BUDAPEST (EJP)—After attending a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in Paris and meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Budapest for a three-day visit to Hungary.
It is the first visit of an Israeli Prime Minister in this country since the end of Communism in 1989.
Netanyhau will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and ministers in his government. They will sign a bilateral culture agreement and declarations of intent regarding cooperation in innovation and technology.
The culture agreement will enable reciprocal financing of cultural appearances. Dozens of Israeli shows take place annually in Hungary via the existing culture agreement and dozens more will be added, thanks to the new one, thus allowing additional artists and directors to go to Hungary and expose Hungarian audiences to Israeli culture.
The declaration of intent regarding innovation and technology will lead to close cooperation between the Israel Innovation Authority and its Hungarian counterparts and advance Israeli-Hungarian start-ups. The goal of the agreement is to promote cooperation between the governments including in the private sector with emphasis on high-tech, autonomous vehicles and new technologies.
Netanyahu will also meet with Hungarian President Janos Ader and address a meeting of the heads of government of the Visegrad Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia). He will hold individual working meetings with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Netanyahu and Orban will attend a special economic forum with representatives of dozens of Israeli companies and over 100 Hungarian companies in order to strengthen economic relations. Participating companies include those from the cyber, high-tech, agriculture, pharmaceutical and technology sectors.
The Hungarian Prime Minister has been embroiled in two recent controversies surrounding the country’s 120,000-strong Jewish community.
First, Orban hailed, as an “exceptional statesman,” the country’s wartime leader and Nazi ally Miklos Horthy, who enacted anti-Jewish laws and under whose watch over half a million Jews were deported to Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Then, he launched and defended a poster campaign targeting Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire George Soros, accusing him of seeking to flood the country with refugees.
Orban was heavily criticized by Jewish leaders and some Knesset members even called on Netanyahu to cancel his trip.
In both cases, Israel’s ambassador to Budapest, Yossi Amrani, initially sided with Hungary’s Jews in criticizing Orban. But at Netanyahu’s behest, Israel later retracted its criticism and accepted the government’s clarifications.
Orban's spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the campaign against Soros had nothing to do with anti-Semitism but rather sought only to counter what he called Soros's attempts to unduly change immigration policies in Hungary.
On the contrary, he said, Prime Minister Orban has declared a zero-tolerance policy towards anti-Semitism in his country where around 120,000 Jews live.
During a meeting with the Hungarian premier in Budapest last week, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Israel Lau and a delegation of the Rabbinical Center of Europe expressed appreciation for the Hungarian government’s efforts to eradicate anti-Semitism and for its commitment to maintain freedom of religion for the Jewish community as a new kosher slaughterhouse was inaugurated in the Hungarian capital.
A senior official in the foreign ministry in Jerusalem explained that “Israel condemns every expression of anti-Semitism in every country and alongside Jewish communities everywhere in dealing with this hatred. This was the sole purpose of the statement by the Israeli ambassador to Hungary.”
The official clarified that Soros himself deserves harsh criticism. Soros has come under fire for his support for anti-Israel leftist groups.
"Under no circumstances was there a statement aimed at de-legitimizing criticism of George Soros, who continues to undermine the democratically elected governments of Israel by funding organizations that defame the Jewish state and seek to deprive it of the right to defend itself," the official said.