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Hungarian Politician: “Draw Up a List of Jews”

COMMENT: Hun­gar­i­an pol­i­tics have seen the recent resur­gence of fascist/xenophobic polit­i­cal par­ties sim­i­lar in tone and nature to the Arrow-Cross Par­ty that led Hun­gary dur­ing its World War II col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Nazis.

In addi­tion to the Fidesz orga­ni­za­tion, cur­rent­ly the dom­i­nant polit­i­cal ele­ment in that coun­try, the Job­bik Par­ty has been gain­ing strength and echo­ing many of the themes of the Nazi era.

A Job­bik politi­cian has now called for the com­pil­ing of a list of Jews. Deja vu all over again!

“Anger as Hun­gary Far-Right Leader Demands Lists of Jews” by Mar­ton Dunai; Reuters; 11/27/2012.

EXCERPT: A Hun­gar­ian far-right politi­cian urged the gov­ern­ment to draw up lists of Jews who pose a “nation­al secu­rity risk”, stir­ring out­rage among Jew­ish lead­ers who saw echoes of fas­cist poli­cies that led to the Holo­caust.

Mar­ton Gyongyosi, a leader of Hungary’s third-strongest polit­i­cal par­ty Job­bik, said the list was nec­es­sary because of height­ened ten­sions fol­low­ing the brief con­flict in Gaza and should include mem­bers of par­lia­ment.

Oppo­nents have con­demned fre­quent anti-Semit­ic slurs and tough rhetoric against the Roma minor­ity by Gyongyosi’s par­ty as pop­ulist point scor­ing ahead of elec­tions in 2014. . . .

. . . Jobbik’s anti-Semit­ic dis­course often evokes a cen­turies-old blood libel — the accu­sa­tion that Jews used Chris­tians’ blood in reli­gious rit­u­als.
“Job­bik has moved from rep­re­sent­ing medieval super­sti­tion (of the blood libel) to open­ly Nazi ide­olo­gies,” wrote Slo­mo Koves, chief rab­bi of the Uni­fied Hun­gar­ian Jew­ish Con­gre­ga­tion.

Job­bik reg­is­tered as a polit­i­cal par­ty in 2003, and gained increas­ing influ­ence as it rad­i­cal­ized grad­u­ally, vil­i­fy­ing Jews and the country’s 700,000 Roma.

The group gained noto­ri­ety after found­ing the Hun­gar­ian Guard, an unarmed vig­i­lante group rem­i­nis­cent of World War Two-era far-right groups. It entered Par­lia­ment at the 2010 elec­tions and holds 44 of 386 seats. . . .

. . . More than half of Hungary’s elec­torate is unde­cided and hav­ing retained its vot­er base, s ome ana­lysts say Job­bik could hold the bal­ance of pow­er in the 2014 elec­tions between Fidesz and the frag­mented left-wing oppo­si­tion.

Discussion

5 comments for “Hungarian Politician: “Draw Up a List of Jews””

  1. i guess it’s put up or shut up time for the hun­gar­i­an peo­ple. as the song goes, “WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?”

    Posted by David | November 28, 2012, 8:21 pm
  2. Boss, I’ll get on this right away!

    Posted by Fred Malek | November 29, 2012, 12:27 am
  3. @“Fred Malek”–

    Sharp wit! This is, of course, not “the real” Fred Malek, who was tasked (by Nixon) with purg­ing the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics of Jews.

    Malek, BTW, was also one of the founders of the Car­lyle Group.

    Best,

    Dave

    Posted by Dave Emory | November 29, 2012, 7:43 pm
  4. OK then:

    Pros­e­cu­tors Reject Report Against Hun­gary Law­mak­er

    BUDAPEST, Hun­gary Jan­u­ary 9, 2013 (AP)

    Hun­gar­i­an pros­e­cu­tors have reject­ed a com­plaint from a Jew­ish con­gre­ga­tion against a law­mak­er who said Jews could rep­re­sent a nation­al secu­ri­ty risk.

    Rab­bi Slo­mo Koves and Daniel Bod­nar of Hun­gary’s Ortho­dox Chabad-Lubav­itch com­mu­ni­ty had filed a com­plaint against Mar­ton Gyongyosi for incite­ment to hatred after the deputy of the far-right Job­bik par­ty said in Par­lia­ment on Nov. 26 that it was “time to assess ... how many peo­ple of Jew­ish ori­gin there are here, and espe­cial­ly in the Hun­gar­i­an Par­lia­ment and the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment, who rep­re­sent a cer­tain nation­al secu­ri­ty risk for Hun­gary.”

