- The war in Gaza isn’t only challenging the geopolitics of the Middle East: It is also complicating matters in Ukraine, as Russia seeks to capitalize on growing anti-Israeli sentiment in the Global South.
- Russia was slow to condemn the Oct. 7 attack in Israel and has hosted a succession of Hamas delegations in Moscow.
- As an expert on modern Russia, I see deeper dynamics at work.
‘A century of antisemitism’
- The Gaza war erupted at a crucial moment in the conflict in Ukraine.
- Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the fall of 2022 had stalled, while Republicans in the U.S. Congress blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to send more aid to Ukraine.
- At no point during her lengthy remarks, which ran to 1,500 words, did Zakharova mention that Jews had been among Hitler’s victims.
- The omission led to criticism that Russia is deliberately downplaying if not denying the Jewish Holocaust.
Weaponizing hate
- This is not the first time that the Russian foreign ministry has opened itself to accusations of antisemitism.
- (That Zelensky is Jewish) means absolutely nothing.
- And Lavrov soon returned to the theme of equating the actions of perceived enemies with those of Nazis.
This rising tide of state propaganda spilled over into some actual acts of mob antisemitism. In October 2023, at an airport in Dagestan, a Muslim-majority province in southern Russia, a a crowd hunted for Jewish refugees after a flight landed from Israel. Moscow has been accused of doing little to rein in such manifestations of antisemitism.
Distorting history
- Zakharova’s remarks can be seen as a continuation of the Soviet tradition of Holocaust denial.
- As the Soviet Union drew into closer alliance with the Arab world in the 1960s, the Soviet Union became increasingly hostile to U.S.-backed Israel.
- For example, Moscow was a sponsor of the controversial United Nations Resolution 3379, which denounced Zionism as a form of racism.
- The resolution, seen by critics as fueling antisemitism, passed the U.N. General Assembly in 1975 but was revoked in 1991.
Putin’s flirtation with antisemitism
- During the first years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, he had a very positive attitude toward Israel.
- In 2005, he was the first Russian leader to visit Israel.
- However, after 2021, as Russian officials started making absurd claims about neo-Nazis being in power in Kyiv, the relationship with Israel cooled.
Putin’s ploy may backfire
- Russia’s ploy to link the wars in Gaza and Ukraine may win it a few more friends in the Global South.
- But it risks alienating influential players such as India, which under Narendra Modi has become increasingly pro-Israel.
- The strikes by Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea are of concern to India and others who see their international trade disrupted.
Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
