This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer:
Anti-semitism (explicit and implicit) in Hungary
By Karl Pfeifer, Vienna
The implicit anti-semitism of a Hungarian Catholic bishop
A year ago I published an article about Hungarian anti-semitism in which I mentioned the Catholic bishop Balázs Bábel who:
“…was educated according to the doctrines of Ottokár Prohászka”, “one of the leading persons of anti-semitic ideology.”
Prohászka published his antisemitic views in English: The Jewish Question in Hungary, The Hague, Holland, 1920, and also in German: Die Judenfrage in Ungarn, Hammerschlaege, Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund. Hamburg 1921, Heft 21. (see illustration).
On October 6, 2009 bishop Balász Bábel delivered a speech at the commemoration of the 13 revolutionary generals who were executed by the Habsburg rulers, after the crushing of the first Hungarian republic in 1849 in Arad (nowadays in Romania). He used this occasion to spread his coded anti-semitism: and to state that today:
“we are at the mercy of the big powers, but even worse, under the rule of impersonal money. They do not send an army against us, but the hawk-capital”.
The expression “hawk-capital” (“karvaly tőke”) was previously used by the Hungarian Nazi Arrow Cross leaders, the German Nazi term was “raffendes Kapital” (“money-grubbing capital”) i.e. Jewish capital.
In the leftwing Budapest daily “Népszava“ László Bartus published an article on this subject and reminded his readers, that the leader of the Hungarian revolution Kossuth characterised three Catholic bishops as “traitors“. Bartus described the help given by the Hungarian Catholic Church to the Habsburgs in crushing the revolution.
Kossuth said of the Hungarian Jews “nobody has given so much in life and material for Hungarian liberty as the Jews.“ [1]
Oszkár Molnár’s, Fidesz MP wild antisemitic, racist and homophobe statements [2]
This politician has stated on record that he has evidence that gypsy mothers take medication so as to bring mentally disabled children into the world and that they often beat the unborn child in the mother’s womb with rubber hammers in order to make the child physically handicapped after birth. Of course he has no such evidence and the local social welfare authorities deny his charges. Around 400 Roma women have initiated legal proceedings against Oszkar Molnar, an MP of the opposition Fidesz party and mayor of Edeleny (NE Hungary), in response to these “defamatory remarks” about Roma women. [3]
The Jews want to occupy and buy up Hungary and are assisted enthusiastically by our political leaders, motivated by their wish to increase their fortune. At least this is the opinion of Oszkár Molnár, mayor of Edelény and member of parliament for the right wing Fidesz party. Molnár, the “hospitable nationalist” who joined Fidesz in 1993, has neglected local politics and recently has been implicated in various political scandals, of which his statement about gypsy mothers was just the first. Népszava has linked its article with three videos
The Fidesz MP explains in the first video [4] that, “Jewish big business wants to occupy our land, with our agriculture, drinking water, hospitals and schools. One has to be quiet about that in Hungary”. But he is not “quiet“. Not satisfied with these declarations he adds, that children in Jerusalem learn Hungarian because they regard Hungary as the future homeland of Jews.
In the second video [5] Oszkár Molnár expounds some surprising ideas: The original language of humanity is it seems Hungarian. According to this conservative MP the Hungarians are the oldest people of the world, and are genetically more developed than others. Thanks to this, the Hungarian will survive everything. Similar statements were also made by the Nazis and of course by their counterparts the Hungarian Arrow Cross movement.
This politician says in the third video [6] that shocking things happen in Hungary and he threatens gays (who he describes in the most crude and offensive language) with prison.
Fidesz seems happy to tolerate the fact that one of its prominent members peddles racism, anti-semitism and homophobia, despite the fact that they belong to the mainstream European People’s Party.
References
- Bartus László: A bishop remembers (Egy érsek megemlékezik), Népszava, Oct 8,2009
http://www.nepszava.hu/default.asp?cCenter=OnlineCikk.asp&ArticleID=1249311 - The Jews ruin our land, on which the gypsies and the homosexuals are sponging – look at the videos of Oszkár Molnár, Népszava, 9.10.09
(A zsidók tönkreteszik országunkat, amin a cigányok és a melegek élősködnek! – Nézzen Molnár Oszkár videókat! )
http://www.nepszava.hu/default.asp?cCenter=OnlineCikk.asp&ArticleID=1249755 - http://www.politics.hu/20090914/roma-women-file-defamation-suit-against-mayor
- Oszkár Molnár doesn’t even spare the Jews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hge3O_cBa-s - Hungary above all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXR-F57fROA - Homosexuals should go to prison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fozP2Wd6-wY
Engage 
October 11, 2009 at 2:47 pm
“One has to be quiet about that in Hungary”
And, according to Walt and Mearsheimer in the USA.
And, according to Jenny Tongue, in the UK.
