When Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, who is nobody’s fool, offered Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a state visit to Budapest last year, he knew a storm would follow. Netanyahu has now arrived in Hungary – and the backlash has duly followed.
Orbán has vowed not only to ignore the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas; he has said his country will withdraw altogether from the ICC.
During a joint press conference yesterday with Netanyahu, Orbán said the ICC had become a ‘political court’. Netanyahu hailed Hungary’s ‘bold and principled’ decision to withdraw from the court.
Netanyahu hailed Hungary’s ‘bold and principled’ decision to withdraw from the court
Needless to say, the human rights establishment sees things rather differently. Demands for Hungary to detain Netanyahu have already come from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups; Orbán’s decision to ditch the ICC altogether will undoubtedly be characterised as full-on dictatorial and a bare-faced attack on the rule of law.
As a matter of strict international law, the critics are right. Greeting Netanyahu with a red carpet rather than a pair of handcuffs undoubtedly puts Hungary in breach of the Rome Statute, which set up the ICC; nor does notice of any future withdrawal from the arrangement get it off this legal hook.
However, there is a catch. Viewed anything other than legalistically, Hungary’s action is sensible, decent and principled.
To begin with, the decision by the ICC prosecutor to seek warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant are arguably dodgy. They are seen by many to be the result of an international pile-on against Israel and, in effect, a political quid pro quo for the indictment of three Hamas leaders for what undoubtedly were inhumanities committed against Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023.
This view seems credible. There is a widespread, if unholy, assumption in some circles of necessary moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel; the ICC has lent into this narrative, however inadvertently, by issuing warrants against both Hamas and Israel. Following the issuing of the warrants, two of the Hamas operatives involved are conveniently dead, and the third probably is.
The full truth as to what led to the warrant against Netanyahu may never be known: but the very murkiness of the proceeding provides a convincing moral reason for Orbán not necessarily taking the warrant from the ICC at face value.
Another compelling reason for Orbán to effectively take Israel’s side is a simple matter of politics. Hungary seeks to deal with Israel in a friendly way that does not involve treating it as a pariah and threatening to arrest its PM. It is a fair inference that the voters of Hungary may well largely agree with their government that Hamas is an axis of evil and that Israel is acting rightly in seeking, albeit brutally, to eliminate its power. If so, it is difficult to fault Orbán for not wanting to be involved in acts that would undermine Israel’s efforts in that direction.
Hungary has faced head-on an issue that should make the international community uncomfortable, but is often conveniently forgotten. There are serious problems with the Rome Statute and the ICC, however attractive in theory a permanent transnational court to deal with international brutes may be. It is unfortunately in the nature of international courts to be captured politically. If so, it follows that agreeing unconditionally to do as they say, for example by arresting anyone against whom they choose to issue a warrant, is potentially perilous in terms of geopolitics.
There is an untidy solution to this situation: one could pay lip service to the court, but in practice forget it when the going gets tough. France, Germany, Italy and Poland, for example, are all ICC members, but all have hinted that they will not arrest Netanyahu even if he does visit. Britain, notwithstanding Attorney-General Lord Hermer’s insistence that we are sea-green incorruptible and absolutely committed to the ICC, would, one strongly suspects, take a similar line if push came to shove.
Hungary has taken a more honest stance. Having seen the ICC seemingly weaponised against a country it sees as an important ally, and been forced slightly to fudge the issue this time, it has chosen to leave the ICC altogether to avoid a repeat of this situation. The progressive establishment might not like Viktor Orbán, but they can hardly fault his honesty on this matter.
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