Zionism has no objection to Orban Rehabilitating Hungary’s War-time pro-Nazi leader Miklos Horthy
The Main Enemy is Israel's human rights groups
 |
| Admiral Horthy and Hitler |
In March 1989, in an article ‘Zionism and anti-Semitism’ [Return 1] I
wrote, in respect of Israel’s warm relations with the neo-Nazi Junta in
Argentina, which had tortured and murdered up to 3,000 left-wing Jews (as well
as up to 30,000 non-Jewish socialists) between 1976 and 1983 that:
‘What Argentina demonstrates is that an
anti-Semitic regime will
also be authoritarian, semi-fascist and a creature of US imperialism. In short, one which the
Israeli state is only too willing
to do business with, politically, militarily and economically, its own Jews notwithstanding.’
The same could be said for Hungary today, which, with its
100,000 Jews is the largest such community in Eastern Europe. Indeed the idea of helping stimulate a little
anti-Semitism in Hungary order to ‘encourage’ its Jews to move to Israel must
be almost irresistible to Zionism’s leaders.
Once again, given the choice
between anti-Semites and those supporting universal values of human rights like B’tselem and Breaking the Silence, Zionism’s
leaders prefer the former.
 |
| George Soros |
Last week Benjamin Netanyahu paid
a visit to Hungary to meet his good friend Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Orban it was who was responsible for the
erection of a barbed wire fence against Syrian refugees entering Hungary. Netanyahu boasts of constructing a fence against African
refugees trying to enter Israel from the Sinai desert. Israel too refused to accept any Syrian
refugees. Clearly these two racists had
a lot to talk about.
Just before Netanyahu set out on
his travels, the Israeli Ambassador in Hungary, Yossi Amrani, in response to pressure from
the Hungarian Jewish community, criticised Orban for an anti-Semitic
campaign against the US billionaire and philanthropist, George Soros. Soros grew up in Hungary as a child and he
survived the Nazi dragnet and deportation to Auschwitz. As a result of his experiences, which include
the notorious collaboration between the Hungarian Zionists led by Rudolf Kasztner
and the Nazi butchers under Eichmann, Soros became a non-Zionist.
 |
| Protesters demonstrate against Orbán’s education changes, outside the Central European University, founded by Soros. Photograph: Zoltan Balogh/AP |
Soros’s major crime in the eyes
of Zionism and Israel’s Right (which comprises some 90% of Israeli society), is
that he has helped fund the liberal New Israel Fund and various human rights
groups. Soros has also funded various
Open Society and anti-communist groups in Eastern European. Viktor Orban also hates Soros. His liberal Free University in Budapest has
been the subject
of a concerted campaign by Orban to close it down. Budapest has seen a massive government funded
poster campaign vilifying Soros. The
poster tells Hungarians that Soros must
not have the ‘last laugh’. This is a
thinly disguised reference to Hitler’s notorious ‘prophecy speech of January 30
1939, which he repeated on numerous occasions.
 |
| Campaign posters against George Soros at a subway station in Budapest, Hungary (Credit Pablo Gorondi/AP) |
In his speech Hitler announced that
he would
“once more be
a prophet. If the international Jewish financiers inside and outside Europe
should again succeed in plunging the nations into a world war, the result will
not be the Bolshevisation of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the
annihilation (vernichtung) of the Jewish race throughout Europe.”
Hitler continued:
… I have often been a prophet in my life and was generally laughed at. During my struggle for power, the Jews primarily received with laughter my prophecies that I would someday assume the leadership of the state and ... then, among many other things, achieve a solution of the Jewish problem. I suppose that meanwhile the then surrounding laughter of Jewry in Germany is now choking in their throats.’
 |
| An anti-Soros billboard with a swastika and Soros’s name replaced by Viktor Orban’s, seen in Budapest, on July 17, 2017. (Raphael Ahren/Times of Israel) |
One of the main purveyors of this
image of Soros is Glenn Beck, formerly of Fox TV. I say formerly because even Fox TV was forced
to fire Beck when his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories became too much. You get a flavour of the type of politics I
am referring to from the following interview with John Cardillo who is described
as an ‘investigative blogger at
JohnCardillo.com, President of PsyID’.
 |
| Burnt out gas station in Fergusson Missouri |
You may remember the riots at
Fergusson, Missouri nearly 3 years ago.
