Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel began a visit to Hungary on Thursday, confiding that the self -proclaimed bastion of “illiberal democracy” would ignore an arrest warrant against him in November by the International Criminal Court.
The visit is the first of Mr. Netanyahu to a country which recognized the jurisdiction of the court, raising the possibility, at least in theory, that it could be stopped. He went to Washington to discuss the future of Gaza with President Trump in February, but the United States, like Israel, never recognized the International Court.
In Hungary, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban clearly indicated that he would ignore his obligations as a party to a 1998 treaty which established the court.
Mr. Orban invited Mr. Netanyahu to visit a short time after the court issued his arrest warrant, assuring him that “the judgment of the ICC will have no effect in Hungary and that we will not follow his conditions.”
The vast Hungarian propaganda machine has adopted anti -Semitic tropes in its non -stop broadcast by George Soros, an American financier and philanthropist of Hungarian origin who is Jewish. He threw it as a sinister puppeteer in a vast world conspiracy supported by high finances and hidden cosmopolitan forces.
But Mr. Orban, a fervent supporter of Israel, adopted the country’s right -wing prime minister as a spirit related in tune to his own ethnontalist opinions and this reverence for national sovereignty without foreign interference.
The International Criminal Court has published the arrest warrants against Mr. Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, a blow to the global position of Israel.
For Mr. Netanyahu, the visit to Hungary gives him a chance to project force abroad and the spirit of state at home at a time of increasing opposition to his direction inside and outside Israel.
By traveling to Europe, Netanyahu points out to the world that he remains largely affected by the court’s arrest warrant, although the conduct of Israel of the war in Gaza has been denounced by many European governments. He also points out to criticism in Israel, where he is tangled in an increasing list of inner crises, which he retains his international stature and that business continues as usual despite the arrest this week of two of his employees.
Amnesty International Condemned the visit to Hungary As “a cynical effort to undermine the ICC and his work”, describing it as “an insult to the victims of these crimes which turn to the court for justice”. The invitation of Hungary, she added, “shows contempt for international law”.
For Mr. Orban, isolated within the European Union, welcoming the Israeli Prime Minister in contempt of the International Court offers the opportunity to honor and attract the attention of Washington. President Trump has shown little apparent interest in Hungary since his entry into office in January, even if he has long been an admirer of Mr. Orban.
Like Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Orban is faced with a multitude of domestic problems, including Hungary with the highest rate of inflation in the European Union and the country’s final opposition movement – led by a former Loyalist Orban – benefiting from a wave of support.
Before the November elections, Trump often praised Mr. Orban as a “big leader”, but he did not invite him to the inauguration. Hungary said it was because No foreign leader had been invitedBut many attended, notably the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, rival to Mr. Orban for the Directorate of the right -wing political forces of Europe.
Trump, a ferocious critic of the Court, signed an executive decree imposing sanctions on the international court in February, promising to impose “tangible and important consequences” to those who work on surveys considered to be threatening national security in the United States and Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu has noisily denounced corruption, fraud and other accusations against him in Israel as a judiciary to derail the will of the voters. Likewise, Mr. Orban frequently condemned what he considers to be overcoming European courts who ruled Hungary against its violations of the rules of the European Union.
“We have always revolted against judicial activism,” said Orban at a November summit in European leaders in Budapest, the capital of Hungary.
Hungary in 2001 ratified the Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court during Mr. Orban’s first visit as Prime Minister, but its Parliament has never incorporated its conditions in the country’s national legal code.
Mr. Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said last month that this omission had released Hungary from any obligation to act on the decisions by the Court. He said Hungary was planning to withdraw from the court, but said that no decision had yet been made.
Patrick Kingsley Contributed reports of Jerusalem.
