Israeli foreign ministry comments on US Ambassador's seder evening in Budapest

To put it mildly, Israeli journalist Gilad Zwick was not happy that the president of the Hungarian Jobbik party was invited to celebrate the seder evening with US Ambassador David Pressman, who is of Jewish origin. The journalist cited the right-wing politician's anti-Israel and Holocaust-relativizing statements, and the Israeli foreign ministry also commented on the incident, the Mandiner news outlet writes.

POLITICS APRIL 15. 2023 11:36

Channel 14 journalist Gilad Zwick has posted a series of outraged tweets about the U.S. Embassy’s Passover Seder evening in Budapest. David Pressman, the US Ambassador to Budapest, invited Marton Gyongyosi to the event. The leader of the Jobbik party sparked a scandal earlier by speaking in the Hungarian Parliament about the listing of Jews.

Commenting on the case, Mr Zwick said:

„Oh shame, oh shame: an anti-Semite (others would say Nazi) at the seder table – under the auspices of the Biden administration!”

US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is Jewish, hosted Marton Gyongyosi, the „chairman of the far-right Jobbik party”, on seder evening, Mr Zwick recalled. In 2012, Gyongyosi called for the „listing of Jews” saying that they posed a national security risk.

Ambassador David Pressman defended himself by saying that he had invited Gyongyosi to his table precisely because he had previously held unacceptable views.

The journalist also accused the politician of Holocaust relativization, recalling that referring to the 400 thousand victims of the Jewish national tragedy in Hungary, Mr Gyongyosi had said that „it has become a fantastic business to jiggle around with the numbers.” In another case, when a compensation lawsuit was launched against Hungarian national railway company for carrying out the deportations, the MP sent a message to the Holocaust survivors, saying that „they are looking for money, playing with fire.„

Mr Gyongyosi compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and Mr Gergely Kulcsar, his fellow party member, spat on the Holocaust memorial by the Danube in Budapest, Mr Zwick recalled. At the same time, he also pointed out that Jobbik is now part of the opposition united against the current Hungarian government led by Viktor Orban.

„Biden and the Left condemn Orban’s nationalism – so much so that they are willing to join forces with miserable anti-Semites,” he said.

Mr Zwick also contacted the Israeli foreign ministry to find out what they thought about the incident. The reply he received was succinct but to the point.

The journalist wrote: “After the evening when the anti-Semitic leader and Holocaust denier was hosted by Biden’s Ambassador in Budapest, the State Department stabbed a sharp thorn into the White House:

»The State of Israel has consistently condemned and avoided any contact with the far-right extremist Jobbik party and its members because of their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel stance,«” Mr Zwick’s tweet read.

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Tags:

antisemitims, david pressman, Hungary, israel, usa