You might think that the cause of those riots was the Police murder of
Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 year old Black teenager. You would however be wrong. It was all down to George Soros pulling the
financial strings as the Jewish head of an ‘anti-American’ communist
conspiracy.
Glenn: Okay, so my question was radical
Islamists, anti-Israel people, Communists, Socialists, will work together to
destabilize Europe and the Western world, so now we’re looking at Ferguson.
That fits into the Western world, and I wanted to know where is this push
coming from, this anti-police push? Because I don’t believe that it’s actually
ground, grassroots. So, I asked you to go in and look, who is starting the
fire, and boy—
John: It’s interesting, isn’t it?
Glenn: It is. John: Well, you’re right. It’s
the Islamists. It’s the Communists. It’s the anti-Americans, and it’s funded by
a guy we all know, George Soros.
Glenn: What a surprise.
John: To the tune of $33 million that we can
find.
Beck’s
two-part “exposé” of George Soros, whom he called “The Puppet Master,” is held
to have finally pushed Fox TV into firing him.
As Michelle Goldberg wrote
in the Daily Beast, it was ‘a
symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles.’
Of
course none of this stopped Beck being awarded the Zionist Organization of America's 2011 Defender of Israel Award or being invited to
address Israel’s Knesset. Beck’s reception was akin to a “rock concert.” MK Michael ben-Ari, an ex-Kahanist (who had
previously torn
up a copy of the New Testament) said “I think Glenn Beck should take my seat in the Knesset.”
During the course of his two
year stint at Fox, Beck had openly recommended the work of Nazi sympathiser
Elizabeth Dilling, who had spoken of “Ike
the kike” and Kennedy’s New Frontier as the “Jew Frontier.” Beck devoted an entire show to a conspiracy theory
on bankers such as the Rothschilds, interviewing the conspiracy theorist G.
Edward Griffin, who described
the Czarist anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion “as accurately describing much of what is
happening in our world today.” The Protocols, which were the basis of much
of the Nazis’ anti-Semitism, were described by Norman Cohn as a Warrant for Genocide. Beck accused Soros
of being a “puppet master notorious for
collapsing economies and regimes all around the world” Beck has however a defence against the charge
of anti-Semitism. He also attacks
Soros as an atheist and for being a critic of Israel.
It is often said that anti-Semites
hide their anti-Semitism behind criticism of Israel and Zionism whereas the
opposite is far more common. Most
anti-Semites today, of which Beck is a good example, hide their anti-Semitism
behind support of Israel.
Viktor Orban therefore was in
very good company when he launched his campaign against Soros. Far from Netanyahu criticising him for his
anti-Semitism, quite the opposite took place and Israel’s Ambassador in Hungary
Yossi Amrani was
forced to withdraw his mild criticisms of Orban.
The attack on Soros was the
least of Orban’s sins though. His real
crime has been the campaign by Orban and his Fidesz party to rehabilitate
Admiral Horthy, Hungary’s ruler between 1920 and 1944 and the author of
Hungary’s war-time alliance with Nazi Germany.
Horthy was quite open about the fact
that he was an anti-Semite:
As
regards the Jewish problem, I have been an anti-Semite throughout my life. I
have never had contact with Jews. I have considered it intolerable that here in
Hungary everything, every factory, bank, large fortune, business, theatre,
press, commerce, etc. should be in Jewish hands, and that the Jew should be the
image reflected of Hungary, especially abroad. Since, however, one of the most
important tasks of the government is to raise the standard of living, i.e., we
have to acquire wealth, it is impossible, in a year or two, to replace the
Jews, who have everything in their hands, and to replace them with incompetent,
unworthy, mostly big-mouthed elements, for we should become bankrupt. This
requires a generation at least. [R Patai, the Jews of Hungary, p. 546]
Instead
from 1938 onwards Horthy introduced three successive anti-Jewish acts, the last
one of which in August 1941 outlawed sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews
and defined as Jewish anyone with 2 or more Jewish grandparents.
