The State Department announcement about plans to apply the terror designation to Antifa Ost accused the group of conducting “numerous attacks against individuals it perceives as ‘fascists,’” specifically citing “a series of attacks in Budapest in mid-February 2023.”
What the announcement leaves out is that the attacks allegedly committed by Antifa Ost took place during an annual gathering, the “Day of Honor,” organized by neo-Nazis to commemorate a battle fought by the German army and local collaborators against the Soviet Union in Hungary during World War II.
By the State Department’s own admission, “extreme right sympathizers … attacked groups they took to be antifascist demonstrators” during the event.
The first “Day of Honor” march in 1997 was organized by the Hungarian chapter of Blood and Honour. Members of the international Blood and Honour group and its armed wing Combat 18 continue to attend the event, according to a report financed by the German Foreign Ministry.
Canada added Blood and Honour and Combat 18 to its list of proscribed terrorist entities in 2019, alongside the UK and Germany. A Spanish court ordered the dissolution of the group in that country.
The Canadian government describes Blood and Honour as “an international neo-Nazi network whose ideology is derived from the neo-Nazi doctrine of Nazi Germany,” while saying Combat 18 “has carried out violent actions, including murders and bombings.”
As noted by the Canadian government, Blood and Honour members pleaded guilty to murdering two unhoused men in Tampa, Fla. in 1998, reportedly “because they considered them inferior.”
“It sure shows the game here that’s afoot,” Tom Joscelyn, a senior fellow at Just Security, recently told a podcast, adding that the Trump administration is “going after what they claim is this international terrorist menace in antifa” by sanctioning Antifa Ost.
“But they’re not going after the neo-Nazi group, which is by far larger and has also committed acts of violence in this context. I think it puts everything in stark relief.”
‘Greatly inflating the threat’
Joscelyn has written extensively about al-Qaida and was a principal author of the final report of the House January 6th Committee.
“There is a threat from antifa adherents inside the U.S., and no one will be surprised if there’s a successful antifa-style attack in the future,” Joscelyn told Raw Story.
“However, the administration is greatly inflating the threat for their own political purposes while ignoring well-established threats from far-right and neo-Nazi groups.”
In order to designate a group as a foreign terrorist organization, the State Department is required to demonstrate that a group’s activities “threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States.”
Thomas Brzozowski, formerly domestic terrorist counsel for the Department of Justice, said the State Department announcement cited “no attacks or alleged attacks on Americans” and “no plots against Americans” by members of Antifa Ost or the three other left-wing groups.
“We do not discuss deliberations or the potential deliberations of our designations process,” an unidentified State Department spokesperson said in a statement to Raw Story.
The German government has said the threat posed by Antifa Ost has “decreased significantly” thanks to the successful prosecution of several prominent members, according to Reuters.
The outlet reported that the German government said it was not consulted by the U.S. before plans to designate Antifa Ost as a foreign terrorist organization were announced.
Brzozowski said he thinks “even the folks at State know” there’s no way to show Antifa Ost as a legitimate national security threat.
“And they’re doing their best, I’m sure,” he said. “But come on! They’re put in a bind. They’ve got to deliver, or else they’re going to get fired.
“The sequencing is all backwards at this point. And that’s dangerous. Because this is really political theater, is what it is. This is giving effect to a presidential directive.”
Brawling with neo-Nazis
The violence at the “Day of Honor” event in Budapest has been politicized in Hungary.
Légió Hungária, a neo-Nazi group that assumed responsibility for organizing the event from Blood and Honour, receives support from the ruling Fidesz party, led by Trump ally Viktor Orbán, according to the 2023 report by B’nai B’rith and Amadeo Antonio Foundation, underwritten by the German Foreign Ministry.
In 2019, members of Légió Hungária vandalized a Jewish community center in Budapest during a nationalist gathering commemorating the 1956 uprising against the Soviet Union, as reported by the State Department during Trump’s first term.
This September, Hungary declared Antifa Ost a terrorist organization, in alignment with Trump’s agenda.
But the Trump administration has remained silent on the 2019 attack carried out by Légió Hungária, as well as reports cited by B’nai B’rith that participants in the 2020 “Day of Honor” chanted, “Jews out!”
The report also cited “Holocaust denial and distortion, historical revisionism of World War II, and worship of the Waffen-SS as core ideological elements of the event.”
Shortly after taking office this year, President Trump announced the launch of a Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which accused U.S. universities of turning a blind eye to the issue, amidst an administration campaign to deport pro-Palestine activists.
“Anti-semitism in any environment is repugnant to this nation’s ideals,” said Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights and leader of the task force, when the effort was launched.
“The [Justice] Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found.”
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment from Terrell for this story.
Despite Légió Hungária receiving state backing, Hungary’s Supreme Court reportedly upheld a police ban on the 2023 “Day of Honor,” finding: “Extreme groups are expected to appear at this event. The holding of the event in their presence may be accompanied by considerable attack on public order and peace.”
But, as a 2023 State Department report noted, neo-Nazis sidestepped the ban.
“Media outlets reported that despite the police ban, several hundred extreme-right and neo-Nazi sympathizers gathered in the Buda Castle to commemorate ‘Day of Honor.’ Police successfully prevented them from clashing with a group of 100-200 Hungarian and international counter-protesters in the area,” the report reads.
“According to statements by police, antifascist demonstrators elsewhere in the city assaulted several individuals they assumed to be affiliated with the extreme right,” the report continues.
“Similarly, extreme right sympathizers reportedly attacked groups they took to be antifascist demonstrators.”
The circumstances of violence allegedly committed by antifascists in Budapest is telling, Joscelyn told Raw Story.
“The U.S. went from designating al-Qaida for the 9/11 hijacking to designating overseas antifa adherents for brawling with neo-Nazis,” he said.
The State Department’s selective sanctions against antifascists while turning a blind eye to neo-Nazi violence reveals the Trump administration’s actual objectives, Joscelyn added.
“You saw even during the No Kings protests there were very prominent MAGA Republicans that said this was an extremist effort and warning of violence and warning of events that didn’t happen.
“That shows how desperate the administration and its supporters are to portray its opposition as extremists. The concept of antifa is the cudgel they’re using to bash their opposition.”
