David Pressman, a gay human rights lawyer, knew he was in for a tough time even before arriving in Hungary with her husband and two children to take on a new job in September as US ambassador.
A Mecca of traditional Christian values and a friend of the Kremlin, Hungary has not opened its arms to it.
When his confirmation hearing began in July in Washington, a dinghy with Advertising wrecked in the Danube River near the US Embassy in Budapest.
On a black banner decorated with a skull and crossbones were an anti-LGBTQ poster with a message in English and Hungarian: “Mr. Pressman, don’t terrorize Hungary with your death cult.”
Pressman hung a photograph of that “welcome to Hungary” message on the wall behind his embassy desk. “That,” he complained, “was before I set foot in this country.”
And it’s gone quite a bit downhill since then.
The ambassador, whose predecessor, appointed by Donald J. Trump, delighted his guests by praising Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-liberal prime minister, has been criticized since his arrival – along with the Biden administration – by the pro-government media as a threat to Hungary, its people and its values.
accusations
Pressman has been accused of violating diplomatic conventions, meddling in the judiciary, and trying to silence conservative voices. PestiSracok, a belligerent pro-government news site, denounced the appointment of a man it described as “an LGBT human rights expert” as “an obvious diplomatic provocation”. A host of a government-controlled television program referred to him as “madam ambassador”.
More alarming than the personal attacks, Pressman said in a recent interview in Budapest, is what he sees as a broader attack on the United States in the Hungarian media, most of which is controlled either directly by the ruling Fidesz party or through their affairs. . allies and a constant “reuse of Kremlin propaganda”.
Hungary’s government-controlled media, Pressman said, routinely launders Russian propaganda messages, “regularly exporting disinformation from the Kremlin and anti-American rhetoric, and that is worrying for the United States.”
Nearly a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the West rallied against him, NATO and European Union member Hungary has become the most neighbor has the Kremlin to an ally in the European bloc.
Hungarians, polls say, aren’t big fans of Russia, but the hubbub of domestic politics, focused by Fidesz on battles against “gender ideology,” has pulled the country away from its traditionally steadfast strategic moorings in the West.
Prior to his current post, Pressman served as Ambassador to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs and Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security. He has also worked in the White House as director of war crimes and atrocities in the National Security Council.
Meetings with Hungarian officials, Pressman said, tend to be civil and matter-of-fact in tone, but often begin with his host saying, “Ambassador, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I know you want to talk about progressive gender issues.
“I stop them and say: ‘No, actually, I want to tell you about Hungary’s dependence on Vladimir Putin,'” he added. “They always want to talk about a culture war. We want to have a conversation about a real war that exists next door.”
Orban has agreed to European sanctions against Russia but has repeatedly denounced them, refused to allow arms passage for Ukraine through Hungary and sent senior officials to Moscow to back more Russian natural gas even as the rest of the Europe is trying to dissociate itself from Russian energy.
Frictions with the United States
Orban’s multiyear policy of reaching out to Russia has also caused friction in the past with the United States, most notably in 2018 when Hungary rejected a Trump administration request for the extradition of two Russian arms dealers. Instead, he sent them to Moscow.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has raised those tensions to a new level.
“The world has changed,” Pressman said, “and the ability to play both sides when we have a real ground war in Europe is gone.”
He urged Hungary to return to its historic role as a country unequivocally part of the West. “The moment of greatest clarity and decisiveness certainly came when Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked war against Hungary’s democratic neighbour.”
Unlike Hungary’s southern neighbor Serbia, which has deep and historic ties to Russia and strong anti-American currents following the US-led NATO bombing campaign against it in 1999, Budapest has traditionally viewed favorably United, except when the country was part of the Soviet bloc and its Communist leaders repeated the propaganda dictated by Moscow.
The country’s drift towards a strident anti-American it started when Trump lost the presidential election in November 2020. Trump’s ambassador to Hungary, David B. Cornstein, a jewelry mogul who has praised Orban as “a very, very strong, good leader,” left Budapest.
And as elections loomed last spring in Hungary, Fidesz stepped up its criticism of US groups for the money they were providing to independent media outlets it deemed enemies of the government.
Fidesz won a landslide victory in the election but still maintained a constant barrage of attacks against the so-called “dollar media” and “dollar left”, now its standard terms of abuse for independent media and their political opponents.
Conspiracy?
Particularly disturbing, Pressman said, was the publication of a report by the Hungarian National Information Center, an intelligence service that reports to Orban, which purported to link dozens of US citizens into a web of alleged conspiracies to overthrow the prime minister.
The report, the ambassador said, was worthy of Carrie Mathison, the conspiracy-obsessed CIA agent. A similar new report appeared late last month.
“The fact that this government’s official agencies, including its intelligence services, are focused on American citizens certainly caught our attention,” Pressman said. “We will not remain silent when the United States is attacked” by a NATO ally, he added.
The Hungarian government did not respond to a request for comment.
Some Republicans questioned Pressman’s suitability for the job in Budapest and for the magazine american conservative He warned that his appointment risked pushing Hungary into the arms of China and Russia because he did not “respect” Hungary’s domestic political landscape.
Independence of justice
The attacks on Pressman and the Biden administration first escalated after the newly arrived ambassador met with two judges from the National Judicial Council, a body the European Union has seen as a barrier against what it sees as an attempt by the government to neutralize the independence of the judiciary.
Origo, a once-independent news outlet now sympathetic to the government, slammed the meeting as “unprecedented gross interference with the judiciary,” while other outlets complained for days that the meeting of the ‘ambassador was an intolerable affront from an “enemy” of Hungary.
The embassy responded by publishing a photograph of Orban’s meeting with Judge Anthony M. Kennedy.
In a constant state of intense anger over what it describes as US interference in Hungary’s internal affairs, Hungary has frequently meddled in US politics, with Orban traveling to Texas in August, three months before the election medium-term, to help encourage Republican voters. The Hungarian ambassador in Washington has been a fixture at right-wing rallies in the United States.
“So when they see all this stuff against the United States or me personally or my team about interfering in their internal political process, they want to say, ‘You know, you guys are actually campaigning in the United States on this. ‘” concluded Pressman.
Fountain: The New York Times
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.