The future of Russian-Israeli Relations

Premise

1. Putin is a ruthless KGB officer. No less ruthless than Stalin and Hitler.

2. Putin firmly holds that the Russian nation, with its values, culture and orthodox religion constitutes the last bastion of Christendom against moral corruption and death.

3. Corruption and moral death in his worldview are embodied by profiteering, cosmopolitanism, individualism, hedonism and sexual immorality.

4. The global centers of this cultural decadence in his mind are Hollywood, Las Vegas and Wall Street.

Corollary

Due to the premises listed above Putin is a latent anti-Semite. So far his antisemitism has been kept in check by the following factors:

1. Jews are an economic, cultural and PR blessing for every land they reside in. Putin, as a history buff, understands this well. He is close to a Chabad rabbi and was close to one of his teachers who was Jewish.

2. Putin knows that the Jewish people and the Russian people both suffered terribly under a common enemy: Nazism.

3. Whatever misgivings Putin may have always felt about Jewish political liberalism, cultural avantgardism and cosmopolitanism, he has felt it wiser to hug Russian Jews in order to be on friendly terms with them and their “international networks”.

Post-Corollary

Putin now feels betrayed by Jews around him and by the Jewish world as a whole:

1. Few Russian Jewish personalities have supported his military campaign against Ukraine.

2. Russian Jews have been disproportionately hostile to the military campaign against Kyiv.

3. Russian Jewish emigration has by far exceeded that of other ethnic communities in the Russian Federation. This threatens Putin with a brain drain and is viewed by him as a personal “Dolchstoß”.

4. Many visible leaders of resistance to Putin’s plans are Jewish: Zelensky, the famous artist Pugacheva who has recently fled to Israel because of her Jewish husband and countless oligarchs and influential bloggers and intellectuals.

Consequences

Putin has started speaking a threatening language towards the Jewish people:

1. He has curbed the activities of the Jewish Agency.

2. He has publicly demanded more “patriotism” and “commitment” from Russian Jews.

3. He has invoked Satan in his speeches. From a Christian metaphysical viewpoint, there is nothing closer to Satan than those whom Christian orthodox tradition blames of having murdered the Lord.

Warning

Putin, if pushed too much into a corner, could be tempted to act against the Jewish state. Why?

1. Since Israel is not a NATO-member state this would not invite an immediate third-party retaliation against Russia.

2. The Arab and Muslim world, together with scores of antisemites all over the globe, would celebrate this assault and view Russia and Putin as redeemers.

3. Zelensky would be caught in the crucible of fighting and/or negotiating as a Ukrainian or as a Jew. Antony Blinken would face this dilemma too.

Solution

1. Israel must preserve its neutrality between Russia and Ukraine at all costs.

2. Israel should on Twitter ask Zelensky to seek a fair peace and remember that he is no Conan the Barbarian or Rambo. The message of this quip will be clear.

3. In exchange for Russian diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran, Israel should quietly allow Azerbaijan to deliver drones to Russia.

The former strategy will have these advantages:

1. Israel will demonstrate to the non-hawkish Biden administration and to the dovish German government that it does not want Zelensky to push Putin into a corner and possibly unleash a nuclear war.

2. Israel will demonstrate to Putin that Jews do not by default support other Jews, as Zelensky assumed when he addressed the Knesset and as so do too many non-Jews.

3. If push comes to shove, Israel can argue to Russian emissaries that Zelensky, with his Gentile wife and baptized children, is a terrible Jewish hero that the Jewish State wishes to cut to size.

4. Azerbaijan will draw down its drone reserves and Israel will assure America and France on the side that it will not replenish these stocks in order for Armenia to be less vulnerable to another Azerbaijani assault.

5. Pressured also by Russia and under intense domestic turmoil, Iran will submit to the conditions demanded by the international community for the neutralization of its nuclear goals.

6. Russia will hold its ground militarily and the resulting stalemate will lead to a negotiated peace agreement that will have no clear winners, but one clear loser: Putin and his clique.

These outcomes are far superior than humiliating Russia and causing a social and political collapse in the Russian Federation akin to that of Germany in 1918 or that of Iraq after its liberation. Nuclear powers cannot be pushed to implode!

Rafael Castro is an independent political analyst based in Germany. He earned an honor degree from Yale and (non-)honors graduate degrees from Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and the Free University in Berlin. Rafael is happy to receive your comments at rafaelcastro78@gmail.com