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Israeli ministers Chikli, Gamliel to attend CPAC Hungary

Global leaders are set to converge on Budapest to participate in the Conservative Political Action Conference.

CPAC
Former President Donald Trump delivers the keynote speech at CPAC in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 24, 2024. Photo by Andrew Bernard.

Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli and Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Gila Gamliel are set to attend next week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary, JNS has learned.

Both Chikli and Gamliel are members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party.

World leaders, decision-makers and influencers will converge on Budapest to participate in the event next Thursday and Friday.

The conference is hosted by the Center for Fundamental Rights (CFR), a Hungarian think tank that deals with political and legal analysis and considers preserving national identity, sovereignty, and Judeo-Christian social traditions its primary mission.

Then-Intelligence Minister Gamliel told JNS in an interview earlier this year that Iran is the underlying cause of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the other conflicts engulfing the region.

“The fingerprints of Iran can be found on every conflict now underway in the Middle East, from Gaza to Lebanon to the Red Sea,” said Gamliel.

Gila Gamliel
Israeli Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Gila Gamliel. Credit: Courtesy.

On Friday, Israel attacked deep in Iran, reportedly targeting a military facility close to the city of Isfahan, some 930 miles from the Jewish state.

Three Iranian sources confirmed to The New York Times that an airbase in Isfahan was targeted, while anonymous Israeli and U.S. officials were cited by news outlets as saying that the IDF conducted the strike.

Earlier this month, Chikli compared the West’s approach to Iran to the appeasement of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler prior to the outbreak of World War II and the Holocaust.

“Being weak towards your enemies [Iran] and harsh towards your allies [Israel] is a strategy that has never proven itself,” he wrote on X.

The text appeared above a picture of former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, best remembered for forging the 1938 Munich Agreement that allowed Hitler to annex parts of then-Czechoslovakia in exchange for a “peace in our time” that never materialized but instead fueled the Nazi death machine.

In February, Chikli told JNS in an interview that the establishment of a Palestinian state would “embolden Hamas and make the PLO irrelevant. It would turn [Hamas terror chief in the Gaza Strip] Yahya Sinwar into the David Ben-Gurion of the Palestinian people,” he added.

The United States vetoed the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership during a vote at the Security Council on Thursday afternoon. Of the 15 members of the council, 12 voted for a Palestinian state, including Japan, South Korea, France and Slovenia which don’t currently recognize a Palestinian state. The United Kingdom and Switzerland abstained on the Algeria-drafted resolution.

Amichai Chikli
Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli. Photo by Reuven Kapochinsky.

Speakers at CPAC in Budapest will include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom; Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.); and Reps. Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Keith Self (R-Texas).

Earlier this year, former U.S. president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spoke at the CPAC conference in the United States, calling the Conservative unions one of “common sense to save our country and make America great again.”

Originally from Casablanca, Morocco, Amelie made aliyah in 2014. She specializes in diplomatic affairs and geopolitical analysis and serves as a war correspondent for JNS. She has covered major international developments, including extensive reporting on the hostage crisis in Israel.
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