Newly Minted Hungary Envoy Branded ‘Raging Anti-Semite’
Opposition parties in Hungary are protesting the nomination of a figure described as a far-right activist and anti-Semite as the country’s new ambassador to Italy.
The Parliament’s Committee for European Affairs accepted the nomination by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rightist government of Péter Szentmihályi Szabó, but he still must face a hearing in the Committee for Foreign Affairs and be accepted by the Italian government.
Two opposition parties protested the appointment, noting that Szentmihályi Szabó has published articles in several far-right newspapers and been associated with a radical-right political party. The leftist Democratic Coalition wrote to Italy’s foreign minister urging Italy not to accept his appointment. “It would be shameful not only for the government but for the whole of Hungary if the ambassador were allowed to take his post,” the letter said, according to the Hungarian news agency MTI.
The U.S.-based anti-Orban blogger Eva Balogh described Szentmihályi Szabó as a “raging” and “inveterate” anti-Semite. She quoted an article written by him in 2000 in the far-right Magyar Forum, called “The Agents of Satan,” which, though it doesn’t specifically use the term “Jew,” clearly describes Jews in classic anti-Semitic terms similar to those used in Nazi propaganda.
The Hungarian Jewish leadership did not immediately respond to the nomination. But a source close to the leadership of the main Jewish umbrella group Mazsihisz told JTA that the nomination was a “very unfriendly gesture from the government” during the year designated by the government as an official Holocaust Memorial Year.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
