Hungarian soccer fans shout anti-Semitic slurs
By GIL SHEFLER
08/20/2012 03:08
Supporters of Hungarian team can be heard shouting "filthy Jews" during the Israeli national anthem.
Video shows soccer fans in Hungary shouting Photo: YouTube Screenshot
Hungarian soccer fans shouted anti-Semitic slurs and jeered when the Israeli
national anthem was played during a match between Israel and Hungary in Budapest
last Wednesday.
In a video clip uploaded to YouTube, supporters of the
Hungarian team can be heard shouting “filthy Jews” and “Buchenwald,” the name of
a Nazi death camp, while Israel’s “Hatikva“ is played in the background. A few
dozen supporters can be seen turning their backs to the field in protest and at
least one praises Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, an ally of Nazi
Germany.
“It continued during the entire match,” said Peter Morvay,
editor of ATV, a pro-Israel evangelical television station in Hungary, who
attended the match with his son. “Not a few lunatics, but the whole bunch of
supporters behaved like this. They displayed Palestinian and Iranian flags as
well.”
Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of The Simon Wiesenthal Center,
who has been campaigning for Hungarian authorities to take action against anti-
Semitism for years, said the incident was indicative of a larger problem
plaguing the country.
“Such anti-Semitic hooliganism is a reflection of
the growing anti-Semitism in Hungary which is constantly being encouraged by the
ultra-nationalist Jobbik party which denies Hungarian complicity in Holocaust
crimes and is in sympathy with Iranian views on Israel,” said Zuroff.
The
match ended in a 1-1 draw.