In
March 1944, after learning of Hungarian peace overtures to the Allies, German
troops invaded its ally and set up a pro-Nazi government under Döme Sztójay, the Hungarian
Ambassador to Germany.
On May 15th
the deportation of 437,000 Jews to Auschwitz began and it was not until July 7th
that Horthy finally put an end to the deportations. Virtually all Jews in the provinces had been
deported but those in Budapest had largely escaped (although around 50,000 were
to die at the hands of the Iron Cross government that the Nazis installed from
October 23rd onwards).
Historians will argue over the actual responsibility of Horthy for the
extermination of the bulk of Hungarian Jewry however it is indisputable that if
Horthy was able to put an end to the deportations in early July he could have
done so far sooner. It was only
with a massive US bombardment of
Budapest on July 2nd and what amounted to a ‘bombardment of Horthy’s
conscience’ by the Pope, King Gustav of Sweden and many other world leaders,
that the deportations were brought to an end.
The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu
can not only sup with Viktor Orban but actually join in with the attack on George
Soros shows the depth to which Zionism will go. The fake condemnation of ‘anti-Semitism’ by Zionism
in the West should not blind us to the fact that Zionism has no problems with genuine
anti-Semitism, indeed it welcomes anti-Semitism in many cases. It is only opposition to Israel and Zionism,
to the racism and apartheid that Palestinians experience, that is deemed ‘anti-Semitism’. Genuine Jew hatred can always be forgiven if
the anti-Semite in question supports Israel.
Below are a number of articles
from Ha’aretz, Israel’s only liberal daily, decrying the alliance between Netanyahu
and the Israeli government and the Hungarian anti-Semites of Fidesz and Orban.
Tony Greenstein
The more nationalistic Israel becomes, the more its affection will grow
for those who promote nationalism and xenophobia, even if they are
anti-Semites, as seen in Netanyahu's dealings with Hungary's government
Haaretz Editorial Jul 13, 2017 3:04
AM
The Hungarian government’s
announcement that it will remove posters denouncing Hungarian-born Jewish
tycoon George Soros before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrival in the
country does not in any way mitigate the premier’s scandalous behavior in this
matter.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orban and his party, Fidesz, are conducting a nationalist, racist and
Islamophobic election campaign. With rhetoric that is most familiar to the
Israeli ear, they claim that Soros is funding civil society organizations and
liberal nonprofits in Hungary. The Jewish community in Hungary has expressed
concern that the campaign is encouraging anti-Semitism, and the Israeli
ambassador in Hungary issued a condemnation and demanded the posters be
removed. But the Hungarian right’s ideological partners among the Israeli right
wing were infuriated by the ambassador’s announcement, as it ostensibly
defended Soros, whom they see as assisting the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions)
movement against Israel.
Netanyahu, as usual, succumbed to
the pressure, and his office ordered the Foreign Ministry to issue a
clarification, stating that the earlier condemnation “in no way was meant to delegitimize criticism of George Soros, who continuously
undermines Israel’s democratically elected governments by funding organizations
that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself.”
Ultra-nationalism is and has always
been inherently linked to anti-Semitism, including hatred of the “universal
Jew,” whose very existence is seen as a threat to subvert the world’s division
into nations. The behavior of the Netanyahu government shows that even Israel,
the Jewish state, is not immune to this hatred.
Israelis don’t need Soros to know
that Jews can be declared subversives in their own country. Those who advance
universalist agendas and fight for human rights, including the rights of
minorities and foreigners, are denounced in Israel as enemies. Their Jewishness
is irrelevant to this loyalty test. Moreover, the more Israelis view the
occupation not as a problem to resolve but as the flagship of Jewish
nationalism, the more its opponents are perceived as enemies of the people.
