{"id":463039,"date":"2026-05-27T18:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/463039\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:46:09","slug":"czech-envoy-says-support-for-israel-spans-entire-political-spectrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/463039\/","title":{"rendered":"Czech envoy says support for Israel spans entire political spectrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relations between Israel and the Czech Republic are very strong, and have been that way for decades, Czech<\/a> Ambassador to Israel Veronika Kuchynova Smigolova told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relations between the Czech Republic and Israel<\/a> are very good and have been like that for the last, let\u2019s say, 20 to 30 years,\u201d she said. She noted that even following the change of government in Prague last October, the country\u2019s pro-Israel trajectory remained undisturbed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne specific feature of the Czech Republic is that support for Israel exists across the political spectrum. So we had a pro-Israel government, and now we have another pro-Israel government.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Israel, the importance of the Czech Republic\u2019s role as a \u201cblocker\u201d of anti-Israel decisions within the European Union has increased following the loss of Viktor Orban\u2019s automatic Hungarian veto, which for 16 years often left Hungary standing alone against the other 26 member states.<\/p>\n

\"CzechCzech Ambassador to Israel, Veronika Kuchynova Smigolova. (credit: Czech Foreign Ministry)Prague intends to protect foundations of Israel-EU relationship, ambassador tells ‘Post’<\/p>\n

Smigolova was explicit about Prague\u2019s intention to protect the structural foundations of the Israel-EU relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, unanimity is necessary to pass any kind of resolution or sanctions. And the Czech foreign minister promised Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that we will not support any of that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The ambassador emphasized that Prague would specifically safeguard academic and economic agreements that some in Brussels<\/a> have suggested suspending as a form of political pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe foreign minister spoke especially about any kind of suspension of the EU-Israel Cooperation Agreement, the Association Agreement with the EU, and also the Horizon cooperation between universities and in research. We see all of this as extremely important, and as much as it is within our power, we will block any attempts to stop or suspend it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends do not discuss ‘red lines,’ Czech ambassador says<\/p>\n

At a time when many Western allies have begun publicly defining \u201cred lines\u201d for Israel, Smigolova offered a different diplomatic approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, I don\u2019t think that friends speak about red lines when they talk about each other,\u201d she explained. \u201cI believe that friends might see things differently from time to time. Friends might have disagreements. But red lines? You have red lines with your enemies or with countries you are not friends with.\u201d<\/p>\n

This philosophy also extends to how Prague handles disagreements with the current Israeli government. While acknowledging that certain domestic political actions – such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/a>\u2019s public handling of those arrested during a recent flotilla to Gaza – have complicated Israel\u2019s international standing, the ambassador insisted that the media is not the place for such disagreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI totally agree that what Minister Ben-Gvir did last week did not help Israel abroad, did not help the relations, and also did not help our position in the EU when we support Israel. Again, it is not something we would discuss publicly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ambassador added that, of course, the Czech Republic can criticize Israel, but \u201cWe don\u2019t find it sensible to criticize Israel publicly,\u201d Smigolova said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are friends with someone and you feel that something your friend is doing is not 100% right, you don\u2019t go to the media. You don\u2019t write tweets about what\u2019s wrong or what is not wrong. We discuss that privately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a recent visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and a business delegation to the Czech Republic, the ambassador expressed hope that the relationship would continue to deepen across multiple fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want the countries to cooperate not only on a political level, but also to use these friendly relations and the many similarities in the business environment to create more opportunities for mutual cooperation,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Relations between Israel and the Czech Republic are very strong, and have been that way for decades, Czech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37916,215488,57910,148988,63,1685,65,85,46,43,5779],"class_list":["post-463039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-ambassador","tag-czech-israel","tag-czech-republic","tag-eu-israel","tag-europe","tag-european-union","tag-gideon-saar","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-prague"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}