti-Semitism in Europe,” said Rabinovich.

He added that a joint statement with Le Pen had condemned anti-Semitism as “the cancer of Europe”.

European far-Right parties ‘seeking anti-Islam coalition with Jewish groups’.