Around the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu did not publicly push away Viktor Orban, a familiar noise has risen again in the Ukrainian segment. Talks began about betrayal, moral decline, wrong alliances, and almost a new crusade against Budapest and Jerusalem.
But all this storm again rests on one unpleasant fact: in real politics, states survive not because they beautifully take a moral stance. They survive because they know how to calculate power, resources, risks, and consequences. And in the Middle East, this logic is especially harshly visible.
Currently, for Netanyahu, the main question is not what will be written about him in Ukrainian Facebook, but how far the US is willing to go with Israel in the Iranian direction and under what conditions the White House will try to turn military success into a diplomatic deal. Trump himself in recent days has been talking about the possibility of an agreement with Iran, and Israeli officials, according to Reuters, are noticeably skeptical about the chances of such a deal, although they acknowledge that Washington is trying to use military results for political bargaining.
That is why the outrage along the lines of “how could Netanyahu be soft on Orban” sounds a bit naive to the Israeli ear. When Iran, American military support, regional stability, and energy security are at stake, the Israeli prime minister does not build foreign policy according to someone else’s emotional justice.
Why the Ukrainian moral reaction misses the mark again
The Ukrainian public sphere too often tries to judge world politics as if states are obliged to behave like activists, rather than players responsible for the survival of their country. Hence the constant surprise: why doesn’t someone burn bridges, break contacts, or stage a demonstrative boycott if, from a moral point of view, it seems beautiful.
Beautiful — yes. Practical — not always.
With Hungary, whether someone likes it or not, you still have to deal with it. It remains a member of the EU and NATO, influences decisions, slows down or speeds up processes, and sometimes simply uses someone else’s weakness as leverage. It’s unpleasant. But unpleasantness does not cancel reality.
Orban for Netanyahu is not a moral ideal, but one of the elements of the political chessboard
Israel has long lived in a mode where allies can be complex, sometimes cynical, and sometimes frankly inconvenient. But Jerusalem does not have the luxury of looking at the world as a club of good people. It has Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis next door, and now also the constant need to coordinate every step with what Washington wants or does not want. Against this background, the question “will Ukraine like it” is far from the first row for Netanyahu.
If Trump maintains contact with a particular leader, Netanyahu will certainly not demonstratively break this connection just for someone else’s moral comfort. This is not a novel about dignity. This is the politics of power, where it is more important to maintain a channel of influence than to win applause in someone else’s feed.
Israel has drawn one conclusion from its catastrophe. Ukraine is still arguing with this conclusion
The sharpest thought in this whole story sounds harsh, but it is too important to dismiss: moral righteousness alone is not enough if it is not backed by an army, economy, technology, discipline, and the state instinct for self-preservation.
Israel after the Holocaust made an extremely harsh conclusion. Memory alone does not save. Sacred texts alone do not save. The compassion of the world — even less so. What saves is the state, military power, its own industry, intelligence, an alliance with the strongest partner, and the readiness to act before being led to death again.
This is an unpleasant conclusion. But it works.
Ukraine, if we look honestly, still too often wants to prove to the world that it is right, instead of systematically turning rightness into cold power. Hence the recurring gap between high words and real resilience. There is moral pathos. And then the holes begin: economy, armament, internal discipline, energy vulnerability, dependence on others’ decisions.
And it is here that НАновости — Новости Израиля | Nikk.Agency see the main nerve of the whole discussion: the Israeli political experience after the catastrophe was built not around the question “who looks better morally”, but around the question “what needs to be done so that we can no longer be destroyed with impunity”. For a country living under a real military threat, this is not cynicism, but basic state literacy.
Memory without power turns into a museum
Human history generally poorly remembers those who beautifully lost. It is full of cemeteries of civilizations that were in their own way worthy but could not hold themselves in a cruel world. Over many of them, weeds grow, and disputes about who was morally purer disappear faster than inscriptions on stone.
But history stubbornly remembers those who knew how to combine will, calculation, resources, and state sense. Not because they were saints. But because they remained subjects of history, not its victims.
Why for Ukraine this is not an abstract dispute, but a question of winter, light, and survival
The main problem is not that someone loves Orban too much or dislikes Netanyahu too much. The main problem is that the next difficult situation will still force a choice not between pride and dishonor, but between a bad option and a catastrophe.
When it comes to megawatts, transit, supplies, votes, blocking decisions, a simple thing will become clear: you have to talk to unpleasant people too. Sometimes — especially with unpleasant people. Because freezing cities do not get warmer from the right morality in posts.
Ukrainian society has long needed to recognize: if the country wants to stand, it will have to learn unpleasant pragmatism. Not loving Orban — you can. Not trusting Trump — you can. Arguing with Netanyahu — you can even more. But you cannot substitute strategy with emotional hysteria and think that the world is obliged to reward only righteousness.
In Israel, they understood this long ago. Here, they paid too dearly for illusions to confuse moral self-esteem with a guarantee of security again. And therefore, the Israeli view of such stories is usually harsher: not to ask who seems unpleasant, but to ask who will ultimately keep the country alive.
Ukraine still does not like this lesson. But that is why it is worth learning now, not when another frost, another deficit, and another humiliating dependence again leave space only for forced bows to those who yesterday you wanted to publicly curse.