The World Jewish Congress (WJC) has urged Italy to refuse the accreditation of the new Hungarian ambassador to Rome, Peter Szentmihalyi Szabo, a far-right publicist known for his anti-Semitic writings.
WJC President Ronald Lauder described Hungary's appointment of Szabo as ambassador to Italy as “clearly an affront to Jews”.
“A man who suggests that Hungary’s Jews are ‘agents of Satan’, ‘greedy, envious, evil and ugly’ is not fit to represent his country abroad.
‘’Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban would be well-advised to withdraw this man as soon as possible and look for a person who is suitable for this job,” said Lauder.
“It is particularly sad and irritating that Hungary, which declared 2014 as Holocaust memorial year, is once again in the news with this sort of thing. How can an anti-Semite represent a government whose leader pledged a policy of zero tolerance toward anti-Semitism?” Lauder asked, referring to Orban’s speech before the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly in Budapest in May 2013.
He said decisions such as this would do further damage to Hungary’s reputation abroad and “does not inspire confidence that the Orbán government means business when it says it will fight anti-Semitism.”
The WJC leader said he hoped that, given Italy’s history and strong commitment to fight racial hatred and anti-Semitism, the Italian government ‘’would not accept an outspoken extremist and Jew-hater as a member of the diplomatic corps in Rome.’’
This appointment comes after a recent decision by the Hungarian government to build a controversial World War II monument that obfuscates Hungary’s role in the deportation of Jews to the Nazi death camps in 1944.
The monument in central Budapest dedicated to “all the victims” of Hungary’s German occupation was erected during the night of 20 to 21 July.
The plan to set up the monument for the 70th anniversary of Hungary’s Nazi German occupation was announced at the end of last year and was heavily criticised by opposition parties and civil society ever since, cotnending that it was aimed at distorting the nation’s role in the Holocaust.
Critics of the monument - which depicts Hungary as the Archangel Gabriel being attacked by a German imperial eagle - say it absolves the Hungarian state and Hungarians of their active role in sending some 450,000 Jews to their deaths during the occupation.