Condemnation of Israel, coming from Hungarian Far-Right?

www.jobbik.com...

In its first round of issues raised before the order of the day of the new Parliament, Mr. Márton Gyöngyösi (Jobbik) heavily criticised Israel for the brutal raid against the convoy of six humanitarian aid ships travelling under Turkish flag to the blockaded Gaza Strip.


Sarcastically referring to the sluggish reaction of the Hungarian media every time it comes to reporting on Israel’s brutality, the MP briefly summarized the details of that morning’s bloody incident. “It is already clear that the event will have irreversible and irreparable consequences for the future” – he said.

Mr. Gyöngyösi, also vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee and IPU, reminded that the inhumane atrocity of Israel against Gaza is not at all unprecedented. He recalled the 2008 January bombings of Gaza by the Israeli air force, destroying the entire infrastructure of the city and brutally killing civilians, women and children alike. He labelled the Israeli attack “a qualified case of genocide”. Drawing a parallel with the current case of raiding a humanitarian aid ship, he recalled the case where Israel targeted a UN school full of civilians, despite the fact that the UN provided the GPS coordinates to the Israeli defence ministry.

(Sorry, this is in Hungarian. I couldn't find it in English. Any translators?)

Jobbik Party

It is accused of having Fascists and Anti-Semites within its ranks, it obviously rejects those claims. But it is surprising to me to see such a harsh condemnation of Israel coming from such a Right-wing political party. If it is Anti-Semitic I would understand this condemnation but they also sided with and said of their support for Islamic country of Turkey, which is strange of a right-wing party.

At least some politicians have the guts to stand up to the Zionist regime that is occupying Palestine and causing a mass genocide.

p.s. I know this article is rather old, early August, but I was just posting it because it seemed rather interesting.

No replies???

I understand Hungarian. This was literally a balanced and diplomatic speecjh asking for the condemnation of Israel mainly for the attacks on the peace convoy and the atrocities of Gaza, calling the latter a large concentration camp (perhaps he said the world's largest one) - which could be an exaggeration, and also for flaunting many UN decrees, while calling attention to the fact that Hungarian diplomats flew the Tibetan flag one time to protest occupation, and the Cuban refugees, calling for an official condemnation of Israel on the above counts on behalf of the Parliament.
The problem is not what this guy says or how. You can agree with much of it. The problem is that far-right antisemitic opinions, ideologies and behavior - not violent mostly - is vary rampant in Hungary these days, and many people question the Holocaust.
Hungary was a bad offender in that in history, with anti-Jew laws followed up by a local terror organization (the "Arrow Cross") that hunted Hungarian Jewry and sometimes tortured them to death - with their possessions and houses looted, and sometimes personally sent them to German extermination camps in death marches where many did not survive. The AC incidents were as brutal as SS if not more sometimes.

Earlier, Eastern European Jewry saw Budapest as a leading city in Europe's Jewish life, with many learned yeshivas etc. A large part of Hungarian intellectual life is still populated by persons of Hungarian Jewish descent. (Just for foreign readers: Jews exterminated in the Shoah in Poland were mostly poor and Orthodox, while in Hungary - mostly middle class and intellectuals.)

Due to the economic depression, which Hungary experiences thanks to foreign loan traps, a bad economic structure and extraordinary bad weather this year, the average people have long started to entertain wild far-right fairytales and myths about how Hungarians descended from sumerians, with Jesus being Hungarian and his enemies were Jewish etc. Almost in all cases, some virulent anti-semitic ideas are in that package. It is too bad that sometimes authentic national heritage like folk music is paraded alongside with the most airhead fantasy propaganda.
On top of that, Jobbik is rightly accused of assotiacions with racial crimes against the Roma, openly discriminatory policies where they rule, and bringing up the idea of segregation camps for pmoverished and alienated Roma crowds.

