Choosing Who to Hate? Foreign Policy of the Far Right Towards Middle East

• In Event: Nationalism, Authoritarianism, and Parties

Abstract

European far-right parties are usually considered Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, or sometimes all three together. I argue that these common perceptions may be sometimes misleading. This can be demonstrated in particular when analyzing these parties’ foreign policy stances on Middle East and North Africa (MENA). I suggest that when dealing with the issues concerned with MENA these parties are presented with a dilemma, as they need to choose who to “hate”, considering their usual targets in domestic political arenas. As already suggested in the literature, the far-right is not a monolithic party family and we need to distinguish between at least two categories that constitute this party family-populist radical right (PRR) and extreme right (ER). I argue that PRR parties will be, in general, more likely Islamophobic but not anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist in their foreign policy stances on MENA, while ER parties will be, in general, more likely anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist but not Islamophobic in their foreign policy stances on MENA. Moreover, I suggest that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, while important, are not the only determinants of these stances, and in different contexts, strategic and other ideological concerns will likely affect parties’ positions.

Author

• Jakub Wondreys, Newton University, Prague