Photo: Filip Dewinter (Belgium’s Vlaams Belang) and Heinz-Christian Strache (Austria’s FPO) studying regional maps in Israel

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An indicator of life, a flicker of the survival instinct in this moribund time? Leading politicians of the European Counter-Jihad have found their way to the wellspring of civilization, the frontline of the Counter-Jihad: Israel.

While Geert Wilders of the Netherlands was speaking, magnificently as usual, in Tel Aviv (via Gates of Vienna), a tour-busload of 35 potential political and cultural allies from Belgium (Filip Dewinter “the so-called occupied territories”***), from Germany (Rene Stadtkewitz “This country is the country of the Jewish people”), and from Austria (Heinz-Christian Strache “vis a vis terrorism, there must never be any sort of neutrality”) was making its way through Judea and Samaria. Story and video here (don’t miss our friend Elisabeth Sabadistch-Wolff translating for Austria’s Strache), live-blogging at Tundra Tabloids, even twitter from Brian of London.

Dewinter will “be received” (sera recu) in the Knesset on Tuesday.

*** When I interviewed Filip Dewinter in Antwerp a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to discuss with him at length his stand against islamization, which he sees as a shared struggle with Israel. Here is a part of what Dewinter told me then: “It’s a global struggle for our values, for our European way of life life, for our civilization. That’s why I think it is also a European struggle; that is, it’s not only about a mosque two blocks away–no! It’s about our survival as a European nation and as a civilization. And I recognize those values, that civilization, also over there in Israel. It’s the only country in occupied territory, the vanguard of Europe in occupied territory, that is sharing those same values. And that’s why it’s so important to support Israel.”



I asked him to expland on the term “occupied territory.” What he meant, he told me, was not at all the conventionally Leftist and loaded meaning–territory occupied by Israel since Israel’s 1967 war of survival against her Arab jihadist neighbors. No, what he meant was territory occupied by Islam since the Muslim wars of conquest and expansion began more than 1,000 years ago. Such lands include Northern Africa, Asia Minor, and the Middle East–all of which used to be mainly Christian and other faiths, including, where Israel is concerned, of course, Jewish.