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Written by James M. Dorsey
Israel’s rapidly deteriorating relations with Russia contain a message for other Middle Eastern powers: attempting to remain on the sidelines of the conflict in Ukraine risks falling in between the cracks.
Like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey, Israel has sought to maintain good relations with the United States and Russia despite Washington and Moscow’s principle of ‘you are either with us or against us.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has good reason to apply the same principle even if Israel and Turkey have sought to use their good offices to mediate between the Ukrainian leader and President Vladimir Putin. They used their mediation to justify their failure to join US and European sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Zelensky this week called out his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Turkey announced plans to encourage as many Russian holidaymakers as possible to visit. The announcement came as a senior Russian tourism official said that less than half the 4.7 million Russians who travelled to Turkey in 2021 were likely to visit the country this year.
“This is not entirely fair, and that is why I draw Turkey’s attention to such processes. There is a need to choose,” Mr. Zelensky said a day after meeting in Kyiv with Ibrahim Kalin, one of Mr. Erdogan’s closest advisors.
So far, the Biden administration has been restrained in its response to a Saudi and Emirati refusal to increase oil production to reduce prices and help Europe ween itself off its dependence on Russian energy. However, there is little doubt that the administration will remember who its friends were in a time of need and who was not.
It’s a message that may be registering in Abu Dhabi. In late April, France’s TotalEnergies chartered a tanker to load Abu Dhabi crude in early May for Europe, the first such shipment in two years.
Despite hubristic remarks by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in an interview in March with The Atlantic, relations between the kingdom, the UAE, and the United States have steered away from acrimonious public exchanges.
That has not stopped former officials from trading swipes.
Responding to former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that the US should use a carrot-and-stick approach to get the Saudis to boost oil output, former Saudi intelligence chief and ex-ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal quipped: “We’re not schoolchildren to be treated with a carrot and stick. When we’re dealt with fairly and squarely, we respond likewise”.
Striking a less belligerent tone, Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, a Hudson Institute visiting fellow and former editor-in-chief of Saudi-owned Al Arabiya English, noted that “Saudi Arabia laments what it sees as America’s willful dismantling of an international order that it established and led for the better part of a century.”
Mr. Alyahya quoted a senior Saudi official as saying: “A strong, dependable America is the greatest friend Saudi Arabia can have. It stands to reason, then, that US weakness and confusion is a grave threat not just to America, but to us as well.”
Israel has not been afforded the luxury of more layered exchanges in its increasingly harsh tit-for-tat official verbal swaps with Russia.
In the latest incident, Israel this week condemned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s assertion that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood.”
Mr. Lavrov used that to justify describing as a “Nazi” Mr. Zelensky, who is of Jewish descent. The foreign minister went on to say that “the wise Jewish people said that the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, said in a tweet that “Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. . Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”
Subsequently, Mr. Lapid added that “we are making every effort to maintain good relations with Russia, but everything has a border, and this time it was crossed. The Russian government should apologize to us and to all the Jewish people.”
Doubling down, the Russian foreign ministry accused Israel a day later of supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine. The ministry said Mr. Lapid’s statements were “anti-historical” and “explaining to a large extent why the current Israeli government supports the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv”.
Mr. Lavrov and the ministry’s remarks were the latest salvo in the Israeli-Russian spat. A day earlier, a Russian television station disclosed the identity of ten Israeli consular officials and security guards who were on the Polish-Ukrainian border to help Israeli nationals escape from the war-torn country and described them as mercenaries.
“Their names + passports are compromised. It can help Israel’s enemies such as Iran intel,” tweeted Israeli national security reporter Yossi Melman.
The disclosure came a day after media reports said that Israel had foiled an attempt to assassinate an Israeli consular employee in Turkey, an American general in Germany, and a journalist in France.
Israel has walked a fine line in crafting its management of the Ukraine crisis.
It rejected Ukrainian requests for arms sales, including its acclaimed Iron Dome anti-rocket system, and access to Israeli surveillance technology, while providing humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country.
Israel has also shared intelligence, voted for a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian invasion, and convinced the United Arab Emirates to do likewise. Furthermore, Israel voted for an Assembly resolution suspending Russian membership in the UN Human Rights Council.
Under pressure to get off the fence, Mr. Lapid sparked the deterioration of relations when in early April, he asserted that Russia had committed war crimes.
In a statement at the time, the Russian foreign ministry charged that Mr. Laipd’s remarks were “a poorly camouflaged attempt to take advantage of the situation in Ukraine to distract the international community’s attention from one of the oldest unsettled conflicts – the Palestine-Israeli one.”
Shortly after that, Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, told an Israeli television station that Israel and Russia were “still” friends but that Moscow expected a “more balanced (Israeli) position.”
