Reuters :
Nadir Aslam, a German of Moroccan-Pakistani heritage, had been planning to vote Green in this week’s elections to the European Parliament.
Instead, he will throw his support behind Mera25, a start-up leftist party with a clear pro-Palestinian stance.
Aslam, 33, told Reuters it was a speech last November by a Green leader doubling down on German support for Israel, even as the Gaza death toll neared 9,000, which “destroyed” his support for the ecologist party, a member of Germany’s ruling coalition.
This shift in support, echoed across Europe, represents the latest threat – this time from the left – to mainstream political parties whose project to deepen European integration is already under attack from the far-right.
The trend is not only among the EU’s Muslim communities but also among left-leaning voters who see a double standard in Europe’s condemnation of the Oct 7 Hamas attack on Israel but failure to call out Israel for its military assault on Gaza which has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians.
“We have a rise in radical right and radical left parties, (which will) reshape the policy landscape in Europe, the balance of power of several parties,” said Samira Azabar, a sociologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands.
This could have consequences for the bloc’s position on Israel and also drive policies granting more decision-making power at a national level, she said. EU members Spain and Ireland have recognised a Palestinian state, as has Slovenia’s government, pending parliamentary approval.
While the popularity of the far-right has been rising in recent years, surveys show minorities have been voting more for the radical left as mainstream parties drift rightwards on issues such a migration and cultural values.
Polling last month by Ipsos showed the far-right set to make the biggest gains in the June 6-9 elections, with the Left group in the EU assembly gaining six more seats – both at the expense of the Social Democrat, Green and Renew Europe blocs.
In France, far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) has centred its campaign on a pro-Palestinian stance in a bid to win Muslim and radical-left voters, said Blandine Chelini-Pont, a historian at Aix-Marseille University.