08/20/2012
Hungarian soccer fans shouted anti-Semitic slurs and jeered when the Israeli
national anthem was played during a match between Israel and Hungary in Budapest
last Wednesday.
In a video clip uploaded to YouTube, supporters of the Hungarian team can be heard shouting “filthy Jews” and “Buchenwald,” the name of a Nazi death camp, while Israel’s “Hatikva“ is played in the background. A few dozen supporters can be seen turning their backs to the field in protest and at least one praises Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, an ally of Nazi Germany.
“It continued during the entire match,” said Peter Morvay, editor of ATV, a pro-Israel evangelical television station in Hungary, who attended the match with his son. “Not a few lunatics, but the whole bunch of supporters behaved like this. They displayed Palestinian and Iranian flags as well.”
Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of The Simon Wiesenthal Center, who has been campaigning for Hungarian authorities to take action against anti- Semitism for years, said the incident was indicative of a larger problem plaguing the country.
“Such anti-Semitic hooliganism is a reflection of the growing anti-Semitism in Hungary which is constantly being encouraged by the ultra-nationalist Jobbik party which denies Hungarian complicity in Holocaust crimes and is in sympathy with Iranian views on Israel,” said Zuroff.
The match ended in a 1-1 draw.
In a video clip uploaded to YouTube, supporters of the Hungarian team can be heard shouting “filthy Jews” and “Buchenwald,” the name of a Nazi death camp, while Israel’s “Hatikva“ is played in the background. A few dozen supporters can be seen turning their backs to the field in protest and at least one praises Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, an ally of Nazi Germany.
“It continued during the entire match,” said Peter Morvay, editor of ATV, a pro-Israel evangelical television station in Hungary, who attended the match with his son. “Not a few lunatics, but the whole bunch of supporters behaved like this. They displayed Palestinian and Iranian flags as well.”
Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of The Simon Wiesenthal Center, who has been campaigning for Hungarian authorities to take action against anti- Semitism for years, said the incident was indicative of a larger problem plaguing the country.
“Such anti-Semitic hooliganism is a reflection of the growing anti-Semitism in Hungary which is constantly being encouraged by the ultra-nationalist Jobbik party which denies Hungarian complicity in Holocaust crimes and is in sympathy with Iranian views on Israel,” said Zuroff.
The match ended in a 1-1 draw.
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