The Power of France's Pro-Israel Lobby

"Almost a decade ago, the results of the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump's first presidential victory made disoriented liberals redraw the ideological battlelines in terms so crude that no one could be left in doubt: On one side were the "bad" populists and authoritarians, a group that lumped together Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orbán, Jair Bolsonaro, and their ilk."

"And arrayed against them were the "good" liberals and progressives, represented by figures such as Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, and Emmanuel Macron. But this remapping of the political fault lines and alliances in the Western world left an awkward anomaly: Israel. Whether democratic or autocratic, European and especially US governments refrained from sanctioning or even sharply criticizing the illegal actions of Israel and its leaders."

"Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu-a friend of Trump, idolized by Bolsonaro, and feted by Orbán-had made no secret of his hostility to the rule of law. He had been indicted in 2019 for fraud, corruption, and breach of trust, charges that would have discredited any other "populist" leader-especially one on the left. While liberal governments in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere spared Netanyahu their criticism, he was busy courting the European far right and entrenching ethnonationalism at home."

After the 2016 Brexit vote and Trump's victory, global political fault lines were recast as a struggle between 'bad' populists/authoritarians and 'good' liberals/progressives. That binary left Israel as an anomaly, with Western democratic governments refraining from sanctioning or sharply criticizing Israel's illegal actions and its leaders. Benjamin Netanyahu cultivated ties with the European far right, openly opposed the rule of law, and was indicted in 2019 for fraud, corruption, and breach of trust. Despite these charges and ethnonationalist policies, most liberal democracies and their media largely ignored his alignment with reactionary forces. Now Israel's flagrant disregard for international law and its military actions make complacency untenable.

Read at The Nation