“I am very happy to host my colleague and close friend of Israel, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto,’’ was how Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi greeted his Hungarian counterpart after he arrived July 20 for a half-day visit to Israel. Szijjarto met both Ashkenazi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Over the past few years, Netanyahu has nurtured a strong diplomatic alliance with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Netanyahu seems to embrace the nationalist and Euroskeptic approaches openly espoused by Orban. For Israel’s prime minister, the European Union is divided into two camps: those supporting his annexation policies and those who reject them. Orban belongs to the first group, together with some other EU members, mostly from central Europe.

Indeed, upon arrival to Jerusalem, the minister made a point of stating that his country was the one to veto European Union condemnation of President Donald Trump’s peace plan. Szijjarto said that from his point of view, it was worth trying Trump’s plan, rather than doing nothing at all.

“All of the plans put forward so far have failed. If you look at the Trump plan, we do believe it has the most hope to be a basis of successful negotiations. That’s why we have vetoed the EU statement condemning the plan when it was published,” said Szijjarto.