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Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the creation of an “independent and sovereign Palestinian state” and accused Israel of seizing “indigenous Palestinian” land by force.
Putin’s statement, made in Moscow during the international forum “Russian Energy Week”, marks the end of almost two decades of the Kremlin aiming to take sides with both Israel and the Palestinians, while clearly favoring the Jewish state. This marks a shift in policy over the years. This is why President Putin chose to side with Hamas, the brutal terrorist organization that orchestrated the largest terrorist attack against Jews since the Holocaust.
Since taking office in 2000, President Putin has dramatically improved relations between Russia and Israel. After decades of hostility between the Soviet Union and Israel, Putin became the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel in 2005. President Putin then supported the construction of a massive $60 million Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, to which he donated one month’s salary. The museum, which opened in Moscow in 2012, acknowledged Russia and the Soviet Union’s history of anti-Semitism and recognized the contribution of Jews to Soviet life.
President Putin’s friendly attitude toward Jews is likely a response to the love he received as a child from a pious elderly Jewish couple whose family lived in a shared apartment in St. Petersburg. As a practical matter, President Putin probably believes that the 1.2 million Russians and exiles from the former Soviet Union living in Israel represent a suitable group of expatriates who can return to their own or their parents’ homeland, and that the population They probably calculated that they could add some educated human capital to Russia, which was suffering from economic conditions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accuses US of creating conditions leading to Israel-Hamas war
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the creation of an “independent and sovereign Palestinian state” and accused Israel of seizing “indigenous Palestinian” land by force. (Shutterstock)
Moreover, since Israel is home to the world’s largest population of former Soviet Jews, with 15-17% of Israel’s population speaking Russian, Putin sees an opportunity to shape the politics of the Jewish state. I was catching it.
In fact, Jewish immigrants and their descendants became a significant secular nationalist political bloc, ensuring right-wing dominance to this day. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers Russian immigrants the key to his political success and survival. During the 2019 election campaign, Prime Minister Netanyahu placed Russian-language ads and billboards to emphasize his relationship with President Putin and gave a number of interviews with Russian-language media in hopes of winning Russian-Israeli votes. increased.
Netanyahu’s close personal relationship with the realpolitik-oriented and pragmatic Putin has strengthened Russia-Israel relations. The two leaders share the belief that Islamic extremism is a common enemy and there can be no compromise. Notably, Israel has not criticized Moscow for its war in Muslim Chechnya, nor has it expressed a negative reaction to Putin’s annexation of Crimea, and in fact, the two sides had a phone call late Monday. We are planning to have a meeting at
Putin says conflict between Israel and Hamas is a ‘failure of US policy’ in the Middle East
Israeli soldiers inspect a destroyed home in Kfar Azha on Tuesday. (Ilia Efimovich/Photo in partnership with Getty Images)
Throughout the early stages of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Israel maintained a cautiously neutral position, refraining from condemning Putin’s aggression, refusing to join U.S. and EU sanctions against Moscow, and refusing to take action against Ukraine. They chose to provide only humanitarian aid. military hardware.
This is a strategic decision by Israel, which sees Russia as a new power broker in the region and is critical to its ability to deal with the Iranian threat. Israel prioritized security coordination between the Russian military and the Israel Defense Forces, which is desperately needed in Syria, even at the risk of angering Washington. In Syria, Russia controls the skies and tolerates attacks by Israeli warplanes on Iranian proxies.
But Putin’s calculus has changed recently in the aftermath of the rift with Tel Aviv caused by the Biden administration. In March, under persistent pressure from Washington, Israel announced its move to Ukraine, despite the Kremlin’s threats to target its own weapons and warnings that the move would lead to “an escalation of this crisis.” Approved the supply of munitions.
On the left is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and on the right is Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (Abil Sultan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images//Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
President Putin has probably decided that Russia’s break with the West is permanent and that the best thing to do now is to orient Russia firmly with China and the Arab world. Most Arab countries are allied with the Palestinians and blame Israel for the violence that occurred. In Gaza.
Iraq’s prime minister’s office issued a statement calling the attack on Gaza “a natural outcome of systematic repression.” [Palestinians] “It has been exposed for many years at the hands of a Zionist occupation authority that has never complied with international and UN resolutions,” Qatar said, adding that “Israel alone bears responsibility for the current escalation…”
‘Putin’s confessor’ appointed bishop of annexed Ukrainian territory
A woman looks at a destroyed building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, September 17, 2023. (Ozge Elif Kyzil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
President Putin almost certainly aims to position Russia as the top power broker not only in the Middle East but also in the world. Two days before the horrific attack on Israel, President Putin declared at the annual Valdai conference that Russia’s mission was to “build a new world” and that the invasion of Ukraine was part of a Western “military and financial pyramid scheme.” I blamed it. And on Thursday, the Russian strongman accused the United States of creating the conditions leading to an Israel-Hamas war.
Arab countries, which are culturally closer to Russia than the West and rule their countries in an authoritarian style similar to Moscow, appear to be aligned with Putin. The day after the attack, Arab League President Ahmed Aboul Gheit traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Sudani, attending an energy forum in Moscow on Wednesday, called on President Putin to help conclude a ceasefire agreement between Israeli and Hamas terrorists.
On the same day, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told Russia’s state-run RIA news agency that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would visit Moscow “in a fairly short time.” After articles implicating Russia in the Hamas attack on Israel began to appear in Western media, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov clarified that Abbas’ visit had been planned in advance.
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Flames and smoke rise after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Sunday, October 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shubeir)
This is not the first time Russia has teamed up with terrorists. The Soviet Union supported left-wing terrorist groups as a national policy to counter the perceived power imbalance with the West.
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union, which shared the terrorist movement’s goal of destroying the state of Israel, waged an extensive covert anti-Israel campaign that included direct funding and military aid to terrorist organizations that declared Israel an enemy. The previously top-secret National Intelligence Special Estimates, entitled “Soviet Support for International Terrorism and Revolutionary Violence,” revealed that the KGB, GRU (Russian Military Intelligence Service), and the 10th Directorate of the Soviet Army General Staff were members of the revolutionary movement. It was revealed that they were providing military training. Groups in various camps in the USSR and other parts of the world, especially Palestinians, Africans, and Latin Americans. They were acting under the broad direction of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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Demonstrators participate in the “Gaza Emergency Rally” in front of the Israeli Consulate General in New York City on Monday, October 9, 2023. (Jennifer Mitchell, FOX News Digital)
Many Soviet embassies were staffed by special personnel who performed liaison and advisory functions with left-wing movements abroad and distributed funds to these groups. Individual members of the Soviet Politburo met with leaders of several terrorist groups, including Yasir Arafat of the PLO. Putin’s mentor, Yevgeny Primakov, was appointed head of Soviet foreign intelligence in 1991, developed a friendly relationship with Arafat, and mentored future Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in graduate school.
As Israel fights to eliminate its existential threat, President Putin is positioning himself as the real winner in what is arguably a broader, multi-pronged regional conflict.
Unless the Biden administration lifts the cap on strategic thinking, Putin will quickly achieve his coveted goals — diverting Western attention away from Ukraine, resetting the regional balance of power in Russia’s favor, and pushing back against Iran. By increasing support for Saudi Arabia, it will derail the normalization of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. gain influence and humiliate Washington in the process.
Click here to read more from Rebecca Koffler
