This evening, Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to touch down in Budapest, at the invitation of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. The far-right leader invited his Israeli counterpart despite Netanyahu being formally accused of using starvation as a method of warfare and of committing crimes against humanity, including extermination.
This ought not to happen. As a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hungary is obliged to arrest Netanyahu upon his arrival in the country and surrender him to the court. However, Orbán and his government have made it abundantly clear that they will not comply with the ICC’s requirements. By hosting war criminal Netanyahu, the Hungarian government continues to demonstrate contempt for international law and human rights.
Orbán had already announced last November that he would invite Netanyahu, dismissing the ICC’s arrest warrants as “shameful” and “absurd.” Netanyahu’s visit — expected to last until Sunday — is his second international trip since the ICC issued arrest warrants, following the standing ovation he received in the US Congress for his crimes against humanity.
It’s not the first time. In 2023, Orbán’s chief of staff confirmed that Hungary would not arrest Russian president Vladimir Putin should he visit, despite him also being wanted by the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine. Even as Orbán positions himself as a peace advocate to garner support domestically, his government undermines the principles of justice and the rule of law by offering to welcome the world’s most notorious war criminals.
It’s not like the liberal critics of Orbán are raising a hue and cry about this, either. It seems that the principle of “never again” is routinely ignored in Hungary. Netanyahu’s visit presents a historic opportunity for Hungarians to challenge Orbán on hosting a war criminal. But, instead of upholding international law and doing what is right, forces across the Hungarian political spectrum have opted for compliance and silence. As has often happened in Hungarian history, this risks leaving an indelible stain of acquiescence to fascism and genocide on our collective conscience.
Netanyahu’s disgraceful visit is scheduled during a period of political unrest in Hungary. Last month, Orbán declared that his government plans to ban Pride marches throughout the country. In his bid to demonize LGBTQ people, he claimed that this was a matter of “child protection.” But if he cites concern for minors to justify his government’s blatant attack on LGBTQ rights, why then is he hosting Netanyahu — responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands of children in Gaza?
The proposed Pride ban has triggered extensive criticism within Hungary and the European Union, along with mass protests supporting LGBTQ rights and constitutional freedoms. LGBTQ Hungarians have organized various demonstrations, highlighting the dangers of fascism by displaying pink triangles — a symbol the Nazis used to persecute queer people — across landmarks in Budapest. Along with the Netanyahu visit, this latest assault on marginalized groups and the freedom of assembly also poses a challenge for opposition leader Péter Magyar, a former member of Orbán’s own Fidesz party.
Magyar’s Tisza party, a relatively new, moderate right-wing force, is currently performing well in the polls. Like Orbán’s previous challengers, Magyar adopts a strategy of radical centrism, avoiding taking clear positions on key issues to attract both liberal and conservative voters. As of now, he has refrained from defending LGBTQ Hungarians against the latest infringements on their rights, earning praise from liberals rather than criticism for his compliance and moral cowardice. Magyar has also declined to call out Orbán for hosting Netanyahu despite the ICC warrants. It’s clear that he represents no real alternative able to defend democratic and humanitarian principles in Hungary.
Orbán’s controversial relationship with Netanyahu as a way of laundering his party’s past antisemitism has been discussed extensively. Yet, the Israeli premier’s visit to Hungary has further highlighted how pro-Israel stances and antisemitic sentiments can coexist. This is especially relevant now, as Donald Trump and his allies cynically exploit the notion of threatened Jewish safety to foster a new wave of McCarthyite political repression, including the abduction and deportation of individuals critical of Israel. The case of Mahmoud Khalil is a significant test of how far the Right is willing to go — and what they can get away with.
This so-called fight against antisemitism has become a new form of conservative self-expression, including in Hungary. A litany of “foreign invaders” such as immigrants, Muslims, leftists, feminists, queers, etc. are said to threaten Hungarian whites, much in the self-victimizing manner typical of Israeli settlers’ claims.
