Danube Institute Podcast

In this episode of Reflections from Budapest, we asked Lt. Col. (Res.) Maurice Hirsch, the Director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a Senior Legal Analyst at Human Rights Voices and a senior researcher at the Israel Defence and Security Forum. We asked Mr Hirsch about his personal, professional and military background and his experiences living in a settlement in the West Bank, Judea and Samaria. As Mr Hirsch was the architect of the law that strips Israeli citizenship from Palestinian terrorists who have been convicted of terror offences, he gave valuable insight into legal strategies and measures used by Israel to combat Palestinian terrorism.

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had a discussion with Lieutenant Colonel (res.) Yaron Buskila. He is the CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum and a retired IDF commander who currently serves in the reserves as operations officer for the Gaza Division of the Israel Defense Forces. We asked Colonel Buskila about his military background and past experiences in Gaza. During the discussion, Colonel Buskila shared his personal experience of fighting against 40 Hamas terrorists on October 7th and provided valuable insights into the Gaza conflict, including how the 2005 withdrawal contributed to the events of that day.

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we continued our discussion with Colonel Christopher P. Costa. Colonel Costa was a former US government official with 35 years of experience, including 25 years in military counterintelligence, human intelligence (HUMINT), and special operations forces (SOF). He also served as the Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the White House from 2017-18. Since 2018 he has been the executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. We continued our discussion with Colonel Costa about the ramifications of the war in Gaza. Colonel Costa shared his insights on the issues stemming from hostage-taking and subsequent negotiations or hostage rescue. To conclude Colonel Costa shared what lessons Israel should have learned and what changes he would recommend to ensure that October 7th will not happen again.

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had the honor of having Colonel Christopher P. Costa as our guest for the second time in our podcast series. Colonel Costa was a former US government official with 35 years of experience, including 25 years in military counterintelligence, human intelligence (HUMINT), and special operations forces (SOF). He also served as the Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the White House from 2017-18. Since 2018 he has been the executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. This time we focused our discussion with Colonel Costa on the ramifications of the war in Gaza. Colonel Costa shared his insights on how the attack on October 7th and the subsequent war in Gaza have affected American policy and security concerns and discussed the possible reasons for the Israeli intelligence failures on October 7th. To conclude,we asked Colonel Costa about the brutal tactics employed by Hamas on October 7th.

Communist states had, and still have, a millennial sense of utopianism. But is secular liberal democracy utopian, too? Could it be that our democratic utopianism is presentist? This is what Professor Zoltán Balázs of Corvinus University argues in the new episode of Buda Hills Podcast. With our rights "revealed" in the American and French Revolutions, democratic utopianism has located us at the end of history. We now live in a sort of eternal future in which we must fight to maintain democracy—forever.

Historian, theologian and ethicist Nigel Biggar CBE, emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and Danube Institute Visiting Fellow David Oldroyd-Bolt discusses Professor Biggar's bestselling book 'Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning', which his original publisher tried to cancel before it had even been published, as well as the explosion of public antisemitism across the West since Hamas invaded Israel on 7 October last year and the moral nature of the war in Ukraine.

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we continued our discussion with Amir Avivi, a brigadier general retired from the Israel Defence Forces and founder and chairman of the Israeli Defence and Security Forum (IDSF). We asked General Avivi about his command experiences in Gaza operations and how the 2005 Gaza withdrawal of Israeli troops contributed to the October 7th massacre. General Avivi also gave his insight into the future of Israel in the aftermath of October 7th and the war in Gaza. To conclude, General Avivi elaborated on how the war could spill over to the West and the importance of Hungary’s strong support of Israel.

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had a discussion with Amir Avivi, a brigadier general retired from the Israel Defence Forces and founder and chairman of the Israeli Defence and Security Forum (IDSF). We asked General Avivi about his background, upbringing, and his first-hand military career experiences. General Avivi also gave insights into how and why IDSF was founded and the deep influence the organization has on the Israeli government, society and military policy. To conclude, General Avivi highlighted the importance of understanding the core values of Zionism, which are deeply intertwined with Israeli identity and security.

The Orthodox Christian churches are ancient, yet they are embroiled in twenty-first-century geopolitics. Two Orthodox-majority states, Russia and Ukraine, are locked in a devastating conflict that seems to be reshaping the world order. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Samuel Noble, a historian of Orthodox Christianity. We ask him: Are we seeing the emergence of NATO and non-NATO strands of Orthodoxy? And have recent events proved that Samuel Huntington’s idea of an “Orthodox heartland” was prescient - or not?

In this special episode of Reflections from Budapest, we had a discussion with His Excellency Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, Israeli Ambassador to Hungary. We asked Mr Hadas-Handelsman about his diplomatic career and the relationship between Hungary and Israel. Mr Hadas-Handelsman detailed Hamas’s brutality on the October 7th massacre and the implications of the war in Gaza. He also shared his insights on the future of the process of Israel establishing relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states and the failure of Palestinian governance. We concluded by discussing the prospects for rescuing the hostages and the future of the Middle East in the aftermath of October 7th and the war in Gaza.