Editors’ Note: Here is a twist on the recent European elections we have not seen elsewhere. Besides the revolt against elites, there was a general turn away from the “International Left” and its active antisemitism. In addition, the positioning of political parties in Europe demonstrates how Jew hatred is now a phenomenon almost exclusively of the Left, both in the US and Europe. We hope recognition of this fact will sway some of our Jewish friends to reconsider their slavish allegiance to the Democrat Party and have them re-think their long historical infatuation with socialism. The latent threat some Jews have felt that Christians might convert their children has to be weighed against the real likelihood of having your children converted in college to secular leftism. Some of these Jewish kids are now out demonstrating on behalf of Hamas. The political shift in Europe is a welcome development in an otherwise grim outlook for both Jews and Israel.
On the other side of the aisle, Israel’s supporters make gains
Three of the most antisemitic parties in Europe, according to a ranking prepared last year by the European Coalition for Israel, are, much to my regret, Spanish: Sumar, Izquierda Unida, and Podemos. All three are extreme leftists, more specifically, communists. Since 2018, all three have had cabinet ministers in the government of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. And all three were dealt a strong blow at the polls in the European Parliament elections that took place on June 9. I will shed no tears for them. I have seen them call for pro-Palestinian and antisemitic demonstrations in Spain three or four days after the Oct. 7 attack, indifferent to the terrible images of the atrocities, the rapes, and the kidnappings.
The three parties had dedicated a good part of their European election campaign to showing support for Hamas and attacking Israel, even though neither issue topped the agenda of the debate on the future of the EU. In fact, with the exception of the nationalist Vox party, whose leader, Santiago Abascal, met with Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of May to express his explicit support, none of the main Spanish parties made Israel a feature of their electoral campaigns.
So severe was the blow to the leftist parties, that the leader of Sumar and second deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz, stepped down from her position as general coordinator of her party, though not from her government post. (It’s probably no coincidence that she quit only the unpaid position.)
But the poor results of the Spanish communists are not an exception in Europe. Almost all of the most antisemitic parties in the EU, who dwell at the bottom of the European Coalition for Israel’s rankings, have received a slap in the face at the polls.
Let’s take a look: The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) have lost half of their representatives in the European Parliament. The day after the Oct. 7 attacks, the PCP published a scandalous communiqué: “The events that are unfolding in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the result of decades of occupation and systematic disregard by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign and independent state, of permanent violation of all UN resolutions and international agreements on the Palestinian issue.” For its part, Bloco de Esquerda maintained during its electoral campaign that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Other losers include Slovenia’s Europeo Socialni demokrati (Social Democrats), whose leader pushed for recognition of the Palestinian state by the Slovenian government; Belgium’s Ecolo, which claimed Israel’s response to the attack was “disproportionate”; and Open VLD, the party of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who became embroiled in several anti-Israel controversies after saying that Israel “must prove it is not using famine as a weapon of war.” De Croo finally resigned on June 10 following his party’s poor results in the European elections.
In France, Europe Écologie (the Greens), which accused Israel of “flagrantly violating international law and human rights,” became irrelevant, losing five MEPs out of the 10 it had. In Spain, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), the party of Prime Minister Sanchez, which has approved the recognition of the Palestinian state (against the majority opinion of Spaniards) and which includes in its government several ministers defending Hamas, has lost seats as have all its communist partners.
In Croatia, Vihreä Iiitto (Green League), which accused Israel of exercising “collective revenge against an entire civilian population,” has also lost votes and seats, as have Bulgaria’s Bulgarian Socialist Party, the progressive Piráti in the Czech Republic, the green party (Grüne) in Austria, and the Labour Party (Partit Laburista) in Malta, among others.
It is worth noting that some of the parties that are ranked as antisemitic, such as the German Die Linke, and traditionally opposed to Israel, have shifted their position away from the Palestinian cause following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
On the other the side of the aisle, among Israel’s major supporters, Viktor Orban’s party Fidesz won the European elections in Hungary, and Spain’s Vox doubled its presence in parliament with six seats, Sweden’s right-wing Sweden Democrats kept their three seats in the European Parliament, and the Netherlands’ conservative Reformed Political Party (SGP) held on to its seat as well.
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