Hungarian PM: We failed to protect Jews during Holocaust

Hungary "committed a sin" when it failed to protect its Jewish community during the Holocaust, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday, calling the collaboration with the Nazis a "mistake."

Orban spoke alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on an official visit in Budapest. Orban promised that his government would show no tolerance for anti-Semitism and would protect its Jewish minority. Netanyahu thanked Orban for helping combat anti-Semitism, saying Hungary was spearheading the effort. Netanyahu also said Hungary was the birthplace of the Zionist movement as its founder, Theodor Herzl, was born there.

Netanyahu arrived in Hungary late Monday in what was the first official visit by an Israeli prime minister since resumption of diplomatic relations with Hungary in 1989. He hopes to strengthen ties and forge diplomatic alliances with the Visegrad Group -- a political alliance of four Central European states: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

Netanyahu was scheduled to address a conference of the Visegrad Group in Hungary on Wednesday. He was also to meet separately with the leaders of each country comprising the group.

The aim of the visit is recruit these nations to support Israel as a bloc in the European Union and in various international forums that are often hostile toward Israel.

Israel, for its part, will provide these countries with assistance in various fields, such as security, high-tech, agriculture and technology.

Netanyahu is likely to focus on business rather than history in Budapest as he looks to deepen ties with Hungary, whose prime minister's flirtation with the radical right has unnerved Jews living there.

He arrives at a sensitive time, less than a month after Orban praised Hungary's interwar leader Miklos Horthy, a Hitler ally, and used the image of Hungarian-born Jewish American billionaire George Soros in a controversial anti-immigration billboard campaign.

"We had the Horthy [remark] and then the billboard campaign. The billboard campaign created a certain domino effect reaction in the Jewish community," Israeli Ambassador Yossi Amrani told Reuters in Budapest. "People expressed fears."

Amrani reiterated that Israel was committed to protecting Jewish communities and fighting anti-Semitism. At the same time, Israel was seeking cooperation with Budapest.

"The prime minister is visiting because we believe there is common ground and certain strategic interests. We still believe this is possible," Amrani said.

Poland has just been elected to a two-year term as a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Israel hopes to enlist Poland's support in the Security Council, where it is often criticized.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו