Budapest, 2007-11-14 (mathaba) Hungarian diplomacy recently suffered the most humiliating blow from what is probably the most controversial statement by a foreign statesman in the last 17 years - a statement hushed up by most of the Hungarian media outlets, as well as the Foreign Ministry of Hungary itself.

In a recent speech at an economic forum in Tel-Aviv, Israeli President Shimon Peres stated the following:

Israel's economy is flourishing. Israeli business people are investing everywhere in the world. Israel has unprecedented economic success. By today, we have won economic independence and are buying up Manhattan, Poland and Hungary.

The above quote first appeared in Hebrew in the Israeli daily Maariv following an annual general assembly of the Association of Trade Offices on 10 October.

For the next couple of days, however, despite a report by radical news portal Kuruc.info nothing but silence ensued. Mainstream Hungarian media, including organs with reporters based in Jerusalem such as the Hungarian Radio, MTI news agency, and Magyar Nemzet, failed to cover the case. That is to say they either covered it up or simply did not consider it newsworthy, until news broke in the largest circulation Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, which published the item viewable here. This prompted Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet to eventually look into the matter and to ask the Israeli Embassy for further clarification. Embassy spokesman András Büchler acknowledged the veracity of the words, although he added that they had been ill-conceived.

Meanwhile the 22 October edition of Israeli daily Maariv once again dealt with the ill-worded statement. This time it also included the original recording, now available for viewing on YouTube

For those who don?t speak Hebrew this is is what Peres said in not very eloquent language: ?For a small country like ours, this is truly amazing. I see that we are buying up Manhattan and we are buying up Hungary and we are buying up Romania and we are buying up Poland. And the way I see it, we have no problems. Thanks to our talent, our contacts and our dynamism, we get almost everywhere.?

The Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have remained silent. No actions by Hungarian diplomacy have been taken in order to clarify the issue and state its position. Jobbik, the party of the Movement For A Better Hungary has been a lone voice in calling on the goverment to immediately address the issue.

Hungarian Foreign Affairs are at a low never seen before: in 2005 diplomatic relations suffered with Saudi-Arabia when the still current Prime Minister Gyurcsany called the Middle-Eastern footballers "terrorists" in a moment of madness.

There is also criticism of the absence of any strong diplomacy to protect the right of Hungarian minorities in the neighbouring countries such as Serbia and Slovakia.

Mathaba.net