    The Cen­tral Inves­tiga­tive Chief Pros­e­cu­tor’s Office said Wednes­day that Gyongyosi’s remarks could not be clas­si­fied as incit­ing to hatred.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | January 9, 2013, 12:01 pm
  5. Europe’s far-right tide is still on the rise:

    Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times
    Mar­i­an Kotle­ba: Slovakia’s New Neo-Nazi Gov­er­nor Only Lat­est of Right-Wing Extrem­ists Emerg­ing In East­ern Europe
    By Palash Ghosh
    on Novem­ber 25 2013 10:35 AM

    An extreme right-wing polit­i­cal can­di­date has gained high office in the East­ern Euro­pean nation of Slo­va­kia, a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Union and NATO. Mar­i­an Kotle­ba, chief of the ultra-nation­al­ist Our Slo­va­kia (LSNS) par­ty, won elec­tion as region­al gov­er­nor of Ban­s­ka Bystri­ca in the cen­tral part of the coun­try, by polling 55.5 per­cent of the elec­torate in the sec­ond round of polls against the incum­bent Vladimir Man­ka, who rep­re­sents the Smer-Social Demo­c­rat par­ty of Prime Min­is­ter Robert Fico. In Slovakia’s oth­er self-gov­ern­ing regions, the rul­ing Social Democ­rats won six dis­tricts, while the oppo­si­tion Slo­vak Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Chris­t­ian Union Par­ty (SDKU) retained the cap­i­tal of Bratisla­va.

    Kotle­ba, whose orga­ni­za­tion has long agi­tat­ed against Slovakia’s Roma (Gyp­sy) minor­i­ty, brand­ing them as “par­a­sites,” once belonged to the now-out­lawed Neo-Nazi Sloven­ská Pospoli­tost (Slo­vak Com­mu­ni­ty) move­ment that praised the Nazi pup­pet gov­ern­ment that ruled the coun­try dur­ing World War II. Bloomberg report­ed that Kotle­ba open­ly admires praised Jozef Tiso, pres­i­dent of the Nazi satel­lite state in Slo­va­kia dur­ing World War II, which dis­patched thou­sands of Jews to Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps. Kotle­ba, a 36-year-old for­mer high school teacher, has been noto­ri­ous for sport­ing Nazi-style uni­forms in pub­lic, and also repeat­ed­ly arrest­ed and sued for spread­ing racism and hate (no such charges have ever stuck, how­ev­er).

    BBC report­ed that, with respect to for­eign pol­i­cy, Kotle­ba has called for Slo­va­kia to can­cel its mem­ber­ship in NATO, which his par­ty con­sid­ers a “ter­ror­ist” orga­ni­za­tion, gain more inde­pen­dence from the EU and estab­lish a nation­al cur­ren­cy. PressEu­ropa also not­ed that Kotle­ba once vowed to “end the unfair pref­er­en­tial treat­ment accord­ed to par­a­sites, and not just the gyp­sies.”

    Accord­ing to Bloomberg, Slovakia’s Roma com­mu­ni­ty, which account for about 7 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion, has become a scape­goat for an eco­nom­ic slow­down and the like­li­hood of increased gov­ern­ment aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures to sat­is­fy the EU’s deficit tar­gets. SME, a Slo­vak dai­ly news­pa­per, said Kotleba’s tri­umph was sparked by “a mix­ture of hatred, pow­er­less­ness and out­rage against the elites.” Pavol Fre­so, the SDKU can­di­date who won in Bratisla­va, char­ac­ter­ized Kotleba’s vic­to­ry as “a huge blow for democ­ra­cy.” How­ev­er, Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty report­ed that Kotleba’s vic­to­ry came as a sur­prise since he lost in the first round of the elec­tion, did not cam­paign much and par­tic­i­pat­ed in only one debate. RFE/RL added that less than one-fifth (17 per­cent) of eli­gi­ble vot­ers both­ered to cast bal­lots in the elec­tion, sug­gest­ing that Kotleba’s per­for­mance reflect­ed vot­er apa­thy and hard­ly rep­re­sents a man­date by the pub­lic.

    ...

