The latest anti-Semitic outburst by a leading member of the far-right party Jobbik was met with little serious opposition from the side of the governing Fidesz party and marks a further turn to the right in Hungarian politics. Faced with rising social protests against austerity, the government is increasingly relying on fascist forces.

During a debate at the end of November on the Israeli military offensive against the Gaza strip, deputy Jobbik chair Márton Gyöngyösi demanded, “A list should be drawn up of Jews living in Hungary” in order to check whether they “represented a security risk for Hungary”. Gyöngyösi demanded of State Secretary Zsolt Németh, “I think you should draw up such a list for Hungary”.

The Budapest historian Krisztián Ungváry commented on Gyöngyösi’s tirade, saying it amounted to “Nazism in parliament”. Jobbik was continuing the racist hatred of the Nazis and of Hungary’s fascist Arrow-Cross movement in the 1930s, Ungváry said.