A political network linking Israeli nationalism, Western far-right movements and anti-Muslim activism is extending its influence into Australia. Behind the language of national identity, religious solidarity and counterterrorism lies a disturbing question: Is hostility towards Muslims being deliberately cultivated to protect Israel from accountability?
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks and three years after the October 7 attacks, the politics of remembrance remains deeply contested.
The victims of terrorism deserve to be mourned. Their families deserve compassion, and the suffering of survivors and first responders should never be diminished.
But remembrance also carries political power, particularly when the suffering of one population becomes a justification for violence against another.
That is the central concern behind a growing critique of the relationship between Israeli political interests, Western nationalist movements and organised Islamophobia.
The argument is not that Jewish or Christian communities collectively support anti-Muslim politics. It is that influential political organisations, ideological networks and far-right activists have increasingly found common ground in portraying Islam and Muslims as threats to Western civilisation.
And Australia, once relatively distant from the ideological machinery developing across Europe, Israel and the United States, is becoming increasingly connected to these movements.
When Some Lives Become More Valuable Than Others
To understand how the politics of fear can justify violence, it is worth examining a concept developed more than two decades ago.
In 2003, political philosopher Achille Mbembe introduced the concept of necropolitics, describing systems of power in which political authorities effectively determine whose lives can be sacrificed and whose deaths are treated as acceptable.
Mbembe connected this logic directly to colonialism.
Colonial domination, he argued, frequently depends on classifying populations according to their perceived human worth. Once a population is regarded as inferior, its displacement, exploitation or destruction becomes easier to rationalise.
Writing in 2003, Mbembe identified Palestine as “the most accomplished form of necropower”.
He argued that appeals to religious exclusivity and historical entitlement had become deeply intertwined with the justification of occupation, forced displacement and settlement.
His analysis was written long before the devastation inflicted on Gaza following October 2023.
Yet the underlying question remains strikingly relevant: What happens when the lives of an occupied population are treated as expendable, while the security claims of the occupying power are granted overriding political legitimacy?
Two years later, philosopher Warren Montag developed a related concept, necro-economics.
Montag examined how capitalist economic structures, particularly neoliberal systems, can normalise circumstances in which certain populations are permitted to die, whether slowly or rapidly, in the name of economic rationality.
Applied to Palestine, this framework raises questions about the industries that profit from occupation, warfare, surveillance and the exploitation of resources.
Israeli and multinational businesses have developed profitable relationships around military technology and surveillance systems, while Palestinians continue to bear the human consequences of occupation and military violence.
The contrast between commercial profit and civilian suffering is central to this critique.
It also raises a broader political question: How are systems that produce such destruction sustained when public awareness of their consequences continues to grow?
Netanyahu’s 1984 Strategy: Make the World Fear Muslims
The political use of anti-Muslim sentiment did not begin with the latest war in Gaza.
One important episode dates back to 1984, when Benjamin Netanyahu organised a conference in Washington through the Jonathan Institute.
The gathering helped advance a framework that presented terrorism associated with Muslim movements primarily as an expression of Islamic ideology rather than something requiring examination of historical grievances, occupation, colonialism or Western intervention.
Under this interpretation, Israel could be presented as a frontline defender of Western civilisation against a shared ideological enemy.
The strategic implications were substantial.
If Western audiences could be persuaded that the violence associated with particular organisations represented a broader threat inherent to Islam, Israeli military policies could be understood through the language of civilisational defence.
The relationship between Israel and Western governments would consequently become more than a conventional strategic alliance.
It could be framed as a common struggle against an existential threat.
Over subsequent decades, organisations, campaigners and political commentators helped institutionalise variations of this argument.
Scholars and researchers have documented the emergence of what has become known as the counter-jihad movement, alongside broader networks promoting anti-Muslim narratives.
The term Islamophobia industry, explored in Nathan Lean’s work, describes how financial backing, political influence and media activity can reinforce public hostility towards Muslims.
These movements are not necessarily controlled by one organisation or united behind every political objective.
Nevertheless, their ideological overlap is consequential.
Fear of Muslims becomes politically useful when it can simultaneously mobilise voters, legitimise restrictive policies and reduce scrutiny of Israeli military actions.
Gaza Has Created a Political Problem for Israel’s Supporters
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has intensified international scrutiny of its conduct and the continuing occupation of Palestinian territory.
The destruction of civilian infrastructure, mass displacement and enormous Palestinian suffering have generated widespread anger, particularly among populations already critical of Israeli policies.
Israeli military actions and territorial policies in the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Syria have further intensified concerns about the regional consequences of Israeli expansionism.
Reporting has documented Israeli territorial expansion, while regional analysts have raised concerns about the implications of Israeli military activity for neighbouring states.
For Israel’s political defenders, the challenge is not simply responding to criticism of individual military operations.
It is preserving the broader political narrative through which Israel has historically secured diplomatic protection and support from Western governments.
That narrative frequently presents Israel as a defensive outpost confronting hostile regional forces.
Critics argue that the framework reverses the historical relationship between occupation and resistance, positioning the occupying power as the principal victim while treating the grievances of occupied populations as secondary.
The same political framing has also been applied to confrontations involving Iran, Lebanon and other regional actors.
Rather than examining every confrontation primarily through its specific political and historical circumstances, the conflicts can be incorporated into a larger story about defending the West against Islamic threats.
This is where far-right movements become particularly useful to those promoting a civilisational interpretation of the Middle East.
The Anti-Muslim Political Network Reaches Australia
Australia is increasingly connected to political organisations and ideological networks whose activities overlap with the international pro-Israel right.
