On November 23, Ireland’s capital city Dublin saw the worst display of public disorder in decades, hours after far-Right activists online assumed that an attacker with a knife who stabbed five people – including a five-year-old girl – originated from Algeria. Large crowds of anti-immigrant protesters proceeded to loot shops, set vehicles on fire, and clash with police in the city center.
We can see these developments did not happen in a vacuum, but as a way for far-Right activists to manipulate tragic events to create civil disorder and spread their propaganda. On October 7, as Israeli Jews celebrated Simchat Torah (one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar) the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas launched a bloody attack from the Gaza Strip against Israel by land, sea, and air, massacring 1,200 civilians amidst shocking acts of rape and brutality, and kidnapping 240 civilians back to Gaza. US President Joe Biden condemned this attack as “the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”
President Isaac Herzog revealed to the BBC that a copy of Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf (with remarks in Arabic) was found on the body of a Hamas operative at a base that they were using in northern Gaza. While this finding was not the only connection between far-Right ideology and the Hamas rampage, we can see how the far-Right has managed to manipulate and exploit a regional conflict to destroy the current social order and create one based on their vision that is anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, and serves as the basis of a new global order.
The common ground between far Right ideology and Hamas, Islamist radicalism
As with World War II, the far-Right and radical Islamists have found common cause. In Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, history professor Jeffrey Herf highlights how Nazi officials took great pains to reassure Arab diplomats that Nazi ideology and policy were directed against Jews and not toward non-Jewish Semites.
Considered by many to be the father of Palestinian nationalism, Haj Amin al-Husseini fled to Germany in 1941 in an attempt to persuade Adolf Hitler and his Nazi leadership to extend their anti-Jewish program to the Arab world. Al-Husseini was tasked by Hitler to recruit 20,000 Bosnian Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. Hitler declared that Al-Husseini – and Bosnian Muslims by extension – were to be considered “pure Aryans.”
Hamas released its original covenant on August 18, 1988, spelling out its genocidal intentions. Here we can see the foundational connection between Hamas and far-Right ideology. Counter-terrorism specialist Bruce R. Hoffman highlights how Article 22 of the covenant channels the argument of an international Jewish conspiracy theory made by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a fabricated text purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination that is now marking 120 years of publication) which was also adopted by Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the Ku Klux Klan, and other far-Right extremists. Hamas regards itself as the “vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism” among other things.
As with Hitler and other far-Right narratives, Hamas has accused the Jewish people of controlling world finances, standing behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution, and World War I. According to Article 32 of Hamas’s covenant (while deriving inspiration from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion): “Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion.”
Following October 7, we have observed the glorification of Hamas terrorist actions on far-Right online alternative platforms such as Gab and 4chan. A Gab far-Right user celebrated the increasing death count and marked the milestone of 1488 (which is a combination of the “fourteen words” white supremacist slogan coined by David Lane and “eighty-eight” that symbolizes “Heil Hitler”). While on 4chan, a far-Right user celebrated the image of a Hamas parachuter as “the new swastika” and that the Hamas rampage presented an opportunity to target Jews worldwide.
If Hamas terrorists are being glorified by far-Right extremists, it would make sense if the far-Right rallied with them in pro-Palestinian rallies all around the world. But that is not the case, since the goal of the far-Right is civil disorder. It is in the far-Right’s interest to change society through violent means and reshape the current social order, resulting in the global success of white supremacy, no immigration, and closed borders. Another more-recent example can be found in London, when the far-Right English Defense League clashed with anti-Israel protesters as Great Britain commemorated Armistice Day.
Whether it is through white supremacists taking advantage of supporters of former President Trump who are angered by the 2020 election in an effort to radicalize them, or using anti-vaccination sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic to create societal distrust, worldwide policymakers must be aware that the war between Israel and Hamas has the potential to expand into a global war and even change the political landscape in both the US and Europe. It is incumbent not to normalize such voices.
Bradley Martin is the executive director of the Near East Center for Strategic Studies. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @ByBradleyMartin. Dr. Liram Koblentz-Stenzler is a senior researcher and head of the Global Far-Right Extremism Desk at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University and a visiting lecturer at Yale University.