Netanyahu, in Budapest, lauds Orban’s withdrawal from ‘corrupt, rotten’ ICC
Hungarian and Israeli leaders speak with President Trump about move; Budapest rolls out red carpet for PM as Orban backs Jerusalem’s right to self-defense against Hamas
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Standing alongside Hungary’s premier Viktor Orban, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday praised his counterpart for his “bold and principled position” in withdrawing from the International Criminal Court earlier in the day.
It is “important to stand up to this corrupt organization,” said Netanyahu, adding that he believed Hungary was only the first in a series of states to withdraw from “this corruption and this rottenness.”
Minutes before Netanyahu was received by Orban on Thursday morning in an elaborate military ceremony at Buda Castle, Hungary announced that it was withdrawing from the ICC, which in November issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli premier.
“The withdrawal process will begin on Thursday, in line with Hungary’s constitutional and international legal obligations,” Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said.
Orban noted that he signed off on Hungary’s entrance into the ICC but argued that it had become a “political court.”
“If courts are driven by political considerations, then democracies cannot take part in them,” he continued.
Hungarian military honor guard prepares to welcome PM Netanyahu in Budapest pic.twitter.com/6KoD5lRonx
— Lazar Berman (@Lazar_Berman) April 3, 2025
Later in the day, Netanyahu and Orban spoke to US President Donald Trump by phone about the move, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The conversation focused on Hungary’s withdrawal and “the next steps that can be taken on this topic,” according to the Israeli readout.
Orban and Netanyahu are two of Trump’s closest allies in the Western world.
The ICC governing body voiced regret and concern over Hungary’s decision, saying any departure harms a “shared quest for justice.”
“When a State Party withdraws from the Rome Statute [that established the ICC], it clouds our shared quest for justice and weakens our resolve to fight impunity,” the presidency of the Assembly of State Parties said in a statement.
Though Germany has backed Israel in the conflict, the outgoing government has also said it would adhere to the ICC arrest warrants. In Berlin on Thursday, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock decried Netanyahu’s visit.
“This is a bad day for international criminal law,” Baerbock said at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
Germany’s expected next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit despite the warrant.
The Palestinian Authority urged Hungary to arrest Netanyahu, who was instead given full honors by Hungary wherever he went. Israeli and Hungarian flags lined the bridges across the Danube River, and Orban hosted Netanyahu for a lavish state dinner on Thursday night.
Netanyahu will also receive an honorary doctorate on Friday from a Hungarian university.
Orban invited Netanyahu in November, a day after the ICC issued its arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza, where Israel launched its offensive following a brutal massacre by Hamas-led terrorists in southern Israel. A warrant was also issued for then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for a number of leaders of Hamas, all of whom have since been killed by Israel.
Israel has rejected the accusations of war crimes, which it says are politically motivated and fueled by antisemitism. It says the ICC has lost all legitimacy by issuing warrants against a democratically elected leader of a country exercising the right of self-defense.
As a founding member, Hungary is theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court, but Orban made clear that Hungary would not respect the ruling, which he called “brazen, cynical and completely unacceptable.”
Hungary signed the ICC’s founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but the law has not been promulgated.
Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff, said in November that although Hungary ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it “was never made part of Hungarian law,” meaning that no measure of the court can be carried out within Hungary.
On Thursday, Gulyas told state news agency MTI that the government would launch the withdrawal process later in the day.
Orban had raised the prospect of Hungary’s exit from the ICC after Trump imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February.
“It’s time for Hungary to review what we’re doing in an international organization that is under US sanctions,” Orban said on X then.
The bill on starting the year-long process of withdrawing from the ICC is likely to be approved by Hungary’s parliament, which is dominated by Orban’s Fidesz party.
ICC judges said when they issued the warrant that there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and his former defense chief were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
Israel has asserted that it is only targeting Hamas and other terror groups in the Strip, and accuses them of using the civilian population and infrastructure as human shields.
In the wake of the warrants, a number of countries said they would not arrest Netanyahu were he to visit, including Hungary, Argentina, the Czech Republic, and Romania.
Poland said it would seek to shield him from arrest, while France and Italy said they believed he had immunity, as a world leader from a state not party to the ICC.
An anchor in the Middle East
In joint statements after their Thursday meeting, Orban said that the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, “undermined the security of the entire world.”
Orban told Netanyahu he hoped that “you and your government can guarantee the security of Israel and your right to self-defense.” He noted that Hungary stood beside Israel throughout the entire war.
It is important to Hungary that Israel remain strong and stable, he said, calling the country “an anchor in the Middle East.”
Orban lamented the rise of antisemitism in Europe while stressing that “in Hungary, Hamas flags were not waved.”
“We are showing zero tolerance, and Jews in Hungary can feel safe,” he said.
Orban said illegal immigration into Europe was a driver of antisemitism, and the “elites in Brussels are not dealing with it.” Orban stressed that Budapest will not accept any EU migration agreement to allow asylum seekers in.
The two leaders appeared to have accidentally swapped positions during their remarks, with Netanyahu speaking from a podium with Hungarian flags behind him and Orban with Israeli flags behind him.
Netanyahu praised Orban, who has been accused of authoritarianism and of using antisemitic messages in political campaigns, for his “very bold stance against antisemitism.”
He also said that Orban provides the local Jewish community not only with security but also with the ability to conduct Jewish life.
“We are fighting a similar fight for the future of our common civilization,” said Netanyahu, echoing Orban’s oft-stated position on the importance of defending the Judeo-Christian values of Europe.
That civilization, said Netanyahu, is “under assault from radical Islam,” spearheaded by Iran.
Similar histories
At the beginning of his remarks, Netanyahu spoke about the Holocaust as part of the common history of Israel and Hungary but didn’t mention Hungary’s collaborationist government during World War II.
“You had exited the ravages of World War II only to be under a new type of occupation,” said Netanyahu, in reference to the country coming under communist rule as part of the Eastern Bloc. “And it took you many decades to liberate yourself and establish Hungary as an independent country.”
Hungary was home to around 900,000 Jews before the Nazi invasion. Its government was allied with Nazi Germany, but as the Soviet Red Army advanced toward Hungary, the Nazis invaded in March 1944, to prevent its Axis ally from making a separate peace deal with the Allies.
The deportation of Hungarian Jews from the countryside started in mid-May 1944, and within two-and-a-half months, over 500,000 Jews were deported to extermination camps, including 440,000 Jews to Auschwitz, where every third victim was a Hungarian Jew.
Altogether, nearly 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
“A third of our people were murdered in World War II, in the Holocaust,” Netanyahu said. “We had to overcome great odds to reestablish our sovereignty in our ancient homeland. And it was a question of time when these two histories would meet and begin the great alliance that has now developed.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, whose late father Joseph Lapid survived the Budapest Ghetto, blasted the prime minister for his remarks.
“Netanyahu mentioned the Holocaust of Hungarian Jews,” he wrote on X, “but cowardice prevented him from mentioning the Hungarians’ role in the extermination.”
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