Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Hungary Far Right Targets ‘Israeli’ Lawmaker

A lawmaker for Hungary’s ultra-nationalist Jobbik party has demanded a fellow lawmaker resign because she has Israeli citizenship.

Elod Novak said during a news conference Nov. 29 that Katalin Ertsey of the opposition LMP Party should step down because she had an Israeli passport in addition to her Hungarian nationality.

Index, a Hungarian news portal, later quoted him as saying that, “Israel has more deputies in the Hungarian parliament than they have in the Israeli Knesset.” He added this caused the Hungarian parliament to make “favorable” decisions toward Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League has called Jobbik an “overtly anti-Semitic party.”

Novak’s comments came in the wake of remarks by fellow Jobbik lawmaker, Marton Gyongyosi, who had proposed drawing up a list of people in the country “to see how many are of Jewish origin and present a certain national security risk to Hungary” during a parliamentary debate on Nov. 26 on Israel’s recent conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Gyongyosi later apologised to his “Jewish compatriots,” saying he meant only those with dual Hungarian-Israeli citizenship.

Following this, Novak sent an email to all deputies Nov. 28 requesting they make any dual citizenship public, in the public interest.

AFP quoted Attila Peterfalvi, president of the National Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority, as saying a lawmaker’s dual citizenship is in the public domain but not what their other nationality is. Having to declare that would be a “violation of human dignity,” he said.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.