Israel Matzav

Israel courts the Russian bear

After meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday, Israeli President Shimon Peres announced that Russia is 'reconsidering' the sale of the S-300 anti-missile system to Iran.

"President Medvedev gave a promise he will reconsider the sales of S-300s because it affects the delicate balance which exists in the Middle East," Peres told reporters via video link from Sochi.

A Kremlin spokesman wouldn't immediately comment on Peres' statement.

But there's more to it than just the Kremlin 'reconsidering' the sale of the S-300 to Iran. Israel is going all out to court the Russians.

Less noticed in the U.S. media was a joint statement issued by Peres and Medvedev that implicitly linked “denial” of the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany with denial of the Holocaust. “We express our deep indignation at attempts to deny the great contribution that the Russian people and other peoples of the Soviet Union brought to the victory over Nazi Germany and also to deny the Holocaust of European Jews,” their statement said.

This apparently minor diplomatic communication follows a move by the European members of the OSCE in early July to proclaim the same remembrance day (August 23) for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism. This proposal, politically freighted for both Russia and Eastern Europeans, was passed overwhelmingly by the OSCE Parliament after Russia walked out on the deliberations. The endorsement from Israel’s president of the Soviet Union’s non-complicity with Nazi Germany is clearly a moral prize of some significance for Russia.

Acknowledging the character of Stalinism is not, of course, the same thing as denying the role of the USSR in defeating Nazi Germany. But it strains no ethical boundaries for Israel to focus on endorsing a commemoration of that role and to offer the diplomatic gesture Russia seeks. More significant is the fact that Shimon Peres was in Russia wielding such bargaining chips in the first place. As with Russian-born Avigdor Lieberman, Peres’s birth in what is now Belarus (then Poland) has been touted as an advantage in negotiating with Russia, which has been a growing priority for Israel. The Jewish state has put its official imprimatur on political comparisons that invoke the Holocaust. Doing so here argues a growing desire in Jerusalem to bargain for hard commitments from Russia and an emerging view of Russia as a key security player in the Middle East.

Given the Obama administration’s intensive cultivation of Arab leaders as its approach to formulating a yet-to-be-unveiled Middle East peace plan, Israel’s initiatives with Russia serve to keep some increasingly significant options open. Peres, Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Ehud Barak will have no illusions about Moscow’s trustworthiness. But necessity for Israel may be opening a strategic window for Russia that the U.S. will wish had remained shut.

I suppose that if you deny American exceptionalism and take a mulicultural view of the world in which all nations and cultures are equal, it should not matter who is friends with whom. But to most Americans - and to America itself - alliances are important, the current President notwithstanding. It will take many years to undo the damage that President Obumbler is doing to America's foreign relations. Would you trust America again after this? No more than I trust the Russians.

Just to complete the circle, it is still possible that China will sell the S-300 to Iran if Russia won't.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:25 AM