“As the people of Ukraine, including the large Jewish community, bleed to death under attack from Russian missiles and Iranian drones, Israeli leaders have […] actively forging relations with the Russian Federation. In reality, the so-called ‘neutrality’ of the Israeli government on the ground is regarded as a clearly pro-Russian position,” the Ukrainian diplomatic mission said in a statement.
These statements come less than a week after Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska visited Israel to meet President Isaac Herzog and address humanitarian issues.
Since the beginning of the Russian occupation of Ukraine in February 2022, Israel has defended Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and provided humanitarian assistance to the country, but has not sent offensive weapons – as repeatedly requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – although he warned Kiev that Russia used Iranian weapons to attack the country.
Israel is trying to avoid friction with Moscow, a strategic ally in the conflict in Syria, where Russia supports President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government and allows Israeli forces to launch attacks against positions held by Iranian militias or allies of Tehran, the main enemy of the Hebrew state in the Middle East.
Netanyahu tried to “justify Israel’s total inaction in providing defensive aid to Ukraine over the past year and a half,” the Ukrainian embassy lamented.
“Initially, the arguments focused on Israel’s special relations with Russia in Syria and the fragile situation of the Jewish population in the Russian Federation,” but lately “entirely fictitious and speculative assumptions have been advanced” related to the alleged “western transfer of arms from the Ukrainian battlefield to the Syrian and Iranian regimes,” he said.
On June 16, Russia announced that it will open in Jerusalem an extension of the current embassy in Tel Aviv, assuring that the land for the new headquarters, located in a central and exclusive area, was acquired by the Russian government in 1885 acquired.
Israel called the announcement a “political achievement” given that Jerusalem is its “eternal and indivisible” capital.
The UN does not recognize this interpretation because in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians expect East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.
The Ukrainian embassy in Israel criticized the establishment of the Russian diplomatic delegation in Jerusalem, “to which land was even given for free”, condemning what it considers a “flagrant disregard for moral boundaries, demonstrated by numerous senior Israeli officials who participated in a diplomatic reception hosted by the Russian Embassy in Jerusalem”.
The Ukrainian delegation also lamented that Israel “has been silent about Putin’s regular anti-Semitic remarks”.
In the middle of this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “I have many Jewish friends who tell me that Zelensky is not Jewish and that he is a disgrace to the Jewish people.”
“While democratic countries impose sanctions on Russia, as a terrorist country committing war crimes on a daily basis, Israel has not imposed sanctions, in addition to increasing bilateral trade with the bloody Moscow regime over the past two years,” the embassy said. from Kyiv in the statement, calling on Israel to “change its position and support Ukraine by defensive means”.
Source: DN
