Hungary collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, instead of protecting its Jewish community, and that was a mistake and a sin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today after a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest.
"We decided in World War II that, instead of protecting the Jewish community, we cooperated with the Nazis. That will not happen again," Orban said.
He added that he "clearly told Prime Minister Netanyahu that the government will provide for the Jewish community and that it has zero tolerance for anti-Semitism," Israeli media reported.
About 550.000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust in World War II.
Netanyahu's visit to Hungary is considered historic because he is the first Israeli prime minister to visit that country after the fall of communism in 1989.
However, because of Orbán's campaign against Budapest-born Jewish American billionaire George Soros, Netanyahu's visit is also seen as a test of the right-wing Israeli government against nationalist governments in Europe.
On Wednesday evening, Netanyahu will meet with members of the Jewish community at a large synagogue in the Hungarian capital. Such an event is normally a routine part of a prime minister's visit to a foreign country, but now it is receiving more attention due to recent events in Hungary.
The Jewish community complained about the posters with Soros's image that could be seen all over the country, reminding that in Hungary he is considered above all a Jew and that the campaign against him incites anti-Semitism. Orbán's government claimed that the campaign had such a meaning.
"Earlier, the government of Hungary made a mistake and more than that, it committed a sin because it did not protect its citizens of Jewish heritage," Orban told reporters after meeting with Netanyahu in Parliament.
He assessed that "every Hungarian government has a duty to protect all its citizens regardless of their heritage".
Netanyahu said that he thought of Hungary first in connection with the birth of modern Zionism, since Theodore Hertz, "our modern Moses", as he called him, was born in Budapest in 1860. He thanked Orban for Hungary's support for Israel, citing a recent statement by French President Emmanuel Macron comparing anti-Semitism to criticism of Israel.
Netanyahu was in France before visiting Hungary.
"Macron said that there is a new anti-Semitism that is manifested in anti-Zionism, which is the delimitation of the one and only Jewish state. In many ways, Hungary is ahead of the countries that oppose this anti-Jewish policy and I welcome and express my respect, my government and people, many people in Israel for it," Netanyahu said, according to the Associated Press.
Orban reiterated his opposition to massive migration, mainly of Muslims, which, he said, would lead to irreversible changes in European culture and its population.
"I clearly said that Hungary has serious disagreements with the European Union, because Hungary does not want a mixed population," Orbán said, adding that his country "does not want to change the current ethnic composition, does not want to change under any external, artificial influence ".
Netanyahu and Orban will meet tomorrow with the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
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