So in that context, this speech - while diplomatic and mostly factual - could be assessed as a provocation. Many far-righters blame World Jewry for thir troubles and some think it outright that "they" target Hungary specifically because "they" know that "we" hold the reciope for truth. This paranoid thinking starts out with bad logical presuppositions: Hungarian Jewry were polled and asked if it wished to apply for a separate national minority status. The polled Jews answered wih a resounding No. They want to be looked at as Hungarian Jews, comparable to Hungarian Christians or whatever other Hungarian group. However, anti-semitic crowds simply do not look at Hungarian Jewry as part of the nation. This alienated many Jews who sought more and more assurance with Israel not only on religious grounds and Hebrew heritage (which goes on nicely) but also on emotional grounds: they fear that some form of Nazi-type antisemitism can come back in a violent form.
So far they were only a fdew isolated hate crimes. Israel's aggressive publicity recently and her flaunting of many UN regulations does not help the issue.

reply to post by Kokatsi


I know alot about Hungary because I am a Hungarian-American, but I don't know the language. I like many aspects of Nationalism, especially Economic Nationalism, and recently I was following Jobbik. I read their party platform and liked some of it but I am deeply skeptical of any party or organization that is so often accused of Anti-Semitism and any racism.

I am glad to see a Hungarian on ATS, I have not met many Hungarians in person or online.

www.jobbik.com...
The above article is a summation of the speech.

Originally posted by Kokatsi
www.jobbik.com...
The above article is a summation of the speech.

That's the same article link I provided in the OP.

It is a dangerous idea on the part of Jobbik sympathizers to connect Gypsies with Jews as "non-Hungarians." The Gypsies ARE a separate ethnic group, many are bilingual, a tribal nation with two indigenous languages (one is related to Hindi, and the other is an archaic form of Romanian) who physically look different from average Hungarians (dark skin, dark hair, accent and tribal customs). Whereas Jewry looks at itself as Hungarian, moreover, a good part of the intelligentsia, media, writers, artists, and a few moneymen but not much.
Sociologically speaking, during the terror times of the Arrow Cross (1944 mainly), Hungary has beheaded its own elite who spoke Hungarian but professed Jewish religious roots. This should never happen again. And it is debated whether there is any genetic proof to the purported unity of people descended from Israel thousands of years ago. There are at least two tpes of Jews here: one of Sephardic/Spanish origin, and the Khazar or Eastern European types that mostly immigrated during the last few centuries as tradesmen. (Plus a few groups in Transylvania that converted to Judaism.)

However, the Roma question is altogether different. Even though both of these groups were targeted to annihilation by the Arrow Cross and the German occupation at the end of WW2. These tribal folks were almost integrated under Soviet rule, but the system change (1989) pretty much put an end to that. They usually represent the lowest poverty pockets and extortion mafias, with some aristocratic "musician" lineages. I think there is no solution to the Gypsy problem unless Hungary adopts a different system from neoliberalism. Under which they became a totally alienated ghettoised underclass basically.

They look at Hungarians as "white people," this is the word they use (fehér or magyar). They are under the dictatum of tribal chiefs who would never dream of giving up one of their members to the police even if those committed a serious crime, That is how far their tribal ethics extend.

With Jews, it is the opposite. Many Hungarian scientists that won Nobel prizes and those that worked in the creation of the atomic bomb were Hungarian Jews, usually secular but culturally tied to Jewry. so were famous writers, musicians, media personalities, journalists, sponsors of modern arts etc.

Sociologically, it is frequent that Hungarian Jewry has co-operated with Soviet power for a while, entering the ranks of the Communist Party, naively believing that "the enemy of my enemy (the Nazis) will be my friend." In fact, one of the most notorious dictators (Mr. Rakosi) in the 1950's Soviet rule was Jewish (but a secular Marxist of course).

These days sometimes this mixed heritage leads to a sort of paranoid fear of nationalism among Jews and stronger ties to Israel. A resurgence of religion can be observed among the descendants of Judaism. Our Nobel Prize Winner Kertész is a secular Jew and wrote about the Holocaust and lives in Berlin. I think his book is great BTW.

All this contributes to the split, and I think Jobbik's policy of posing these two groups as "non-Hungarian" TOGETHER sounds pretty fascist to me, even though sometimes it is only their portals that give you the truth about some anti-neoliberal agenda issues... the sad fact is that even people sympathizing with Truthers are cast here as extreme right-wing. In the mainstream media you cannot mention the possibility that 911 was an inside job. You are immediately branded as an exptreme right winger who hates Jews and thinks that Hungarians are descendants of Attila the Hun (which is highly questionable historically anyway, and would not be a desirable position in Hungarian history...)

Hungary has no shortage of geniuses - for example Bolyai, the inventor of spherical geometry was Hungarian from Transylvania.

