Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband speaks at the House of Commons in London, Britain, Sept. 8, 2026. Photo: HOUSE OF COMMONS/Handout via REUTERS

If I could have a shot of whisky every time someone in the Jewish Diaspora asked me, “Are we living through the new 1930s?”, I would have ended up in rehab by now. It is a version of the question, “Are we living through the prelude to another Holocaust?” All, or nearly all, of the questions that today’s Jewish communities ask about antisemitism ultimately boil down to this. If we had an answer to this question, no further research on antisemitism or anti-Zionism would be needed.

There is bad news and acceptable news in my portfolio of scientific findings on this matter. The bad news is that we are indeed living through a version of the 1930s. In early 2025, The Economist published its long-term analysis of electoral dynamics in European democracies. Covering a period of more than a hundred years, the analysts traced the average vote shares of various left- and right-wing parties in countries where democratic elections took place.

In the 1930s, the analysis revealed, the far-right and far-left parties (communist/socialist) together received 30% of the vote. The far right secured a little over 20%, and the communists/socialists a little under 10%. Support for far-right parties then crashed spectacularly in the mid-1940s and remained in single digits until the beginning of the 21st century. The communist/socialist parties fared considerably better by comparison: About 10% of voters supported them between the mid-1940s and the late 1980s. Their turn to crash came in the 1990s, with the demise of the Soviet Union.

And then something happened in the early 21st century. Something that could only be seen as proof that there is life after death. Having crashed completely, both the far right and the far left came back to life. The European electorate seemed to have substantially forgiven both ends of the political spectrum and embarked on a new phase of flirtation with them. Sometime around 2020–2025, the vote share of far-right parties approached and then crossed the 20% mark. At the same time, the communist/socialist parties and the Greens, a new garden variety of the far left, began to gain popularity. Combined, they are now once again attracting about 10% of the European vote. Whilst the rise of the far right is common knowledge, the rise of the far left is not. It is almost entirely overlooked.

What is perhaps more important is that the situation in 2025 closely resembles that of almost a hundred years ago: The far right and the far left are at their highest-ever levels of popularity. So, the question “Are we living in the 1930s?” can now be put to bed. We are.

How this monumental piece of analysis by The Economist went unnoticed by Jewish communities across the globe is beyond me. Are there not enough researchers of antisemitism out there who could “mansplain” it to them? It is high time Jewish donors and sponsors of antisemitism research took notice: They are not getting a good return on their investment.

So much for the bad news: The polarized politics that wreaked havoc in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s is back. “The Mummy Returns,” you see.

To be sure, the far right and the far left never enjoyed the support of a majority of European voters. At all times, between 50% and 80% of voters supported parties that could not be classified as far right or far left, namely moderate conservative and social democratic parties. Yet it is also clear that we have a benchmark for the troubles to come. To do what it did to Europe, the world, and the Jews, radical politics needed to capture the hearts and minds of only 30% of the electorate.

The radical political dial of Europe as a whole is now at 30%.

It is now time for the acceptable news. On the emerging political map, dominated by right-wing politics, Jews still have allies. Arguably, these are better than the ones Jews used to have in the 1930s. Back then, the communists/socialists were the most accepting of Jews, but their “love” was conditional. Jews were expected to throw themselves behind the universal liberationist project of the left. “The universal” is a key phrase: Jews were allowed to participate in far-left politics, and even lead it, not as Jews but as fellow political actors involved in the liberation of humanity from capitalism, imperialism, and “bigoted” nationalism.

Today, in contrast, the most accepting segments of the Western political map for Jews are situated on the right. This includes both the moderate conservative right and segments of the far right. They do not expect Jews to participate in global struggles; instead, they accept the most important Jewish political project ever – Israel. They accept, in other words, the nationalistic, unapologetic Jew. Rather than loving the abstract, vulnerable Jew, they treat modern Israel as an embodiment of their own hopes for their own societies. Nationalism is “about every nation becoming Jewish,” as Yuri Slezkine perceptively noted in his The Jewish Century. “Every land is promised … every capital Jerusalem … every people chosen (and ancient).”

The reaction of the European political landscape to the Oct. 7 events and the Gaza war made that clear to anyone who was still in doubt. In Britain, where the pollster YouGov repeatedly asked the British public whether their sympathies lay more with Israelis or Palestinians, a real shift in sympathies towards Israel took place, and not in a way that was entirely intuitive. The share of the total British electorate sympathizing more with Israelis increased from roughly 10% to 17%. To be sure, about half of the British electorate did not take a position, and the share sympathizing more with Palestinians rose from approximately 24% to 30% too. Still, the increase in pro-Israel sentiment was not negligible.

Most importantly, among Conservative Party voters, pro-Israel sentiment increased from 19% to 33%, while pro-Palestinian sentiment changed very little. Similar longitudinal data are simply not available for the political forces to the right of the Conservatives, such as Reform UK. Yet, in all recent surveys touching on the Israel–Palestine question, Reform UK voters have consistently emerged as at least as pro-Israel as Conservative voters, often more so. On the left, among Labour voters, the share sympathizing with Israel changed only slightly, almost negligibly (from 4% before Oct. 7 to 8% after Oct. 7). The share sympathizing more with Palestinians in that segment rose from 40% to 47%. The Green Party, the political force to the left of Labour, has systematically displayed more pro-Palestinian attitudes than Labour.

Much of the anxious discussion in Jewish communities today focuses on allies and alliances. How are they to be built and maintained in this brave new world? There is no need to build anything, this analysis suggests. Jews have natural allies. They just need to be recognized for what they are. The next question should be: Can the natural affinities be translated into dependable political alliances?

Dr. Daniel Staetsky is an expert in Jewish demography and statistics. He is based in Cambridge, UK.