2025/10/02 by Georgios; id_orcid 0000-0002-6877-7364 Samaras · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Contemporary and Historical Greek Studies #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Balkans: History, Politics, Society
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/0377919x.2025.2599553
This essay traces the shifts in far-right Greek political rhetoric on Jews, Israel, and Palestine over the last fifteen years. Using the ongoing genocide in Gaza as an analytical lens for understanding the rising extremism of Greece’s governing Right, it shows how older conspiracist and ultranationalist grammars have been redirected from Jews to racialized Muslims, with Palestine positioned as the preeminent security threat and Israel recast as a civilizational and security ally. Three mechanisms structure the shift: discursive recoding that preserves friend-enemy logics while reframing Palestine solidarity as extremism; geopolitical alignment through which Zionist positions are naturalized as national interest; and performative philosemitism that legitimates punitive responses to dissent. The result is the restriction of Palestinian advocacy, the weaponization of antisemitism, and the normalization of exceptional security measures. Rather than rupture, these developments reveal continuity: old prejudices reorganized through new alliances, with Gaza as catalyst and alibi.