Many people see through the sieve regarding Jobbik and the people's partisanship, but there are also those in the Hungarian Jewish community who are forgiving, even if new evidence emerges that the "Kanossza tour" of the former extreme rightists was just a marketing ploy.
Origo came into possession of an internal correspondence between Márton Gyöngyösi and János Stummer, the former vice president of Jobbik who had already transferred to Momentum, back on January 9, 2020, when Gyöngyösi was a member of the EP and they had already gone through the people's partisanship.
In this letter, Gyöngyösi stated that, in his heart, he would call Viktor Orbán a Zionist mercenary, a prisoner of the Lubavitcher sect, but that would not come out well, so in the end he worded it more delicately.
Several people expressed their opinions on the matter. According to Israel's ambassador in Budapest, this sentence only pulls the lid off Jobbik:
"Yet another proof of Jobbik's true nature," stated Jákov Hadasz-Handelszman.
The general secretary of the Tett és Védelem Foundation shared a similar opinion, and he also condemned Gyöngyösi's words. According to Kálmán Szalai, such a statement can never be accepted under any circumstances, and he noted that Viktor Orbán guarantees the greatest possible security to the Jewish communities in Hungary, not only in the European Union, but throughout the world. Returning to Gyöngyösi's words, he said:
"We consider the attitude with which he treats his anti-Jewish statements made over the years with a smeared apology as if it is okay, to be dismissed, as an eye roll. No, we don't think so."
"Such statements, together with their perpetrators, belong on the rubbish heap of political public life," he added.
Rabbi Jonatán Megyeri, the Hungarian organization of the Chabad-Lubavic movement, the communications director of the EMIH-Hungarian Jewish Association, and the editor-in-chief of the Jewish, conservative-liberal news and opinion portal Neokohn.hu, shares a similar opinion.
Gyöngyösi should have resigned and dissolved Jobbik a long time ago. "Such a party has no place in public life. Of course, it's never too late, but I certainly don't think he'll do that."
The editor-in-chief also explained that it is an honor that Márton Gyöngyösi knows the Lubavitch movement, of which Megyeri is also a member and representative. At the same time, he was not surprised that Jobbik's first man had such manifestations.
"The nail is out of the bag, that political theater is one thing and then comes the obstinacy, which shows that Gyöngyösi's views have not changed in recent years. The Seder dinner with the American ambassador is in vain, the distancing from the listing is in vain".
The editor-in-chief also highlighted that it is well known that Jobbik was helped and supported by Iran. And the entire people's partisanship has lost its credibility if such figures as Gyöngyösi fit in the leadership, he said.
PestiSrácok.hu also asked chief rabbi Zoltán Radnóti, the director of the Mazsihisz rabbinate in Budapest, and the religious leader of the Bét Sálom synagogue, about Márton Gyöngyösi's previous correspondence, who had not yet read the news, but responded as follows: "Do we give people the opportunity to make mistakes , to regret their mistakes? Some people have said stupid things in the absence of information, generating hatred, whatever, but I think that every person has the opportunity to correct their own mistakes."
In the last 20-30 years, there have been a few such turns in Hungarian politics from both the left and the right, he added. So I think - he continued - that Márton Gyöngyösi has been through his own path.
According to the rabbi, we should not deal with what Gyöngyösi said four, eight or twelve years ago, but with what he is like in the present. He added: "We know what Gyöngyösi is like, we know what Jobbik is like, we know what Our Country is like."
Zoltán Radnóti himself has already spoken to people who are involved in politics in these parties, who show different things face to face than what was written or said even in the parliament.
As he said, Gyöngyösi traveled his way from the Soft Nazi all the way to the Seder evening, which is a positive path.
Zoltán Radnóti stated that although Márton Gyöngyösi is not at the top of his heart, if all "far-right" people followed this path, then there would be peace in the world.
Cover photo: Márton Gyöngyösi
Source: MTI