This white-nationalist paranoia about a “great replacement” is embraced by Orbán, as well as Trump and Netanyahu. In his March 15 national holiday speech, Orbán claimed, “The battle being fought today is actually for the soul of the Western world. The empire wants to mix and then replace the native populations of Europe with invading masses from foreign civilizations.” It seems that he admires Israel for its more advanced process of fascization, as amply demonstrated by the genocide in Gaza.
In March, European far-right figures, including Hungarians, headed to Jerusalem for a conference organized by the Israeli government in the name of combating rising antisemitism. Various Jewish leaders and organizations boycotted the event, criticizing it for including notorious far-right figures. During the conference, Netanyahu praised Trump for his harsh suppression of Palestinian solidarity protests and supported his vision for ethnic cleansing in Gaza. He also attributed the rise in antisemitism to “a systemic alliance between the ultra-progressive left and radical Islam.”
Most speakers at the conference avoided discussing right-wing antisemitism, instead attributing it wholly to the political left and — especially Muslim — immigrants. As Netanyahu assists Orbán in whitewashing his party’s antisemitism, Orbán appears to reciprocate by endorsing Trump’s plans for ethnic cleansing in Gaza. According to the Times of Israel, Netanyahu seeks Orbán’s support to “build a coalition of as many countries as possible backing Trump’s plan for Gaza.” In February, Trump unveiled his proposal to forcibly remove Palestinian residents and transform Gaza into a Mediterranean resort, a plan opposed — polls suggest — by only 16 percent of the Israeli population. However, other interests might also be at play.
Orbán has not yet endorsed or commented on Trump’s plans for Gaza, and it remains uncertain how much risk he would incur by supporting such a contentious proposal as frustrations with the Hungarian premier grow in other European countries. According to a document obtained by Politico, incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition intends to urge the EU to withhold funds and voting rights from countries violating the bloc’s fundamental principles, a directive clearly aimed at Hungary. But there is conflict also within the EU over Israel-Palestine.
Earlier this year, Poland was divided over whether to arrest Netanyahu if he attended the Auschwitz commemoration ceremony. A poll showed that over 60 percent of Polish citizens supported his arrest. However, Netanyahu declined to attend the event and travel to Poland. Then why risk a potential arrest by traveling to EU territory to meet with Orbán?
In 2021, a bombshell report revealed that Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus, an advanced Israeli spyware weapon. This technology — purchased and used by various autocratic regimes worldwide to spy on activists and journalists — was developed by NSO Group, which can activate a phone’s camera or microphone and harvest its data. While the United States has blacklisted NSO Group, prohibiting the Israeli spyware company from operating there, Hungarian officials refused to take responsibility for the Pegasus purchases.
There have been repeated allegations that the software is used to abuse human rights, following years of warnings from Palestinian activists and experts that the Palestinian people are being used as test subjects for Israel’s warfare and psywar technology, which would later be used for oppression and surveillance globally.
In 2024, a Hungarian company was implicated in manufacturing explosive pagers in Lebanon and Syria that aimed to eliminate and terrorize civilians. BAC Consulting allegedly supplied thousands of devices that killed at least twelve people, including two children, and wounded about 2,800 in Lebanon. According to a New York Times investigation, Mossad (Israel’s national intelligence agency) established several shell companies nominally selling the pagers, one of which is BAC Consulting in Hungary.
These cases illustrate that Hungary and Israel are aligned not only ideologically, at the level of their governments, but also through various business ventures about which we still have very little information. As Orbán announced that his government would use powerful surveillance to penalize Pride organizers and attendees, Israel could be providing just such technology.
Ultimately, Hungarians decided not to ask inconvenient questions about Netanyahu’s visit, which will surely be remembered as one of the most shameful events in twenty-first-century Hungarian history. The fact that an internationally charged war criminal can walk free in Hungary with no resistance shows that the fascization of Hungarian society is continuing apace.
Great Job Anita Zsurzsán & the Team @ Jacobin Source link for sharing this story.