It seems loyalty to Israel is being
evaluated by new parameters in keeping with the spirit of the times. Two weeks
ago Orban praised the Holocaust-era Hungarian ruler Miklos Horthy, who
collaborated with the Nazis and under whom half a million Hungarian Jews were
sent to the death camps. Israel protested Orban’s comments, but so as not to
affect Netanyahu’s planned meeting with him next week, made do with the weak
clarification offered by the Hungarian foreign minister.
The more nationalistic Israel
becomes, the more the hatred of those carrying the banner of moral values and a
universalist identity will grow, and they will be perceived as enemies even if
they are Jews. At the same time, Israel’s affection will grow for those who
promote nationalism and xenophobia, even if they are anti-Semites.
PM Netanyahu endorsed a campaign whose intent was
clear: Soros, the Jew, and Orban's hate-figure, is Hungary's Enemy Number One.
Hitler would have been gratified
Shimon Stein and Moshe Zimmerman
Jul 13, 2017 3:24 PM
 |
| Adolf Hitler often referred to the trope of the 'Laughing Jew', the Nazi backstory to Hungary's anti-Soros poster campaign: Anti-Semitic Nazi poster auctioned in Munich, Germany. April 24, 2017. Matthias Schrader/AP |
Adolf Hitler, November 8,
1942:
"Today,
countless [Jews] who laughed at that time, laugh no longer. Those who are still
laughing now, also will perhaps laugh no longer soon... International Jewry
will be recognized in all its demoniac peril."
Hitler repeated this 'prophecy'
many times from January 1939 onwards: that the 'laughing Jew' would be
exterminated. By November 1942, the Holocaust was already no laughing matter.
Nearly four million Jews had already been murdered.
Every literate person acquainted
with the history of the Shoah is familiar with Hitler's repeated outbursts
concerning the "laughing Jew."
All the more, we should assume, must an Israeli, educated to remember the
Shoah, be sensitive and alert when it comes to the anti-Semitic archetype of
the laughing Jew.
With that historical
context and moral commitment in mind, Israel's Ambassador to Hungary
Yossi Amrani, in coordination with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, reacted
immediately to the posters blanketing the country in a campaign instigated by
the ruling Fidesz party, calling on the Hungarian people not to let
George Soros "be the one who laughs
last". Amrani stated: "The
campaign not only evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear."
The intent behind the posters is
clear: Soros, the Jew, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban's hate-figure, is
Hungary's Enemy Number One. The allusion to Hitler's speech, conscious or not,
is unambiguous and Amrani's protest against the men behind this poster was only
natural. The Jewish community of Hungary is appalled and the ambassador of the
country that claims to be the representative of the Jewish people reacted
accordingly.
How do we therefore explain the
response of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, usually extremely
sensitive to supposedly anti-Semitic expressions, who openly criticized his
ambassador's justified protest?
He did it by
"reinterpreting" Amrani's statement: First of all: Amrani's intent
was not to delegitimize those who criticize Soros, i.e. Orban and the Fidesz
party. Moreover: Soros is a person "who
continuously undermines Israel's democratically elected governments by funding
organizations that defame the Jewish state", and for that, he deserves
this reprimand.
The anti-Soros posters blanketing Budapest metro stations. The
government-led ad campaign included billboards, posters and TV ads Pablo Gorondi/AP
Here we are: The Israeli
government exculpates the Hungarian government, and turns the victim of an
anti-Semitic attack, Soros, into the perpetrator, the common enemy.
In pursuing its national
interest, Israel has struck a balance between realpolitik and moral politics,
that is to say, a value-based policy. Not always an easy task, but an essential
one, especially for the state that has taken upon itself to speak and fight for
the Jewish people when it comes to combating anti-Semitism.
And so in the case of Hungary,
while preserving Israeli national interests, there is absolutely no need to
embrace politicians (and parties) who are nationalists, racists or
anti-Semites, who disguise themselves as supporters of Israel, just because
both parties fight against a "common
enemy" – the Left (in this case, Soros). This explains the absurd
alliance between Orban's Hungary and Netanyahu's Israel and the slap in the
face of Hungarian Jewry, or better – in face of diaspora Jews wherever they
live.