    Indeed, extreme right-wing par­ties, like­ly aid­ed by eco­nom­ic malaise, have made some gains across East­ern Europe in recent years. In Hun­gary, the far-right Job­bik par­ty has open­ly assailed Jews and Roma. Hungary’s Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orban acknowl­edged that anti-Semi­tism is increas­ing in Hun­gary but said that his gov­ern­ment would not tol­er­ate such hate, BBC report­ed. “Anti-Semi­tism is unac­cept­able and can­not be tol­er­at­ed,” Orban declared. “[We have a] moral duty to declare zero tol­er­ance on anti-Semi­tism.”

    At a ral­ly last year against the World Jew­ish Con­gress in Budapest, Reuters report­ed, Job­bik chair­man Gabor Vona told the crowd: “The Israeli con­querors, these investors, should look for anoth­er coun­try in the world for them­selves because Hun­gary is not for sale.” Hun­dreds of peo­ple attend­ed the demon­stra­tion, with many wear­ing the black gar­ments of Job­bik’s out­lawed para­mil­i­tary wing, the Hun­gary Guard, which have report­ed­ly attacked Roma camps over the years. Anoth­er Job­bik offi­cial at the ral­ly, MP Mar­ton Gyongyosi, warned that Hun­gary had “become sub­ju­gat­ed to Zion­ism, it has become a tar­get of col­o­niza­tion while we, the indige­nous peo­ple, can play only the role of extras.” Gyongyosi, like many top Job­bik mem­bers, has a long his­to­ry of mak­ing anti-Semit­ic state­ments. Last year, he demand­ed that the gov­ern­ment release a list of Jew­ish MPs and cab­i­net mem­bers who might pose a “nation­al secu­ri­ty risk” to Hun­gary.

    Iron­i­cal­ly, last year, it was revealed that the for­mer leader of Job­bik, Csanad Szege­di, is him­self Jew­ish and that his grand­moth­er was a Jew­ish Holo­caust sur­vivor. In a bizarre inter­view with the Hun­gar­i­an press, Szege­di tried to down­play the rev­e­la­tion by declar­ing: “I think that what counts is not to know who is a pure race Hun­gar­i­an, the impor­tant thing is the way one behaves as a Hun­gar­i­an. To be Hun­gar­i­an for me has always been a respon­si­bil­i­ty [toward my coun­try], that has noth­ing to do with racial suprema­cy.” Szege­di was even­tu­al­ly forced to resign from Job­bik.

    Mean­while, in anoth­er part of East­ern Europe, The Ukraine, a neo-Nazi group called the Svo­bo­da All-Ukrain­ian Union, which espous­es a vir­u­lent­ly xeno­pho­bic, anti-Semit­ic, anti-gay, and anti-Russ­ian agen­da, has gained seats in par­lia­ment. Euro­pean and Israeli lead­ers expressed shock in Octo­ber 2012, when Svo­bo­da gained more than 10 per­cent of the elec­torate in par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, enter­ing the leg­is­la­ture for the first time ever. (In some west­ern regions of Ukraine, Svo­bo­da gained as much as 40 per­cent of the vote.) As recent­ly as the 2007 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, Svo­bo­da only gar­nered 0.76 per­cent of the total vote. It is now one of five major par­ties in the Ukraine.

    Found­ed in 1991 as the Social-Nation­al Par­ty of Ukraine, Svo­bo­da has appar­ent­ly appealed to hun­dreds of thou­sands of Ukraini­ans weary of eco­nom­ic woes and ram­pant cor­rup­tion in gov­ern­ment. Recent reports sug­gest that the par­ty has derived sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from the well-edu­cat­ed and the young. Among oth­er things, Svo­bo­da (which means ‘free­dom’) seeks to end all immi­gra­tion and ensure that all civ­il ser­vant jobs are filled by eth­nic Ukraini­ans.

    Anti-Semi­tism appears to hold a core posi­tion in Svoboda’s par­ty ide­ol­o­gy. In 2004, the party’s charis­mat­ic leader Oleh Tyah­ny­bok deliv­ered a speech in par­lia­ment in which he alleged that a “Mus­covite-Jew­ish mafia” was con­trol­ling the Ukraine and threat­ened the country’s very exis­tence. Tyah­ny­bok also claimed that “orga­nized Jew­ry” dom­i­nate Ukrain­ian media and gov­ern­ment, have enriched them­selves through crim­i­nal activ­i­ties and plan to engi­neer a “geno­cide” upon the Chris­t­ian Ukrain­ian pop­u­la­tion.

    Extreme far-right groups have also sprout­ed in the Czech Repub­lic, Bul­gar­ia and Roma­nia.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | November 25, 2013, 12:25 pm

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