Orban, Israel and BAC Consulting: The mystery of Hungary pager 'maker'

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Hungary‘s allies admit it can be a tricky ally, with the US ambassador warning on Wednesday it had inherited a legacy of “doublespeak” from life under communism.

It resisted Soviet rule but is now “cosy” with Vladimir Putin's Russia, lamented ambassador David Pressman in a speech in Budapest. It is an EU and Nato member but relentlessly rails against Brussels.

The same has been said of Hungary's stance on Israel. Prime Minister Viktor Orban is often accused of dealing in anti-Semitic language but is a staunch ally of Benjamin Netanyahu. Now the mysterious trail of Lebanon’s exploding pagers has raised new questions about just how deep the relationship goes.

A Hungarian link is being probed after a Taiwanese pager manufacturer said it had licensed the model in question to the shadowy BAC Consulting in Budapest. The search widened to Bulgaria on Thursday after reports that a €1.6 million ($1.8 million) payment was wired through the country to Hungary. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied it was responsible for the blasts in Lebanon.

Although that mystery is yet to fully unravel, the alliance between Viktor Orban and Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right governments certainly stretches through a shared view of history and politics into commercial and military ties between their countries.

Their good relationship is based partly on an “affinity between the leaders and the similarities of their style”, Hungarian foreign policy analyst Zsuzsanna Vegh of the German Marshall Fund told The National.

Mr Orban had sought out political partners such former US president Donald Trump to boost his international standing and saw a “like-mindedness” in Mr Netanyahu.

Shows of friendship

The narrow streets of Budapest’s old Jewish quarter contain reminders of a dark past, tourist honeypots in the present, and symbols of the modern-day Hungary-Israel alliance with ripple effects on the Middle East.

Each side has invested in the political relationship. Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli spoke at a lakeside venue north of the Danube in April, pushing Hungary’s buttons by lauding its assault on “wokeism” at a spin-off of US conservative gathering CPAC. According to leaked figures, an Orban-funded think tank paid Mr Netanyahu’s son almost $8,000 on another occasion for two panel appearances.

The Israeli leader himself has visited Budapest’s Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe. A gravesite for victims of a Nazi ghetto, it today has portraits of more than 100 October 7 hostages hanging from its gates above the slogan “bring them home”. Israel’s ambassador spoke very recently at the unveiling of a car park mural of Hanna Szenes, a Hungarian Jew and resistance paratrooper killed by the Nazis in 1944.

There is also a more concrete military dimension. Israel exports components of its Iron Dome air defence system to Hungary. Last year, they signed a three-way deal with Germany to produce combat drones. Developing weapons with Germany and Israel will make adversaries “think twice about messing” with Hungary, Mr Orban said.

In return, Hungary positions itself as Israel’s strongest supporter in Europe. It has a trade office in Jerusalem, breaking a European taboo on the disputed city, and defends Israel’s offensive in Gaza, calling it an “anti-terror operation” and not genocide. Lawyers for Hungary have urged the International Criminal Court to reject arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, arguing it lacks jurisdiction due to the 1990s Oslo Accords.

In Wednesday’s UN General Assembly vote calling on Israel to end its “unlawful presence” on occupied Palestinian land, only two EU members voted against: Hungary and the Czech Republic. When EU members such as Spain and Ireland called for a review of trading ties with Israel, Hungary used its turn at the bloc’s presidency to instead invite Israel to a meeting to “improve its status in the EU”.

Hungary exported about $500 million worth of goods to Israel last year, according to UN figures, but the full extent of those trading ties is uncertain. Campaigners at Transparency International say Hungary maintains a “no-access policy” for business secrets and public interest data. Local media is full of a bizarre story on Hungary’s purported richest man and his company’s non-existent trillions in Brazilian bonds.

Inquiries into BAC Consulting have been little more fruitful. Its registered address is no more than a house with its name on a sheet of paper, and there are questions about chief executive Cristiana Arcidiacono-Barsony’s CV. The European Commission denied she was employed as an “evaluation expert” but could not rule out some freelance consulting work.

Hungary publicly disavowed any link to the pagers used by Hezbollah operatives, which killed 37 people and injured thousands. BAC Consulting is a “trading intermediary with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary”, said Mr Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs. He said the exploding devices “have never been in Hungary”.

Device detonations in Lebanon – in pictures

Orban's motives

Mr Orban's sincerity as a pro-Israel leader has been questioned given the sometimes anti-Semitic undertones of his rhetoric. He has relentlessly accused Hungarian-born Jewish philanthropist George Soros of meddling in European and Hungarian politics, conjuring up tropes of malevolent Jewish financiers.

At one end of Budapest’s Freedom Square, a memorial to Nazi victims backed by Mr Orban has met with criticism for portraying Hungary as an innocent angel, when its authorities collaborated with the Nazis. Mr Orban acknowledged this “sin” on a different occasion.

A permanent counter-memorial has sprung up beneath the angel, with pictures of Holocaust victims and information on their fate. The monument is “a lie serving a political intention”, organisers wrote on a sign. “It is the monument of the government’s arrogance.”

When Bosnian football fans chanted “Palestine, Palestine” in the narrow street by Budapest’s Kazinczy Street synagogue last week, Mr Orban’s government again used the episode for its own ends.

“Dear fellow Jewish citizens,” said senior aide Balazs Orban (no relation). “If there were a different government in Hungary, migrants would be doing the exact same thing in front of your houses daily.”

Hungary's government and ruling party do not run campaigns that are “overtly, explicitly anti-Semitic” but try to be more subtle in “triggering the type of sentiment in groups who have anti-Semitic feelings that know what they are talking about", Ms Vegh said.

“This is also a fine line that they balance precisely because the government tries to uphold close relations with Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and it's known these narratives and rhetoric are used to mobilise people on the side of the government," she said. "From the side of Netanyahu, I think these are simply just overlooked.”