In 1967 Israel was also a country minding its own business, trying to build a life for itself and its citizens. And, as with Ukraine, hostile armies vastly outnumbering Israel’s massed on its borders. In 1967 Israel’s enemies clearly declared their intention to invade and wipe the country off the map. As a result of this lopsided war, Israel won the Golan Heights. It’s hardly surprising that Israel’s heart is with Ukraine and its head focussed on trying to keep the peace with Moscow so that the Heights do not once again become a shooting range targeting Israeli villages and towns below.
Israel would do well to remember it’s the west and not the Russians who have effectively guaranteed its survival since it’s creation. If the money from the Americans were ever to dry up due to their choice of friends they would be in big trouble
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago
Without Israel’s clear-cut “desire to play the mediator”, Israel would look curiously nonchalant, never mind possibly altogether ineffectual, on the war that has broken out in Europe.
The Ukrainian President’s speech to the Knesset, in which he warned the Israelis not to become indifferent to the suffering of the Ukrainians, was an emotional appeal to Ukraine’s own situation as a European country that had been minding its own business but got attacked and invaded just like Poland in 1939, and Holland in 1940. Indifference was the charge laid at many Germans for the Nazis’ strengthening grip on power, especially from Kristallnacht in 1938 onwards. Although President Zelensky pitched the emotion too high by referring to the industrial murder of Jews in War 2 (the Holocaust) and the destruction of Ukraine (ethnic cleansing by being driven out) in as good as the same sentence, he no doubt set out to tell it as it is to the Israelis.
On the ground, in the street, judging merely from the photo at the head of the post, piece, there is no indifference among ordinary Israelis. They want Russia out, out, out. They know Russia is in the wrong. Some of those protestors may well be the children of Russian Jews.
Israel is not in the comfortable position of the well-off small European country, that is not even a member of NATO, has neutrality status, and is therefore almost ignorant in its comfort of a different calculus that would come with being fully aligned or a giver of arms or of being the target of surrounding entities that intend to destroy it. Indifference stalks that very nation that joins in the battle to contain Russia but is not prepared to give the Ukrainians arms. So Israel, on that account, may feel it still necessary to do as Israel does, because its raison d’être is to survive and to do what it takes to survive. At the same time Israel cannot lose bravery nor dismiss right from wrong. It at least must speak out and not have to rely on American pressure to do just that.
R Wright
2 years ago
Israel always has the luxury of speaking out both sides of its mouth, or at least since Kennedy. U.S financial and materiel aid will contine to flow regardless.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Frankly, Israel and India should be far closer allies of Britain: just how does Britain benefit in any way whatsoever from the withdrawal of billions of pounds worth of Russian capital? … it doesn’t but the ” pipl in the street” have not a blind clue, so Boris just tells them what they think that they want to hear? As Tocqville said ” Do not confuse democracy with the will of the masses”… and perhaps the rider to this is that the masses no longer have any will, merely what the internet tells them
Drahcir Nevarc
2 years ago
Given the manifest patheticness of the Russian military machine, does Israel have much to fear?
In 1967 Israel was also a country minding its own business, trying to build a life for itself and its citizens. And, as with Ukraine, hostile armies vastly outnumbering Israel’s massed on its borders. In 1967 Israel’s enemies clearly declared their intention to invade and wipe the country off the map. As a result of this lopsided war, Israel won the Golan Heights. It’s hardly surprising that Israel’s heart is with Ukraine and its head focussed on trying to keep the peace with Moscow so that the Heights do not once again become a shooting range targeting Israeli villages and towns below.
Israel would do well to remember it’s the west and not the Russians who have effectively guaranteed its survival since it’s creation. If the money from the Americans were ever to dry up due to their choice of friends they would be in big trouble
Without Israel’s clear-cut “desire to play the mediator”, Israel would look curiously nonchalant, never mind possibly altogether ineffectual, on the war that has broken out in Europe.
The Ukrainian President’s speech to the Knesset, in which he warned the Israelis not to become indifferent to the suffering of the Ukrainians, was an emotional appeal to Ukraine’s own situation as a European country that had been minding its own business but got attacked and invaded just like Poland in 1939, and Holland in 1940. Indifference was the charge laid at many Germans for the Nazis’ strengthening grip on power, especially from Kristallnacht in 1938 onwards. Although President Zelensky pitched the emotion too high by referring to the industrial murder of Jews in War 2 (the Holocaust) and the destruction of Ukraine (ethnic cleansing by being driven out) in as good as the same sentence, he no doubt set out to tell it as it is to the Israelis.
On the ground, in the street, judging merely from the photo at the head of the post, piece, there is no indifference among ordinary Israelis. They want Russia out, out, out. They know Russia is in the wrong. Some of those protestors may well be the children of Russian Jews.
Israel is not in the comfortable position of the well-off small European country, that is not even a member of NATO, has neutrality status, and is therefore almost ignorant in its comfort of a different calculus that would come with being fully aligned or a giver of arms or of being the target of surrounding entities that intend to destroy it. Indifference stalks that very nation that joins in the battle to contain Russia but is not prepared to give the Ukrainians arms. So Israel, on that account, may feel it still necessary to do as Israel does, because its raison d’être is to survive and to do what it takes to survive. At the same time Israel cannot lose bravery nor dismiss right from wrong. It at least must speak out and not have to rely on American pressure to do just that.
Israel always has the luxury of speaking out both sides of its mouth, or at least since Kennedy. U.S financial and materiel aid will contine to flow regardless.
Frankly, Israel and India should be far closer allies of Britain: just how does Britain benefit in any way whatsoever from the withdrawal of billions of pounds worth of Russian capital? … it doesn’t but the ” pipl in the street” have not a blind clue, so Boris just tells them what they think that they want to hear? As Tocqville said ” Do not confuse democracy with the will of the masses”… and perhaps the rider to this is that the masses no longer have any will, merely what the internet tells them
Given the manifest patheticness of the Russian military machine, does Israel have much to fear?