To increase pressure on Israel, Admiral Oleg Zhuravlev, the deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, disclosed that a Syrian-operated, Russian-made Buk M2E air defense system had recently intercepted a guided missile fired from an Israeli F-16 fighter jet in Syrian airspace. The disclosure constituted a warning that Russia may no longer tolerate future Israeli strikes against targets in Syria.
“Israel risks falling off its carefully construed balancing act. Others in the Middle East still have some rope left. How much is the $64,000 question,” said a Western diplomat.
A podcast version is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon, and Castbox.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and scholar, a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
The claim that the suffering of Jews cannot be compared to other war crimes or genocide is unscientific nonsense. Furthermore, it reveals the true nature of the state of Israel, which is fundamentally racist. If people are slaughtered and burnt, race is irrelevant. The Jews exposed their real colors.
27 million Russian lives were taken during WW2. But somehow the world is only remembering 6 million jews. Germany had no death camps. They used detained people to enslave them in workshops. In the end the west told those camps were used to kill jews. Today Israelis think they have a special place in the world because of that. Look how fascist they really are murdering people in Syria almost on daily basis. It seems they are about ready to get another lesson that no one has the right to determine who has to die. That little blimp on a map is no match for any well armed country. Israelis are on thin ice. Without US support they would be in big trouble.
It was not six million Jews, it was nothing close to that number.
I read somewhere that the torah says in order for Jews to return to “their homeland” 6 million Jews must be sacrificed. 6 million Jews were sacrificed, and they put the blame on the Holocaust to hide the fact that 6 million Jews either killed themselves, or allowed Jews to sacrifice other Jews
Jews are liars and have been fabricating holohoax with Hollywood narrative of total BS.
James This I agree with you and many Jews i met have confirmed this
ICRC archives stated that 83,000 so-called Jews were killed in Europe, mostly due to war. Meanwhile 28 million Soviets and Russians sacrificed their lives to liberate Europe single handedly.
Ashok Varma ICRC like ICC ,IMF,UN,UNSC are zio Christian west created institutions Their archives are AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED FIGURE OF 83,000 is too much Most left for USA etc before 1939
It was 27 million Russians. Who hates the Nazis MOST of all?
Arzt Injekton Firstly 6 million is a lie and myth Most that died were Brown/ Darker european skinned people who had ventured up north and made it their home after the collapse of OTTOMAN EMPIRE
disagree that there were no death camps but most of the camps were slave labour camps.otherwise agree with everything else you said
Helen Matz This I agree with you and these slaves were mostly dark skinned Europeans Who had settled up north after collapse of Ottoman Empire
Often, throughout history, only a remnant of Israel is saved by our God as they are faithless. Orthodox and Catholic bibles have more of the OT than do the Jews.
There was no Holocaust! Not a single Jew was killed! Hitler himself was a Jew, this has already been proven by Belgian scientists. By the way, about 6 million murdered Jews. Open the encyclopedia of 1938(9) and check that at that time there were 3.5 million Jews throughout Eurasia, but we did not get rid of them!!! Like cockroaches around the world! Hitler gathered some of the Jews and resettled the territory of Polistina in order to capture Polistina after the war and build Israel there! Which they did. I hope Putin will open the archives!
The cursed Jews have yet again showed their backstabbing and evil nature by killing Russians and plotting against the Orthodox. As I had posted months ago the real enemies o Russia are the Zionist scum led by evil soulless Blinken who openly stated that it is American and Zionist aim to carve up Russia and get hold of its resources. Putin made a very fatal mistake by “trusting” the Jews, despite the fact that they were killing Russians in Syria too and are now actively killing Russians in Ukraine by deploying IDF child killers. Russia really needs to seriously arm Iran, its true and trusted ally. Amongst the Abrahamic religions the Orthodox and the Muslims, especially the Shia have very close similarities, from religious icons to clergy and politics.
The Jews are a real curse for all humanity and Zelensky is just a puppet of global Zionism and its insidious agenda. Even Modi, a Hindu extremist who initially came to power with CIA assistance is now wary of the Zionists and their agenda of fanning India-China war as well. Russian better start creating a Shia-Orthodox natural alliance, but keep a vary of the Zionist agent Erdogan. In general, in the Muslim street Russians are well loved as large pro-Russian Shia demonstrations in India have shown. The Jews are pure evil. JAI RUS
India will be kicked out of QUAD mate as it is not playing the Anglo-Zionist hate-Russia agenda. India should follow the Iranians and declare total support for Russia as the NATO losers have no chance and will get bored soon as gas stops.