Investigative reporting by Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon has examined the role of political lobbying, grassroots-style campaigning and coordinated advocacy in influencing Australian political debates.
Bacon has specifically documented the activities of the Minority Impact Coalition, or MIC, in New South Wales.
The organisation describes itself as a minority and refugee-led grassroots advocacy initiative.
However, critics have questioned whether its political activities represent genuinely independent community advocacy or a broader effort to mobilise minority identities around particular ideological objectives.
The coalition has connections to Roz Mendelle’s Queensland Jewish Collective.
The wider Australian political debate has also involved the Australian Cohesion Forum, associated with figures including Mendelle and Simonne Whine.
The group’s involvement in discussions surrounding a royal commission has attracted scrutiny from commentators concerned about the influence of organised pro-Israel advocacy.
The underlying concern is that anti-Muslim political messages can acquire additional credibility when promoted through organisations representing diverse minority communities.
Rather than appearing exclusively as a pro-Israel political project, the same narratives may be advanced through Hindu nationalist, Iranian monarchist or other identity-based political networks.
This does not mean that those communities collectively share such views.
It means that particular political factions within them may find common ground in opposition to Islam or Muslim political influence.
Such alliances complicate the public’s ability to identify who is promoting a political message, what interests are involved and how apparently independent campaigns may intersect.
The Attempt to Unite Religious Nationalists Against Islam
Religious identity has become an important element of these political alliances.
A central feature of contemporary national conservatism is its effort to build political solidarity between Christian nationalist movements and supporters of Israel.
That alliance is not inevitable.
Christianity and Judaism have distinct histories, theological traditions and political communities, while Christian and Jewish opposition to Israeli government policies remains an important part of public debate.
Nevertheless, certain nationalist movements have sought to construct a common political identity based on defending what they describe as Judeo-Christian civilisation.
Within that framework, Islam is frequently portrayed as an external cultural and demographic threat.
The consequences of exploiting religious divisions are particularly visible in the Middle East.
During Lebanon’s civil war, Israeli forces supported Christian Phalangist militias involved in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre.
The episode remains a powerful historical example of how sectarian political alliances can contribute to atrocities against civilians.
Contemporary critics have similarly accused Israeli political actors of exploiting religious tensions in Lebanon to weaken national cohesion.
At the same time, Palestinian Christians have suffered alongside Palestinian Muslims under occupation and military attacks.
The hardships confronting Palestinian Christian communities complicate political narratives that present Israel as an uncomplicated defender of Christianity in the region.
Israel’s Special Envoy to the Christian World, George Deeks, has emerged as one of the figures associated with the country’s outreach to Christian audiences.
His role exists alongside mounting warnings about the future of Palestinian Christian communities.
For critics of Israel’s religious diplomacy, this creates an obvious contradiction: efforts to cultivate international Christian support coexist with policies that have contributed to the deterioration of conditions facing Christians in Palestine.
Israeli Officials and Europe’s Far Right
The relationship between Israeli political figures and Europe’s nationalist right provides another indication of how these alliances operate.
Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli has participated in gatherings associated with European far-right political movements.
His appearances have attracted criticism because some of those political circles include figures associated with antisemitism, as well as openly anti-Muslim ideologies.
The apparent contradiction is striking.
Political movements with histories of hostility towards Jewish communities can nevertheless find common ground with Israeli nationalist politicians through shared opposition to Muslims, immigration and liberal international institutions.
Daniel Pipes, a prominent American commentator known for his anti-Muslim positions, has argued for cooperation with sections of Europe’s far right.
At a 2019 National Conservatism conference, he discussed the possibility of treating European nationalist movements, including groups associated with neo-Nazism, as political allies in a wider civilisational struggle.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented Pipes’s advocacy of cooperation with far-right parties.
These relationships suggest that hostility towards Islam can, for some political actors, become more strategically important than longstanding ideological differences.
They also raise questions about the boundaries of acceptable political cooperation when opposition to Muslims becomes a unifying objective.
Yoram Hazony and the Ideology Behind the New Nationalist Right
One of the most influential figures connecting Israeli nationalist thought with contemporary Western conservatism is political philosopher Yoram Hazony.
A former speechwriter and adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu during the 1990s, Hazony has become a prominent intellectual advocate of national conservatism.
His book, The Virtue of Nationalism, has influenced debates within the American right, including political circles associated with Donald Trump.
Hazony has been described as a key ideologue of the emerging global right.
His influence is also evident in the growing prominence of National Conservatism conferences, commonly known as NatCon.
These gatherings bring together politicians, intellectuals and activists from different countries around arguments favouring national sovereignty, traditional identity and resistance to liberal internationalism.
The Edmund Burke Foundation, which organises NatCon events, has been central to developing this international network.
The movement has attracted figures and intellectual supporters associated with the broader political environment surrounding JD Vance and Peter Thiel.
Hazony’s central argument is that nationalism can provide a legitimate moral and political foundation for society.
He distinguishes nationalism from imperialism, arguing that national self-determination and imperial expansion are fundamentally different political projects.
He has even argued that Adolf Hitler should be understood as an imperialist rather than a genuine nationalist.
Critics dispute the clarity and historical validity of this distinction.
They also question how the movement’s strong emphasis on national sovereignty applies when governments use that sovereignty to justify occupation, territorial expansion or serious violations of international law.
For Hazony and other national conservative thinkers, supranational institutions can represent unacceptable constraints on national independence.
Such criticism extends to institutions including the United Nations and International Criminal Court.
Yet opponents argue that weakening international accountability mechanisms can also protect states from scrutiny over their treatment of occupied populations.
The tension becomes especially significant when applied to Israel and Palestine.
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