[ad_1]
BUDAPEST – In recent months, activists and journalists are wary whenever they receive an e-mail from an Israeli or hear a Hebrew speaking voice from a number unknown on their phone. They perform background checks and verify identities across multiple social media platforms before agreeing to meet each other.
Their suspicions are founded. Right-wing newspapers in Hungary and Israel have published reports and overwhelming quotes from civil rights NGO employees, working with European partners to try to influence the legislation. of the Hungarian Parliament. All of this fueled the hysteria caused by the Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán against refugees and those who were trying to help them. Earlier in the month, Politico revealed that Israeli-owned Black Cube had conducted an undercover operation aimed at tainting non-profit organizations ahead of the April legislative elections.
>> Part I: Orbán comes to Israel to meet his soul mate Netanyahu. This is how he takes democracy in Hungary
"The woman who phoned me and offered to pay me for speaking at a conference said that she was Spanish, but that she did not speak. she had an Israeli accent, "says Haaretz to a target of the operation. "This was not the only thing that made me suspicious, of course, she offered me 5000 euros [$5,815] to give a lecture.It's more than I earn in a year." "
The reputation of Black Cube and other commercial watch companies founded by former members of the Israeli intelligence community is not the only reason why Hungarian activists are reluctant to talk to Israelis. In the corridors of power in Budapest and among the tight communities of Israeli journalists, activists and expats, there is a consensus that the Hungarian government's relations with Jerusalem have never been so intense. . And that was true well before Wednesday night, when Orbán arrived in Israel on his first official visit to the country.
"If you want to understand Bibi, look at Orbán, and vice versa", explains a resident of Budapest who spent time with the Hungarian and Israeli prime ministers, because the parallels between Benjamin Netanyahu and Orbán are cut off. The two men came to power in the 1990s, as the youngest prime ministers in the history of their country, both of whom lost an election after only one term and then pbaded by. A decade in the opposition, both returned to the Prime Minister's Office and have since won three consecutive elections using xenophobia, a siege mentality and the weakness of their left-wing liberal rivals to perpetuate and strengthen their hold on power.
The similarities do not stop there. Netanyahu and Orbán are both heads of relatively small nations, each with some 9 million citizens. Yet, despite their size, every leader has taken advantage of his position: Netanyahu in that of a world-clbad man who has the ear of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin; Orbán as a figurehead for other nationalist and populist politicians who disrupt the policies of the European Union in Brussels. Netanyahu and Orbán, veterans of three decades of politics, were both announcers of the Trump era.
& # 39; Political Pragmatism & # 39;
Hungarians on the right and on the left find little common ground these days, but supporters and opponents of Orbán strongly agree that he and Bibi are close. "Orbán and Netanyahu have common values," said Zoltán Kovács, spokesman for the Hungarian government. "They share political pragmatism instead of dogmatic ideology.You can see that it works.These two countries face similar challenges with similar solutions."
Kovács, historian before doing politics, is right. Hungarians and Israelis share similar geopolitical situations: small nations with a unique language and culture, nestled between regional powers and much larger national groups, and with aspirations far beyond their weight. Both Netanyahu and Orbán have an acute understanding of the history of their respective countries and have been very adept at using it to their political advantage in domestic politics and, increasingly, on the world stage.
Haim Zach / GPO
This is Orbán's first official visit to Israel as Prime Minister after Netanyahu's first official visit to Budapest last July. But the two have known each other for more than a decade, sharing a network of political contacts and advisers from Jerusalem to Washington. Orbán visited Jerusalem privately at least twice before, once when the two men were in opposition ten years ago.
>> Part II: With Orbán and Soros, the Jews of Hungary trapped between pro-Israel politics and anti-Semitic politics
"They gave each other advice on political messages – including phrases to use in speeches," said a senior Israeli official. "And, of course, Bibi introduced Orbán to Finkelstein."
The legendary political strategist Arthur Finkelstein – master of the dark arts of the negative campaign, which created Netanyahu's devastating slogan for Netanyahu's 1996 elections – was recommended to Orbán and orchestrated his 2010 re-election campaign. State of New York, Finkelstein, who died last year, made only short appearances, usually secret, in countries where he advised. But he would send his badociates to supervise things closely. The man that Finkelstein sent as Project Manager for the Orbán 2010 campaign was his partner, George Birnbaum, who had previously lived in Israel and worked for Netanyahu as a senior aide in the 1990s. The Synagogue Members Chabad, in the center of Budapest, remember the Orthodox Birnbaum who went there for prayers and the Sabbath meal, so he could be within walking distance of Saturday's rallies in Orbán.
