Antisemitic campaign against Soros gathers pace
A CAMPAIGN across Eastern Europe against US-Hungarian philanthropist George Soros has taken on a distinctly antisemitic tone.
Earlier this month, far-right activists in Budapest targeted a Jewish community centre that serves as the headquarters of several ethnic and refugee activist groups, filming themselves as they put up defaced posters of Mr Soros.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has labelled Mr Soros an “American financial speculator attacking Hungary” and has taken steps that could force the closure of Budapest’s Central European University, which the philanthropist founded in 1991.
Frans Timmermans, first Vice President of the European Commission, last week said he was “appalled” by Mr Orban’s language antisemitic.
Born George Schwartz in Budapest in 1930, the Holocaust survivor and billionaire investor has given away more than $12 billion to date, according to his official website. Mr Soros’ donations have advanced human rights, the rule of law, public health, LGBT and Roma rights, education and transportation.
Many of the leaders turning against him now — including Mr Orban — got scholarships from Mr Soros in the 1990s to study in the West, according to the Associated Press.
In Romania Liviu Dragnea, chairman of the ruling Social Democratic Party, has said Mr Soros and his work “fed evil in Romania.”
He has been dubbed “the most dangerous man in the world” by Krystyna Pawlowicz, a lawmaker with the ruling conservatives in Poland, who claims his foundations “finance anti-Christian and anti-national activities”. In Macedonia, many right-wingers blame Mr Soros for a political crisis over a massive operation to illegally wiretap top leaders. A group called Stop Operation Soros, or SOS, emerged in January.
Rafal Pankowski, head of Never Again, an anti-racism organisation based in Warsaw, said the “current tendency to see Soros as a central figure in an alleged global Jewish conspiracy” was growing in Eastern Europe, along with a rise in xenophobia and hate speech.