This side of hell

Pro-Hamas immigrants want to destroy the entire West.

20221019 Mórahalom Migránsokat fogtak a polgárőrök fotó: Török János TJ Délmagyarország Fotó: Török János

Where did it all start? I think the first really stupid sentence came from then German Chancellor Angela Merkel on 31 August 2015, saying that we will make it, we will solve it, in reference to the nearly 2.5 million illegal migrants who had flooded Europe at that time, with a specific reason and intention. And, while there were certainly some who were truly refugees, many Yusufs also came, lying about their identity, age and intentions, to scatter in Europe's major cities, selling water or pottery around the Louvre or somewhere in Berlin, just waiting for a sign.

Official EU data reveal that nearly one million asylum applications were submitted in the EU in 2022, 52.1 percent more than in 2021, and this is the highest number since 2016.

At the peak of the 2015-2016 migration crisis, the number of applicants reached 1 221 690. And they are the ones who wanted to make their stay legal, that is, those who are "seen" by the statistics. Syrian, Afghan, Venezuelan and Turkish nationals lodged the highest number of asylum applications – combined, they accounted for nearly forty percent or almost half of the first asylum seekers.

Not small numbers. You would rightly think that whoever ordered the admission of these people must have done so with a concrete plan in mind for how they would be hosted and integrated in the countries of the continent. Well, no. Europe has taken in millions of people with unknown intentions, people who neither know nor respect European culture – with a few honorable exceptions – people with whom the bloc cannot deal with now. A survey of Germans conducted two years ago found that a large part of the population (53 percent) believed that Germany had failed to tackle the migration wave.

The survey commissioned by the daily Bild newspaper revealed that  "64 percent highlighted the additional strain on the social system as one of the main consequences of the process, and 52 percent considered the increase in crime as the main negative repercussion." Increasing social diversity was highlighted by 31 percent, and alleviating the shortage of skilled workforce by only 17 percent, which is an alarmingly low number because this was the key argument around 2015: how good it will be to easy the labor shortage of skilled workers, and we will also have many more doctors, engineers and excellent, educated professors. Ahem.

The survey was brazenly commissioned by Bild in 2021 after Angela Merkel, with sixteen years as head of government behind her, made a bold statement in an interview about the refugee crisis, saying "yes, we've done it". Yes, after all, they did it, creating trouble.  And, of course, where is today this kind and welcoming Angela, who took selfies in a ring of Syrian refugees? It is not only me who thinks so, but also Christoph de Vriest of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who believes that the influx of refugees in 2015 deeply divided Germany. So deeply that it helped a radical right-wing party win parliamentary seats. I quote him verbatim: "It would have been better to spare Germany from this!" Well, dear Chris, it would have been better not only for Germany, but also for Europe.

Because the worst was yet to come: in 2015, the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo in Paris fell victim to a terrorist attack, and in the same year another 130 innocent people were killed in France; a year later, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Istanbul; in the same year, suicide bombings took place at Brussels airport and Turkiye's Ataturk airport, and in July, an attacker ploughed his truck into a crowd in Nice. In the same month, a bomb exploded in Germany, and in December, a 24-year-old Tunisian man drove a truck into a crowd at Berlin's busiest Christmas market. On New Year's Eve in 2017, a man dressed in a Santa Claus costume opened fire from a machine gun in Istanbul, killing thirty-nine people, including twenty-seven foreign nationals. March of 2017 saw double attack in London, with one policeman stabbed. The only common denominator in these attacks is the Islamic State.  The only common denominator in these attacks is the Islamic State.

According to the Global Terrorism Index, the trends in the Western world are as follows: between 2007 and 2022, 885 out of the more than 137,000 terrorist attacks worldwide were carried out in this region, or 0.65 percent of all attacks, while last year, authorities reported 40 attacks with a death tool of 19. All this is shocking and alarming because we are not living in a war zone, which is essentially the hotbed of terrorism.

How does this come up now? Well, there is war. And just as we now live our lives on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram or anywhere else in the online space, in the same way, war is taking place not only where the actual armed conflict is, but  – if you like – wherever its initiators seek to extend their fight.

Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and all social media platforms have imported into the Western world not only the experience of global communication, but also the experience of killing – because those who want to send a message with their killing use these platforms as deterrence. I'll be honest: ever since the war broke out in Israel, spending long days in the middle of the flood of news, I've seen the horrors of the world that make hell seem like an exotic corner in the Bahamas. And I toss and turn sleeplessly in bed, all the while thinking that I owe thanks to God that I can still toss and turn sleeplessly, with my family and loved ones being safe and sound. And at this moment, what my eyes see is just upsetting me, and I'm not living through it. But how long will this security last?

A few days ago, Hamas, in control of the Gaza Strip, sent a clear message, calling on the entire Muslim community worldwide to fight. Eric Zemmour, the leader of the French right-wing Reconquete party, said they were being pushed towards jihad and to be prepared to die a death of martyrdom. In his view, France and the whole of Europe are in a similar danger as Israel, since there are pro-Hamas immigrants all over the continent who want to destroy the entire West.

And, as I pointed out, social media platforms have imported the war, or more precisely, only a whiff of it so far: anti-Semitic demonstrations, sometimes ending in violence, have been staged in major European cities in support of the Palestinians. Here in Hungary and in Budapest, a number of people wanted to express their support for Hamas in front of the foreign ministry building, until Viktor Orban made it clear that no pro-terror demonstrations would be allowed in this country.

Hungary has been pilloried in the EU since 2015 for its consistent and clear stance on illegal migration. Hungary came under heavy fire for erecting the border fence, which leftist ex-PM Ferenc Gyurcsany tried to cut through with pliers. Today, this fence protects not only Hungarians from migrants armed with guns trying to reach Western Europe, but also those living on this side of the continent.  A sensible person would think that this is as it should be, but common sense has long since disappeared from Brussels. They are again calling for mandatory quotas and creating migrant ghettos in member states. It is as if they've gone insane. Perhaps they have, but one thing is certain: we do not have to import everything, including their insanity, through social media.

As for the sharp criticism... The leaders in Brussels have still not come to terms with our fence and our position of rejecting the quota under all circumstances. Probably because we had an alternative, or more precisely, a solution, as opposed to the pseudo-humanistic, impotent decision-making there. They will have it on their conscience. What is happening east of us now may be held up by this very fence. And they probably know that it's good as long as the fence is under fire from critics.

Everyday occurrence - Hungarian neighborhood police officers captured migrants at the southern border fence (Photo: Delmagyarorszag/Janos Torok)