Israel Threatens To Arm Ukraine While Russia Threatens To Arm Syria
Israel isn't planning to send early warning systems to Ukraine out of solidarity but is really trying to curry more favor with the US as its war with Hamas reaches the endgame, though Tel Aviv is disguising its true intentions as a signal of displeasure with Moscow's balancing act between Israel and Hamas.
Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN announced late last month that his country is “working to provide Ukraine with early warning systems”, which was followed by a hardline lawmaker promising that “Israel will take a more aggressive stance against Russia.” This came after the new Israeli Ambassador to Russia caused a scandal in early February by misportraying Russia’s regional policy, which readers can learn more about in this analysis here that hyperlinks to nearly two dozen relevant pieces about it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reacted to this development by lamenting “The fact that people in the region, especially Israeli politicians, perceive and follow the path imposed on them by the 'exceptionalists' - the US”, which has “exacerbated and brought closer this catastrophic situation in the region, given it an eerie momentum, provoked it.” Although Israel is still legally considered a “friendly” country by Russia, that could soon change depending on what it does.
So long as it refrains from sending offensive arms, however, then it might not make that list. Even if it does, then Russia might still keep it off of there for now in order to explore whether diplomacy can result in reaching a “new normal” between them before tensions spiral out of control, similar in spirit to why Russia didn’t designate Turkiye despite it sending Ukraine attack drones. Relations with Ankara remained manageable and mutually beneficial for the most part so ties with Tel Aviv might end up the same way.
Nevertheless, this shift in Israel’s approach towards NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine – which is already an undeclared but limited hot war after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz inadvertently revealed that Western troops are secretly on the ground there – isn’t being done out of solidarity with Kiev. Rather, it superficially appears to due to Israel’s displeasure with Russia’s balancing act between it and Hamas but is really an attempt by Tel Aviv to curry favor with Washington as its war with Hamas reaches the endgame.
