What’s behind Russia’s ‘soft power’ moves on Israel-Palestine? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In their first face-to-face meeting since 2021, the pair are expected to discuss Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Kremlin has maintained relations with both Israel and Palestine, but experts say its actual sway over the conflict is limited and the meeting has more of a symbolic nature.

“When you’re looking at Russia’s engagement with the Palestine question, it’s about more than just Palestine,” Samuel Ramani, author of Russia in Africa, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s about really cementing themselves within the Arab world, by showing that they have solidarity with Palestinian cause while the Americans are supporting Israel. So that these meetings are not just about Palestine, they’re also about Russia’s soft power in the Middle East.”

Unlike the United States and European Union, Russia has not blacklisted Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation, welcoming the group’s delegates to Moscow shortly after their victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections and treating them as a legitimate political force.

In February, Russia hosted a conference with representatives from Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad, aimed at bridging the sometimes bitter divides between them.

“But nothing ever came of it,” noted Ruslan Suleymanov, an independent Russian expert on the Middle East now based in Baku.

“That’s generally all that Moscow is capable of; it doesn’t have any serious influence over Palestinian factions. Besides its support for Palestine, Moscow also has to criticise Western countries for their support of Israel. Russia today takes an anti-Western, and consequently anti-Israeli position. For example, when the UN Security Council convenes to discuss British-US proposals [on Gaza], Russia has always used its power of veto, which Palestinians appreciate. But this doesn’t convert to any kind of capital.”

Russia’s own motions for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UNSC in October were voted down by the US, UK, France and Japan.

Russia’s emergency ministry has also reportedly dispatched hundreds of tonnes worth of aid, mainly food and hygiene products, to the besieged Palestinian enclave, to be distributed through the Egyptian Red Crescent Society.

“It’s simply important for the Kremlin to show yet again that it’s playing some role, but I don’t think it will amount to anything,” added Suleymanov.

“Abbas will soon be 90 years old. It’s obvious a transition of power in Palestine is imminent. I think the Kremlin understands this as well, and if they aren’t already they will be closely watching who will take Abbas’s place. Maybe this will also be under discussion.”

Russia and Israel

Meanwhile, Israel’s history with Russia is deeply intertwined.

Escaping pogroms and persecution, Jews from the Russian Empire formed the first wave of mass migration from Europe to Palestine.

After World War II, the USSR originally supported the 1947 partition plan, ostensibly on the grounds that Western nations had failed to protect their own Jewish populations, and was the first to recognise the Jewish state.

The fledgling Israeli army even received weapons from communist Czechoslovakia, then subordinate to the Kremlin. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin may have thought Israel a useful wedge against British interests in the Middle East.

But the USSR soon disavowed Zionism, instead arming and equipping neighbouring Arab nations as well as Palestinian liberation movements.

As a student in the 1970s, Abbas earned his doctorate at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University, writing a controversial thesis on what he argued were shared interests between the early Zionists and the Nazis.

Israeli researchers have even claimed, based on Soviet documents, that Abbas was a KGB agent – a suggestion Abbas has rubbished, accusing the researchers of attempting to derail peace talks.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Kremlin cut off diplomatic ties with Israel entirely until the end of the Cold War, only re-establishing contact as communism collapsed in the early 1990s.

Modern Russia has tried to balance its relationship with Israel with support for Palestine.

Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have publicly enjoyed a friendly rapport, even being spotted watching ballet together. Complicating the relationship is Russia’s involvement in Syria where it collaborates with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel.

“There are things each want from the other,” said Mark N Katz, professor emeritus at George Mason University, adding that at the same time, Israeli officials “fear” that should relations deteriorate, Moscow could harm the Jewish community in Russia.

“Moscow doesn’t want to see Israel doing anything to arm Ukraine, and they have been appreciative that the Israelis have been restrained in this regard. Israelis, for their part, cite the deconfliction agreement between Russian and Israeli forces with regard to Syria, whereby the Israelis pound the Iranians and Hezbollah, but don’t harm the Russians,” said Katz.

According to Ramani, “the Israelis are increasingly acting in a unilateral fashion in Syria, sometimes merely just informing the Russians, instead of consulting with them and engaging with them”.

So far, Israel has refused to sanction Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. But relations have noticeably cooled.

“Remember the openly anti-Semitic comments by Putin about Zelenskyy’s Jewish roots, or [foreign minister Sergey] Lavrov’s comments on Jews’ responsibility for the Holocaust … all this happened long before October 7,” said Suleymanov.

“But after October 7, relations became even more strained. In Israel it’s now completely unacceptable when Russia accepts Hamas. If before October 7, this was understandable because it was assumed Moscow would act as an intermediary, now this is seen completely differently. And when Putin compared the bombardment of Gaza to the siege of Leningrad, this was also taken very poorly in Israel.”

Israel is home to a substantial Russian-born diaspora, and the Kremlin has used its channels with Hamas to facilitate the release of a few Russian-Israelis taken captive on October 7.

“Because Russian-Israeli relations have been so strained over their criticisms of the war and [their relations with] Iran, the Russians now have smaller-scale diplomatic goals, like for example, they were engaging with Hamas to get Russian hostages out from their territory,” explained Ramani.

The Iran factor

In July, Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, for which Iran, Russia’s close ally, has promised retaliation.

Russia’s foreign ministry strongly condemned the killing, casting it as a counterproductive move for ceasefire negotiations and urging all sides to show restraint.

“I think if there’s an Israeli-Iranian conflict, what are the prospects for the US entering such a war, and what can Russia actually do?” said Katz.

“Russian forces [in Ukraine] are fairly stretched: one week it seems they’re on the advance, now of course it seems like they’re on the back foot. Will Russia have the capacity of acting in a way that determines the conflict?”