How Chancellor Kurz Redeemed Vienna

As Hamas fired missile after missile into Israel, the Internet was inundated with celebrity condemnations of the Jewish state and misinformation from the media. Yet one pro-Israel image strikingly stood out: a picture of the Israeli flag flying proudly from the central house of government in Vienna. This was done at the order of Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who explained in a tweet that it was intended as a “sign of solidarity with Israel” while it was under threat. “The terrorist attacks on Israel,” he further wrote, “are to be condemned by the strongest possible terms! Together we stand by Israel’s side.”

For Benjamin Haddad, writing in Foreign Policy, the raising of the Zionist flag heralded a possible realignment between Europe and Israel. After decades of insisting that only through the “peace process” could Israeli amity with the Arab nations be achieved, Europe may be realizing that the Abraham Accords suggest another path. Europeans now understand, Haddad further argues, that they too face a terrorist threat and “have increasingly associated Israel as a country facing similar challenges, the canary in the coalmine for European democracies.”

Such a realignment would certainly be good news, but at the same time, Sebastian Kurz stands out. While Israel reacted negatively when Kurz’s original coalition contained one historically anti-Semitic party, the 34-year-old has emerged as a chancellor dedicated to not only fighting anti-Semitism but embracing Zionism. One former leader of Vienna’s Jewish community told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that from his first visit to Israel, Kurz “fell in love with the country.” In Austria, the JTA further reported, “Kurz’s pro-Israel policies offer him few political dividends, but he adheres to them in any case because of his convictions and values.”