A meeting of minds between Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu


Hungary’s authoritarian leader, who visits Israel this week, has plenty in common with his host. That alarms diaspora Jews, says Colin Shindler

Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary

Colin Shindler writes in the Jewish Chronicle:

Next week Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, will visit Israel and be greeted effusively by Benjamin Netanyahu.

It will follow the recent visit of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, in which both governments agreed an amendment to the Polish law that said Poles as a whole were not responsible for crimes committed by the Nazis.

This was a move that was “bordering on betrayal” and “accepting the mendacious official Polish narrative”, according to Yehuda Bauer, the doyen of Holocaust historians. Three senior academics at Yad Vashem also issued a statement that the declaration contained “grave errors and deceptions”.

This, however, did not prevent the publication of the declaration as a full page advertisement in The Times last Friday, part of an international campaign by the Polish government.

It can of course be argued that Israel has to look to its national interests in a hostile environment and has to deal with both dictators and leaders who uphold the rule of law.

But what happens if such unsavoury regimes embrace a latent dislike of Jews and empower antisemites? Is Mr Netanyahu providing political cover for such leaders?

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