David Goldman: Anti-Soros Is Not Anti-Semitism

David P. Goldman has written a bracing defense of Viktor Orbán’s government, insisting that Hungary is one of the friendliest places in the world for Jews and that any leader in his right mind would oppose the political machinations of George Soros.

Writing in the conservative journal First Things on Friday, Goldman observed that the irresponsible accusations of anti-Semitism leveled against Prime Minister Orbán hinge upon his vigorous resistance to Mr. Soros’ attempts to work around the democratic process to push Hungary in the direction of open borders.

The immensely popular Orbán, who was voted back into office this year with a two-thirds majority, ran an effective billboard campaign against the left-wing multibillionaire disrupter, which had nothing to do with his being nominally Jewish, Goldman contends.

Mr. Soros is one of the single most invested backers of mass migration, especially through his Open Societies foundations, and he has spent a remarkable $600 million in Hungary, “the equivalent in relative GDP of spending $60 billion in the United States,” Goldman notes. “If an expatriate billionaire had spent that amount of money in the United States, one would expect politicians to campaign against him,” he added.

There is nothing inherently anti-Semitic about campaigning against “a plutocrat who is trying to buy your country,” Goldman wrote in an earlier essay, referring to Orbán’s resistance to Soros’ economic maneuvers.

After visiting Budapest last May, Goldman marveled at how safe Jews are made to feel in Hungary and concluded: “There are no risks to Jews because there are very few Muslim migrants.” Moreover, he noted, “Hungary is one of Israel’s few friends in world diplomacy” and together with the Czechs and Austrians, vetoed a European Community resolution denouncing the United States for moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

Hungary’s 100,000 Jews “walk unmolested to synagogue in traditional Jewish costume and hold street fairs with minimal security presence,” he said.

Goldman also holds up for admiration the remarkable shift that has taken place in Europe, thanks partly to the staunch resolve of Mr. Orbán and his allies and their refusal to cave before European Union (EU) pressures to take in vast numbers of migrants.

A year ago, the Eastern European nations of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia “looked like a rancorous minority in a European Community committed to the mass absorption of Muslim migrants,” Goldman observes.

Now, however, “the Merkel-Macron consensus has crumbled, and the European center has shifted towards Orban,” he added, with Matteo Salvini now the most popular politician in Italy, Germany’s Horst Seehofer nearly bringing down Germany’s governing coalition, and Austria’s center-right coalition government preparing to station troops on the country’s southern border.

As pro-sovereignty governments in Europe continue to gain prominence, this can only bode well for the future of the continent. While Macron and Merkel sat atop the political cake not long ago, they now lose popularity by the day, with the very real risk of finding themselves on the wrong side of history.

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