Azriel Bermant argues for seeing Israel’s vote against a recent UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine as ideological as well as political. Bermant criticises what he sees as Jerusalem’s support for Putin’s aggression, arguing that Moscow has not returned the favour. ‘It may be convenient to believe that Israel’s overtures towards Russia are foisted upon Israel by the Trump administration,’ he concludes. But ‘it is more difficult to countenance the idea that Israel is seeking a rapprochement with Putin’s Russia as a matter of choice. Bibi can do so now that he is no longer constrained by a Biden administration that viewed Putin as a murderous thug.’
On 24 February, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Russia and reaffirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity. For the first time since the war began, Israel voted against Ukraine and sided with Russia. On the face of it, the explanation for Israel’s decision appears straightforward. It is tempting to believe that the Netanyahu government had no other choice but to stay in the good graces of President Trump who has abandoned the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine and has sided with Russia. Yet there were other Trump allies such as Argentina that at least abstained. Even Iran, Russia’s close ally, abstained This was a policy choice: the Netanyahu government was determined to signal to the Russians that it wants a closer relationship with them.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has in the past distanced himself from the position of the United States on Russia when it suited him. In March 2014, Israel’s diplomats deliberately stayed away from a UN General Assembly vote which condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea, despite the Obama administration calling on Israel to vote for the motion.
To be sure, realpolitik has guided much of Israel’s policy towards Russia over the past decade. As Russia became entrenched in Syria, it became increasingly important for Israel to cultivate friendly relations with Moscow. During his fourth term in office, between 2015 and 2020, Netanyahu paid numerous visits to Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow in order to secure understandings over Israel’s red lines in Syria. Iran’s growing presence in Syria was perceived as a grave threat to Israel, and there was wide public understanding within the country for Israel closely coordinating its actions with Russia. There was concern that defiance of Russia would lead to Moscow constraining Israel’s freedom of action in its attacks on Iranian positions and its ability to interdict arms supplies to Hezbollah in Syrian territory. Yet it also became increasingly clear that Netanyahu was willing to sacrifice relations with the West in order to strengthen ties with the Kremlin. An illustration of this was the Netanyahu government’s refusal to cooperate with its European allies (especially Britain) in imposing sanctions on Russia following a nerve agent attack in the UK in 2018.
Netanyahu recently sent his military secretary, Roman Gofman, to Russia for high level security talks. According to reports, Israel is lobbying the Trump administration to let Russia maintain its military bases in Syria because of concerns over rising Turkish influence. This in itself is astonishing, considering that it was these same Russian bases that constrained Israel’s freedom of movement when it came to striking Iranian arms shipments to Syria and Hezbollah.
Yet it would be simplistic to depict Israel’s submissive policy towards Russia as exclusively driven by Bibi. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Netanyahu was out of office. The then prime minister, Naftali Bennett, refused to condemn Russia’s invasion, although Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, issued a strong condemnation at the outset of the fighting. On taking over as prime minister later that year, Lapid issued a statement strongly condemning Russian attacks on the civilian population in Ukraine.
Since Russia’s invasion, with the exception of Lapid’s statement, Israel had remained largely silent. Israel provided humanitarian assistance to Ukraine but was unwilling to send military support. By the end of 2022, Netanyahu had regained power. One would have been forgiven for believing that the traumatic events of 7 October 2023 would lead to a more decisive change in Israel’s policy towards Ukraine. Russia hosted a delegation of Hamas leaders in Moscow following the attacks. Israel condemned the Russian action as ‘an obscene step’ that legitimised Hamas terror and called on Moscow to expel the delegation.
A matter of days after 7 October, Russia sponsored a UN Security Council resolution that was rejected by the United States and its allies because there was no condemnation of Hamas. Putin is one of the few world leaders not to have condemned the Hamas massacre. This demonstrates that Israel’s obsequiousness towards Putin has brought little tangible reward. On the contrary, Russia intensified its military support for Iran. Putin’s propagandists on Russian State television showed sadistic pleasure at the Hamas onslaught on Israel.
Some Israelis have pointed to Ukraine’s votes against it in international forums as a justification for its decision to stand with Russia at the UN General Assembly. This is the height of absurdity. Unlike Putin, Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky expressed his wholehearted support for Israel following the Hamas attacks, yet his readiness to visit Israel in a gesture of solidarity was swiftly rebuffed. Like Israel, Ukraine has also suffered from the scourge of Iranian drones.
