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.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.
