Anti-Islam, Pro-Israel AfD Wins State Election in Germany
BERLIN – The right-wing, pro-Israel Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has won the state election in Saxony-Anhalt. This would allow the party to govern a German state for the first time since the end of the Nazi era.
The AfD obtained 44.5 per cent of the vote, according to the ARD exit poll, more than double its result in 2021. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union trailed far behind with 18.5 per cent.
Reuters reported turnout of around 76 per cent, far higher than in other German state elections. “We have made history in this state,” Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s 35-year-old lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, told Reuters.
It remains unclear whether the AfD can obtain enough seats or the political backing needed to form a state government.
The result has sparked serious concern in France. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, one of the country’s most prominent opposition politicians, warned on X that “the far right has returned in Germany”.
Calling the result a “disaster”, Mélenchon added that “under these conditions, the German military project to build Europe’s first conventional land army is unacceptable to France”.
The AfD’s status as a far-right party has not prevented members of the Israeli government from considering it a potential political partner.
In February 2025, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, praised the anti-Islam, anti-Palestinian party for targeting groups that campaign for Palestinian rights.
Chikli said that, “surprisingly”, the AfD had led efforts to oppose German support for organisations critical of Israel.
“It was the AfD that initiated the draft bill in April 2019 calling for a ban on the antisemitic BDS movement… In June 2019, the AfD also proposed a total ban on Hezbollah activities in Germany,” Chikli wrote in a post on X at the time.
The AfD’s leadership has sought to portray the party as a staunch supporter of Israel, despite frequent antisemitic and Holocaust-revisionist statements from figures within the party itself.
In a conversation with Elon Musk in January 2025, one of the AfD’s leaders, Alice Weidel, described her party as “the only protector of Jewish people” in Germany.
Weidel linked the AfD’s support for Israel directly to the party’s campaign against Muslims and immigration, positioning the State of Israel as a partner in the party’s broader confrontation with Islam and Muslims.