Obama Pushed Israel Over to Russia

The president of the Middle Eastern Studies Institute tells VZGLIAD why Jerusalem decided to build a strategic relationship with Moscow and what is Washington’s role in it.

Israel puts together a team to conduct a strategic dialogue with Russia, which in the past Jerusalem has done only with the USA. Political scientists consider these steps to be a systematic withdrawal from a complete collaboration with Washington in favor of cooperation with the Russian Federation. This is in effect a consequence of Obama’s policies in the Middle East and election victories of Russian speakers. The resident of the Middle Eastern Studies Institute, Evgeny Satanovsky, tells the newspaper “Vzgliad” how Israel is valuable to Russia and what the mistakes made the present U.S. administration are.

Recently, the Israeli government confirmed the decision to create a group which will conduct a strategic dialogue with Russia. The appointed head of this group is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russian-speaking repatriate from Moldova and the leader of ultra right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman, the author of the initiative which will bring “new quality” to relations with the Russian Federation.

“The relationship of Israel with Russia is expanding. This completely correlates to our interests in international politics. After the break-up of the USSR, Russia has been taking a more and more important position in the international political arena. Over a million of Israeli citizens to this day keep close connections with Russia,” stated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when explaining the creation of the commission. “At the same time, our relationship with Russia has had some difficult moments, that among other things became the reason for making the decision to create the commission,” added the prime minister as reported by news agency RIA Novosti (these difficult moments are most likely describe the sale of Russian weapons to Syria and contact with Hamas radical Islamists.)

Some of the many topics to be discussed by the group will be the agreement of Middle East regulations, the cooperation in the struggle against terrorism and corruption, the distribution of sources for mass destruction and the mutual account of interests of weapons exporting sensitive to both countries in the region.

Making comments to our Vzgliad correspondent about the creation of the commission, the president of the Middle Eastern Studies Institute, Evegeny Satanovsky, noted that in the past, Israel has shown interest in similar strategic communication only with the United States.

–The creation of this commission, the topic of discussion during Liberman’s visit to Russia, is his practical realization. Ministers come, “shove” and sign agreements which have already been signed but not yet realized. And step-by-step a platform is formed, a platform developed by ministries with other ministries, committees with other committees, commissions with other commissions … Actually it is exactly how the American-Israeli cooperation has already been carried out. First, there is already a big team of bureaucratic departments connected with each other. Second, there is a big group of the business structures connected with each other. Third, there are private individuals connected with each other and that’s how it works. As for the last statement, Washington goes a hundred points ahead because Israel doesn’t have a million people from the USA.

What do you see as the essential reason for creating this commission?

¬ Since the time of Ben-Gurion, the USA was the sole country used as an orientation point by the Israelis, year after year, decade after decade. And only when there is a constant effort, it is when results will turn up. It’s the same in our case. It is pointless to ask why we weren’t able to work with Israel in the 90s, neither on technical military cooperation, nor on space advancements or in high-tech, practically on nothing that could have been realized. Simply put, we didn’t have the infrastructure for that or the mechanism. And now it’s possible. There is already a skeleton and the muscles will grow.

And what do you see as the commission’s immediate task?

– Two things will need to be accomplished: develop a joint work focus and resolve the variety of problems that may exist in a particular direction like political relations, security, military sphere, advanced technology, including nanotechnology among others. I won’t even mention the simple human contact, improving relationships between people. This means a lot; it creates a possibility of cooperation between people of high posts in the Israeli army, police, military, migration movement where Russia is a great component. And I won’t mention the World War II veterans’ pensions or a possibility of traveling without visas-that would be a serious achievement.

Would it be practical to consider the creation of this commission as a signal of Israel’s changing direction from the U.S. to the RF in foreign policy?

– It is not a signal, it is the evidence of that. It has been extensively discussed. Lieberman went into the elections with this and Netanyahu came into to power. And the coalition was formed on the conditions that the strategic partnership between Russia and Israel is declared necessary to the current government and will aim to institutionalize the partnership. The new government came to power and began to take steps in that direction.

How would you generally describe the U.S. role in the mutual relation between Tel Aviv and Moscow?

–We have a very important ally in the Russo-Israeli collaboration: it’s Obama. Everything that he does in advancing towards the Islamic world complicates relations with Israel. Everything that he says regarding the Jewish settlements and the peace process, the necessity to support the Palestinian state, increases the numbers of Israeli elite who support the cooperation with the Russian Federation. Barack Obama does not understand what is happening. It is because he is politically an illiterate person, and in the policies of the Middle East, he doesn’t understand anything. He sincerely thinks that all the U.S. plans that failed in the Middle East, Clinton’s and Bush’s, failed because they were inane, but he is intelligent. He repeats platforms that were written by Middle East experts. And they, Clinton’s team, haven’t become any more intelligent in the past 10 years. Those same people whose work led to September 11th in the USA and the Intifada in Israel. Having disappeared 10 years ago, they are trying to rehabilitate themselves with the new president today. And the only difference is that Hilary Clinton is not Obama’s wife but the secretary of State. And after all, it is very apparent that she is still conducting the same policies from 10-15 years ago.

How will the USA’s demand to stop building Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territory affect its relationship with the Russian Federation and Israel?

– The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken its position on that question in the early 90’s and continues to support it. Russian policies are not much different from those of the USA or other European countries, but the fact is that these settlements are now generally populated by Russian speakers. If you look at the Israeli politicians, from Lieberman to Elkin, heads of the governmental coalition in the parliament, they live on the settlements. Look at the university professorate, which provides communication with the establishment of Israel, they live in the settlements. The key high-tech figures also live there. The settlers are the trump card up our sleeve. Will it be used? We’ll see. Everything depends on the political will of the leadership.

As Vzgliad reported on Friday May 5th, the Israeli government declared that it will continue the policy of building the new Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory even after U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo. The American leader called these Israeli actions inadmissible. Experts notice that the desire of the Washington “to pray for forgiveness for the sins of the former administration,” and to improve relations with the Muslim world forces Jerusalem to search for new allies, like Russia for example.

As a consequence of this search, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman stated that the cooperation with the Russian Federation has reached a new level and should proceed to the next. He also confirmed that Israel is ready to participate together with the Russian Federation in planning for the Moscow conference on the Middle East.

Alexey Timofeev