Hungarian Prime Minister Antall Takes Swipe at Anti-semite Csurka

Amid growing international focus on anti-Semitism in his backyard, Hungary’s prime minister has taken a sharp but indirect swipe at a leader of his own center-right governing party.

Without mentioning him by name, Prime Minister Jozsef Antall attacked Istvan Csurka, a vice president of the ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum, for publishing articles asserting that Jews, capitalists, liberals and communists were seeking to undermine Hungary. Antall is president of the party.

He told a party forum here last week that it is unacceptable that the prime minister of Hungary remains a target of challenge from many parts of the world because of conduct Antall described as stupid and foolish.

Csurka was hailed as a hero at commemorations here Oct. 23 of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule.

At the ceremony, hundreds gathered in front of Parliament, bearing symbols of the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian fascist party of World War II. Many of them were skinheads. They heckled and silenced President Arpad Goncz, who left.

Csurka’s outbursts, which blame international banking and international Jewish influence, come in the ruling party’s newspaper and in regular radio broadcasts.

Antall’s attack on Csurka, albeit without naming him, drew praise from the newly elected leader of the largest opposition party in Hungary. Ivan Peto, 46, head of the Alliance of Free Democrats and himself a Jew, welcomed Antall’s forceful opposition to extremist forces within his own party.

But the organized Jewish community was unhappy over Antall’s reluctance to push for legislation banning extremist organizations and making it illegal to deny the Holocaust took place.

At a recent meeting here, Antall told leaders of the Federation of Hungarian Communities that existing legislation sufficed to protect the country’s minorities. He pledged, however, to step up enforcement of the law.

The disagreement with the prime minister was aired in a radio interview early this week with Peter Feldmajer, president of the federation.

Meanwhile, the Jewish community has welcomed a statement by the Hungarian Catholic Church condemning anti-Semitism. The condemnation was patterned on the Oct. 28 statement by Pope John Paul II deploring “hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source.”