Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Hungary on Thursday, defying an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Prime Minister “Netanyahu begins a four-day visit to Hungary on Thursday, defying an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza as Israel has expanded its military operation in the enclave,” the Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.
The visit came after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor invited his Israeli counterpart to visit the country, in open defiance of the self-appointed world court. Israel, just like the U.S., does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
“Hungary is legally obliged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon his arrival in Budapest and transfer him directly to The Hague to face charges,” German state TV Deutsche Welle noted. Prime Minister “Orban is rolling out the red carpet for the Israeli leader during a lavish four-day trip in an ostentatious show of solidarity,” the TV channel added.
The Israeli leader’s visit will take place amid media reports that Hungary, a founding member of the Netherlands-based court, is likely to quit its jurisdiction. “Hungary is expected to announce during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit this week that it is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court,” The Times of Israel reported exclusively.
In November 2024, the self-styled global tribunal issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their roles in directing Israel’s military response to the October 7 massacre by Hamas.
The Associated Press reported Israeli PM’s upcoming visit:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Hungary on Wednesday to meet with its nationalist prime minister despite an international arrest warrant for the Israeli leader over the war in the Gaza Strip.Netanyahu’s four-day visit to Budapest is a sign of both his close relationship with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the latter’s growing hostility toward international institutions like the International Criminal Court, of which Hungary is a member.Orbán, a conservative populist and close Netanyahu ally, has vowed to disregard the ICC warrant, accusing the world’s top war crimes court based in The Hague, Netherlands, of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”Members of Orbán’s government have suggested that Hungary, which became a signatory to the court in 2001, could withdraw. Currently, all countries in the 27-member European Union are signatories, and all members are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil. But the court relies on member countries to enforce that.
This is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s first visit to Europe after the ICC four months ago issued the warrant, urging its 125 member states — including most of the European countries — t0 handover the Israeli leader to the custody of the kangaroo court.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is about to set foot in the European Union on Wednesday, April 2, for the first time since being targeted by an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC),” the French newspaper Le Monde noted.
Germany appears to be the next European nation to defy the ICC after country’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, invited Prime Minister Netanyahu on an official visit to the country.
Merz slammed the outgoing Socialist-led government for suggesting that Germany could arrest the war-time Israeli leader in order to comply with the ICC diktat. “The silence of the [previous] German government, right up to the suggestion by the government spokesman that Netanyahu could be arrested on German soil, is now really becoming a scandal,” he said.
In early February, President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC, a rogue legal body with a history of going after Israeli and U.S. servicemen engaged in combat operations against global Islamist terror. In 2021, President Joe Biden revoked earlier ICC sanctions slapped by the first Trump administration, a move that likely emboldened the tribunal to target Israel after the October 7 massacre.
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