‘Ukraine is losing this war, indeed has likely lost it, and Washington is looking for a scapegoat for its colossal strategic failure. Viktor Orbán, who was right about this war from the beginning, is that scapegoat. If Harris wins in November, we can expect a narrative coming out of Washington saying that Ukraine and its allies would have prevailed if it had not been for Hungary stabbing Ukraine in the back.’
‘Hungary may well find, as Australia has, that trade and investment with China can create long-term vulnerabilities as well as immediate economic benefits. After Australia called for a transparent international enquiry into the origins of the Wuhan virus, the Beijing government imposed bogus safety bans on some $20 billion worth of our exports. Despite the Australian government’s attempts to “normalise” relations, there’s now routine harassment of Australian ships and planes exercising freedom of navigation in the areas Beijing wants to dominate.’
The Hungarian government and Jewish communities, along with thousands of ordinary Hungarians, have shown full support of and solidarity with the State of Israel and the Jewish people in a number of ways since 7 October. We have listed the most important ones on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Hungary–Israel relations.
‘You [in Hungary] imbue your young people in primary and secondary school with a sense of Hungary’s place in history…I mean, this was the country that turned back the invasions from Turkey and the Muslim lands and saved European civilization hundreds of years ago…We need to teach history in our schools, teach our young people that their country is something to be proud of.’
The first panel discussion of the second day analysed warfare and its moral implications, and how policymakers, global powers and ordinary people react to the war in Ukraine and to the Israel–Hamas conflict.
‘Today, the Hungarian capital is part of the ongoing political discussion at the highest levels of American political life—for better or for worse. Hungary is either a symbol of all that is bad in the Western world—that’s how progressives, liberals, and neoconservatives see it; or it’s a plucky resister to globalism, social liberalism, and mass migration, a laboratory for a new kind of right-of-center policymaking.’
‘Mass immigration has changed the face of Europe. This is not to say that all immigrants are evil, but we would be blind to ignore the growing social, ethnic and religious tensions and security challenges that mass migration has brought to Europe in recent decades. As many have pointed out several times, one of the first victims of this is European Jewry.’
This week, Germany, the European Union’s largest economy and one of the founding members of the Schengen area, decided to reintroduce border controls along its entire land border in response to growing pressure caused by illegal migration. Increasingly, more member states are following suit for similar reasons, raising the risk that internal border controls will become standard practice, ultimately threatening the existence of one of the EU’s greatest achievements: the Schengen area.
Vice President Kamala Harris did a lot better against President Donald Turmp than Joe Biden, that is undeniable. However, there are a lot of saving graces for President Trump’s performance.
‘It seems to me that Orbán sees his people as having a greater chance of surviving the disintegration of the West by forming ties to China. He might be proven wrong by history. But make no mistake: the dilemma facing Viktor Orbán is a lot like that facing Grand Prince Géza: How to strengthen the position of the small Hungarian nation amid the struggle of powerful states and empires? Géza’s geopolitical decision to baptism his son as a Latin Christian set the course of Hungarian history for a millennium. The stakes may well be as high for Orbán today.’
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.