Hungarian Conservative

In a February episode of the Reflections from Budapest podcast the Director-General of the Tikvah Fund highlighted the neo-Marxist narrative in the West which holds that ‘weak is just’, and since the Palestinians are presented as weak, Israel is portrayed as their oppressor.

The bill will now go to the Democratic-majority Senate, where it is not expected to face any obstacles and could be signed by President Joe Biden within a week. Hard-line Republicans have again vowed to impeach House Speaker Mike Johnson for bringing the proposal to the House floor.

In a recent op-ed John Bolton argues that the White House failed to recognize that the real conflict in the region is not between the Palestinians or Arabs and Israel, but Iran’s war against Israel.

Since 2017, the increase in the number of people employed in the high-tech sector has been larger than the increase in the number of people employed, and their share has also grown. This is the period when we were propelled into the EU lead. While in 2017 we were 0.9 percentage points above the EU average, by 2021 our lead had increased to 1.6 percentage points. During this time, the number of people working in the sector increased by a third to 300,000.

According to multiple media sources, Israel may have conducted a retaliatory strike against Iran on Friday. However, Iranian officials claim they are uncertain whether it was an external attack or an infiltration from within the Persian state.

As one of the keynote speakers, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addressed the issues of migration, freedom of expression, and the war in Ukraine on the second day of the National Conservatism Conference.

General Amir Avivi, the founder of the Israel Defence and Security Forum, also highlighted in his briefing following the IRI attack that the fact that Israel and its allies intercepted 99 per cent of the rockets ‘showed that Israel could cope with a direct attack from Iran, and can coordinate efficiently with its allies to defend itself.’

Iran launched an unprecedented air strike against Israel on Saturday night. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán reacted by convening the Defence Council on Sunday. The PM reassured Hungarian families that the government is committed to protecting them should the conflict escalate.

‘The patterns that emerge from examples drawn from 150 years of terrorism and counterterrorism are clear. When a tactic works, it is copied and adapted to new times and new situations. Attacks on civilians, women and children strike terror and provoke governments to react. When governments overreact and kill large numbers of civilians, regardless of the provocation, governments lose support, lose legitimacy, and in the modern world, soon find both popular opinion and later the world community will turn against them, making ultimate defeat inevitable.’

Following the example of Wizz Air, Ryanair is relaunching its flights from Budapest to Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, the Hungarian government has confirmed that it is only a matter of days or weeks before Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport becomes majority-owned by the Hungarian state.

According to General Avivi, Hamas’s brutal attack on 7 October in Israel was possible because of two terrible decisions: the Oslo Accords and the 2005 disengagement of Israeli troops from Gaza. The Oslo Accords implemented in 1994 resulted in the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the major cities of Gaza and the transfer of weapons and control to the Palestinian Authority. This decision resulted in Gaza, previously not considered a significant military issue, becoming a top security problem for Israel.

‘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.’

According to press reports, an Israeli ELM-2084 multi-mission radar, also utilized as part of the renowned Israeli Iron Dome air defence system, has been sighted near a Hungarian settlement. The Hungarian Defence Forces have procured eleven of these modern systems.

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.

‘Strategic uncertainty is not a universal elixir, but merely one of the tools in a politician’s and a strategist’s toolbox. It is important to know when to use it, but it is perhaps even more important to know when not to. For strategic uncertainty to be an effective tool, serious kinetic action must sometimes be added to the bluffing and the show of force.’

Early in March Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli visited Hungary and met Hungary’s Minister for European Union Affairs János Bóka, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, several Hungarian Jewish community leaders, while also giving presentations on the Gaza War. Jews in Hungary can practice their faith in safety in contrast to many other European nations, he noted during his visit.

According to Ambassador Yacov Hadas-Handelsman the Gaza War is not just against Israel and it is not a political strife anymore, but a cultural and religious conflict.

Much of the world agrees that the Palestinians should have, and deserve, a state of their own. It’s a political ideal whose time should have come long ago. But the experience of Palestinian self-government, even in a limited sense, is not promising.

‘We must defeat, not pacify, the Palestinian dream of annihilating Israel. Defeat, not come to terms with nor even deter. But this may well turn out to be a historical turning point of history beyond Israel because it is a wake-up call for the West in general. The West has lost its immune system in a multicultural haze that has left it unable to see differences.’

All but one EU Member State, Hungary, have condemned Israel’s potential ground invasion of Rafah, scheduled to happen if all hostages are not freed by the start of the Ramadan. This is not the first time the Orbán administration has stood up for Israel.

‘Only the West killed God, and they did it twice for good measure: once on the cross, and more recently via the Enlightenment project to transform the world through progress, secularism, and science, rendering religion either rational or irrelevant.’

Hungary and Czechia have been the only members of the EU that have consistently declared support for the Israeli government, both before and since the 7 October massacres. Last December, they were among the ten nations that voted against a resolution at the UN General Assembly calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

While South Africa alleges that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, it failed to condemn some of the most severe human rights abuses of our times in the past. Pretoria’s assertion that its engagement to prevent grave human rights violations, fulfilling its responsibilities ‘under a treaty obligation to prevent genocide from occurring’ is a political stunt and a blatant attempt to exploit the international legal system.

‘In America, we have so many horrible things happening, you know, with the gender ideologies, the LGBTQ, and the open border, and all these different things. So, when we conservatives in America look around for friends, we don’t have to look much further than Hungary to see that you guys are doing a lot of things right that we’d like to replicate.’

‘In the end, what for Hamas is a military defeat and a humanitarian disaster has become a resounding political victory. Bringing the Palestinian cause back into the forefront of world attention will for years to come to be the ultimate legacy of the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October.’

At a recent Rubicon Institute conference in Budapest, historians and Middle East experts attempted to shed light on the complexities of the Arab–Israeli conflict and its regional and international contexts.

‘My message to the Hungarian people is this: The spirit of the Jewish people has taken a lot of hits over the years but we always come together to fight for our future and that is exactly what we will do again. We will all dance again, and I know the Hungarian people will dance with us. Thank you for your unwavering support.’

The Jerusalem Post has learned that the Hungarian and German governments have granted citizenship and issued passports to some of the Israeli hostages abducted on 7 October by Hamas. Some of those hostages have since been released, while others remain captive. The Hungarian MFAT has not yet commented on the report.

The international coalition led by Washington appears to be incapable of halting the attacks on transport vessels by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. The inability to use the crucial Strait of Bab el-Mandeb is having a detrimental impact on world trade, directly and indirectly affecting Europe.

“For all the trials the Christians have endured—from famine during the Ottoman Empire to British bombardment during World War I and the rule of Hamas—the potential future for our Christian brethren in the Holy Land after the war is eventually over seems bleak.’