Links were forged between Likud and Fidesz at different levels for years, with delegations from both sides visiting each other. A wide range of advisors, businessmen and religious leaders also benefit from this relationship. "I never imagined how much Netanyahu and Orbán were entangled," said a senior Israeli official who recently worked on a topic of concern to both countries. "But by the time I became involved, I realized how many millionaires, rabbis and opinion makers are shuttling between Jerusalem and Budapest." In the end, however, the relationship is between the two leaders.
Position of combat
At the beginning of his political career, Orbán was introduced as a center-right and even liberal politician. But he took a sharp turn to the right in 2009 and began ruthlessly playing the nationalist card. Netanyahu's career has followed a similar trajectory (the Likud is still called a "national-liberal party" until recently).
In either case, the influence of Finkelstein – who once said that his most proud feat was to have made the word "liberal" a dirty word in American politics – can be discerned . His political style of distilling entire campaigns into a few "key words", playing on voter prejudices and the deepest phobias, was as effective in Hungary and Israel as in the United States.
For most of their relationships, Netanyahu – who is almost 14 years older – was the main and most important partner. But over the past two years, as new populist politicians have come forward in Europe and the United States, Orbán 's stature has increased and they are more equal nowadays. In the 2016 US presidential election, Netanyahu – who believed that Hillary Clinton would win and beware anyway of Trump's unpredictability – remained firmly on the fence. Orbán, on the other hand, did not hide his preference for Trump, expressing support for his politics during the elections. Netanyahu also is inspired by Orbán, trying in recent months to use the issue of asylum seekers in Israel as a rallying point for the Likud base, with tactics borrowed from Orbán's armament on the refugee crisis in Europe.
Netanyahu was also encouraged by Orbán's combative stance towards the creation of the EU and the most influential leader of the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel . The governments of Israel and Hungary both have a complicated double relationship with the EU and Germany.
EU membership is essential for a small landlocked country like Hungary. Its economy must be part of the EU trade network, and much of Hungary's GDP is generated by the production of German-owned companies and factories on its territory. EU grants are an important part of the Hungarian government's budget, while the money sent by hundreds of thousands of Hungarian citizens, who have moved to richer European countries to live and work, is vital for many families. On the other hand, the EU has strongly criticized the Orbán government 's policy of repressing the media, piling up courts with pro – Fidesz judges and closing the border to asylum seekers.
"Germany is a major economic factor for Hungary and the EU cohesion funds also give them a major boost.Hungary is essentially a link in the chain. German supply, "says Karen Vartapetov, senior badyst at Standard & Poor's." The Orbán government's policy is full of contradictions, pro and anti-EU, so they prefer to call it anti-Brussels. And they are part of the German economy while being hypercritical of Merkel. "
'A key ally & # 39;
Israel, although it is not a member of the EU like Hungary, has a similar situation. The EU is its main trading partner and source of hundreds of millions of research and economic grants per year. But Brussels is also behind most of the criticism of Israeli policies and has been in the vanguard of opposition to two recent decisions of the United States. Trump administration: the United States withdraws from the Iranian nuclear agreement; and move his embbady to Jerusalem. The relationship with Germany is also difficult, Merkel expressing a clear commitment to Israel's security – by subsidizing the purchase of German submarines and missiles for the Israeli Navy – while encouraging the EU hostility towards Netanyahu's policy.
In response, Netanyahu adopted the Orbán approach. While he is pro-EU in trade relations, he and his ministers have become increasingly aggressive in politics. This included refusing to meet Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign policy chief, while she was due to go to Jerusalem for a conference last month (Mogherini therefore canceled her arrival). And, just like Orbán, he will never criticize Merkel in public, but criticizes more and more his politics and woo his opponents in Europe.
"Major changes are happening in Europe, and it is becoming less liberal and more nationalistic," says a senior Israeli diplomat. "Orbán is leading this change and Netanyahu has identified him as a key ally."
Change can not happen fast enough for one or the other. Under the Obama administration, the Orbán government was frozen because of allegations of corruption against senior Hungarian officials and the proximity of the prime minister to Russian President Putin. Despite Orbán's affinities with Trump, he was not high on the priority list of the new government. "The message that Orbán is in Trump's camp has not filtered out fast enough to the State Department," says a Budapest official. "The bureaucracies are slow everywhere and Orbán has turned to Netanyahu to help him get out of there."