James Indians and Indians suffer from intense inferiority complex and to them white skinned people are GOD ,STUDY THEIR CASTE SYSTEM PLEASE READ FOLLOWING
Reading the history of East India Company Englishman observed at Varanasi that Indians would make EXCELLENT BABUS and CAN EASILY HYPED UP BY RELIGIOUS FERVOR ie India is ripe for colonization based on religious divide and rule game What he meant by Excellent Babu was that Indians under Englishman command will meticulously obey the order Work under him and follow the written instructions to the last dot BUT AN INDIAN IS UNABLE TO HANDLE POWER AND DISPERSE IT EVENLY This can be observed how Indians Behavior at recent UNSC debate on Afghanistan under Indian Presidency whereby It stooped so low as to deny Pakistan right to address UNSC Debate as Pakistan is stake holder in stability of Afghanistan It is evident in Britain with Priti Patel as The Home Secretary And her behavior and arrogance and see how she leading the campaign to send Refugees to Rwanda Same with Rishi Sunak,Alok Sharma etc In India you can observe the Modi’s behavior and BJP arrogance towards minorities Remember that Indians have always been ruled for last 5000 years By outsiders only last 70 years they are ruling and you can see the mess they are making BUT THEY ARE STILL GOING TO BE INDIAN BABUS FOR WHITEMEN FOR MANY CENTURIES
Ashok Varma How will you distinguish between Shia Muslim and Sunni Muslim Ashok you are as much racist as zionist I travel a lot and I find Russia is loved by all Muslims irrelevant of being Shia or Sunni this label is zionist cum Christian west label to destroy Muslims But now the west and India is finding out that that they made blunder That they labeled them as enemies
All killings have the same value if not you are exposed to hypocrisy
The claim that the suffering of Jews cannot be compared to other war crimes or genocide is based upon Jewish racist supremacy that Jews are superior man god beings and the rest of humanity are lower than animals.
nuke isranited states of uk
It’s not their racism that bothers me. It’s their warmongering and meddling.
Like monopoly …
JEW CARD – you can always use this card to get out of anything. Nothing tops this card.
Dear Jews… Russians can play that card just like you. They were being exterminated in the same way as you. Sorry I stand corrected… Germans did not kill more Russians than there were as of the last official count. That can only happen to the Jewish tribe…
Mr Lavrov’s comment of “the wise Jewish people said that the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.” remainded me “who betrayed the hiding place of Anna Frank in Amsterdam.” Here is who it was according to BBC :
“A team including an ex-FBI agent said Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish figure in Amsterdam, probably “gave up” the Franks to save his own family.”
The complete article could be found here :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60024228
BUT how did that save HIS family?
This is an excerpt which I copied from the same BBC article where you will find your answer. Seemingly he died in 1950 as a honorable Dutch citizen.
( Van den Bergh had been a member of Amsterdam’s Jewish Council, a body forced to implement Nazi policy in Jewish areas. It was disbanded in 1943, and its members were dispatched to concentration camps.
But the team found that van den Bergh was not sent to a camp, and was instead living in Amsterdam as normal at the time. There was also a suggestion that a member of the Jewish Council had been feeding the Nazis information.
“When van den Bergh lost all his series of protections exempting him from having to go to the camps, he had to provide something valuable to the Nazis that he’s had contact with to let him and his wife at that time stay safe,” )
It’s very obvious that the west has planned for this event better than Russia. And with more associates too. Unless –“Nothing is what it seems”Qe2. Has Russias self sufficiency caused her to become to insular?Or is she just more discrete?I don’t know.
The Empire of lies wants to implement “the great reset” after having destroyed the old world He wants to make “tabula rasa” of christian and muslim cultures and produce a new genetically modified individual with undefined color and gender. Russia after its communist experience is coming back to traditional values where a man is a man and a woman is a woman and both have to work for their soul’s salvation. The Empire of lies and Russia are at war, it is a civilisation clash and I am definitively on the side of Russia. Russia is fighting the Devil
https://www.history.com/news/study-suggests-adolf-hitler-had-jewish-and-african-ancestors
Everyone falls out with Israel eventually. It is impossible to have normal relations as they are inherently destructive. The more of the Tribe you have in your country, the greater your peril. Just look at the state of the US today. Have you seen the cities? 100,000+ Opioid deaths a year, open borders, defecation in the streets, transgenderism.
The North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation (NATO) uses their own pitchers like Israeli NAZI Jews to occupy countries. These terrorist NAZIs should never be trusted.
I believe part of starting this war was the intention to bring all the Jews from Ukraine to Israel, so Israel has more Jews. It’s obvious israel wants to expand, but needs more jews to expand
I doubt that anything will change between Russia and Israel. Israel has already done enough to Russia to warrant retaliation long ago. But, nothing is the real response from Russia. I tire of the Russian immigrant excuse, as I no longer believe it whatsoever. I am fairly sure that Israel controls Russia much in the same manner that it controls the west, as they do not fear Russia any more than they fear the US. The fact that Russia basically protects Israel in the ME is more than obvious. As the EU is truly committing economic suicide, for which there is no logic, and the US is spending itself into oblivion as well, it makes one wonder if this whole episode is not a grand plan for a NWO, just a different version than we have been fed for years. A multi-polar one that is palatable to the world, but one where Israel still has sway. More and more, the decisions made in dealing with the Ukraine issue make no sense. It is certain doom for the west and is self-inflicted. Killing oneself is very strange for a conquering strategy. Over the last 20 years, the US has been economically destroyed, regardless the BS we are inundated with. Now, the EU is being left defenseless and has taken the economic cyanide pill called Ukraine. The plan is complete, including the over the top claims of immorality by both sides. The west is only digging a deeper hole and is by design. Yes, there is a solution to all this and the people are believing it. A multi-polar world. So far, so good.