Only a year ago Netanyahu went so
far as to put the blame on the Mufti of Jerusalem for generating the Final
Solution. The same Netanyahu is not going to cancel his upcoming visit to
"friendly" Hungary in spite of the fact that Prime Minister Orban
recently praised another of Hitler's collaborators, Admiral Miklos
Horthy, who made a far more decisive contribution to Hitler's Final Solution
than the Mufti.
 |
| Activists from the Egyutt (Together) party tear down an ad by the Hungarian government against George Soros in Budapest. July 12, 2017 Pablo Gorondi/AP |
When the Hungarian government,
under pressure, announced Wednesday that it would remove the posters from the
public sphere, it did not apologize for their anti-Semitic character, but
declared that their aim had already been achieved.
Israel, usually quick at
suggesting anti-Semitic motives from people who dare criticize its policies, be
it the foreign ministers of Sweden or Germany, or even Israeli human rights
NGOs, seems to turn a blind eye to anti-Semitism stemming from dubious
"friends".
Fighting anti-Semitism is a
fundamental plank of Israeli politics, but anti-Semitism should not be confused
with legitimate criticism against Israeli policies; the fears of diaspora Jewry
must be taken seriously; and last but not least, any
Israeli legitimization for populist right-wing parties in Europe,
not least when they undermine the historical record of the Holocaust and the
fight against contemporary anti-Semitism, must be avoided at all price.
Shimon Stein served as Israel's
Ambassador to Germany 2000-7 and is research fellow at the INSS, Tel Aviv
University
Moshe Zimmermann is a historian
and Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Shimon Stein
Attacking Soros: Israel’s Unholy Covenant With Europe’s anti-Semitic Ultra-right
To crush ‘the ‘enemy within’, its leftist critics, Israel’s government
will go all the way – complicity with Hungary’s anti-Soros campaign and
spitting in the face of the Jewish diaspora included
Hillel Ben-Sasson Jul 12, 2017 2:18
PM
For more than a decade now, right
wing NGOs such as Im Tirtzu and My Israel have been leading vehement campaigns
against progressive philanthropies. They are enthusiastically assisted by
politicians in the Likud and HaBayit HaYehudi parties.
For the right, such attacks kill
two birds with one stone.
First, in the absence of a
functioning center-left parliamentary opposition in Israel, attacks seek to
delegitimize the most vocal opposition against government policies - those that tend
to originate in civil society.
Secondly, by shifting the focus to
"the enemies within", Israel’s right-wing leadership – de facto in
power for four consecutive decades – manages to evade wide public criticism
against its stagnant governance and policies. Attacking the New Israel Fund or
European governments who support human rights work in Israel served as an
Archimedean inflection point to discredit many dozens of their grantees,
rendering all as traitors in a wholesale manner.
The success of the right’s strategy
has been so overwhelming that in public debates in Israel and the Diaspora
today, right wingers have largely abandoned the practice of providing arguments
and simply respond to challenges by arguing that their interlocutor is funded
by the aforementioned ‘evil’ anti-Israeli forces and therefore not worthy of
stating any claim.
You’d expect that, bearing in mind
this ever-expanding attack on progressive foreign aid, George Soros’ global philanthropic
Open Society Foundations, which embodies the kind of support the right
demonizes, would become an obvious major target.
Yet, until last week, little to no
attention was paid by the usual Israeli right-wing attackers to Soros or to
OSF. In all probability, the reason for “sparing” Soros’ philanthropy thus far
lay in the nature of their giving. Spending many millions on humanitarian
causes and democracy-building around the wider Middle East, OSF’s activity in
Israel specifically and in relation to it has always been limited.
 |
| Mass protest against the Hungarian government’s campaign against civil society organizations, Heroes Square, Budapest. April 12, 2017.Zoltan Balogh/AP |
If Soros and the OSF were never
prominent enough to merit a direct negative campaign for Israel’s diligent
right wing, why now? The answer is not to be found in any of Soros’ recent
actions, but rather in the shifting interests of Israel’s hard right.
Underlying the official assault on
Soros and his alleged support of BDS against Israel is the growing alliance of
Israeli right-wingers with Europe’s radical right.
