Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with former Austrian Chancellor @SebastianKurz.
"You have been a tremendous friend of Israel, a champion of fighting antisemitism, a great leader for Austria. It's good to see you again, back in Jerusalem. You are warmly welcomed as a friend" pic.twitter.com/6bMMVsdD9F

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) July 10, 2019

Is a Netanyahu-Kurz bromance responsible for Austria's new direction on Israel?

Austria is led by one of the country's most remarkable politicians in recent decades: Sebastian Kurz, who was elected chancellor in 2017 at just 31 years old.

Kurz is immediately striking for a world leader -- he's tall and boyishly handsome, with a mane of slicked-back hair. Since taking the reins, his conservative People's Party has commanded Austrian politics with force, legislating a slew of new economic policies and cracking down on immigration.

Following a scandal in an allied party last year that collapsed Kurz's parliament coalition and forced a new election, the People's Party came back even stronger, winning nine new parliament seats.

Davidi Hermelin, who heads the International Centre for Public Diplomacy in Israel, is a friend of Kurz and has observed his rise up the ladder of Austrian politics.

"He has a quiet charisma that makes people instinctively notice him. It's indescribable, but you notice its effect on a room: People go quiet when he opens his mouth," said Hermelin, a former president of the Young Likud division of Israel's ruling party. "He's courteous, friendly but not gushing. He behaves like what you would expect from a prince."

One of the fellow world leaders Kurz feels closest to is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That could help explain why Kurz has reversed his country's stance toward Israel during his tenure from very critical to very supportive.

Photographs don't lie: why does Austria flirt with fascism? | The Guardian - May 25, 2016 |

The images come swimming back. The old black and white photographs are suddenly new again. It is March 1938 and Jews are being forced to scrub the streets of Vienna. Uniformed Nazis and non-Jewish members of the public laugh as they watch the humiliating scene. Jewish men crouch and kneel on the ground at their feet.

These photographs are documents of cruelty: obscene artefacts. That is how the artist Gustav Metzger treats one of them in his installation series Historic Photographs, which revisits some of the most devastating events of the 20th century.

Watch Rarely Seen Footage of Life in Nazi Austria, Thanks to a New Video Archive | Smithsonian |