Mosab Hassan Yousef, known as the son of Hamas’s co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, held a historic speech at the United Nations this week in which he stressed: ‘If Israel fails in Gaza, the rest of the world will be next’. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also highlighted in a Fox News interview that if Israel ‘doesn’t win now, then Europe is next’.

Can Netanyahu survive as prime minister in the wake of the Hamas attack? Are Jews really safer in Israel today than in the Diaspora? Hard questions that need to be asked.

Meanwhile, PM Orbán of Hungary offered his moral support for Israel, writing ‘our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Israel in these dark hours’.

The Hungarian Jewish leaders and the Israeli Prime Minister discussed issues of Jewish communal life in Hungary and the events that may accompany the possible relocation of the Hungarian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  With the potential move of the Hungarian mission to Jerusalem Hungary would become the first EU country to recognize that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

According to Aaron Davis Miller, Americans might soon stop seeing US–Israeli ties as a special relationship.

Hananya Naftali stressed that today Hungary is one of the safest countries in the world for Jews and Israel sees Hungary not just as a partner, but as family.

‘A stable Israeli administration under Benjamin Netanyahu and a victory of the US Republican Party in the midterm elections would be a bright and promising development for peace in the Middle East,’ said Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, on Wednesday in Jordan.

Although Israel is stronger than ever, the permanent existential threat the Jewish State has had to endure is still present. The stakes are particularly high, both for Israel and its allies in the wider world. Benjamin Netanyahu offers known solutions to current challenges, answers that proved to be right in the past thirteen years. This November might well be the month of the return of Israel’s longest serving prime minister.

‘Many Jewish citizens from European nations like Sweden are enduring levels of hostility that are non-existent in Hungary. In contrast, Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, the current Israeli ambassador to Hungary, earlier this year named Hungary as one of the safest nations for Jews to live in. Furthermore, the Jewish community in Hungary is not only thriving, but also one of the largest in Europe.’

Jabotinsky was an old-fashioned nineteenth-century national liberal and a committed democrat, but it is still a matter of debate whether the same can be said of his supporters. The Zionist writer described his early worldview as ‘liberal anarchy’ in which ‘every individual is [worth as much as] a king’. The free market, freedom of the press, equality for women and respect for minority rights were fundamental tenets of his thinking. But there is good reason why there is an intense historiographical debate concerning Jabotinsky’s views.

AFP is one of the three major global news agencies. Yet, in their paid photo library service, images of a major march against antisemitism that took place on 12 November in Paris, France are not available (or at least not searchable), but photos of a much smaller event happening on the same day, organized by the left-wing LFI party are. In addition, the results of search keywords related to the Israeli-Palestine conflict also give curious results.

All three Hungarian hostages, a woman and two girls, who have been held by Hamas since 7 October have regained their freedom.

A four-day humanitarian ceasefire has been agreed upon by Israel and Hamas, as confirmed by both parties and the mediator Qatar as well. The Palestinians agreed to the release of 50 Israeli hostages, mostly women and children, while Israel agreed to set free 150 Palestinian prisoners. However, PM Netanyahu of Israel insists his country is still at war.

‘The indiscriminate attack on 7 October that killed approximately twelve-hundred innocent Israeli citizens cannot go unpunished. Yet there are rules of war that need to be respected.’

There is a group of people who will demand photos of Jewish victims and then, when they get them, rejoice in the fact of the killings. Meanwhile, one cannot forget that there is obviously a benign, uninformed majority that can be persuaded by either side, and Israel must not give up the possibility of persuasion.

Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish man attended a pro-Israel gathering in Thousand Oaks, California when a pro-Palestine group showed up. He died after a punch knocked him to the ground and hit his head. The police have already questioned a suspect, but released them, as they have received conflicting eyewitness reports about who the aggressor was.

As Kenneth M. Pollack phrased in his The Hill article, ‘a ceasefire now would only lead to more war and more killing in the future.’ Pollack added that ‘when you reward an aggressor and prevent the attacked from fighting back, you simply encourage that aggressor to attack again, and encourage other would-be aggressors to do the same.’

Katalin Novák met with her Israeli counterpart, President Isaac Herzog, to show her moral support to the recently attacked Israel, as well as for the Hungarian community living in Israel. She also called for the immediate release of hostages, some of whom are of Hungarian ancestry, taken by the Islamist terror group Hamas.

Moscow has failed to condemn the 7 October Hamas attack as terrorism, and Putin has likened the Gaza blockade by Israel to the siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany, effectively poisoning the previously amicable Russia–Israel relations.

Although a defining part of Netanyahu’s image is that of ‘Mr Security’, and he has even been nicknamed ‘King Bibi’, the spectacular fiasco of a 1997 Mossad operation he had ordered also earned him the epithet ‘Israel’s serial bungler’.

Within just a few days, the Commission has gone from announcing a complete suspension of aid to the Palestinians to tripling humanitarian aid to them. No wonder a special summit was soon needed to coordinate EU communication on the conflict in Israel.

Both countries have cited the increased threat of terrorism as the reason for their new, stricter measures on border control.

The Foreign Minister of Hungary stressed the importance of connectivity between the ‘interdependent’ Eastern and Western economies, and cautioned against dividing the world into political blocs again. On the same day, he also gave an update on the 15 Hungarian citizens still in Gaza.

The outcome of the Israel-Hamas war is unpredictable, the US support of Israel is two-faced, and the occupation of Gaza would be an enormous military burden very hard to disengage from, Christopher J. Farrell, Director for Investigations and Research at Judicial Watch and a former US Army counterintelligence officer argues.

On 7 October, the terrorist group Hamas commenced the largest and bloodiest attack against Israel since the Yom Kippur War. In many ways, the aggression echoes not only the 1973 war, but also the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the US as well.

On Wednesday, the Dohány Street Synagogue filled with people for a solidarity service held by the Hungarian Jewish communities. Dr Andor Grósz, head of the Hungarian Jewish Federation MAZSIHISZ, said: ‘The mourning and grief of the Jewish community is shared by Hungarian society,’ adding that the Hamas terrorists ‘brutally violated the Ten Commandments, a gift of the Torah to mankind.’

In his regular Friday morning interview, Orbán said the situation in Israel was a stark reminder of the value of peace and stability, and that elected leaders had a duty to protect it. Hungary, he said, had always opposed terrorism irrespective of which country was being targeted.

‘Israel does recognize who were the true friends and Hungary has proved for a long period of time under Viktor Orbán’s leadership that—despite the pressure from larger and possibly more powerful European countries—it can stand alone at times and will not conform with this general line that of “both sides are to blame, both sides are wrong, and let them find the solution”. Hungary understands without any doubt who the murderers are and who the victims are.’

The EU is suspending aid to the Palestinians with immediate effect following the Israeli attack, and has expressed its solidarity with Israel, underlining its right to defend itself against the violent and indiscriminate attacks, in accordance with international law.

Minister Szijjártó expressed Hungary’s deep concern over the Israel terrorist attacks and their potential consequences, which could easily lead to one of the largest humanitarian disasters in history. He believes that this tragedy occurred at the worst possible time, as the process of normalizing the situation had just begun, and significant steps had been taken towards peace, which now could be jeopardized and rendered null.