Is there more than meets the eye in Netanyahu’s support for Putin’s Russia? It was intriguing to hear a recent BBC Radio 4 interview with David Frum, a former speechwriter of former president George W. Bush who talked about his one-time friend, US Vice President JD Vance. In the interview Frum asserted:
Over the long career of Donald Trump, there were many improper connections between Trump and Russia. JD Vance is very pro-Russian but there is no impropriety. This is ideological admiration: a vision of Russia as the defender of the white race, as a defender of the rights of men, as the defender of the rights of heterosexuals…. This is like something out of the nineteenth century where you find an exotic place, and you say there is our utopia for our illiberal authoritarian project here at home.
Netanyahu has, in the past, taken great pride in his relationship with Putin, even claiming during the 2019 election that his friendship with the Russian leader was ‘in a different league’ and draping huge campaign posters of the two of them together throughout the country. In his autobiography Bibi: My Story, Netanyahu writes of his first meeting with Putin in 2000, shortly after the latter had been elected president:
We went to a side room and spoke for four hours… Putin invested hours in our meeting. He couldn’t possibly have known that eight years later I would return to power and that we would meet every few months and talk on the phone every few weeks….But it wasn’t the things we said; it was how we said them. From the first moment, I took the measure of the man. Putin was smart and shrewd and totally committed to restoring Russia’s standing as a great power….
There are many on Israel’s right who admire Putin for refusing to bow to world opinion in the wake of his actions in Ukraine, starting with his annexation of Crimea. For them, Putin is a strong, sophisticated leader who protects his country and makes a mockery of Western liberal values. Erez Tadmor, a former adviser and speechwriter for Netanyahu, was awestruck by an interview Putin gave to the American right-wing ideologue Tucker Carlson in February 2024. Tadmor described Putin as ‘an impressive leader and statesman…A genius. He uses facts and we should recognise them. Which other Israeli leader, aside from Netanyahu is capable of holding an intellectual two hour conversation on history and geopolitics and the global economy?’ The right-wing ideologue Noam Fathi, who hosts a show on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine ‘on all those NATO countries that provoked Putin again and again.’ Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich warned against ‘the automatic tendency to support the weaker side [in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine] which is deeply rooted in progressive thinking.’ There is a pattern here.
Netanyahu and his far-right allies have fostered ties with extremist European leaders and partiers, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, that engage in nativism and attacks on vulnerable minorities. Some of these leaders are openly antisemitic and have expressed hateful views on the Holocaust, yet they whitewash this through their support for Israel. Putin’s Russia is actually hostile towards Israel but this is conveniently overlooked. Putin’s enforcement of a law banning the operation of ‘undesirable’ NGOs that criticise human rights abuses has inspired the Israeli right which wants to push through a similar law to stifle dissent.
Arkady Mil-Man, a former Israeli ambassador to Russia and now a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), pointed out to me that those on Israel’s right who support Putin’s Russia are living in a fantasy world. Russia’s intelligence service SVR published a caricature in December 2023 depicting Israel as a parasite on the back of the United States. This wasn’t a caricature published in some random far right publication. It was published by Russian intelligence. This is how the Kremlin views Israel. Mil-Man argues that those Israelis who support Putin understand nothing about the reality in Russia.
Following the horrific events of 7 October, Israel and its friends throughout the world recoiled in horror at shows of support for Hamas barbarism on Western campuses. Israel rightly expected the world’s sympathy in the wake of the Hamas attacks. Yet Russia has acted in a similar manner in Ukraine. It has deliberately targeted civilians, including women and children. It has bombed children’s hospitals. Ukrainian children have been abducted to Russia. There are well documented cases of acts of rape, torture and murder in towns Russia has occupied. This is the same Russia that continues in its indulgence of Hamas and Iran. If Ukraine is forced to capitulate, much of Europe will find itself in the Russian firing line.
Of course, much can change. Ukraine says it is accepting a 30-day ceasefire in its war with Russia. The United States has declared in response that it is ready to lift restrictions on military support for Ukraine and intelligence sharing that it suspended a matter of days ago. If Putin rebuffs Trump’s efforts to pursue a ceasefire, the US president could take it personally and harden his position towards Russia. This would also have implications for Netanyahu’s outreach towards Putin.
Yet for now, Israel is clearly signalling that it wants a closer relationship with Putin’s Russia. It may be convenient to believe that Israel’s overtures towards Russia are foisted upon Israel by the Trump administration. It is more difficult to countenance the idea that Israel is seeking a rapprochement with Putin’s Russia as a matter of choice. Bibi can do so now that he is no longer constrained by a Biden administration that viewed Putin as a murderous thug.
