Of the people <i>and</i> the elite? The strategic framing of Jews, antisemitism, and Israel by the AfD and the FPÖ

Research has examined the co-existence of pro-Jewish discourse and antisemitic incidents within the populist radical right parties (PRR), Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). This paper analyses this phenomenon through the lens of populist discourse, and finds that Jews are accepted into “the people” when they agree with the parties’ (mostly anti-Islam and anti-elitist) message. However, Jews are excluded, aligned with “the elite”, when they do not. This paper also finds that only the FPÖ demonstrates this same approach towards Israel. The parties thus pursue a dual strategy with regards to Jews and Israel: they use populist discourse as a way to “normalise” their framing of Jews and legitimise exclusion, but the overlap between antisemitic and anti-elitist ideas can make this appear as antisemitic dog-whistling.