Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is not at all ashamed. He speaks openly about the desire to keep his country white. Free of Muslims, free of immigrants and free of infiltrators.
He talks about the fear that one day the Muslims might become a majority. He says aloud what everyone else is thinking.
And he doesn't just talk. In the train stations outside Budapest, the tracks are crowded with immigrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who are not allowed to continue on their way to neighboring countries. They see Hungary as a way-station, but Hungary's prime minister doesn't even want to allow that. Last week, Hungarian police forces stopped the first train that came from Budapest on its way to Sopron, near the Austrian border, and ordered the immigrants to exit the train at a city that has a holding center for immigrants.
Hungary's actions have all the elements that bring back memories of the dark and terrible period of Jewish History that occurred just seventy years ago. There are camps, there is number-printing on forearms, there is apathy and there is incitement against the immigrants. Of course, none of this even comes near the horrors experienced by the Jewish People during the Holocaust. What is happening is not at all the same, but the pictures that are so hard to look at, the racist remarks that are said without a vestige of shame, the behavior that brings back those awful times, teach us that Europe has not drawn any conclusions about changing its deep-rooted lack of human compassion.
Why are we talking about this?
After all, Hungary did not really surprise anyone by its actions. As time passed, Europe began to realize that the Muslim problem that has become an integral part of that continent is steadily turning into a real and present danger to its internal security - on the most basic level. The worry engendered by massive immigration to Europe's shores is understandable.
Except that we are talking about European hypocrisy, about its two-faced double standard when it comes to the migrant problem. One law for Israel's infiltrators, another for Europe's.
For years European nations have attacked Israel for its immigration policies. In recent years, there are scores of "human rights" groups and organizations that go from one court to another presenting claims against Israel's immigration policy in order to block Israel's attempts to deal with the infiltrator problem in a way that will cause no harm to the Jewish state. Every law, by-law, or guiding principle presented by the Interior Ministry or the government is met with a barrage of countersuits and condemned by Israeli and European media.
The nations of Europe are behind much of this effort aimed at hurting Israel. European money is what allows this activity, whose goal is the destruction of Israel's immigration policy, to take place. Whom do you imagine funds the "Hotline for Refugees and Immigrants", the "Citizen's Right Organization," the "Refugee Rights Clinic in Tel Aviv U.," and many other organizations with similar names? All of them are fueled economically by the long list of countries in the European Union, among them Germany, Holland, the UK and Switzerland.
What is frustrating about all this, is that European funding continues to flow unchecked to Israel. Their own house is on fire, but the Europeans continue in their efforts to undermine Israel. Because what is allowed in Budapest is obviously forbidden in Tel Aviv.