Bibi Netanyahu, desperate to find a few paltry allies somewhere, anywhere, has cultivated a bromance with Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Orban isn’t such a metzieh (Yiddish for “a find”). He is the far-right, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic anti-Semitic premier of Hungary. Netanyahu is the far right, Islamophobic, racist, anti-refugee PM of Israel. A match made in heaven–or the Other Place.
Perhaps all this would be but a mere asterisk in the annals of strange-bedfellow alliances except for Hungary’s sordid past in the Holocaust, when its fascist government proudly handed over almost its entire 400,000 Jews to the Nazis. They promptly shipped them all to Auschwitz, where most perished. The few remaining alive today were livid when Israel’s proto-fascist government welcomed Orban to its national Holocaust museum, Yad VaShem.
It has welcomed distinguished international leaders like Barack Obama and every other president who has visited Israel. It has welcomed distinguished Holocaust survivors like Elie Wiesel. But never in its entire history has it welcomed an anti-Semite allied with His Nazi Jew-killing predecessors.
Viktor Orban visited Yad VaShem today. Or I should say he defiled this holy place, a memorial to 6-million murdered Jews, nearly one-tenth of them Hungarian. Why would any Israeli welcome him to this place? Why would any Israeli leader permit him on this sacred ground. It is a desecration of God’s Name.
Why? Because Israel today has become a world pariah. A land engulfed in hatred and bloodshed. A land with no shame. So beggars can’t be choosers. You take your friends where and as you find them: high, low (mostly low) and everywhere in between.
Thankfully, not every Israeli has lost their mind. Israeli Holocaust survivors and human rights activists blocked Orban’s convoy near the Museum and made their point that he was as welcome as rotting fish–or should I say rotting corpses?
“Or I should say he defiled this holy place”
Oh please.
When did Richard Silverstein become the judge of what’s sacred and the profane?
cringe
@ Peg:
I am profoundly offended by your disparagement of my spiritual-religious values. I’ll put my own knowledge of Judaism against yours any day of the week.
You are now moderated. Please violate the comment rules again. I’d just love to ban your ass. Do give me the pleasure.
[Comment deleted: Thank you for giving me reason to ban you. You are now banned. You also appear to be using an IP proxy or multiple IP addresses to post. Another red flag. This indicates you are deliberately concealing your identity. Your reasons for doing so I view with suspicion. I favor transparency.]
It’s really annoying to know that on every article, Barbar (or whatever his pen name at a given moment is) is always the first to comment, mostly to say absolutely nothing important.
Bibi must know that the optics of this is not to his benefit. My belief is that he either doesn’t care, or he is testing the waters of tolerance for the next election.
I’ve known of, and watched Bibi’s “development” as a politician since the 1990’s. He’s been untrustworthy throughout. He will say and do anything to stay in power and has shifted to the far right. He may have always been there, but he has, cunningly, always tested the waters to ensure his political survival and may now be at the point where he believes he is invincible.
That’s dangerous. Not only for Jews within Israel, but very likely the diaspora. The perception being put forward by Bibi, it seems is of Jewish exceptionalism, by force. That he is immune to the utter desciration of the memory of 6 million Jews murdered.
It takes so little for old hates such as anti-semitism to flourish and Bibi seems to be doing all can to stoke the flames.