Viktor Orban: Anti-Semite?

Until today, most of us probably knew little about Hungarian affairs – This Writer included – so I’ll hand you over to the Washington Post:

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s staunchly anti-migrant prime minister, was reelected Sunday after his right-wing Fidesz party was projected to win a supermajority of seats in parliament.

The central figure in Orban’s anti-migrant tirades has been George Soros, the Hungarian-born American billionaire and liberal philanthropist who has funded Budapest’s Central European University and many of the nongovernmental organizations the current prime minister seeks to close.

But the language Orban has used throughout this year’s campaign has gone far beyond the specific influence of Soros. His rhetoric has repeated word-for-word the anti-Jewish cliches that were once a mainstay of European political life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us,” he said in a March campaign speech in Budapest. “Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”

An anti-Semite, in charge of a European country?

Some dispute the claim, as this dialogue shows:

But the facts seem clear enough.

In that case, why did Boris Johnson not only congratulate this anti-Semite, but state that he looks forward to developing a “close partnership” with him?

UK-based commentators were quick to realise what Mr Johnson has done:-

https://twitter.com/MutazElnour/status/983321965258780672

But does the general public understand? What chance do they have, with people like Benjamin Netanyahu muddying the waters?

This could be an opportunity, of course. You can always tell a person’s views from their choice of friends, and Messrs Netanyahu and Johnson have made theirs explicitly clear.

It would also explain why certain organisations that are perhaps too keen on Israel’s current government and leader have been keen to point the finger of accusation at Jeremy Corbyn and the UK’s Labour Party when it comes to anti-Semitism, rather than the Conservatives – who have a much more serious problem with it, extending into their cabinet, it appears.

https://twitter.com/TheMendozaWoman/status/983401428277448704

Tom Clark, of Another Angry Voice, makes a highly pertinent point:

That’s the fact of the matter, isn’t it?

It is the reason Tory anti-Semites are allowed to exercise their prejudice – and the reason Mr Johnson has been so enthusiastic towards Mr Orban, it seems.

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