The Center for Fundamental Rights held its third International Pro-Israel Summit in Budapest. While the first event in 2023 followed the 7 October Hamas attacks, this year’s took place a few weeks after President Trump’s Israel–Hamas peace deal. Speakers included Hungary’s Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, Israel’s Education Minister Yoav Kisch, and Yair Netanyahu.
‘“Religious Zionism”…keeps unsettling end-of-history pieties about confining faith and observance to the margins of the public square and smoothing out the nation state’s ethno-religious edges. Yet instead of cool-headed assessments precisely when it holds the keys to governability…the rise of this national-religious bloc of parties is often met by incurious moral hysteria.’
‘On 25 October, transport workers began to blockade major national roads, as well as the central arteries of Budapest.’
‘The moment of birth for the modern myth of progress is when Western thought retained the linear time-scheme of Christianity but radically reinterpreted its content. This “humanist turn” was essentially a process of secularization, during which divine providence was replaced by human reason…’
‘Tommy Robinson told his rally of English patriots from a platform in Whitehall: “There has been a globalist revolution. They have attacked the family. They’ve attacked Christianity. They’ve opened the borders. They’ve flooded our nations. We are the start of a counter-revolution.”’
‘The belligerent tone of European leaders reinforces, on the Chinese side, the image of an ideologically aggressive West, expansive and domineering by its very cultural core.’
What could be Europe’s future: a decline, or a new golden age? How imminent is the Russian threat to Europe? How does Sweden view Hungary’s fight for sovereignty? We asked former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt about Europe’s bright or dark future at Brain Bar 2025 in Budapest.
At Ludovika University, experts including former Ambassador Réka Szemerkényi and former US Assistant Secretary Philip T Reeker discussed the present and future of US–Hungary relations. Topics included strong historical ties, NATO cooperation, economic partnerships, and shared values. Panels also addressed investment, the war in Ukraine, and cultural exchange programmes.
‘In the name of both myself and all the residents of the house, I lodge this complaint against unknown Romanian soldiers who, after becoming intoxicated day after day in the tavern located on the ground floor of the building, come out into the courtyard and recklessly fire their weapons with live ammunition, constantly endangering the bodily integrity and lives of the residents.’
What tools of pressure does Trump have to deploy against Russia if diplomacy fails? Is the United States’ support for Israel infinite? Could Hungary switch from Russian energy to American? What is the future of Europe? We asked former United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie about Trump’s three unresolved geopolitical games.