Norbert Hofer, a member of the Freedom Party of Austria and presidential candidate in his country, won the first round of voting in a landslide last week. In Germany, too, the far-right Alternative for Germany Party notched an impressive victory in three districts in March. And in France we cannot ignore the steady rise to prominence of Marine Le Pen and her National Front Party. The extremist Right is growing in strength across the continent because of the immigrant and refugee crisis washing over Europe. This is frightening to us; and this being the week that we mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, we know exactly why. Almost simultaneously, however, we have seen the rise of the radical Left, a movement no less anti-Semitic than the far-Right which ran amok in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s; a radical Left for which the very existence of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel is antithetical to its worldview. Indeed, the movement rejects the idea of nation states, and Israel is a quintessential nation state. Flying under the radar, the radical Left has managed to seize control of the street, the media, the public discourse, and in Great Britain even an important political party such as Labour. We can already see the disconcerting results. Now, with the radical Left elected to lead the party, we should not be surprised at the anti-Semitism voiced by its members. The radical Left is fighting Israel, but paradoxically it benefits from the existence of a Jewish state. This way it can claim that it is "only" anti-Zionist, and not heaven forbid anti-Semitic. In other words, Israel allows the anti-Semites to hide behind anti-Zionism and win the hearts and minds of the youths fighting globalization, those who see Israel as nothing more than an imperialistic-colonialist enterprise. The Left in Britain was never like this -- until the radical Left became the mainstream. Unified in their hatred The British Labour Party, similar to the left-wing parties in France, has an interest in projecting an anti-Israel position because it helps it electorally. The Muslim population is only growing, and it's clear who they support when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, in order to placate the Muslim voter, these parties look for any opportunity to attack Israel. In radical Left conferences one can hear vehement opposition to the idea of the existence of a Jewish state. This demonization grants legitimacy to harming Jews, who inherently support the Jewish state. The result is that students in France refuse to learn about the Holocaust as long as their teachers don't also discuss the Nakba (the Arabic term for the displacement of Palestinian refugees during Israel's War of Independence). It is important to note the extremely dangerous coalition that currently exists in Europe between the radical Left and pro-Islamists. Perhaps this alliance works at the voting stations, but in reality it doesn't exactly mesh. The radical Left scoffs at religion, while the pro-Islamists are unwilling to tolerate an insult to the prophet. The January 2015 terrorist attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo illustrated the innately destructive potential of this contradiction. What is certain, however, is that both sides, in the name of struggling for a better and more just world, can always rally around harming Israel and Jews. They don't recognize the state, but what about the people? From their perspective the world can get along just fine without them, too. A candid connection Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone refuses to apologize for saying that Hitler supported Zionism "before going mad and murdering 6 million Jews." And why should he apologize? From his view, this outlandish statement is the truth. Livingstone did not innocently draw this connection. It fits perfectly with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3379 from November 1975 equating Zionism with racism. From the perspective of the radical Left, this resolution also applies today: Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. The U.N. rescinded the resolution in 1991. The radical Left embraced the 1975 resolution, not the one from 1991. It's a matter of worldview, apparently. In his book "Mein Kampf," Hitler still had not discussed the annihilation of the Jews. That came later, in the summer of 1941. Some say that when the Nazis mulled expelling the Jews, they weren't exactly thinking of Theodor Herzl or a return to Zion. Livingstone's "Zionist" Nazis, however, also considered exiling the Jews to the Ural Mountains or Madagascar. The facts were never very important to the radical Left. Unwanted This week we will mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. We will remember how the far-Right in Europe didn't want us living there; even as the radical Left in Great Britain tells us it doesn't want us living in our own country either. When we celebrate Independence Day soon, we will be happy to remind them, for the 68th time, that we have a historical mandate -- not a British one -- to stay here. Forever.
