"Zero tolerance" against anti-Semitism, promises Orban in Israel

Jerusalem – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban advocated "zero tolerance" against anti-Semitism on Thursday, at the start of his controversial visit to Israel.
  

million. Orban had indeed been accused of stirring up anti-Semitism in his country during the campaign against the billionaire American Jew of Hungarian origin George Soros.

The Hungarian leader and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the alliance of their two countries with a " patriotic base ", despite the criticism of this rapprochement in Israel.

" Hungary has a policy of zero tolerance against anti-Semitism ," insisted Orban, before his meeting with Netanyahu, who hailed the millions of dollars invested by Hungary in the renovation of synagogues.

million. Netanyahu has moved closer to the countries of the group dubbed Visegrad (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), whose nationalist positions irritate the other countries of the European Union.

This diplomatic rapprochement was reflected in particular in December by the abstention of Hungary in the UN vote that condemned the recognition by the United States of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

With the Czech Republic and Romania, Hungary also blocked in May an EU statement criticizing the decision of US President Donald Trump to relocate the US Embbady from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

For much of the international community, East Jerusalem remains occupied territory and embbadies must not settle in the city until the status has been settled by negotiation between the two parties.

" You have defended Israel many times in international forums, and we are grateful to you ," said Netanyahu.

million. Orban arrived in Israel on Wednesday night, where he will meet with President Reuven Rivlin, travel to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and meet one of the two senior rabbis.

He will also visit the Wailing Wall in annexed and occupied East Jerusalem. But, contrary to the usual protocol of European leaders visiting the region, no talks are planned with Palestinian officials in the occupied West Bank.

Only his Deputy Prime Minister, Zsolt Semjen, will visit the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, in the occupied West Bank.

During the first visit to Hungary since the fall of Communism in 1989 of an Israeli head of government last year, Netanyahu denounced the demands " absolutely crazy " of the Union the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in a recorded private conversation.