Hungary must do more to combat anti-Israel actions, says Israeli amabassador

Budapest, December 15 (MTI) - Israel expects the Hungarian government, which has undertaken a commitment to uphold the basic principles of the European Union, to take all action necessary to ensure that Friday s Israeli flag-burning should never happen again, Israel s ambassador to Hungary, Ilan Mor, said in a statement.

Mor noted that Friday s incident had been the second one in as many months.

"This act is totally unacceptable in a country which declares itself a friend of Israel," he said in the statement. "It is also unacceptable that Hungarian extreme right politicians desecrate a flag," he said, qualifying the act as anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli.

He said that Friday s demonstration had been inspired by the ideology of radical nationalist party Jobbik, which he said had set itself against Israel.

Independent lawmaker Balazs Lenhardt was taken into custody on Friday after he set alight an Israeli flag at an anti-Zionist demonstration in Budapest. The event, organised by the Guardians of Carpathian Homeland Movement and the Guard Federation in front of the Foreign Ministry, attracted over 100 people who were shouting slogans such as "filthy Jews!" and "to Auschwitz with you all!".

The Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the acts.

Lenhardt, 37, who trained as a lawyer and economist, is a former member of the radical nationalist Jobbik party. He quit the party s parliamentary group on Nov. 8 this year.

Jobbik spokesman Adam Mirkoczki told MTI in a statement on Friday that Jobbik had not participated in the demonstration where the flag-burning took place.