Jewish leaders have blasted the failure of Hungarian authorities to stop a Neo-Nazi rally, which took place last Saturday in Budapest and saw some 2,800 far-right extremists bearing swastikas and other fascist symbols marching through the capital, The Jerusalem Post reported.
In a statement on Tuesday, Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman pointed to “a wave of anti-Semitism” around the world and slammed the Hungarian government for failing to stop the extremist march. Liberman cited events “in Budapest, capital of Hungary, where neo-Nazi demonstrations take place in which hundreds of people participate and the police don’t lift a finger.”
Numerous Neo-Nazi groups attended the “Day of Honor” in the Hungarian capital on February 10, as they commemorated the breakout attempt by Schutzstaffel (SS) troops from Soviet-surrounded Budapest during World War II.
During the rally, German neo-Nazi activist Matthias Deyda referred to Adolf Hitler as the “most famous and greatest German statesman of history,” and cited a quote from the Nazi leader about what would happen, if “Our old enemy and adversary tries again to attack us.”
Speaking to the Post, the chairman of the rabbinical council of the Mazsihisz Jewish Federation in Hungary, Rabbi Zoltan Radnoti, said that, “It very much pains us that neither the authorities nor the police did anything to stop this march.”
Radnoti added: “The government and police must stop these marches. It is not fitting for Budapest, for Hungary, or for a government which says it wants to protect the Jewish Hungarian community, and which says it has zero-tolerance for anti-Semitism, but allows these marches.”
According to the German Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism watchdog group, the march drew far-right and neo-Nazi participants from several European countries, including the German Die Rechte Party, the Swedish Nordic Resistance Movement, “Club 28 Serbia,” and the Ukrainian C14 organization, as well as right-wing extremists from Italy and Russia.
Goldschmidt observed that the pictures of Nazi symbols and neo-Nazi demonstrators were “intolerable” and “painful” and reminded him of “the darkest times” of the last century. “If neo-Nazis can spread their hatred of Jews and foreigners in the European public domain, it is a danger to the whole of Europe,” said the rabbi.
“The indifference of the Hungarian authorities is outrageous, and they must take into account the influence of such messages of hate,” he added.
[Photo: Jüdisches Forum / YouTube ]