Strongmen, it seems, stick together. Viktor Orban has stirred the fears of Hungary’s Jewish community with a campaign of vilification directed at George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist. The prime minister’s billboard attack disinters anti-Semitic tropes from the dark side of Europe’s history. Yet the publicly voiced concern of Israel’s ambassador in Budapest has not persuaded Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a planned visit.
The Israeli prime minister counts himself a member of the club of strongmen who disdain the “liberal” in liberal democracy. Mr Netanyahu, like Mr Orban, is a firm admirer of US President Donald Trump. Mr Orban seems to imagine himself a pocket-sized version of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. His ruling Fidesz party has removed constitutional checks and balances and seized control of state media and the judiciary. Mr Orban champions illiberalism over the pluralist values of the EU — even as he holds out a hand for hefty aid cheques from Brussels.
Last month, the Hungarian prime minister praised Miklos Horthy, the nationalist leader who colluded during the second world war in the dispatch to Nazi death camps of Hungarian Jews. He counted Horthy among the country’s “exceptional statesmen” — drawing criticism from Jewish groups. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum said such statements created the impression that the government “believes that anti-Semitism, racial and religious prejudice, and genocide merit praise rather than universal condemnation”.