Like the rest of the world, two relatively stable perceptions can be identified in Israel in the ideological field of the map of contemporary identities, regarding the position to be taken with regard to the war in Ukraine.
On the part of the "new conservatism," we find mostly talk of the need to be smart and unjust.
This translates into sermons for the preservation of the Russian actor as a friend of Israel in the Middle East. That international relations are not the place where it should be empathetic, but pragmatic, and therefore memorize that it is Russia, not Ukraine, that allows us to maneuver in the skies of Syria on the way to shelling out strategic targets.
On the part of the "new left" we read on a variety of sites, in Israel and around the world, that Israel or the European nation-states ("the little devil") who followed in the footsteps of the United States ("the great devil") have no legitimacy to lament Putin's actions, as they are the real occupiers ( Globalization, capitalism, "occupation"). They belong to the Western colonialism of which NATO is its ultimate representative.
They are the ones who pushed Russia - the "noble savage" - into brutal behavior, and it is not possible now to condemn those who are pushed into the corner.
Those new conservatives are surprising in their willingness to bow to Putin, and call not to upset him.
These are the ones who pushed Benjamin Netanyahu to confront Obama in the US Congress on the eve of the signing of the previous nuclear deal with Iran, while Israel was more dependent on it than it is on the Russians (the same democratic administration gave us one of the most generous security aids in US history). The people of the New Left are not surprised by anything: in a similar way, they have framed many aggressors as romantic victims of the West - from the imprisonment of Arafat to the many heads of evil empires.
In my opinion, this is not a concept that should be adopted.
Sometimes it is worthwhile to just look reality in the eye.
In these moments, it is worth recalling Israel's unnecessary twists and turns regarding the issue of Armenian genocide: what did Israel get out of its governments' systematic avoidance of recognizing Armenian genocide for seemingly rational reasons?
Did this strengthen our relations with Turkey?
Ensured that Erdogan's steadfastness stood by us on a variety of issues?
The answer, of course, is no.
In the future, for the sake of maintaining relations with Russia, will the government ban its representatives from attending a memorial service for the victims of the war in Ukraine, if it is produced by the Ukrainian immigrant community in Israel?
Will you not allow a deputy minister to participate in a university panel on the war as part of unnecessary acts of aggression?
Warn the embassy in Kiev not to lay a wreath at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier?
It would be good if the ministers of Israel, and their colleagues in the world, knew that on clear moral issues - Israel is the child in the "new king's clothes."
These are the minority of cases where the just thing is both the smart thing to do, both behaviorally and morally.
It is both liberating and enabling: it frees from the need to weigh every step and walk on eggs, and allows reality to be described as it is.
This war is a criminal Russian aggression.
It is allowed and should be said.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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