Israel criticizes Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov

Tel Aviv Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Israel has refrained from criticizing Russia and its President Vladimir Putin out of self-interest. Because Russia controls the airspace over Syria and allows the Israeli Air Force to take unhindered action against Iranian activities in the northern neighboring country. In order to prevent its archenemy from being present there, Israel needs Putin’s consent.

But now the reserve is over. Not out of horror at the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine, but because of a historical comparison that infuriated Israel’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In an interview with the Italian television channel Rete 4, the 72-year-old Muscovite chief diplomat initially repeated that Nazis were in charge in Ukraine and that Putin therefore wanted to overthrow the “brown” regime in Kyiv.

As if Lavrov had known that this mantra would be met with opposition, he continued: Many would claim that there could be no “Nazification” in a country where the president is Jewish, Lavrov said. But Adolf Hitler also “had Jewish blood,” Lavrov claimed, adding: “That doesn’t mean anything at all. The wise Jewish people say that the most fervent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his Foreign Minister Jair Lapid have sharply countered this accusation. He considers Lavrov’s statements to be “serious” and “untrue”, Bennett rejected the comparison. Lies like these would serve to blame the Jews themselves for the most horrific crimes in history committed against them, and thus absolve the Jews’ oppressors of their responsibility.

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Lapid speaks of a terrible mistake

Foreign Minister Lapid was even clearer. Lavrov’s sentence was “unforgivable, scandalous,” he said, and spoke of a “terrible historical mistake.” To claim that Hitler was of Jewish descent is “like saying that the Jews killed themselves”. That made him angry, not only as foreign minister, but also as the son of a father who was put in the Budapest ghetto – “not by Jews, but by the Nazis”.

Lapid announced that he would summon the Russian ambassador to a “tough talk” and insist on an apology. The spokesman for the federal government, Steffen Hebestreit, also called Lavrov’s statement “absurd”. He believes that Foreign Minister Lavrov’s Russian propaganda “needs no further comment,” he said in Berlin.

Sergey Lavrov

Russia’s foreign minister angered Israel with his accusations.

(Photo: IMAGO/SNA)

For the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba, Lavro’s analogy is a through ball. In an interview with an Israeli channel, he railed against Moscow, which has claimed that Ukrainians are responsible for crimes committed by their own armed forces: This is “the perverse logic” of the Russian elite. Even Lavrov, who knows what diplomacy is, can no longer hide the deep-seated anti-Semitism “that is deeply rooted in the Russian elites”.

Observers in Jerusalem say that Lavrov’s interview may have contributed to the deterioration in relations between Russia and Israel. Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, Israel has deliberately avoided committing itself too closely to either side. It is one of the few countries that has relatively good relations with both Ukraine and Russia.

In March, Bennett became the first Western politician to meet Putin for three hours in Moscow after the outbreak of war. He then telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and President Emmanuel Macron before flying to Berlin to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

>>> Read here: “Absurd, delusional, dangerous and despicable” – Lavrov caused outrage in Israel with the Nazi comparison

The fact that Israel of all things was accepted as a mediator can be explained on the one hand by the neutrality that Jerusalem has relied on from the start of this conflict. Defense Minister Lapid has not joined the economic sanctions, nor has he condemned Moscow or supplied arms to Ukraine. At the same time, Israel maintains good relations with the United States.

However, Lapid’s rhetoric has shifted following reports of mass killings of civilians by the Russians. In April, he specifically accused Russia of war crimes. Moscow also recently publicly criticized Jerusalem for supplying defensive defense equipment to Kyiv. The proposal by the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine to name streets in Kyiv after those who saved Jews during the Holocaust also met with disapproval in Moscow.

More: Israel’s Foreign Minister: Status quo on Temple Mount remains

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