Reuters in Paris reports that: "French neo-Nazis formed an alliance with extremist Jewish groups on the Internet to publish a torrent of hate messages directed against Arabs and Muslims, according to a report by a leading anti-racist group."

"Members of extreme-right groups were prepared to set aside their anti-Semitic feelings to share Web space and know-how with extremist pro-Israeli campaigners, amid a rise in violence in the Middle East, the study found."

(read full report here)

Reuters and its sources describe the alliance between Nazis and Zionists as "unlikely" and "a new phenomenon." These adjectives betray the lack of historical perspective of contemporary journalists.

Zionism emerged in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century together with right-wing Fascism. Zeev Sternhell, an expert on French Fascism, analysed early "left-wing" Zionist politics and came to the conclusion that it was in fact a variant of what he defined as "nationalist-socialist" parties, a group that also included the Italian Fascist party and Hitler "National-Socialist" party in Germany. (Zeev Sternhell, Israel's Founding Myths, Princeton 1998)

Lenni Brenner put together 51 documents that exemplify the crossover, and sometimes the cooperation, between Zionism and Fascism. ( Lenni Brenner (ed), 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis, Fort Lee 2002)

In Brenner's book one finds, for example, a 1937 report testifying that Hitler's early anti-Jewish policies pleased the Zionist settlers in Palestine, who hoped that the hardship of German Jews would contribute to "the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine."

However, at least one aspect in the French alliance between Zionists and Nazis does seem unprecedented.

According to Reuters, the alliance temporarily collapsed "because of disagreement between the groups over the U.S.-led war in Iraq, with Jewish extremists supporting the action but some French far-rightwingers against it."

In other words, it appears that some French Zionists broke with their Neo-Nazi allies because the latter were not militaristic enough.