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.
Following the barbaric attacks on Israel by Hamas, pro-Palestinian rallies are being held in Western countries with sizeable Muslim communities. Western governments are now faced with the challenge posed by the tension between the right to freedom of expression and the need to disallow the promotion of murder and violence.
‘All things being equal, the roots to the actual deadly conflict are profound, as already mentioned. Yet it does not help the cause of peace to keep doing business with Iran, just as the United States has done under the Obama administration and is still doing under the present one.’
‘In the Britain that is now, just like in every other Western country that has accepted indiscriminate mass immigration from countries with Islamic values, it has become normal to celebrate murder, rape, and terrorism, so long as Israeli Jews are the ones being terrorized.’
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 extreme judgements about Begin have often been motivated by political ambitions and therefore do not help historical clarity. 110 years after his birth it is time to appreciate his values while not turning a blind eye to his flaws either.
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.
‘Regardless of whether the outcome is positive or negative, I believe a historian’s duty is to try to reconstruct what happened through primary sources from the archives, as objectively as possible.’
As Japan’s example continues to illustrate, hope and one’s true objective must never be forgotten, let alone given up. For Hungary, as for Japan, national interests and the progress of the nation constitute both the foremost goal and the means to achieve it.
Reuven Hecht was a right-wing Zionist who worked with the revisionist movement’s founding father, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and after the founding of the state, became an Israeli entrepreneur and right-wing politician. Today, a museum and park in the Jewish state bear his name. After trying to help the Horthy family obtain a Swiss visa, he remained in correspondence with them until his death in 1993.