BERLIN (JTA) — Geert Wilders, the rock star of European politics, is riding the crest of a populist tsunami.
As the pro-Israel founder of Holland’s Party of Freedom lets loose recently in Berlin, shouting that Islam is a threat to Germany’s identity, democracy and prosperity, his audience of 500 reacts with an evangelical zeal, offering big-time applause and standing ovations.
“Stand by the side of those who are threatened by Islam, like the State of Israel and its Jewish citizens,” he exhorts the crowd.
This isn’t a Jewish event, though a guest speaker is former Israeli Knesset member Eli Cohen of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party.
Ethnic Germans comprise much of the crowd Oct. 2 at the Hotel Berlin. Their chief bugaboo? The failure of Muslims to fit in to mainstream society.
Someone, in this case Wilders, has allowed them to vent their frustration (critics would say racist views). And for the crowd, having an Israeli join them seems to make things more kosher, as the anti-immigrant rhetoric has been associated typically with far-right extremists.
Wilders’ dismissal of “so-called ‘Islamophobia,’” as he calls it, also supports those who say the real problem is Muslim anti-Semitism.
So why are so many Jewish leaders in Europe not wild about Wilders and his ilk?
Populists “want a Sweden for the Swedes, France for the French and Jews to Israel,” says Serge Cwajgenbaum, secretary general of the European Jewish Congress.
In Germany, emotions also run high over another purveyor of populism, author Thilo Sarrazin, who was fired from the board of the German Central Bank because of his comments about Muslim inferiority and Jewish superiority.
Jewish leaders condemned Sarrazin’s remarks, but some Germans on the street, including some Jews, seem more forgiving. Meanwhile his book, “Germany Undoes Itself,” is a major best-seller.
As for the supposedly higher Jewish IQ, “I found that very good,” Potzies adds, laughing.
But Sarrazin is not really interested in integration, counters Jan Aaron Voss, 46, who runs a Jewish Internet portal.
Indeed, reports have shown there are serious challenges: language acquisition, unemployment, forced marriage, rare but horrific honor killings and anti-Semitism, especially among young men.
But reports also show that most “foreigners” contribute to society, and only a tiny minority of Muslims in Europe is thought to identify with banned extremist movements, like the German al-Qaida cell that spawned the 9-11 terrorists. Yet some “native Europeans” persist in labeling, observers say.
They shouldn’t get too comfortable, Yisrael Beiteinu’s Cohen suggests at the Wilders event, which launched a new Freedom Party in Berlin.
Increasing numbers of Europeans are embracing the message. And some Jewish leaders are worried.
But what’s wrong with a pro-Israel party that highlights Muslim anti-Semitism, asks Kent Ekeroth, 29, a new legislator with the right-populist Swedish Democrats.
Europe’s Jews aren’t all about to move to Israel, but should they be a little more forgiving?
Pipes hopes populist parties will drop their “neo-fascist conspiratorial ideas, strange economic ideas, anti-Semitic and racist ideas” and develop broader platforms.