Senior officials at the Foreign Ministry linked Orban’s gesture to his ally Netanyahu’s current political challenges.
By Adina Katz, World Israel News
The Hungarian embassy in Israel will be moved within the next few weeks from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Hebrew-language media reported Friday morning.
The announcement was made following discussions over the past several days between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban. Timetables were set, and the talks were concluded by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Hungary’s top diplomat Peter Szijjarto.
According to Kikar Shabbat, Orban sought to grant his ally a significant political achievement at a time when the country is suffering from internal divisions.
Senior officials at the Foreign Ministry, the report said, linked Orban’s gesture to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current political challenges – i.e., the mass protests and disruption across the country over the government’s plans to overhaul the judicial system coupled with a surge in Palestinian terror that claimed the lives of 14 Israelis in the past month, not to mention the rioting in the Palestinian village of Huwara carried out by frustrated Israelis living close by who decided to take the fight against terror in their own hands.
Jerusalem and Budapest have enjoyed increasingly strong ties in the last few years, including support for the Jewish state at the United Nations, where Hungary has been among a small minority of countries voting against biased anti-Israel resolutions.
In March 2019, Hungary opened a diplomatic trade mission in Jerusalem, becoming the first European country in decades to do so. Netanyahu, along with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony and unveiled the building’s plaque.
“This is a very exciting moment for us because it’s the first European diplomatic mission opened in Jerusalem in many decades, and three Hungarian diplomats are going to be assigned to this office for trade purposes,” Netanyahu said at the time.
“That’s important for trade, for diplomacy and for the move that Hungary is leading right now to change the attitude in Europe towards Jerusalem.”
Hungary will be the first EU country to establish its embassy in Jerusalem.