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Weapons testing as the motive for the bombardment also cropped up,
as well as reference to the destruction of copper mines in Yugoslavia in
order to profitably rebuild them by Western companies. A distinguished
writer speculated in a personal conversation that the Jewish background
of Madeline Albright and Wesley Clark provided the psychological basis
for interventionist sentiment as a moralistic overcompensation for
downplaying their Jewish identity. (A similar view about Albright was
also expressed in the
New Republic.)
Jewishness played a part in Hungary, too, in the shaping of attitudes
toward the war. Jews who disliked the government for being right-wing
had little sympathy for NATO action. Those lik e Agnes Heller, who
associated ethnic cleansing with the Holocaust, took the opposite posi–
tion. One young historian argued that the most clear-cut opposition to
the war was to be found at the political extremes, but only the minus–
cu le fa r-Ieft "Workers Party" actua lIy su pported Milosevic.
There was a nationalistic component of the Hungarian concerns with
the war: the Hungarian minority of some three hundred thousand in
Vojvodina, which borders on southern Hungary. Many Hungarians felt
that the bombs falling on places like Novi Sad did particular damage to
the lives of Hungarians. There was also the apprehension that enraged
Serb nationalists might, after Kosovo, turn on the Hungarian minority
and repress them further (they too had lost their autonomous status
under Milosevic). Future relations with the Serb neigh bar was another
concern. And there were also apprehensions that Hungary would become
as subservient to NATO as it used to be to the Warsaw Pact. During my
visit it was reported that a man telephoned a irport authorities in
Budapest, where the NATO tanker planes were based, threatening to
shoot down one of them with a handheld missile. There was also indi g–
nation about a tanker plane that jettisoned its fuel over cultivated fields
when it developed engine trouble. A lack of warmth toward the Kosovar
Albanians was sometimes discernible, reflecting an undercurrent of
antipathy toward their Isl amic religious affiliations and values. Hungar–
ians do not see how the latter can be reconciled with the Western, Euro–
pean values and attitudes they cherish. Serbs, at least, are Christian.
The disputes and disagreements among Hungarian intellectuals raised
the same questions as those asked by their American counterparts. Peo–
ple of comparable reputation, integrity, and apparent moral sensibility
disagreed wildly and often angrily, their moral compasses pointing in
diametrically opposed directions. George Konrad's long and angry arti–
cle in
Nepszabadsag
(first published in a major German paper) suggested
that he was more upset by the NATO bombing of Serb civilians and