It began with the disturbing
welcome given by members of the Likud governing party to Austrian radical right
politicians. Later on, similar ties were forged between more members of
Israel’s right wing, mostly its national religious faction, and new partners in
Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, the American alt-right and of course,
Hungary.
United around a shared hate of
Arabs and Muslims, radical European right-wingers provided for certain Israeli
politicians and activists a way out of their isolation in the international
arena. In return, Israeli counterparts provided kosher certificates attesting
that the foreign hardliners are not the anti-Semites they seem to be.
United by a shared hatred of Arabs
and Muslims, radical European right-wingers offer the Israeli right
legitimization: Hungarian PM Viktor Orban at the Fidesz Party congress,
Budapest. Dec 13, 2015
United by a shared hatred of Arabs
and Muslims, radical European right-wingers offer the Israeli right
legitimization: Hungarian PM Viktor Orban at the Fidesz Party congress,
Budapest. Dec 13, 2015Bloomberg
The naked truth regarding this
unholy covenant was exposed when only two days after condemning the Hungarian
prime minister’s vicious and openly anti-Semitic campaign against Soros, the
Israeli government partly retracted and joined the choir against the Jewish
billionaire and his progressive operations. It took no more than a handful of
angry tweets from right-wing pundits to remind PM Netanyahu that his electoral
base is not against the new anti-Semites, but rather consider them their
next-of-kin. The fight against anti-Semitism could be discarded in order to
make room for a shared negative portrait of Soros.
This move ought to be highly
disturbing for anyone who believes in Israel and the Jewish project of national
self-determination. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, one of Israel’s
fundamental commitments was, and still is, the fight against anti-Semitism in
all its guises and forms.
This is not only a way of
protecting Israel and its international status from quasi-diplomatic forms of
hidden anti-Semitism. It is also a core element of Israeli solidarity with
Diaspora Jews. Abandoning this most basic tenet of Israel’s foundational core
values and mission marks a dangerous slippery slope, that adds to the
escalating rift between most U.S. Jews and the Israeli governing
elites.
To crush ‘the enemy within’, its
leftist critics, Israel’s government will go all the way, anti-Semitism
included: Im Tirtzu campaign targeted left-wing artists as fifth columnists
To crush ‘the enemy within’, its
leftist critics, Israel’s right-wing will go all the way, anti-Semitism
included: Im Tirtzu campaign targeted left-wing artists as fifth columnists
An even more concerning aspect of
these new and critically near-sighted alliances between the Israeli right and
ultra-nationalist powers in Europe and the U.S. touches on the Holocaust itself.
European ultra-nationalists don’t only rely on the Israeli support in rewriting
their countries’ role in implementing the Final Solution; they also contribute
directly to the recent upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents against Jews in the
Diaspora.
Can it be that in order to secure
support for the settlement project, Israel is turning its back to the Jewish
people and their safety? Can it be that unwittingly, Israeli leaders are
promoting a new and sophisticated form of Holocaust denial? These are the important
questions to be asked, and not the irresponsible diversions of the nuances of
George Soros’ position on Zionism.
Hillel Ben-Sasson is a visiting assistant professor of Israel Studies at
the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York. In the past he worked as Director of
Programs for Molad, a think tank that received partial support from the Open
Society Foundations.
On Netanyahu’s Orders: Israel's Foreign Ministry Retracts Criticism of anti-Semitism in Hungary and Strongly Attacks Soros
On Saturday, Israel’s ambassador to Hungary issued harsh statement
calling on Hungarian PM and his party to remove posters against the Jewish
billionaire ■ Foreign Ministry spokesperson: Soros is constantly undermining
Israeli government by financing organizations that defame Jewish state
Barak Ravid Jul 09, 2017 10:26 PM
At the behest of the Prime
Minister’s Office, the Foreign Ministry on Sunday retracted a statement issued
the previous day by the Israeli ambassador to Hungary, which had called on
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party to halt a poster campaign
against Jewish-American financier George Soros on the grounds that it was
fueling anti-Semitism.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel
Nahshon issued a clarification that refrained from criticizing Orbán but also
sharply criticized Soros himself, using claims similar to the ones being made
against him by the Hungarian government.
