“Everyone who has read the Bible, it is clear to him that Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel,” Hungarian Prime Minister Zasolt Smein said this evening (Monday) at a special press conference in which he spoke with journalists from Israel and Europe.
The press conference was held during the Conference of Jewish Communities in Europe (EJA) held in the capital Budapest. According to the Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister, Hungary is not moving its embassy to Jerusalem because it is committed to EU policy.
In his remarks, Smane criticized the conduct of the European Union, which presents a “double standard” while issuing statements of condemnation and criticism only against Israel and “funding organizations, some of which are linked to terrorism.” According to him, the Hungarian state nevertheless supports the “two-state” solution of Israel alongside Palestine.
Meanwhile, last Friday the parliament in Brussels, Belgium voted by a majority against the bill to ban kosher slaughter in the province. This effectively rejected the bill to ban kosher slaughter in the district. Wallonia and Flanders have remained the two districts where slaughter was banned from training, for the past two and a half years. About ten months ago, the Belgian Constitutional Court rejected a petition by the Jewish community against the decision of the Belgian parliaments in these provinces, stating that “the decisions of the Belgian parliaments on kosher slaughter are legal and do not contravene the Belgian constitution.”
The Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister addressed the struggle of the Jewish communities in Belgium and not only, which are struggling to prevent them from living a Jewish life that requires the consumption of meat that has undergone kosher slaughter. “Ensuring animal rights cannot override human rights and religious freedom,” Smeyen clarified. “When the Belgian state banned it, we openly condemned it.” He says this is a cover for expressing anti-religious feelings and not necessarily because of the concern for animal rights. “Kosher food is part of the Jewish tradition. Thousands keep kosher in Hungary and we must make sure they have the option of kosher slaughter. If the EU decides in the future to pass a resolution against kosher slaughter in all European countries, we will vote against it.”
Earlier, at the opening of a conference in Budapest attended by about 350 representatives of Jewish communities from the continent, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the Organization of Jewish Communities in Europe (EJA), warned that “we must act to allow religious freedom to Jewish communities in Europe.” While Hungary is consistently opposed to Europe’s boycott and sanctions against Russia, especially with regard to the purchase of Russian oil, in the context of the war, he said that “the aggressor is Russia that attacked Ukraine.” It is no secret that there are some extremists in Ukrainian politics who use ‘Nazi’ expressions against minorities, including Hungarians “but clarified that it is illegitimate to start a war because of this against a sovereign state.
At a time when radical Islam is flooding the continent with countless immigrants from Muslim countries and changing the nature of the countries, as in France, Smein claims that in Hungary the citizens decided in a referendum that “they do not want masses of Islamic immigrants.