Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced today that he will not respect the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and invite his counterpart to visit Budapest. The Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders said that instead of receiving international understanding and support, Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant. “The world has gone mad,” he noted, letting us understand that he was planning a meeting with the Israeli PM. “I am proud to meet my friend @netanyahu soon in Israel,” he posted on X. Similarly, Matteo Salvini, deputy prime minister of the Italian government and head of the minority coalition partner League, said it is “disrespectful” to call “the prime minister of one of the few democracies in the Middle East” a war criminal.
The Hungarian Fidesz, Dutch PVV and Italian League are members of the Marine Le Pen‘s Patriots for Europe group. According to rumours from Brussels, if the Israeli Prime Minister arrived on Hungarian soil and were not arrested, Hungary would “violate its international legal obligations and the EU’s position on the International Criminal Court”.
However, Orbán’s prowess is another attempt to attract international interest after his country’s performance during the EU rotating presidency was a disaster. Orbán specified that he would invite Netanyahu when the arrest warrant will be withdrawn.
“We have no choice but to challenge this decision. I will invite” Netanyahu “to come to Hungary, where I can assure him that the ruling of the International Criminal Court will have no effect,” the Hungarian Prime Minister said in an interview with state radio.
Contrary to his chief declarations, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács confirmed that Orbán had invited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit Hungary. “The Hungarian Prime Minister granted Netanyahu immunity from the ICC decision during his visit,” he stressed, “giving priority to Israeli-Hungarian relations and guaranteeing Netanyahu’s safety for productive discussions in Hungary.”
The spokesman later said Orbán called the arrest warrant a “brazen and cynical” decision and “an interference” with “political motivations.”
Netanyahu thanked Hungary for the invitation and praised the “moral clarity” of Hungarian PM Orbán.
Italy’s coalition government divided
“The war criminals are others,“ Matteo Salvini said, adding that “Israel has been under attack for decades; Israeli citizens have lived with the nightmare of missiles and with bunkers under their homes for decades. Now, saying that the war criminal to be arrested is the prime minister of one of the few democracies in the Middle East seems disrespectful to me and dangerous because Israel does not only defend itself but also defends freedoms, democracies and Western values. It seems clear to me that it is a political choice dictated by some Islamic countries that are majorities in some international institutions”.
However, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Thursday that Italy respects the ICC after it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif. Tajani specified that the Italian government would assess what to do about this decision with its allies.
“We support the ICC while always remembering that the court must play a legal role, not a political one,“ Tajani emphasised.
From her part, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said today that she will “delve deeper into the reasons that led to the ICC’s ruling in the coming days”.
“Motivations that should always be objective and not political in nature,“ she noted.
She mentioned that the Italian Presidency of the G7 plans to include this issue on the agenda for the upcoming Foreign Ministerial in Fiuggi, scheduled for 25 to 26 November.
“One point remains firm for this government: there cannot be an equivalence between the responsibilities of the State of Israel and the terrorist organisation Hamas“.
The far-right supports Netanyahu
Geert Wilders, head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), a member of the Dutch government coalition, also defended Netanyahu.
“Imagine you lead a democratic nation heavily under attack, facing an existential threat. Many of your people are slaughtered and raped, and taken hostage by Islamic terrorists. You defend your nation and people and rightfully try to eradicate the barbaric terrorists – who hide in hospitals and schools – never to let it happen again. Instead of receiving international understanding and support, you are confronted with an arrest warrant. The world has gone mad. I am proud to meet my friend @netanyahu soon in Israel,“ Wilders wrote in a post on X.
However, none of the other three parties forming the government coalition have made a statement about the ICC arrest warrant.
Although Czech former prime minister Andrej Babiš, leader of the ANO party also a member of Le Pen’s Patriots for Europe, didn’t make his statement, he reposted Orbán’s post about his invitation to Netanyahu.
Finally, Anders Vistisen, the only MEP of the Danish People’s Party (DF) and a member of Patriots as well, posted a declaration similar to Wilder’s on X, declaring that “I stand 100% on Israel’s side and I will continue to do so regardless of what the International Criminal Court should think.”
