Glenn Greenwald: The scapegoating mentality against minority groups on which this movement centrally depends and is unleashing could easily be re-directed toward Jews even if the original targets are Muslims and others. And there is ample debate and division, both among Jewish groups and some factions in Israel, over whether these parties ought to be embraced by virtue of their pro-Israel posture.
Moreover, it is certainly possible for a group or individual to be simultaneously pro-Israel and anti-Semitic. The cynical, grotesque alliance between pro-Israel Americans such as Joe Lieberman, and Jews-are-going-to-hell-once-the-Rapture-comes evangelicals such as the vehemently pro-Israel John Hagee, highlight that paradox. In the wake of the Bannon controversy, The Forward’s Naomi Zeveloff examined this increasingly common dynamic, arguing that “Breitbart News isn’t the only place where anti-Semitism and Zionism go hand in hand. Anti-Semitic attitudes abound in Poland, for example, even as Poland has a strong diplomatic relationship with Israel.” Some Israel defenders are willing to make common cause with potential or even clear-cut anti-semites if they are also – for geopolitical, religious or political reasons – pro-Israel.
But what is clear is that these far-right parties are embracing Israel, and are often being embraced back. And that’s not hard to understand. Any party driven by antipathy toward Muslims will obviously find common cause with an Israeli government that has spent decades occupying, bombing and denying basic political rights to Muslims. At least as important, the Israeli government itself is part of this far-right resurgence; several of Netanyahu’s ministers, including the next-generation ones who explicitly renounce a two-state solution, are so extremist that they actually make him look moderate. More here.