May 7, 2012

Ambassador Ilan Mor,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Guests,
Excellencies,
Hungarian and Israeli Friends,

Today we celebrate the 64th anniversary of the independence of the State of Israel. Theodor Herzl, the journalist and thinker, who was born in Budapest, had a dream. This dream finally became reality in 1948: an independent Jewish state was born after thousands years of tormented history, persecutions, and the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust. A modern Jewish state was created in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

Your achievement in building a modern, prosperous, democratic state in the Middle East is exceptional.  Hungary takes pride of the fact that the Hungarian Jews played a decisive role in this endeavour. The Hungarian Jews in Israel and the Jewish community in Hungary well represent the historical bond not only between the two states, but between the two nations as well.

During the last 64 years, but especially after the change of the regime, when finally our diplomatic relations were re-established, we have built and developed very strong and vivid bilateral relations.

Our political cooperation is tight, many Hungarian ministers paid an official visit to Israel. We have regular foreign policy consultations between the respective ministries.

We just witnessed a breakthrough in our bilateral trade, last year – despite of the world economic crises – we managed to have a 600 million dollar turnover, which is almost a 25 percent raise. The Israeli investors are welcome to our country. Just to mention two of the several, very successful companies: Teva continues to be one of the major pharmaceutical companies of the world, and the Hungarian-Israeli company, the NNG covers a considerable part of the world GPS market today.

Hungary and Israel have an exceptionally successful cooperation on the field of science and development. We created a common found for Industrial R+D projects, and we are already at the second round of the selection process.

Hungary takes pride of the fact that thousands of Israeli families believe that the high level of education of Hungarian medical universities is attractive enough to send there cherished sons and daughters to study in Budapest, Szeged, Debrecen or Pécs.

One of the cornerstones of our cooperation is the interaction on the field of Holocaust remembrance and education. Hungary is an active member of the ITF (International Task Force for Holocaust Remembrance and Educations) and in a week we will sign another agreement with the Yad Vashem about sending Hungarian history teachers to the prestigious institution in Jerusalem.

The Hungarian government declared 2012 as a Wallenberg Memorial Year and we are in the middle of a very rich program we organised in part together with the Swedish and Israeli side. At the opening ceremony we were honoured by the presence of minister and holocaust survival Yossi Peled.

Hungary is committed to the security of the State of Israel as well. In a rapidly changing security environment as it is the case in the Middle East, it’s an art to find the golden way of peace despite all the threats and bitter historical experiences.  We believe that only the two state solution can provide the long term security framework, where you can live side by side, in peace and security with your neighbours. Hungary is your reliable friend and partner in achieving this ambitious goal.

(kormany.hu)