Hamas attack expert: “Kremlin media mocks Russians in Israel”
October 26, 2023, 8:21 pm Listen to the article
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After Hamas’ major attack on Israel, many Russian Jews living in the country wait in vain for help and solidarity from the Kremlin. But President Putin compares Israelis to Nazis, and Hamas terrorists are portrayed as resistance fighters in the Russian media. Historian Alexander Friedman sees calculation behind this. The Eastern Europe expert from the University of Düsseldorf talks about how Palestinian sympathies benefit Moscow and how Russia could further exploit the situation in an interview with ntv.de.
ntv.de: When Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, the West reacted with shock and horror. How were the events received in Russia?
Alexander Friedman: The reports in Russia are clearly critical of Israel. Putin himself has the tone set: After the attack he found no empathetic words. There was no mention of solidarity with Israel. For him, Americans are mainly to blame for all the ills in the world – including the Middle East. They took responsibility for the Middle East and achieved nothing. On the contrary, they actually fueled the conflict.
Alexander Friedman was born in Minsk in 1979. The historian, with a doctorate, teaches contemporary history and Eastern European history at Saarland University and Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
And the Israelis? Why are they criticized?
Just days after the Hamas attack, Putin compared Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip to the World War II blockade of Leningrad – a symbol of Nazi crimes in occupied Soviet territories. So Putin is comparing Israelis to Nazis here; you can’t fall any deeper. And what has been happily explored is the failure of the Israeli army and intelligence services. That they were unable to stop these Hamas crimes.
How is Hamas portrayed?
There is a certain trivialization of Hamas. That is, they are portrayed mainly as liberation fighters. Hamas is not classified as a terrorist organization in Russia and the Kremlin still maintains good relations with it and, of course, with Iran. And since Russia is practically an ally of these parties, it is no surprise that the report is anti-Israel.
But there are also Russian citizens among the Hamas victims and hostages.
There is no interest on the Russian side in the people of Israel. An evacuation of our own citizens was never planned. Nobody in Russia is interested in Russian hostages. Furthermore, the Russian media mocks the Russians who emigrated to Israel after the attack on Ukraine. According to the motto: Were you against the “special operation”? Now we have a real war, namely in Israel. These disturbing narratives are ubiquitous.
A large part of Israel’s population comes from the former Soviet Union. There are some of them who support the Kremlin. How do you react? Are you still after Putin?
At this time, one can observe a trend that people who were originally pro-Kremlin are now gradually starting to reorganize events. The disappointment with the Russian attitude is enormous. For a long time, they adopted Russian narratives about supposedly fascist Ukraine. Surprisingly, they simply ignored Russia’s cooperation with Iran and Hamas. Putin’s anti-Semitic comments against Zelensky were also ignored. However, an idea of Putin’s supposed sympathy for Jews was widespread among this group. And now they see these anti-Israel reports in the Russian media and ask themselves: how can this be? Why does Russia react this way to our tragedy? I myself was in Israel in the first week of the war and I saw these people suddenly start complaining about Putin: “He was our president, we loved him and now he betrayed us.” As a result, the Kremlin lost a lot of sympathy among the people of Israel. But I think Putin largely doesn’t care.
Why?
I think he is already disappointed in Israel because the Israeli leadership has not adopted his anti-Nazi narrative regarding Ukraine. Because, from his point of view, Israel is doing too much for Ukraine. Many opponents of the regime also left Russia for Israel – I think this may have increased their disillusionment and anti-Semitism. In addition, there is Zelensky’s enemy image, which certainly also influenced his relationship with the Jewish people. And last but not least – Israel is an important ally of the USA, that is, the archenemy.
By making enemies in Israel, is Putin also making friends in Arab countries?
I think this is exactly his strategy. He is certainly gaining favor among Palestinians. Hamas specifically praised him and thanked him for his “tireless efforts” to end “Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people.” He is on the Palestinian side to gain sympathy from the Arab world and possibly use the Muslim world to fight the West. So there is a calculation. In any case, Russia is benefiting from this war. Simply because the whole world is now distracted by the war in Ukraine. It is no longer so certain whether the West will continue to resolutely support Ukraine under the current circumstances. Furthermore, Russia will try to exploit the situation further.
In what way?
We have a terrible situation with Gaza refugees whose fate is unclear. Some experts have been talking for some time – and it is at least theoretically conceivable – that Russia could try to organize a transfer of refugees first to Russia or Belarus and then to the EU. And the EU probably wouldn’t let them in. Then we would witness horrific scenes at the EU’s external border. And Russian propaganda could wonderfully spread this throughout the Arab world: See, the Europeans are your enemies.
But Europeans could also welcome them.
But this would increase tensions within the Union. This is only a theoretical scenario so far. There are no logistical preparations and it is difficult to imagine that Egypt would participate in an operation of this type. However, one can certainly expect Putin and his ally Lukashenko to carry out such a perfidious action. The migration crisis that they artificially triggered on the border between Belarus and Poland is just one example of this.
Uladzimir Zhyhachou spoke with Alexander Friedman.