Tag: Hungaria

Jews of Hungary are revolted with the anti-Semitic magazine’s picture aimed against a local Jewish Community.

The business magazine Figyelo images the President of the Federation of the Hungarian Jewish Community showered with cash. The Hungarian Jewish Community began to seethe. It worth mentioning that the magazine appeared shortly after the Prime Minister of Israel gave praised to his Hungarian counterpart for fight against anti-Semitism.

An article published in this pro-government magazine, which owners are close to the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, alleged that the President of the Hungarian Jewish Community András Heysler was involved in financial frauds.

The political adviser of Benjamin Netanyahu met the ambassador of Hungary in Israel and condemned attacks to Mr. Heysler. He also told the ambassador that Israel demands the Hungarian government to denounce any cases of anti-Semitism manifestation.

The opposition leader Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) condemned the publication, having declared, that “the Israel government has to fulminate immediately these anti-Semitic attacks and to lead fight against anti-Semitism”.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) also condemned the Hungarian magazine. “Jews with cash is a well-known shameful anti-Semitic cliché”, – said rabbi Andrew Baker, the Director of International Jewish Affairs at the AJC and a Personal Representative of the OSCE CiO on Combating Anti-Semitism.

The Hungarian Jewish Community splits over controversial Holocaust museum, which Viktor Orbán plans to open next year in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Hungarian Jews deportation to Auschwitz. More than half a million Hungarian Jews were killed during WWII.

The Hungarian government finances the museum, which will belong to the Unified Israelite Congregation of Hungary headed by the rabbi Slomo Koves from Chabad.

The project under the name House of Fates started in 2014 and immediately caused criticism on the part of organizations and individuals, including the Israeli memorial and research center “Yad Vashem” and the President of the Hungarian Jewish Community András Heysler. Critics of the project are afraid that the role of Hungarians in prosecution and deportation of Jews will be shaded in this museum, the history in general will be garbled, and thus the museum will become the political tool in hands of the right nationalist Hungarian government.

“We repeatedly asked to provide us a complete description of an exposition that we could take part in this project with all responsibility. But we have received nothing yet”, – said András Heysler in his interview to the American news agency Bloomberg last October.

Supporters of the government say Viktor Orbán has already recognized Hungarian crimes of Jews during the Holocaust and he is not going to shade these facts. In 2017, after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest, Mr. Orbán told: “During WWII actions of Hungary did not meet moral and political standards. It is a sin because instead of protecting Jews, we preferred to cooperate with Nazis, – Orbán continued. – I let know Mr. Netanyahu that it would not never repeat, in the future the Hungarian government would protect all the citizens”.

However, actually Mr. Orbán’s attitude to the past of his country and Hungarian Jews is much more difficult. In 2017, the Jewish community flayed to Viktor Orbán after he had given praise to Miklos Horthy (the regent of Hungary and Nazis collaborator during WWII). Mr. Orbán called Horthy and other Hungarian leaders “the conspicuous statesmen” directing the country after the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Mr. Orbán also carried out the campaign directed against the Hungarian-Jewish business magnate George Soros.

by Ofer Aderet, Noa Landau, Haaretz

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-hungary-s-jews-rail-over-anti-semitic-magazine-cover-targeting-their-community-head-1.6702398

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“All is fair in love and war”, as the proverb says. Let’s leave aside love and turn regard on war. Modern wars increasingly often find the battlefield in the economic, diplomatic, religious and other spheres. Even ecology is not an exception for confrontation. However, let’s start from pre-history.

The diplomatic scandal around the ethnic population of the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine and their rights has been smoldering for a long time between Ukraine and Hungary, particularly the cn nationalists led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Recently it became known that the Hungarian consulate issues in secret their national passports to the Ukrainian citizens. Naturally, such actions were condemned by the European institutions and the leading states. In response, the Hungarian side repaired to play on ecological safety of Europe.

River Tysa, which is one of the largest inflows of Danube, originates in Ukraine and before falling into Danube goes through several countries including Hungary. Hungarian defenders suddenly took care of the water condition originating from the Ukrainian territory. They found huge amount of heavy metals, harmful chemistry and household waste, in particular plastic bottles there. That’s why it became a new stumbling block in Ukraine-Hungary relations.

Today main ‘accuser’ of Ukraine is Hungarian eco-activist Gergely Hankó. He was also among organizers of unusual performance: making boats and canoe from the bottles fished out of the river and rafting down the river on them. The future of these “means of swimming” is unknown, possibly, they continue poisoning river banks in a more structured form.

The main Mr. Hankó’s argument against Ukraine is a case of spring, 2015, when a large volume of garbage fell into the river in consequence of heavy floods. The Hungarian part restricted themselves to recording the event and taking many shots of dirty river while they turned on the HPP taps and made garbage a problem of their neighbors. At the same time, both Ukrainian and Romanian experts reported about no registered fact of cross-border pollution of the river basin.

We can’t say for sure whether Mr. Hankó’s activity has strictly mercantile features. Possibly, that is manifestation of his altruistic nature, and he really bother about river condition. However, the actions of Hungarian government are by no means altruistic. They have their own goals, the main among which is to retain power. To this end, they use such drastic measures as issuing Hungarian passports to Ukrainians with a view to draw national minorities as their main electorate in advance of upcoming elections. For the same purpose, they make advances to nationalists and are ready to confront the whole Europe and NATO.

Frankly speaking, Ukraine and Hungary are on the brink of mutual expulsion of diplomats that is a very serious step. However, position of Hungarian part in this conflict is the most unflattering, due to propaganda of the nationalist ideas, confrontation with other states, and many other facts. Here tame “ecologist” is needed, he will tell how Ukraine poisons the European rivers and why it is impossible to conduct constructive dialogue with them as their authorities don’t care about citizens of other states. By the way, ideas of ecological safety in Europe advert more and more supporters.

It’s too prematurely to give forecasts as to the end of this confrontation. Most probably, the Hungarian government relies on the support of Russia and their allies in Europe, therefore behaves so aggressively. The main thing the European politicians may assure today is prevent making them fool by high-minded statements, which disguise quite mercenary incentives.

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