Likud Gains Patriots for Europe Observer Status: Israeli Party Joins Far-Right at the European Parliament

Likud’s observ­er sta­tus with Patri­ots for Europe has sparked con­tro­ver­sy as Israel’s rul­ing par­ty offi­cial­ly joined the far-right Euro­pean Par­lia­ment group, rais­ing ques­tions about legit­imiz­ing par­ties with Nazi-era con­nec­tions. On 11 Feb­ru­ary 2025, The Jerusalem Post report­ed that the Patri­ots for Europe group unan­i­mous­ly approved Likud’s observ­er mem­ber­ship dur­ing a Madrid meet­ing despite con­cerns about pro­vid­ing inter­na­tion­al legit­i­ma­cy to Aus­tri­a’s prob­lem­at­ic Free­dom Par­ty (FPÖ). The arti­cle begins:

It is rare to get a state­ment from Her­bert Kickl, leader of the Aus­tri­an far-right Free­dom Par­ty (FPÖ) and Aus­tri­a’s first poten­tial far-right chan­cel­lor, on issues relat­ing to for­eign pol­i­cy, main­ly on Mid­dle East affairs. Kickl, whose par­ty won a gen­er­al elec­tion last Sep­tem­ber for the first time and is now engaged in weary nego­ti­a­tions with Aus­tri­a’s con­ser­v­a­tive Peo­ple’s Par­ty (ÖVP) on form­ing a new gov­ern­ment, is more inter­est­ed in what is hap­pen­ing inside Aus­tria than out­side its bor­ders. Kickl would like to see Aus­tria again adopt a neu­tral for­eign pol­i­cy, main­ly regard­ing the major cur­rent glob­al con­flicts – Ukraine and the Mid­dle East. Fol­low­ing this line, he decid­ed not to join oth­er Euro­pean New Right lead­ers in trav­el­ing to Wash­ing­ton to par­tic­i­pate in US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s inau­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny. There­fore, it was high­ly unusu­al that Kickl decid­ed to express him­self at length in a Face­book post on the deci­sion of the Patri­ots for Europe (PfE) group to accept the Israeli Likud Par­ty as an observ­er with­in the new right-wing polit­i­cal group at the Euro­pean Parliament.

           Read more: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-841636

Key Points

• The Patri­ots for Europe group unan­i­mous­ly approved Likud’s observ­er sta­tus dur­ing a Madrid meet­ing with imme­di­ate effect
• Aus­tri­a’s FPÖ refus­es to rec­og­nize Israel as a Jew­ish and demo­c­ra­t­ic state in coali­tion nego­ti­a­tions despite wel­com­ing Likud partnership.
• For­mer Nazis found­ed the FPÖ and con­tin­ues to face accu­sa­tions of har­bor­ing “cel­lar Nazis” with­in its ranks.
• Patri­ots for Europe is now the third largest polit­i­cal group in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, which is gen­er­al­ly hos­tile toward Israel.

Israel & the Global National Conservative Alliance

Israel’s emer­gence as a cen­tral fig­ure in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA) reflects a broad­er realign­ment, where civ­i­liza­tion­al nation­al­ism and shared val­ues of sov­er­eign­ty increas­ing­ly bind togeth­er gov­ern­ments and move­ments across con­ti­nents. The Netanyahu-led gov­ern­ment has found ide­o­log­i­cal con­ver­gence with oth­er nation­al­ist lead­ers, notably India’s BJP under Modi, as both nations cham­pi­on a “civ­i­liza­tion-state” frame­work that pri­or­i­tizes eth­no-reli­gious con­ti­nu­ity over lib­er­al uni­ver­sal­ism, forg­ing cross-bor­der alliances through think tanks, dias­po­ra net­works, and syn­chro­nized media strate­gies. This transna­tion­al net­work lever­ages high-pro­file events such as the Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ences to fos­ter oper­a­tional and intel­lec­tu­al link­ages, often bypass­ing tra­di­tion­al diplo­ma­cy in favor of direct ide­o­log­i­cal and mes­sag­ing part­ner­ships. The influ­ence of this alliance is ampli­fied by shared skep­ti­cism toward glob­al gov­er­nance, pro­tec­tion­ist poli­cies, and a focus on cul­tur­al preser­va­tion, with fig­ures like Vik­tor Orbán and Trump-era con­ser­v­a­tives rein­forc­ing its reach and impact.

Exter­nal References:

1. The Israeli behind a glob­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment — Globes

2. Israel lob­by fund­ed a third of Con­ser­v­a­tive MPs

3. Light Among The Nations

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.