Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced the opening of a Hungarian diplomatic mission in Jerusalem. His country would then "also have an official representation in Jerusalem," said Orban after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"I hope this will be a good step towards further improving relations between the Israeli people and Hungary." With the announcement, Hungary's right-wing national government supports the Israeli side in its dispute with the Palestinians.
The US relocated its US embassy to Jerusalem last year. For the Israelis, that was a historic move, a cause of great anger for the Palestinians. Israel had conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War in 1967 and claimed all of Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinians, on the other hand, want East Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state of Palestine.
Summit of Visegrad states canceled
Netanyahu spoke of a "very important achievement." Slovakia also wanted to open an innovation and cultural center in Jerusalem. And the Czech Republic plans to open a Czech house in Jerusalem.
An Israeli summit originally planned in Jerusalem with the countries of the Visegrad Group - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia - did not take place after the rejection of Poland. The background is a dispute between the two countries over the question of whether Poland collaborated with the Nazi occupiers during the Second World War. Israel's newly-appointed Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, also reiterated a statement by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir stating that "Poland is absorbing anti-Semitism with breast milk." The government in Warsaw demanded an official apology. Otherwise, there would be a "frosty turn" in the bilateral relationship.
Netanyahu met in addition to Orban, the Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis for bilateral talks.