Russia defends Syria. Syria is anti-Israel. So it’s not clear at all that Russia defends Israel in the Middle East.
Russia will not fight for anyone. It fights only for its own interests. That is Russia. If necessary, Russia will cut off both Syria and Armenia. Russia’s only logic is “strong or weak,” “useful or useless.”
Karl Pomeroy Your head needs to examined Russia is zionist in stealth and protecting it and giving tacit nods to zionist to bomb Syria time and again
Zman Yes Russia is zionist in stealth and deeper bond exist between them at all levels such in areas of defense,hi tech,academic exchanges,military level exchanges ,cultural etc etc Russia has tacit agreement with zionist and they are protecting zionist entity in Middle East What I see between LAVROV and zionist is superficial squabble
Israel IS supporting NAZIs in Ukraine. They are using the AZOV-NAZIs pet jew as cover
🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 🇷🇺
Soros was a Jew, without qualms of collaborating with nazis, from his childhood. I was taught at school in UK that Hitlers mother was Jewish. There are many who are not patriotic or faithful or loyal. Prophets in the OT called Israel out as a faithless wife. Then think of the Russian traitors. And think of people who cannot support their governments when they deceive, lie, cheat, are war criminals and so corrupt and filled with concealed spite even to their own citizens.
The fake outrage.
The facts are that many if not most of the oligarchs that were/are calling the shots in Ukraine are Jews including Kolomoisky, Poroshenko, Zelensky.
It’s simple Mathematics. There are neo-nazi and nationalist battalions in Ukraine’s army. The government stands behind these battalions for many reasons, one reason being that these battalions are preventing regular Ukrainian soldiers from surrendering for fear of being shot in the back. Have you heard any Ukrainian Jewish politicians or Jewish oligarchs denouncing these neo-nazi battalions? Furthermore the western world and Jewish owned media has been whitewashing the Ukrainian neo nazis and covering up and minimizing their role.
“BOLSHEVIKS”…Is this too much for you?
Christian people can “smell them(Bolsheviks) from far away!
Who cares if Israel decides to take offense, not me.
Syria better man their air defenses well after this. lol It is an interesting theory that should be investigated. I wouldnt be surprised however because even from their Holy book they would slaughter those who turned away from their God. Benett himself condemned the Israeli population to four shots of auto immune problems that will plague them in the years to come. God forbid some unfortunate circumstance happen to Israel as we would all never hear the end of it being milked like the Holocaust card. lol
A good Jew is a dead Jew!
The Israelites, which these imposters are not, literally ate their young in Rome’s siege of Jerusalem. Literally. That is one of the values that these imposters have adopted from the original blood line of Abraham.
KhaZar apartheid occupied Palestine is filth, toxic poison. Finally Russia sees that dealing with garbage like these freeloader psychopaths as well as the Turk wolf pack leads to backstabbing and treachery. With the IOU fiat filth Saudi Mercan petroscrip toilet paper dollah and its gimp basturd €urodollah getting flushed before our eyes the days of the angloZionaZi empire of shit are numbered.
The one thing I want to see is a verbatim translation of Lavrov’s statement regarding Hitler’s ancestry. And this is the one thing no article about the issue seems to present. How can judge what Lavrov said if I can’t find out what he said? Anyone have a link to his exact words?
A terrible historical nonsense? Well, a perfunctory search using the Google search engine reveals that Adolf Hitler had probably Semitic and African ancestors until the year 2018…
A Belgian researcher of Adolf Hitler’s genome summed up the results as: “Adolf Hitler would not be pleased.”
Apparently, some top representatives of the Jewish State think otherwise and are hell-bent on pleasing Adolf Hitler.
Yair Lapid obviously knows very little about WW2 history if he doesn’t know Hitler’s heritage is partly Jewish…his ignorance likely extends far beyond this topic.
On the Iron Dome; it’s pretty likely it would not be able to defend itself against the Oniks, Kalibr cruise missiles, never mind the hypersonic Kinzhal.
Izzisrael its the biggest terrorist prostitute !!! F that cowerds nazi gays !!!!!!!!!
Izzisrael is full of Covid 1984 in the Uranos !!!
southfront protects spammers like JHK