Acting President of Republika Srpska, Ana Trišić-Babić, and Milorad Dodik are visiting Israel. The trip itself and the messages coming from it can be interpreted as part of a broader campaign involving Islamophobic elements and a cultural “Kulturkampf” against Sarajevo.
The Republika Srpska government under the SNSD is trying to foster better relations with Israel, and Israel’s response has not been negative. On the European political stage, Dodik positions himself among ultra-right movements that in recent years have increasingly looked to Israel as an ideological model.
This phenomenon, in which European right-wing parties, whose political roots often trace back to the fascist ideologies of the 1930s and 1940s, seek alignment with Israel, has been frequently analyzed. Giovanni Legorano discussed it in Foreign Policy in May 2025 in an article titled “Israel is ready to embrace European far-right.”
“The seemingly contradictory alliance between Israel and EU far-right parties, many with historical links to anti-Semitism, becomes understandable when viewed through the lens of shared ideology and strategic interests. At the core of this alignment is a joint investment in security frameworks and anti-Muslim sentiment that transcends historical tensions. For EU far-right movements, Israel serves as a model in the field of security policy. Its sophisticated surveillance systems, border walls, biometric protocols, and preventive strike doctrines offer a template for the far-right vision of ‘defending’ European civilization against perceived external threats,” the article notes.
Haaretz also highlighted this phenomenon in a piece titled “Israel’s Forgotten Taboo: Netanyahu’s Party Officially Embraces EU Radical Right Extremists.”
Dodik often frames his public statements as a defense of Europe’s identity, and his visits to Israel aim to strengthen his ties with parties like Hungary’s Fidesz, Sweden Democrats, France’s National Rally, Spain’s Vox, and others.
In this context, his statements about returning the Sarajevo Haggadah to Israel are part of his cultural campaign against Sarajevo. Dodik’s statements about Haggadah and attempts to create a narrative that it does not belong in Sarajevo, seek to show that, according to Netanyahu, Sarajevo has become insular and that it fuels anti-Semitism.
“Leading a battle against the Haggadah in Sarajevo, Dodik is waging a cultural battle against the city itself. Sarajevo’s multicultural brand, which even wartime artillery could not destroy, represents a stronghold that enables not just Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also Europe. Dodik’s victory here would represent a triumph for all EU radical-right movements that claim coexistence of different peoples and religions is unnatural and impossible. If he succeeds in undermining Sarajevo’s protection of the Haggadah, he would strike at the very spirit of Europe that defies forces of conformity,” the analysis concludes.
Domestically, Dodik’s statement about “returning” the Haggadah exposes the consistent ambiguity with which Republika Srpska politicians treat state institutions, a logic reminiscent of Orwellian newspeak in the “1984” novel. According to this logic, seven cultural state institutions in Sarajevo do not exist and are treated as entity institutions. Using this “Dodik logic,” he treats commentary on the Sarajevo Haggadah as valid as commentary on sending an artifact from Bucharest to Tel Aviv.
Still, while visiting Israel, he symbolically acknowledges that the Haggadah is a treasure of Bosnia and Herzegovina housed in the National Museum. Dodik’s presence in Israel aligns him with the emerging network of European far-right leaders, and at this altar, he stages an attack on Sarajevo’s multiculturalism, Klix.ba writes.