BTW, another trauma that adds to the above is that in the Versailles Treaty, Hungary lost two thirds of its territory, with all the major mines and railroads going to the enemy's hands, where still millions of Hungarian-speaking people lived. Nowadays, Hungarians constitute the single largest foreign ethnic majority in Slovakia and Romania... Where else in the EU do you have indigenous millions of inhabitants closed up in foreign countries that need of must to learn the language of the state they live in (and are sometimes punished if they merely speak Hungarian on the street)?

A complicated question, perhaps only enlightenment can be a solution to these tangled historical insights. What I am sure of is that no anti-semitism can be a valid doctrine in Hungary under whatever name... This country has not gone through the rigorous self-examination as regards Nazism that Germany has. The whole issue of killing off Hungarian Jewry by the hundred thousands was swept under the carpet by the Soviet colonial regime (which lied that it was "Socialist."

A schizophrenic country whre you could never say what was the most obvious collective truth for several generations. A country that needs healing badly....

reply to post by Kokatsi


My family from Hungary was Jewish (we suspect), who escaped in 1914 to the US and changed their names. I believe that is why I feel a deep connection to Hungary and Slovenia, where they were from. They changed their names to Wiczena when they came here I guess, the story is still kept secret in my family for some reason.

But Hungary really has no reason to be so paranoid about the opinions, they should embrace that they are now a free and tolerant nation. Sure you have your problems there but it's not like there is a chance of Nazism returning in Hungary and another form of Genocide or mass persecution occurring again.

And it is sad if you are correct that Jobbik is racist, they have a good economic and nationalist message, besides the racist factor. I am currently not so happy with my country anyway, we are the ones enforcing the Neoliberal agenda on the world and the corporate globalization and consumerism which is now engulfing Europe alongside the illegal wars we are engaged in. The political debate here in the states is getting alot worse, now they want to abolish the welfare state altogether which is simply unacceptable to me and we have a very weak president who is also a liar.

So I have been weighing my options and have been considering moving back to the land of my forefathers, Hungary. I believe that your nations past of racism will eventually wear off and you can accept it as a dark time and a learning lesson for the future of what not to do.

I agree - the sad thing is that many times points of truth are brought up only by Jobbik (and the marginal far left), and they ARE racist. They have a point with many things - naming problems almost to the point of NWO etc. I would also be an economic nationalist - because I am against the no-barrier free-trade system.

A few years back, when I mentioned that I doubted the US government's explanation on 911, people condemned me as being close to what was then the ancestor of today's Jobbik. I kept on explaining but to no avail.
In the US, you can be either right or left and still entertain non-official varieties of reality.

What troubles me mostly about the recent leaflet I got today for local elections is that "cigánybűnözés" is talked about this way. Facts are there that Roma people are disproportionately represented in crime and abusing welfare - but I know enough sociology (and enough Roma people) to never be a racist. Statistics only reflect part of reality - and obviously this is a collcetive shadow projection issue, plus, ever since Soviet times, no one REALLY wanted to integrate the Roma - who are pretty tribal in their customs. As far as I know most of the problematic Roma Jobbik criticizes are city people - and the problem with them is exactly as any slum dwellers in all parts of the world, be they Chinese or whatever...

Despite that, many issues Jobbik names are identified correctly. And the strangest of it is that in my district the incumbent mayor is such a paranoid, autocratic axxhole, having mismanaged a lot of funds and made bad business contracts for the city, then changed all the traffic rules by his own very hand (like Stalin) that all the other parties got together to run a single candidate against him. So I am going to vote to someone embraced by Jobbik this time - and I guess my wife who comes fom strong Jewish roots will too...

I am critical of this whole neoliberal economy, my grandfather was a finance minister and I know too much about bad theory - and both leading candidates speak neoliberalese. And they all want Hungary to get the Euro. (It would be not so good as Slovakia's example shows.)

I sometimes did not vote because no force was sympathetic enough to move me - last time I voted LMP (Lehet Más a Politika) and they did get into the Parliament. Anyway if I vote I am not a partisan, I vote for programs...

I know many decent folks who sympathize with Jobbik. Even people of Jewish extraction.

However, it could be true what many whispered during the campaign that they were financed by the Socialists who knew they would be defeated and wanted to establish a chequer pattern to annoy their main rivals, Fidesz.

That, and the Gypsy issue makes me cautious
Would be interesting for you to visit Hungary. It is possible that your ancestors were either Jewish (een though many Jews in Hungary tried taking up Christianity), or non-Jewish anti-Fascists like mine.

Greetings...