The Right Spice

And a few weeks ago, when the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, the first leader to declare that he didn’t recognize the court’s jurisdiction was Viktor Orbán.

The friendship between Netanyahu and Orbán began back in the early 2000s, when both leaders had already been prime ministers and were waiting to make their comeback.  Orbán, like Netanyahu, is an intellectual, a man of letters, and a phenomenon in political maneuvering. And like Bibi, Hungary’s charismatic leader and his nationalist government enjoy sweeping admiration from the hardworking middle class and deep loathing from the elites and academia.

Orbán, endlessly shrewd, manages to govern his country with a firm hand. Hungary’s political system grants him a stable government, a friendly parliament, and freedom from significant coalition pressures. His detractors claim that since he resumed office in 2010, his policies have undermined democracy, weakened judicial independence, increased corruption, and curtailed press freedom in Hungary.

But he proclaims to be a defender of national and moral values in the face of the European Union; in that vein, he’s one of Israel’s biggest supporters as well, in the face of a postmodern political landscape that prefers to embrace terrorists over victims. At the outset of the war, Hungary’s government even imposed a sweeping ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which Orbán referred to as “pro-terrorist protests.”