Hungary says it will withdraw from ICC as Netanyahu arrives

HUNGARY: AS a welcome gift to Netanyahu shortly after his arrival for a state visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Orban announced that he would be removing Hungary from the International Criminal Court.

The move comes as no surprise after Orban sought to directly defy the court by sending Netanyahu an invite the day after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Israel has rejected the ICC allegations as antisemitic.

Netanyahu met with Hungary’s Orban on Thursday in a show of support. Orban has himself been repeatedly accused of antisemitism, famously having used antisemitic conspiracy theories about Hungarian Holocaust survivor George Soros in election campaigns.

It is obligatory for any ICC member to carry out an arrest warrant, however, Hungarian lawmakers have said that although the country signed the ICC’s founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, it was never made part of Hungarian law.

It is expected that the Hungarian parliament, dominated by Orban’s Fidesz party, will pass the bill to begin the year-long process of withdrawing from the ICC.