“Israel
deplores any expression of anti-Semitism in any country and stands with Jewish
communities everywhere in confronting this hatred. This was the sole purpose of
the statement issued by Israel’s ambassador to Hungary,” the statement
said. “In no way was the statement meant
to delegitimize criticism of George Soros, who continuously undermines Israel’s
democratically elected governments by funding organizations that defame the
Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself.”
The tension comes at a particularly
sensitive time, since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet
Orbán in Budapest on July 18, during what will be the first visit of an Israeli
premier to Hungary in 30 years. The day after their meeting, Netanyahu and
Orbán are scheduled to meet with the leaders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia
and Poland.
On Saturday, Israeli Ambassador to
Hungary Yossi Amrani issued an extraordinarily sharp statement in which he
called on Orbán and his party, Fidesz, to remove posters hung throughout the
country that criticized Soros.
The posters appearing all over
Hungary over the past few days feature a picture of Soros laughing and are
captioned, “Let’s not let Soros have the
last laugh.”
Some of the posters were glued to
the floor of train cars in Budapest and other cities, so that anyone boarding
the train would have to step on them.
Orbán and Fidesz are attacking
Soros – who was born in Budapest and survived Nazi-occupied Hungary – because
of the latter’s supposed activity against Hungary’s harsh policies toward the
entry of Muslim refugees.
 |
| Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest, July 4, 2017.ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP |
Orbán and Fidesz have taken what
many see as a nationalist, racist and Islamophobic line ahead of the 2018
election. They claim Soros funds civil society groups and liberal associations
in Hungary with the purpose of “settling a million migrants” in the country.
The Jewish community in Hungary,
numbering over 100,000, is extremely concerned by the messages in Orbán’s
election campaign – particularly the ones against Soros. Since the launch of
the campaign, the Hungarian media has reported a number of incidents in which
anti-Semitic graffiti has been spray-painted on the posters.
Senior figures in the Jewish
community have conveyed very worried messages to the Israeli Embassy in
Budapest about the posters, which they say have anti-Semitic connotations and
encourage an atmosphere of aggression against Jews, especially because many
Hungarians consider Soros as first and foremost Jewish.
Following the messages conveyed by
the local Jewish communities, there were consultations between Amrani and
Foreign Ministry staffers in Jerusalem, after which it was decided to issue a
statement critical of the poster campaign.
The wording of the statement was
approved by the ministry’s deputy director general for diplomacy, Alon Ushpiz,
and Foreign Ministry Director General Yuval Rotem.
“The
campaign not only evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear,” the
statement said. “It’s our moral responsibility to raise a voice and call on the
relevant authorities to exert their power and put an end to this cycle.”
Although Netanyahu holds the
foreign ministry portfolio, the senior Foreign Ministry officials that approved
the wording of the statement did not coordinate its release with the Prime
Minister’s Office, which learned of it from the media.
After the statement was issued,
there was also pushback from right-wing politicians and media outlets, which
condemned the Foreign Ministry for issuing a statement that seemed to defend
Soros, whom the Israeli right sees as leading the boycott, divestment and
sanctions movement against Israel.
As a result of this pressure, the
Prime Minister’s Office ordered the Foreign Ministry to issue a clarification
that included a general denunciation of anti-Semitism without specifically
mentioning Hungary, while also criticizing Soros.
This is the second recent clash
between Israel and Hungary over messages with anti-Semitic connotations
promulgated by Orbán and his party.
At an election rally two weeks ago,
Orbán praised Hungary’s leader during World War II, Miklós Horthy, who
collaborated with the Nazis and under whose rule 500,000 Hungarian Jews were
deported to extermination camps, where most were murdered.
Israel protested the statements to
the government in Budapest. However, in order not to compromise the upcoming
summit, it agreed to restraint itself and made do with a weakly worded clarification
by the Hungarian foreign minister.
see also With Netanyahu in town, Hungary’s Jews lament Israel ‘deserting’ them
see also With Netanyahu in town, Hungary’s Jews lament Israel ‘deserting’ them
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