Hungarian Conservative

‘Horrible wars are going on right at this moment in the world, and no one in the West seems to care that much. Why does something happening in the Middle East make such repercussions and make emotions run this high in Western universities? What is the ‘secret appeal’ of taking the side of the Palestinians in the Israel–Hamas war that inspired so many students in Ivy League schools to go out and protest in the way they did? May it be the case that it is the schools themselves that generate false narratives of the history behind this conflict to manipulate students into an inevitable conclusion?’

While the intensity of the widespread protests across the country obviously varies from university to university, students seem to have come a long way from peacefully expressing solidarity with Palestinian civilians and opposition to the war. The slogans accusing Israel of genocide, calling for a free Palestine and relativising Hamas’ atrocities are only the mildest versions of the chants repeated by the students. According to a Jewish-American student at Columbia University, he has heard chants on campus in recent weeks such as “Burn Tel Aviv to the ground’; “Globalize the Intifada”; “We are Hamas”; “October 7 will happen again and again”, and “Go back to Poland”.

‘It’s hard not to think of another Hungarian who was a radical back in his student days: Viktor Orbán, who took on the existing Communist power structure. In fact, the two Hungarian political activists who began as student radicals—Orbán and Molnárfi—uncannily represent rival futures for Europe. With European elections approaching in June, the two make quite the symbolic pair.’

Saad noticed that there aren’t any pro-Palestinian demonstrations being held in Hungary, unlike in Western Europe. He queried Balázs Orbán about the matter on the social media platform X.

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’.