Chris Doss The Russia Journal ---------------------------- National Post (Canada) April 5, 2002 Russians deeply ambivalent about Israel's fate Putin saying little By Matthew Fisher
MOSCOW - Not even the United States has as many close personal ties with Israel as Russia does.
When terrorist bombs explode in Israel, Russian Jews are invariably among the maimed and the dead. When Israeli soldiers are called out into the West Bank or Gaza Strip, many of them speak to each other in Russian, not Hebrew.
There have been Russian Jews in Israel since 1948, but their numbers exploded in the 1970s and 1980s, and then again after the Iron Curtain collapsed 12 years ago. Many of them used Israel as a stepping stone to the United States, but millions of others, especially those who emigrated to Israel in the past few years, have stayed.
Notwithstanding this huge diaspora, Russia has had curiously little to say about the bloody drama now gripping Israel.
On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, and George W. Bush, the U.S. President, spoke by telephone about the continuing deterioration of Israeli-Palestinian relations. They agreed that multilateral action was required to restore peace.
This bland conversation barely made the news here, let alone anywhere else.
What many Russians know and appreciate is that the carnage and uncertainty in Israel have helped drive up oil prices. This has been a bonanza for Russia, which recently overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer.
Russians are deeply ambivalent about Israel's fate. A partial explanation can be found in their country's long history of anti-Semitism, which became ingrained, even institutionalized, during Soviet times.
Because the United States lined up so strongly behind Israel, the Soviet Union always took the opposite view. Long before Yasser Arafat was welcome at the White House, he was a frequent guest of the Kremlin, which took a keen interest in helping Palestinians make their case to the world.
There are still far more Arabists in Russia than there are people who speak for Israel.
For example, Evgeni Primakov, the former foreign minister and consummate Kremlin insider, is an Arabist par excellence, renowned for his cordial relations with Baghdad.
Palestinian officials continue to enjoy quasi-diplomatic status in Moscow. Like sovereign states such as Canada, the Palestinian Liberation Organization has its own designated number on diplomatic licence plates. Palestinian representatives also live in special diplomatic housing.
For decades, one of Moscow's strongest connections with the Muslim world has been arms sales. Iraq still owes Moscow US$7-billion for guns, tanks and warplanes bought from the Soviet Union. Only last year, Iran bought another US$7-billion worth of arms and military equipment from Russia.
But there are new dynamics at work today. Russia has found in Israel a willing partner, helping it to modernize military gear for export to countries such as India.
Russia builds the airframe and Israel provides the electronics for the A-50 AWACS patrol aircraft. Israel also makes the cockpit for Russia's Ka-52 Black Shark attack helicopter.
Although he did so largely for domestic political reasons, Mr. Putin met Russia's Jewish leaders in the Kremlin last month. Given the country's history of anti-Semitism, this was a courageous step that got Russians' attention, if not their approval.
In another signal that some of Russia's long-held views about Israel are changing, Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Upper House, who is close to Mr. Putin, sparked a furor among the old-fashioned political establishment by refusing to meet Mr. Arafat recently.
His reasoning was blunt: "Russia doesn't speak to Chechen terrorists. Why should it speak with Palestinian terrorists?"
This is of a piece with what Russia has been saying to the United States, Israel and India since Sept. 11. Russia understands their pain because it shares it. Like them, Russia feels it must use extraordinary means to suppress Islamic extremists in the Caucasus.
For all that, Russia's influence in the Middle East must not be overstated. The new reality -- which Russia has to get used to in everything from the Olympics to geopolitics -- is that the country does not count for much any more internationally.
Although millions of Russian Jews live in Israel, Russia manages to keep its old place at the Middle East peace table only by saying little.