By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — More than a million Jews left Russia and its Soviet empire after the latter collapsed. Most of them settled in Israel and, together with all of us, are now facing the prospect of forces of the aspiring new version of that empire under Vladimir Putin being stationed on Israel’s borders. That’s one of the outcomes of Russia’s decision to intervene (interfere?) directly to save the regime of Assad in Syria, Israel’s neighbour in the North.
Russia’s real motives are, according to experts, to gain a foothold in the Middle East in order to curb American influence there, such as it still is. Russia’s excuse is the failure of the United States and its allies in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere where toppling terrible dictators resulted in even bigger messes. By keeping Assad in power, so the argument goes, the much greater disaster of the “Islamic State” can be averted.
Judging by the vague and ambiguous statements by US Secretary of State John Kerry, and the American belief that diplomacy can achieve more than brute force (hence the Iran deal), Putin may not be wrong, despite his allegedly sinister motives.
Israel under its present political leadership would rather see confrontation or at least brinkmanship, especially in dealing with Iran, but it doesn’t want to end up on the wrong side of Russia. That’s why Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to Moscow the other day to meet with Putin. As evidence of the nature of the visit, Netanyahu’s entourage included Israel’s Chief of Staff. The purpose seems to have been to make sure that Israeli and Russian soldiers don’t start shooting at each other and, even more important, that Assad’s ally and Iran’s proxy Hezbollah doesn’t get Russian missiles.
The future will tell if the meeting was successful. In the meantime both Hezbollah and Iran describe the Russian intervention as a triumph and a possibility to finally get rid of Israel. It’s tempting to regard the statements by Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, and Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, as empty rhetoric but responsible people must resist that temptation and take the threats extremely seriously.
Iran and Hezbollah aren’t interested in peace between Israel and the Palestinians; in fact, they don’t seem to be very concerned with the Palestinians altogether. Their aim is the annihilation of Israel.
Netanyahu thought that this aim could be thwarted by further sanctions against Iran that would prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. For better or worse, his efforts failed and now he has to mend fences with President Obama and the American administration. That’s why his forthcoming trip to New York is so important: not what he’ll say at the United Nations General Assembly but the meeting he’s due to have with Kerry in preparation for his “reunion” with the US president later this Fall.
Israel isn’t just a client in its relationship with the United States. In view of the now active involvement of Russia in Syria, America also needs Israeli military clout and intelligence capability to keep the Russians in check. Between American power and Israeli resolve it may be possible to contain Russia and allow it to help defeat the rebels.
We’re beginning the New Year with the usual mixture of hopes and misgivings. As long as things don’t get much worse, Israelis – including its “Russians” and their descendants – will stay high up on the international happiness index and get on with life’s ups and downs, as they’ve always done, now despite Putin’s men across the fence.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. Now residing in Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com