On Wednesday, 5 June, the famous Uránia National Film Theatre hosted the screening of Avi Benlolo’s short documentary The End of Innocence about the 7 October attacks on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas. The event was hosted by the Action and Protection Foundation (APF), a Hungarian Jewish civil organization, in coordination with the Consulate General of Hungary in Toronto. Leading up to the screening, the distinguished guests gave a series of opening speeches.
However, before the event could commence, there was a minor disturbance outside the building. Two Marxist protesters held up a banner saying ‘No-One Should Attack Anyone’. The two left peacefully after law enforcement asked them to.
Executive Director of APF Kálmán Szalai was the first to take the stage. He started by pointing out that last year’s Hamas attack was the deadliest ‘pogrom’ the Jewish people had to suffer since the Holocaust. What’s more, in the aftermath of the atrocity, anti-semitic incidents in the West increased significantly, with many taking the side of the Palestinian terrorists in the conflict. Meanwhile, as Mr Szalai continued, the intelligentsia stayed silent. He went on to state that an event like this could only be held in Hungary today.
Director of the film Avi Benlolo of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative was next to address the audience. He told them that ‘the world changed’ on 7 October. He then explained the title of his film, The End of Innocence, referring to the era before the attack, which, in retrospect, seems peaceful and innocent now, with the Abraham Accords and some Arab Israelis even serving in the administration of Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. However, the one silver lining is that ‘Now we know what we are up against,’ according to Mr Benlolo.
He also lamented the fact that many had denied that rape and sexual assault occurred during the Hamas attacks and abductions,
something he likened to the denial of the Holocaust.
State Secretary Vince Szalay-Bobrovniczky talked about the close ties the two nations of Israel and Hungary have, the basis of which is their common Judeo–Christian cultural roots. He went on to point out that while pro-Palestine, terrorist-sympathizer protests are common in many major cities in the West, Hungary does not allow such events.
Israeli Ambassador to Hungary Yacov Hadas-Handelsman was the last to take the stage before the film was played. He described the 7 October attacks as ‘the worst nightmare’ Israelis could have imagined. He, echoing what Mr Benlolo had said, also decried the initial denial of sexual assault by Hamas militants, especially from Western feminist groups, who stayed ‘deafeningly’ silent on the issue. The new motto of the #MeToo movement could be: ‘all victims are believed, unless they are Jewish,’ the Ambassador quipped. On the broader context of the Israel–Hamas conflict, he pointed out that in 1947, the UN General Assembly accepted a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. One side, the Jewish state, is willing to abide by the accord, while the other, Palestine, is not.
The documentary The End of Innocence starts with testimonies from the leaders of three major American universities, MIT, Harvard, and Penn State, in front of the US Congress. Shockingly, none of them was willing to state under oath that calling for the genocide of the Jewish people constitutes bullying or harassment at their respective institutions, instead giving non-committing answers such as ‘it depends on the context’.
The film then cuts to the Nova music festival, the attendees of which were targeted by Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023.
Around 1,200 Israelis died that day, while an additional 251 people were taken hostage.
The film also features the witness account of a young Jewish man who managed to escape the captivity of Hamas; as well as Yosef, a heroic minibus driver who drove back to the music festival to rescue as many people as he could, risking his own life in the process.
At the panel discussion after the screening, Israeli politician Ariel Kallner of the ruling Likud party shared that he feels very welcome in Hungary as a Jewish person. He then reminded all that the next day was going to be the anniversary of the D-Day landing of the Allied forces in Normandy, France in 1944; and went on to point out that had the type of moral relativism been present with the Nazis as it is with Hamas today, the Allied invasion of Germany may never have succeeded.
Israeli influencer Hananya Naftali, who has also been part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s communication team, spoke of Islamism and wokeism. While they may be completely different on the surface, Mr Nafta views them both as pernicious ideologies aiming to homogenize the world. Meanwhile, Arab Israeli Mohammad Kabiya highlighted the sad reality that the missiles launched by Hamas to Israel do not discriminate between Jewish or Arab victims. Thus, many times, the terrorist are hurting their own brethren even.
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