IN 2000 - A B'nai B'rith Budapest Páholy

ACHANGE IN THE COURSE OF DISCOURSE 145vague, implicit reference to three “self-defeating” generations of Jews with aslight hint (Béla Kun’s name 23 is invoked) at the Bolshevik “tradition.” All thisculminates in the statement that the reason why the Hungarian Socialist Partyhad to form a coalition with the otherwise extremist (!) liberal Free Democratsin 1994 was not “to make the Socialist Party palatable or to gain absolution forpast sins, but in order to intertwine and mesh beyond recognition the interestsof Hungarian Jewry with the Socialists’ own post-communist interests… It isfrom this spiritual ghetto – from the stifling embrace of the post-communist left– that Hungarian Jews should finally seek release.”It is not the aim of this report to enter into polemics with those engaged inanti-Semitic rhetoric; nor is it to try to disprove their propositions. I have discussedHankiss’ article at length because I consider it a milestone. On the onehand it introduced a more “civilized” version of the anti-Semitic parlance of theextreme right and thrust political anti-Semitism, into the political mainstream,and on the other, it presented a model of how to make the most of anti-Semiticparlance in party politics. This is exemplified by the well known – though apartfrom its “message” to the Free Democrats meaningless – statement made byKövér, for whom Hankiss is busy making excuses – “This party “[FIDESZ-MPP] is not a liberal party in which a person is not elected president becausehis parents are communist Jews.” 2423 Béla Kun (1886-1938), of Jewish origin, was the leader of the Hungarian Communist Governmentin 1919.24 “Bízhatunk a jövônkben” (We Can Put Our Faith In Our Future). In Magyar Nemzet, February 5,2000.