Linda Thomas-Greenfield wrongly said that a Holocaust memorial was vandalized in Hungary, when it had actually happened in Sweden.Continue reading
Why is the Biden administration funding agitation against Hungary , a NATO ally with a pro-American population, asks the author of the article, pointing out that this intervention has nothing to do with US national security. In his view, what irritates the liberals in the White House is that the government of Viktor Orbán stands up for Western values.
Gonzales points out that both the Biden administration as well as the US State Department are themselves under the spell of radical left-wing lobby groups such as Arabella Advisers and the Tides Foundation, the progressive think tank apparatus, the NGOs, that determine a large part of their policies.
The current US president has turned Hungary into his own theater in the culture war, that serves his domestic policy purposes.
The Washington Examiner article also recalls the recent trip of Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, to Budapest.
Great to be here in Budapest with @USAmbHungary where @USAID just relaunched new, locally-driven initiatives to help independent media thrive and reach new audiences, take on corruption and increase civic engagement. pic.twitter.com/xeMgRulU0J
— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) February 9, 2023
In this context Gonzales questions the logic of USAID spending U.S. taxpayer money in Hungary, on opposition-friendly Hungarian media outlets. He asks who USAID’s local partners in Hungary will be, whether, as is often the case, USAID will be teaming up with US billionaire oligarch George Soros’s networks. The article realistically points out that “conservative Hungarians expect pro-Viktor Orbán media outlets not to see a penny, and the anti-Orbán press to get all the money”.
Photo: Facebook USAID
The article quotes the USAID website showing that in Budapest Power met with representatives of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which calls Orban an autocrat; K-Monitor, which is equally hostile; Transparency International, another anti-Orban entity; and Eötvös Loránd University, which has complained of being affected by Orban’s ban on gender studies.
Power also met with representatives of LGBTQI+ communities in Hungary, calling them a “marginalized group”. Gonzales rightly points out that this is a sensitive subject for many Hungarians, where there is no genuine grassroots demand for the type of gender ideology that has produced so much tension and divisions in America. “Bodily mutilations and the amputation of healthy body parts, especially among minors, can be expected to go over as well in conservative Hungary as it has here, even if it is cloaked under the euphemism the Left calls gender-affirming care”, says the author of the article.
U.S. Ambassador David Pressman is also exposed as a highly divisive figure. Gonzales accuses him of
taking a “bizarrely antagonistic line against the country that hosts him”, a country that happens to be a U.S. ally.
He points out that Pressman posted a tweet blasting Hungary for what he called “valorizing” Nazis at the same time as the Hungarian press had pointed out that there were 50 right-wing protesters at the march he referenced, and 150 antifa far-left extremists.
The Washington Examiner accuses Pressman of a behavior worthy of a political activist. He points to the fact that the U.S. Ambassador was the personal lawyer of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who got President Donald Trump impeached, and works closely with the liberal Hollywood elite. Listing further incidents, the article accuses Pressman of behavior inconsistent of diplomatic standards.
As a further possible act of provocation, Gonzales refers to the recent incident, during which the U.S.’s Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield has offended Hungary by charging that a “Holocaust memorial was vandalized in Hungary.” It had turned out to be a gaffe, many even theorizing whether this was accidental or by purpose, but the fact is that the incident never happened in Hungary but in Sweden. When the Hungarian diplomacy asked for a public correction, they were met with silence, and not retraction was issued by the US diplomat.
Featured Photo: Facebook Joe Biden