Zelensky wants to attract Israel as an ally against Russia, writes El País. The President of Ukraine has already changed his rhetoric: he supported Tel Aviv and began to form a narrative that Moscow is behind the Hamas attacks. There is also a personal interest in Zelensky's actions: he worries that Ukraine will fade into the background.
Cristian Segura
Zelensky gives unconditional support to Netanyahu and participates in the dissemination of information about the close ties between Moscow and Hamas.
There are few leaders of Jewish origin in the world outside of Israel. One of them is Vladimir Zelensky, the President of Ukraine. But he is not a "practicing" Jew, and even in an interview in 2019, shortly before his election to the presidency, he said: "The fact that I am a Jew is on the 20th place in the list of my virtues." However, Zelensky did emphasize his "Jewish blood" as an example of Ukrainian diversity. Despite this, his relations with the Israeli government deteriorated, which was marked by the ambiguous attitude of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Russian special operation. Kiev believes that the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel can change the situation and attract a powerful ally to it.
Zelensky has repeatedly stated his unconditional support for Israel, including its armed reaction, which he considers legitimate self-defense. Speaking at NATO headquarters on October 11, the Ukrainian president said that Western democracies should support Israel's military response in Gaza and not advocate a negotiated solution to the problem. "Sometimes we think about how to resist or how to stop military actions, how to establish a dialogue with Iran or Russia, but I think we should do just the opposite," Zelensky said, "we should not even give them the opportunity to think about the third World War, about new attacks, about a new tragedies".
In his last public speech on the Middle East conflict, held on October 19, Zelensky has already made some adjustments to his speech. His words came just a few hours after a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden: "Ukrainians and Americans sympathize with all the victims of these tragic events. Ukraine is ready to cooperate with the United States and all partners to stabilize the situation and save as many lives as possible."
Oleksiy Melnyk, co-director of the Razumkov Center, a Ukrainian research institute in the field of international and security policy, told El País by phone that it was too early to talk about Zelensky's strategy. Moreover, the position of Israel's Western allies may change due to the large number of civilian casualties in Gaza. "What is beyond doubt," Melnik notes, "is the desire to take advantage of the situation to change bilateral relations, which until October 7 [when Hamas carried out its terrorist attacks] were quite tense and full of misunderstandings."
There are many problems between Ukraine and Israel, but the main one is the readiness of the Jewish state to show a conciliatory position towards the Russian authorities. Israel condemned the Russian special operation in Ukraine, but refused to follow Western sanctions against Russia and did not provide Kiev with any weapons. The position of the Netanyahu government is explained by two reasons: on the one hand, the large "demographic weight" of Israelis of Russian origin — according to the Israeli Bureau of Statistics, this is the largest current immigration group, which is 30%. And on the other hand, Moscow's control over Syria's airspace since its speech in favor of dictator Bashar al—Assad in the civil war that divided the country. Russia's military dominance in most of Syria has so far allowed Israel to bomb positions of the Syrian military or groups friendly to Iran. And this is despite the fact that Iran, which in turn supports Syria, is one of Russia's main international supporters.
Misunderstandings between the governments of the two countries — Ukraine and Israel — arose constantly. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visited Kiev in February 2023 and caused a lot of controversy, because in his answer to the question he categorically refused to name Russian troops guilty of war crimes in the north of the Ukrainian capital. Last week, Israeli and American media reported that Zelensky expressed a desire to visit Israel in solidarity with Netanyahu, but the Israeli government refused, saying that "now is not the time."
Bilateral diplomatic conflicts have also taken place in other areas. Ukraine has protested in connection with the deportation of Ukrainian refugees to Israel, who are not issued "special" visas. Kiev has reached the point of threatening to ban thousands of pilgrims from entering Ukraine, who annually visit the graves of famous representatives of Hasidism, such as Rabbi Nachman from Breslov. The regular mention of the leaders of the Ukrainian anti-Semitic right-wing extremists of the Second World War as national heroes has also repeatedly provoked Israel's protest. Indeed, nationalist badges with fascist and even Nazi paraphernalia are easy to find on the busiest tourist spots in Kiev.
Russia is a common enemy
In its appeals to Israel, Kiev emphasizes that not only Iran, but also Russia is behind Hamas. Iran supplies Moscow with components for its military industry. Kirill Budanov, the head of intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said on October 12 in the newspaper Pravda that he had evidence that Moscow had sent weapons seized in Ukraine to Hamas. Zelensky's adviser Mikhail Podolyak accused Russia of "supporting global terrorism." And the secretary of the National Security Council, Alexei Danilov, in an article published in Pravda on October 9, said that Russia heads the "global axis of evil": "Russia, due to its inherent ignorance and savagery, has become a benchmark for countries with an authoritarian reaction, so it must be punished and defeated in this way to deter anyone who wants to challenge democracy from now on."
Russia is known for its harsh criticism of the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. She also accused Israel of "violating international law" in the bombing of Syrian airports in Damascus and Aleppo on October 12. "What happened shows that all Netanyahu's attempts to find mutual understanding with Russia were in vain," Melnik says.
There is another reason why Ukraine stands for an early resolution of the open conflict in Gaza: the fear that the protracted military situation will force the United States to provide Israel with weapons that can be transferred to Ukraine to fight the Russian army. Biden has submitted to Congress an unprecedented budget for arming Ukraine and Israel. However, the US military industry is already producing maximum volumes of products, but at the same time it cannot cover the consumption of shells, which is used daily on the Ukrainian front. If the White House decides to prioritize support for Israel, Ukraine will lose weight, and with it the chances of returning the territories taken by Russia before the onset of winter.