October 11, 2009 at 3:46 pm
@Absolute Observer@ the Antisemites like to think that one needs to have courage to say antisemitic things. It does not in Hungary, where the reformed clergyman Lóránt Hegedüs jun can make antisemitic speeches in the uniform of the dissolved Hungarian Guard. Watch im on youtube:
By the way you could also ask all those Christian churches who are proud to bash Israel and who pretend to be against antisemitism, what do they do against hate preachers in their ranks?
October 11, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Karl, what’s your view of Kaminski and Stephen Pollard’s defence of him?
October 11, 2009 at 9:00 pm
“By the way you could also ask all those Christian churches who are proud to bash Israel and who pretend to be against antisemitism, what do they do against hate preachers in their ranks?”
Karl, Zikharya,
I think a related question is what to do with the antisemites who go out of their way to support and defend Israel whilst denying their own antisemitism and antisemitic version of history.
For my part, the Conservative Jews have made a pact with the devil, taking the antisemite’s defence of Israel at face value whilst pretending not to see their antisemitism.
http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/20872/kaminski-admits-wearing-fascist-symbol
They are really just a mirror image of those Jews (and non-Jews) who will support any anti-Zionism whilst pretending not to see the antisemitism that often comes along with it.
For what it’s worth, I’m on the BOJD on this one,
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/20815/leaders-split-over-david-camerons-euro-allies
It is interesting to note also that the comments reported from Poland’s nationalist right after Fry’s comments repeat exactly the comments made on the occassion of the (very few) Jews who returned to Poland (and across Europe (Judt’s “Europe” book)) after 1945 and which went some way to inflame things leading to the 1946 pogrom there.
http://www.thejc.com/the-holocaust/20857/poland-accuses-stephen-fry-defamation
October 12, 2009 at 5:29 am
@zkharya@ I am a journalist and cannot cover the whole world. Sometimes when I have the time I read a lot. But just now I have to prepare a lecture I’ll be holding on Oct 19 at SICSA (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) seminary of Prof Robert Wistrich.
@NIMN@ if churches are specialising in bashing Israel, one should remind them to read Matthew 7: 2-5 (…How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, and behold, the log is in your own eye…)
Those churches must be asked, if they raise their voice if their brethren and sisters are victims of a pogrom in the Middle East, if their fellow Christians are burnt alive in churches in the ME, if the speak about the discrimination of Christians in the ME.
Those churches are singling out Israel and with that the motive is clear, it is not the love for muslim Palestinians but in most cases the old hatred for Jews.
Could it be @NIMN@ that the “good old” British antisemitism is being refreshed in the form of Israel bashing?
“During his interrogation before the Advisory Committee on Internment during the Second World War, Mosley told his inquisitors he had first come across anti-Semitism ‘in my youth where most of one’s friends and relations would not have Jews in their houses’. It was part of ‘an old English growth’ – a kind of ‘whimsical brutality’ but ‘kinder’ than that expressed by the Germans.” Stephen Dorril, Sir Oswald Mosley & British Fascism Black Shirt 2007, page 11
October 12, 2009 at 2:30 pm
According to “Népszabadság” Online Oszkár Molnár declared that he will not be excluded from his fraction and he denies of having said something antisemitic.
http://nol.hu/belfold/molnar_oszkar_szerint_nem_zsidozott__fideszes_maradt
The conservative Fidesz party tolerates racist, antisemitic and homphobe incitement.
October 12, 2009 at 3:04 pm
OK, Karl, I wasn’t trying to harangue you, I genuinely was interested in your opinion. Good luck with your paper, and I sympathise with having little time for other stuff. Z
October 12, 2009 at 3:06 pm
And, Karl, I always appreciate and enjoy your posts, and your occasional compliments, which do not go unnoticed. Z
October 12, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Zkharya and NIMN
I am really busy, preparing also two lectures to be held at colleges of Muenster and Bielefeld in November about the situation of gypsies in Hungary and about the extreme right there.
In order to write about Kaminski, I would have had to read the article and other articles. And that is now too much.
Last week I participated at an international conference on Media and Terror in Vienna, today at an UN press conference about Terror. And I wrote about it an article this afternoon.
In the evening I heard a lecture of the last Prime-minister of the GDR Lothar de Maizière.
Tomorrow I plan to write an article about a biased report of the Austrian State TV.
By the way this is not a complaint, I am doing all those things because I like my work and I can now as a retired journalist write whatever I am interested in.
October 12, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Karl, I gave a paper at Munster October 2008. I’d never been there before. Nice city and university. I am writing a paper for a Munster university publication right now (this second), which my supervisor is translating into German.
Good luck. I am sure they will be well received.
October 13, 2009 at 10:18 am
Karl,
Good luck with the papers. As for those Brits here, who knows when we’ll be permitted to retire!!
Regards,
NIMN