Danish and Spanish leftist-liberal MEPS in a letter have criticised the conference “Combating Antisemitism through Education,” organised by Hungarian MEPS in cooperation with the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation (EMIH). The event, taking place at the European Parliamentary Building in Strasbourg on Tuesday, November 21st, aims to
bring together experts, policymakers, community leaders, European and Israeli decision-makers to explore successful initiatives that have effectively tackled antisemitism through school education.
The leftist MEPs took offence at the fact that the organisers come from the ruling parties of Hungary. “Given the Orbán government’s poor track record in actually fighting antisemitism in his own country, we and probably many of our colleagues find this invitation extremely confusing, and even harder to consider credible,” they wrote.
Reacting to the letter, seen by The European Conservative, MEP for the Hungarian conservative Fidesz, Tamás Deutsch, told us
The foolish and untruthful accusations that have been made against the organisers of the conference are driven by the same antisemitic and anti-Israel stances that have been present in European left-liberal-green-communist political circles for many years,”
Since the barbaric terror attack by Hamas against Israeli citizens on October 7th, there has been a wave of antisemitic atrocities in Western Europe and so-called pro-Palestinian protests that have been antisemitic in nature. This is not just about radical groups on the streets of Europe, but a pro-Hamas stance that is massively present in Western European politics.
Referring to one of the signatories of the letter, Danish Green MEP Margrete Auken, the Hungarian politician said it is no surprise that someone who is the European Parliament’s Vice-Chair for the Delegation for Relations with Palestine, and who has called Israel an occupying force, is attacking a conference that supports Israel and denounces terrorism and antisemitism. Margrete Auken previously tweeted that “Israel’s terror beats Hamas’s terror “wildly,” and on the day of Hamas’s terror attack, she retweeted a post accusing Israel of forcing “Palestinians in Gaza to suffer for decades.”
While Western Europe has certainly had its fair share of antisemitic incidents in the past few years, intensified by the Israel-Hamas war in the last few weeks, studies—like the one by Tel Aviv University last year—regularly find Hungary to be one of the safest European countries for Jews. Recently, Hungary invited Israel’s football team to play its qualifying home matches for Euro 2024 in a Hungarian arena, and the country has also opened the doors of a resort camp by Lake Balaton for refugees from Israel.
“The Jewish community seems to be flourishing socially, culturally, and religiously. This is all mainly thanks to the great support of the Hungarian government,” the Israeli ambassador to Hungary, Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, recently said. Tamás Deutsch added:
The Hungarian government has consistently delivered on its policy for zero tolerance on antisemitism. Jews can live safely in our country, they don’t have to be afraid of wearing their religious symbols publicly, [and] their synagogues are not bastions that have to be protected from attacks, like in other European countries.
