A Complicated Relationship

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

After the attack in southern Israel carried out by Hamas last Oct. 7, Russia declined to condemn Hamas’s actions, expressing only “grave concerns.” Moscow also refused to list Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation.

A week later, in a speech to leaders of former Soviet states in Kyrgyzstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Hamas massacre was unprecedented, but in the same breath he accused Israel of a cruel response.

He went on to compare the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip to the Nazi siege of Leningrad, which led to a high number of civilian causalities, estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

It was only on Oct. 16 that Putin, in a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed condolences to the families of the murdered Israelis, but without condemning Hamas.

Moscow’s goal is to cement its status as a friend of the Global South. Russia is seizing an opportunity to bolster its claim to be challenging what Putin calls “the ugly neocolonial system of international relations.” Hence the Kremlin’s half-hearted response to the attacks and continued willingness to engage Hamas, and more broadly its outreach to Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Most of these countries – including the vast majority of Muslim ones – have very strong pro-Palestinian policies, which dictate the position that Moscow takes in the Israel-Hamas war. As long as there is no resolution to the conflict between Russia and the Western pro-Ukraine bloc, Russia’s desire to score points in the Global South will continue.

The Muslim world, according to this worldview, is an important part of the multipolar architecture and is a pole that would be friendly toward Russia, while Israel belongs to the West led by the United States and is part of the pole that is hostile to Russia.

Israeli advocates of a policy of conciliation toward Russia, however, nonetheless argue that Israel must be cautious in its relationship with Moscow. The risks involved in adopting a tougher stance against Russia outweigh any possible advantages.

They explain that Russia’s ability to inflict harm – on the international and diplomatic stage, in the context of Iran, on the Syrian front, and in terms of personal security for Jews (and Israelis) in Russia – is so great that a policy of extreme prudence must be adopted.

This view was given some encouragement by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Speaking at a Doha Forum in Qatar Dec. 10, he said that Russia “strongly condemned the terrorist attack against Israel on October 7.” Doha is where much of Hamas’ top leadership resides.

“We have a relationship with that political branch,” Lavrov added, explaining that Russia differentiates between the organization’s armed and political wings. But Israel flatly rejects this differentiation.

Israel has been restrained in its criticism of Russia over the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and has resisted sending weaponry or critical equipment to help Ukrainian forces. “Israel has a complicated relationship with Russia. That’s not a secret and it’s not new,” said Eylon Levy, a spokesman for the office of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Israel and Russia have managed to avoid conflict even as Israel’s air force has routinely targeted Syrian sites, including the Damascus airport, where weapons shipments and other supplies for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia have been known to transit.

On Oct. 30, Israeli warplanes bombed a Syrian base in the southern Daraa Province. And days earlier, Israeli jets struck an ammunition depot at another Syrian base, where fighters and officers reported to be Iranian were working alongside Syrian troops.

“For many years, Israel had a mechanism of coordinating with the Russian military presence inside Syria as we attack targets inside that country. And it's important not to get our wires crossed,” Levy explained. And even now, this continues.