Since the outbreak of the Hamas–Israel war in October 2023, many Israeli football teams have played their ‘home’ games in Hungary to avoid terror threats, be it the national team or clubs. The latest such instant was the Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Turkish side Beşiktaş, which the Israelis won 3–1 in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen.
That game was an especially hard challenge for organizers, given that just three weeks prior, fans of the same Tel Aviv team were attacked by Palestine sympathisers in Amsterdam, Netherlands after their game against Ajax (a Dutch team of historical Jewish ties, by the way). The game in Debrecen, however, took place without any incidences, although without fans either.
This prompted French AFP to author a rare piece in Western mainstream media that is at least somewhat complementary of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary’s leadership. It is titled ‘Orban’s soft power shines as Hungary hosts Israeli match’.
‘This is Hungarian soft power at work. Orban is using football for political purposes…accentuating some of the more positive credentials of himself and Hungary,’ the article, picked up by several outlets, quotes professor of sport and geopolitical economy at France’s SKEMA Business School Simon Chadwick.
The piece also points out that while in many Western countries, pro-Palestine protests sparked up in the wake of the Hamas–Israel war, and with those, antisemitic incidents also increased, Hungary has not allowed any such demonstrations to take place.
However, in the latter half of the article, after some rare positive coverage of Hungary, the author also insinuates that the Orbán administration may be engaging in such friendly gestures to Israel to make up for its alleged antisemitism. The article brings up a series of billboard campaigns against the political influence of Hungarian American billionaire George Soros and his son Alex Soros. As the author points out, it was initially criticized by the Israeli Ambassador to Hungary when it was first launched in 2017, but shortly after, the Netanyahu government condoned it and also spoke up against Soros.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has also used his stance for Israel to further criticize mass immigration into Europe. He is making the point that a vast amount of the antisemitic acts are committed by recent immigrants from Muslim-majority countries in Western Europe, as the author also notes.
So, even if the overall content of the article is not entirely positive regarding the Hungarian government, the Orbán administration at least gets a rare praising headline from a mainstream media outlet in Western Europe.
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