Importing Hatred to Hungary — Foreign Pro-Palestine Protesters Disrupt Conference on Hamas Sexual Violence, Anti-Israel Graffiti Floods Budapest

Foreign pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupted a conference in Budapest on Tuesday where Israel’s ambassador to Hungary Jakov Hadas-Handelsman was also speaking. At around the same time, anti-Israel graffiti flooded the Hungarian capital. For many months, such phenomena were unknown in Hungary, but now it seems that the conflict and hatred are being imported from abroad.

Palestinian men look at a burnt out car near Salfit in the West Bank after a group of Jewish settlers attacked a Palestinian village, killing one person and injuring three, and setting a house and a car on fire.

Behind the Denunciation of Israeli Human Rights Violations

In truth, “the long arc of harassment, assault, and murder of Palestinians by Jewish settlers is twinned with a shadow history, one of silence, avoidance, and abetment by Israeli officials”, states The New York Times. This is not to downplay the terrorist threat against Israelis by Palestinian jihadists. However, interviews with more than one hundred people—current and former officers of the Israeli military, the National Israeli Police, and the Shin Bet domestic security service; high-ranking Israeli political officials, including four former prime ministers; Palestinian leaders and activists; Israeli human rights lawyers; American officials charged with supporting the Israeli-Palestinian partnership—there appears to be a long history of crime without punishment.’

A pro-Palestinian protestor holds a Palestinian flag near a line of LAPD officers outside Pomona College's commencement ceremony at Shrine Auditorium on 12 May 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

The Complexity of the Pro-Palestinian Protests

‘It is ironic…that the protesters, while having legitimate positions, have remained altogether silent on the atrocities committed by Hamas, to say nothing of their main sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In truth, ever since an estimated 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes amidst the creation of the State of Israel 1948, there have been American Jews deeply unsettled by Israeli policies toward both the Palestinian refugees and Arabs living under Israeli rule. These critics of old into the American Jewish establishment, such as leaders and staff members of the American Jewish Committee.’

The Holy Land’s Vanishing Christian Communities

‘Both Jordan and Israel, each for different reasons, are part of a larger trend of the deChristianization of the Middle East. Many churchmen fear that in a generation or two Christianity, like Judaism before it, will become a diaspora religion; exiled from its birthplace. In this dark vision, the great Christian churches, shrines, and monuments will become the objects of pilgrimage, mere museums, rather than vibrant, living places of worship.’

Hungary Subscribes to EU Call for Gaza Ceasefire

After vetoing the call for a ceasefire in Gaza in February, Hungary ultimately subscribed to a joint statement on 21 March for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war. Thus, EU leaders have unanimously called for ‘an immediate humanitarian halt leading to a sustainable ceasefire’ in Gaza.