Márton Gyöngyösi, the deputy leader of the far-right Jobbik party in Hungary’s parliament, will go on a nationwide lecture tour on “attacks on Jobbik and himself and the party’s foreign policy, with focus on its strong and true criticism of Israel,” Jobbik said last week. Addressing Hungary’s parliament last November, Gyöngyösi caused outraged when he urged a list of Jewish lawmakers and government members to be compiled and suggested that Jews and Israeli passport holders posed a national security risk.
Last February, an interview with the British weekly ‘Jewish Chronicle’, he openly questioned the Holocaust, claimed that Jews were colonizing Hungary and that Israeli treatment of the Palestinians amounted to a "Nazi system".
“Jobbik has been exposed to unprecedented attacks in Hungary and abroad … Relying on its huge lobbying and blackmailing potential, Zionism has deployed all its strength to launch a global campaign to discredit Jobbik,” the party said in a statement. Jobbik also accused “Zionists” of creating a grand coalition of the ruling Fidesz party and the mainstream opposition parties while deploying its communication arsenal which, he said, had co-opted almost the entire media.
In recent weeks, Jobbik, which is Hungary’s third largest party and notorious for its rhetoric and actions against the country’s Roma community, has intensified its campaign against Israel and Jews. Eleven out of the 16 articles featured on Sunday on the homepage of the party’s English-language website were devoted to Jewish institutions or Israel, according to JTA.
