Where does Europe's far right stand on the Israel-Hamas war?
The days following Hamas' terror attacks in Israel seemed like a rare moment of unity in the European Parliament. Lawmakers from across the political spectrum gathered to condemn the violence and share in moments of silence.
But in the weeks since, that silence has been replaced by the usual clamor of debate and division as Europe's streets fill with protesters and the continent's Jewish and Muslim communities feel increasingly targeted.
As domestic debate grows more heated, Europe's far-right parties are trying to cash in and gain political clout.
"The far right tends to thrive in crisis," explains Marta Lorimer, a fellow in European politics at the London School of Economics and an expert on the far right. "They can always find a way to bring it back to their fundamentals."
But Sarah De Lange, an Amsterdam-based researcher on populism and professor of political science, told DW the far right is also divided.
"There's one group of far-right parties that sees Israel really as an outpost of Western democracy in the Middle East and that, therefore, staunchly supports Israel's right to defend itself and the invasion in Gaza," she said. "But we also see that some populist radical right parties have actually over the course of the past years veered towards more antisemitism."
DW looked into how some of the parties on the fringes of European politics define their stance on the conflict in Gaza.
Germany: Far right tries to cut funding for Palestinians
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, one branch of which has been designated as "extremist" by German authorities, has been calling for a cut in aid and funding support for Palestinians since the October 7 Hamas attacks. The party submitted parliamentary proposals to halt financial donations to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which were rejected.
Germany's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) party accused the AfD of using Hamas' terror to incite Islamophobia, according to a Bundestag press release from October 18 detailing the failed proposals.
After a now-retracted announcement to suspend funding for Palestinians early in October, the European Union has increased aid funding for Gaza, with the bloc's humanitarian aid chief calling the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory "catastrophic."
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