Ep.135: Philosemitism and Herbert Kickl
Show notes
Far‑right leaders across Europe increasingly present themselves as defenders of Israel and the Jewish people despite long histories of antisemitism — and they often do so while vehemently criticizing Muslim communities.
A recent example is Herbert Kickl, the head of the Austrian Freedom Party — founded in the 1950s by a former Nazi SS officer.
Speaking last month at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Kickl acknowledged the Holocaust and embraced Israel’s preferred definition of antisemitism. But he also devoted much of his 30‑minute speech to inveighing against followers of Islam seeking to influence Europe’s political systems.
Kickl clarified that he was making no blanket judgment about Muslims. But it was hard to ignore the dissonance of nearly apologizing for the Holocaust while simultaneously casting another religious minority as a source of Europe’s problems.
Kickl’s approach can only sharpen concerns among critics that he praises Jews chiefly as symbolic allies against other outgroups, particularly Muslims, and that he admires Israel mainly because he views it as an ethnically defined state. In reality, Arab citizens of Israel make up roughly a fifth of the population — and could even help decide the outcome of upcoming elections.
In this conversation, Farid Hafez offers a sharp analysis of Herbert Kickl’s strategic positioning, what it signals for the broader European far right, and whether dangerously bigoted political actors truly change their spots.
Farid’s latest book, Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present, is published by Oxford University Press. He is a senior research fellow at the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University in Washington and an assistant professor at the University of Limerick.
Farid has written extensively about the shift by formerly openly antisemitic parties like Kickl’s FPÖ to Islamophobia as a strategy for gaining mainstream acceptance. It's a shift accompanied by forms of philosemitism — a professed admiration for Jews that can become problematic when exaggerated, not least because antisemitism itself often relies on stereotypes that can be repurposed and weaponized.