This is chilling:
The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies....
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York....
The Freedom Party, founded in the 1950s by ex-Nazis, surged this year to nearly capture the largely ceremonial presidency of Austria in May, but was defeated in a final runoff on Dec. 4.
A
little more about Strache:
Strache ... has himself been accused of anti-Semitism in the past.
In 2012, he was vilified over a cartoon posted on his Facebook page that depicted a fat banker with a hooked nose and six-pointed star buttons on his sleeve. The banker was gorging himself at the expense of a thin man representing "the people".
More:
In 2012, Austria’s then-president canceled plans to give Strache an award after the Freedom Party leader was overheard claiming that he and his allies were the “new Jews” and that the fearsome heckling they received on their way into a gala at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace was “like Kristallnacht,” the night in 1938 when Austrian and German civilians, with the aid of Nazi paramilitaries, murdered Jews, destroyed Jewish-owned stores, burned hundreds of synagogues and sent tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps to die.
“Strache mocked the victims of the Holocaust by comparing himself and his fellow extremists to Jews and invoking Kristallnacht to complain about the anti-fascist protests,” Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a Holocaust survivor, said at the time. “This trivialization is outrageous, but not surprising from Strache and his ilk.”
Yet
Strache visited Israel earlier this year -- at the invitation of a member of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party:
The leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Tuesday, laying a wreath under the engraved names of towns in Austria from where Jews were expelled by the Nazis....
"For us, it's important to act against anti-Semitism and also against Islamism and terrorism and to discuss the issues we have in common," he told Reuters by telephone. "Anti-Semitism often emerges anew from Islamism and from the left."
...Strache said he was invited by Likud, the right-wing party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"We have a lot in common," Strache said of Likud. "I always say, if one defines the Judeo-Christian West, then Israel represents a kind of border. If Israel fails, Europe fails. And if Europe fails, Israel fails."
Michael Kleiner, a Likud party member and a former lawmaker, confirmed to Israel's Army Radio that Strache had been invited by his party and said he was a friend of Israel.
This is the new world order -- anti-Muslim white-supremacist parties in Europe and now America, plus Putin and Likud. As
Newsweek noted last summer, Netanyahu and Putin
are becoming fast friends:
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were all smiles when they shook hands for the fourth time in a year Tuesday.
Netanyahu is in Moscow for the third time since fall 2015 to mark the 25th anniversary of Russia and Israel’s diplomatic relationship....
Israeli newspaper Haaretz declared that “ties between Israel and Russia have never been better” on the eve of the meeting....
“This relationship between the two countries is nothing mysterious. Russia elbowed itself into the region last year,” [Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations] says. “The Israelis are interested in minimizing the risk of clashes with their military operations in the region. Look at what happened with Turkey shooting down the Russian jet. The Israelis don’t want that to happen to their jets.”
“For Tel Aviv, relations with Moscow provide a means of influencing the behavior of Syria and Iran, Russia’s regional partners,” Daragh McDowell, principal analyst, Europe and Central Asia at Verisk Maplecroft, says.
Apart from China and the ever-weakening EU, who stands in opposition to this alliance? Justin Trudeau? Jerry Brown?
United Russia has ties to lots of parties around Europe, such as through representation in the Council of Europe. They are also not just with far right parties but also with left ones in Greece, Germany etc. There are also more mainstream links such as with the likely conservative Presidential candidate in France next year, Fillon.
ReplyDeleteAm not sure why this has been blown up today as something special.
To answer your question, the chief opponent is Merkel. That's why they will throw everything they have at trying to get rid of her.
ReplyDeleteHere is the reason for Putin backing Russian hacking and changing election for Trump. "United Russia" the USA will be the next acquisition if Trump and the RNC have anything to do with it. They have already started us down the path, look at Trump's cabinet members all Putin choices. If the RNC allows them to go thru then we can safely say that the GOP has sold it's soul to Russia for power.
ReplyDeleteThe question is how long will the US military stand by and do nothing? They are bound by the oath to protect the US Constitution against enemies both foreign and DOMESTIC. As a Veteran I and many other Veterans are watching closely to see how much influence Russia has in our current military, it will not take long to see.
I don't know that I'd posit China as being in opposition to this entente. I have the impression that Sino-Russian cooperation, civil as well as military, is at a very healthy level, and the PRC certainly hasn't treated "its" Muslims with any particular tenderness. If you subtract the "white-supremacist" descriptor, I see not reason why China (as well as, perhaps, Duterte's Phillipines) shouldn't be regarded as at least well-disposed toward the grouping.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could say we were at the low point of this political cycle. But it's just beginning.
ReplyDelete