Last Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen revealed that Hungary would be moving its embassy to Jerusalem—the first move of its kind by a European Union nation—within a few weeks. On Thursday, Hungary’s Ambassador to Israel, Levente Benko, walked back the news a bit—not denying but not confirming the move, just toning down expectations.
“We have been operating a trade office in Jerusalem since 2019, but no decision has so far been made on any further steps,” Benko said.
On Wednesday, Cohen told a group at a Chabad gathering in Budapest that “Hungary will be the first country in the European Union that will announce in a number of weeks that it is moving its embassy to Jerusalem.”
The move was first rumored in March when senior Israeli officials said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban had reached an agreement to move the…