Orbán did not wait for Netanyahu to pull the Israeli levers in Washington. In early 2017, the Hungarian government hired two Israelis to work for them in DC: Tzvika Brot, a former journalist and now mayor of Likud for Bat Yam (a suburb of Tel Aviv); and Ariel Sender, a seasoned lobbyist and former advisor to right-wing politicians in Israel. Their company led the Republican Party's campaign to US citizens living in Israel in the 2016 elections, and they also received a $ 45,000 monthly retainer to lobby for Orbán in Washington.
However, these efforts were not enough: during Netanyahu's visit to Budapest last year, Orbán asked for help, and Ron Dermer, Israel's ambbadador and Netanyahu's confidant , was working to open the doors of the administration.
Common Purpose
All Israeli lobbying seems to have helped. In May, the first high-level meeting between the Hungarian and US authorities took place when Orbán's Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjártó (also accompanying Orbán during his visit to Israel), met with the Secretary of State. State Mike Pompeo in Washington. The meeting was effective in many ways. At the summit of NATO leaders in Brussels last week, Trump was suddenly using an old talking point that had been created by Orbán. Responding to criticism of his own proximity to Putin, Trump accused Germany of being "a captive to Russia" because of the Russian natural gas that she buys.
KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS
Trump echoes his new love for l & 39. ideology of Orbán. , where he said that immigration to Europe has led to an increase in crime levels "in some places that have never had a crime.I will not mention specific countries, but you can choose the country and you can see what is happening, some countries would not pick it up, and they are really being reprimanded by the European Union for not doing it.
"You look at Hungary as an example," he continued. "They do not agree to do what some of the other countries have done.Now it's a very difficult thing, on a humanitarian level, you have to do something, and yet it's changing Europe. This is seriously changing Europe. "
Netanyahu, Trump and Orbán now share a common goal by disrupting EU policy. For that, Netanyahu not only waved Orbán but the Visegrád Four (whose other members are Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). To gain the support of the Visegrád governments, Netanyahu was ready last year to reject the Hungarian Jewish community's call for the Orbán government to stop its anti-Semitic campaign against the American-Hungarian Jewish financier George Soros. And only three weeks ago, he signed a joint declaration with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, absolving Poland or the Polish nation as a whole "for the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators from different nations". Yad Vashem's historians, who rejected Netanyahu-Morawiecki's revisionism of the Holocaust.
Members of a far-right group wearing masks of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an event criticizing Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki for backtracking on parts of the Holocaust speech in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, July 2, 2018. (AP Photo / Czarek Sokolowski)
Members of a far-right group wearing masks of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a demonstration against Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki for backing on parts of a Holocaust Law in Warsaw. Poland, Monday 2 July 2018. (AP Photo / Czarek Sokolowski)
"srcset =" https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6245580.1531928788!/image/1603349203.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_468xAuto/1603349203.jpg 468w, https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6245580. 1531928788! /image/1603349203.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_640xAuto/1603349203.jpg 640w, https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6245580.1531928788! /image/1603349203.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_748xAuto/1603349203.jpg 748w, https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6245580.1531928788!/image/1603349203.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_936xAuto/1603349203.jpg 936w, https: //www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6245580.1531928788! / image /1603349203.jpg_gen/derivatives/size_1496xAuto/1603349203.jpg 1496w "height =" ">
En back, along with other like-minded European member countries, Orbán has hindered the EU's sentences to Israel on various issues, as well as the condemnation of the US embbady in Jerusalem. He is now trying to get his colleagues in Visegrád to agree to hold a summit next year in Jerusalem (like the one Netanyahu took part in last year in Budapest). Netanyahu hopes the four Central European countries will challenge the EU's common policy and agree to follow the Trump administration by moving their embbadies to Jerusalem, but this could be a bridge too far for them now .
Officially, Hungary still stands by the EU's position of supporting the two-state solution and not recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But while he is in Israel this week, Orbán will make another move by visiting the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. And he will challenge the practice of the EU, if not the official policy, by not including a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on his schedule as well. "We have not received an invitation from the Palestinians," said Kovacs, spokesman for Orbán.
Even though Netanyahu does not get the official recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel during this visit, the two leaders still believe that they have a long and mutually beneficial relationship in front of them. With the help of Trump, they both intend to remain figureheads for the new populist wave of Western politics for years to come.
[ad_2]
Source link
