Hungary Hosts Netanyahu

The Danube appears to be overflowing with sense. That’s our takeaway from Hungary’s welcoming of Prime Minister Netanyahu to Budapest this week — and word that the mainstay of Mitteleuropa will be withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, which has handed up arrest warrants against Mr. Netanyahu and his erstwhile defense minister. The visit to Hungary amounts to a setback to a kangaroo court from one of its founding members. Far from arresting Mr. Netanyahu, the Hungarians appear set to give the premier of the Jewish state a heartfelt welcome. Reuters reports that laborers “were constructing a stage in the Buda Castle on Wednesday,” whenPrime Minister Orbán was “scheduled to welcome” Mr. Netanyahu in a “ceremony with military honours.” Meanwhile, “security forces could be seen” scouring for threats “near the central Budapest hotel” where the Israeli will be staying.Mr. Orbán extended his invitation to Mr. Netanyahu the day after the ICC issued its arrest warrant in November. The Hungarian called those warrants “shameful” and “absurd” and vowed not to enforce them, an obligation mandated — in theory — by his country’s status as a signatory to the court. The court’s spokesman, Fadi El Abdallah, huffs that it’s not for parties to the ICC “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions.”The trip to Budapest — a five day excursion that has raised some eyebrows in Israel — is only Mr. Netanyahu’s second foreign visit after the ICC leveled its charges. The first was to Washington, though America is not a party to the ICC. Mr. Trump in February Sharpie’d an executive order pledging “tangible and significant consequences” against the court on account of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”Senator Schumer and other Senate Democrats, though, have balked at sanctioning the ICC. Now they have been outflanked by Mr. Orbán, who alone among European nations appears to be contemplating abandoning the Rome Statute on which the court’s jurisdiction depends. Hungary could serve as an example — Romania has promised not to arrest the Israelis. The Greeks accuse the ICC of making “a decision that will solve no problem.” Hungary’s exit from the ICC would require a vote from its legislature, though that is unlikely to pose a problem for Mr. Orbán, who rules the country. Mr. Orbán, long a thorn in the side of the Europeans — both in the European Union and in the North Atlantic Treaty — appears to have found common cause with both Messrs. Netanyahu and Trump. The Hungarians have maintained warmer ties with Russia through the war in Ukraine.Mr. Netanyahu intends to visit Budapest’s Holocaust Museum, but his public calendar is otherwise scant. CNN speculates that he could have “other meetings planned with foreign emissaries during his time in Budapest,” which offers a “now-rare opportunity for Netanyahu to pursue more sensitive initiatives face-to-face.” A new opposition leader in Hungary, Péter Magyar, could be driving Mr. Orbán to host Mr. Netanyahu as a way to boost his own standing.The real scandal is not Mr. Orbán’s but the failure to extend an invitation to the Israeli leader from the other 26 EU states, not to mention the other 124 signatories to the ICC. The Hungarian leader has taken his share of slings and arrows for allegedly antisemitic rhetoric, much of it against George Soros. In standing by the Jewish state — while, say, France and Britain have waffled — Mr. Orbán has done more than the rest of Europe combined.

Hungary Hosts Netanyahu

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