Last Sunday, Israel entered a state of mania. Within three days, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid succeeded in organizing a regional conference in Sde Boker with the participation of foreign ministers of four Arab countries, and in the presence of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. That same evening, this mood darkened following the murderous campaign of two Umm al-Fahm residents in the Israeli city of Hadera, and on Tuesday it darkened further due to the murder spree of a West Bank resident in Bnei Brak.

This is the Israeli reality that has accompanied us for over twenty years. Yes, we live with “shrapnel in the butt.” The current prime minister came up with this metaphor back in 2013, when he explained that Israelis must get used to the fact that there is no solution to the Palestinian question, and it should be treated as “shrapnel in the butt” that cannot be removed and must be lived with.

The countries that decided to normalize relations with Israel seem to have warmly embraced Bennett’s position and, with the encouragement of former US President Donald Trump, jumped on the peace bandwagon. Not out of love for Mordechai, but from hatred of the Persian Haman. The Palestinians have thus been transformed from a problem that preoccupied the Arab world for decades into an internal Israeli problem, and Bennett’s new Arab partners can only look sadly from the sidelines at their new friend’s entanglement with this unresolved problem.

Each of the countries that came to Sde Boker is carrying its own shrapnel: the Emirates are carrying the war in Yemen, the Moroccans the conflict with the Polisario Front, the Egyptians the conflict with Ethiopia around the al-Nahda dam on the Nile, while Bahrain is facing a Shiite majority fighting for full civil rights. What unites them with Israel is hostility toward the Biden administration which, unlike Trump and Netanyahu, strives to renew the nuclear agreement with Iran, in their eyes abandoning them.

There is no doubt the Sde Boker conference was challenging for Anthony Blinken, who came to the Middle East straight from Poland. He had previously accompanied President Biden on a round of meetings with NATO allies in Brussels, aimed at uniting ranks against Putin. In fact, the whole of Europe is today facing the most fateful confrontation since the end of World War II. Putin, an uninhibited and bloodthirsty dictator, decided to redraw Europe’s borders by invading Ukraine, with the aim of overturning its democratic regime.

From the beginning of his tenure, Biden defined the current historical period as a struggle between autocracy and democracy. It should not be forgotten that the United States itself underwent Donald Trump’s coup attempt after he refused to recognize the election results and tried to overturn them by violence. Blinken may have been sitting around the same table in Sde Boker, scattering smiles, but he understood that he was facing a hostile front, unwilling to mobilize in favor of the American effort.

Most politicians in Israel admire Donald Trump, the engineer of the “Abraham Accords” and the one who abolished the nuclear agreement with Iran. In Israel, Biden’s division of the world into democracies and autocracies is seen as naive at best, and despicable at worst. The Chinese and Russian regimes are partners of paramount importance to Israel, and the Arab regimes constitute a guarantee of its security. Democracy is the biggest enemy of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which vigorously suppress any democratic movement in the Arab world, as we saw after the outbreak of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Dubai highlights the Gulf states’ commitment to the region’s tyrants. Their regimes are not just allies, but an important component of Israel’s national security.

It is no coincidence that Israel and its Arab partners refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Saudi Arabia, for example, is openly working to thwart sanctions against Putin by refusing to increase oil production, which would compensate for the price rises suffered by those who boycott Russia. Like Putin, both Saudi Arabia and Israel hope Trump will return to power in 2024. While the world is mobilizing to save democracy in the war against Putin, Israel is busy organizing regional conferences as a front against Iran and the Biden government.

Israel and the Gulf states are attempting to convince the world that Putin is their friend and ally, while Iran is the true existential danger. The fact that Putin invaded a neighboring country without provocation, and is preparing the ground for using weapons of mass destruction there, is not discussed in Israel. The danger of a third world war does not worry the Israeli leadership. It is currently at war with Iran, which aims to produce nukes in the future, whereas Israel, according to foreign publications, holds dozens, if not hundreds, of them. The ruthless dictator Putin is also waving nuclear bombs—5000 of them. Thus, while celebrating regional peace, Israeli leaders ignore the collapse of world peace.

Israel’s complete disregard for the Palestinians living under occupation, as well as for the murderous nature of its allied Arab regimes, explain its neutral stance in the current war on European soil between democracy and tyranny. Israel is becoming disconnected from the democratic world as a result of the apartheid regime it imposes in the West Bank and Gaza. Its moral compass has gone ever more awry, while it explains away its rights violations with security needs and the need to preserve the Jewish character of the state. Thus, every leader, even if he is a dictator and a murderer, becomes a desirable ally, from Donald Trump to Putin, from Mohammed bin Salman to Abd al-Fattah el-Sisi, provided he is willing to ignore crimes against the Palestinians. In contrast, any democratic leader who condemns abuses in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Israel becomes an enemy and an anti-Semite.

Donald Trump has committed criminal acts. He connected with the white supremacy movement, forged close ties with Putin, tried to dismantle NATO and the European Union, and most importantly, tried to dismantle democracy in America itself. All of this left the American people, the sane and liberal majority, in a state of deep trauma. Biden’s fight against Putin is a war for the soul of American democracy and world peace, so for the first time since World War II he has managed to create a very broad front to stop Putin.

It is not Iran that has worked to bring Trump to power and to collapse American democracy, but Putin, Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Salman. It is no wonder that the Biden administration is working resolutely to settle the Iranian nuclear issue through an agreement, directing all resources against those who truly endanger world peace. Israel, with its decades-long occupation and its discriminatory laws against Arab citizens, cannot partner in a camp that fights for the soul of democracy.

The world today is changing diskette. It understands that economic interests cannot come at the expense of fundamental principles like freedom and human rights, because in the end such a process brings an end to democracy. Israel is in the process of disengaging from this new world while still reciting clichés about its “special” situation. It is not a state like all other states, but a Jewish state. This bizarre self-definition entails imposing an apartheid regime and enacting racist laws to preserve its Jewish character. In other words, its Jewish character outweighs its democratic character. This is why, when the future of humanity is being determined – either autocracy or democracy – Israel remains “neutral.”

The post The Desert Autocracy Conference first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

Note: This piece was written days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is more relevant than ever.

When Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was asked about his position on Ukraine, he was quick to explain the complexity of the situation in which Israel finds itself. Not only are there large Jewish communities in Russia and Ukraine, he said, but of all Western countries, Israel alone is bordered by Russia! Yes, no more and no less. Since 2015 Russia has been present on the northeast border of Israel (more exactly, on what Israel considers its border). At the request of Syria’s Bashar Assad, in the midst of his bloody civil war with democratic forces, Russia took over in Syria with the full consent of Israel and the willing blindness of the West. After that Putin became Israel’s strategic ally, together with Donald Trump, and the two allowed Israel to do as it pleased in Syria, Iran and the Occupied Territories.  Hence the hems and haws of Israel concerning Ukraine.

Putin did not simply take over Syria, he committed genocide and other crimes against humanity there. He transformed entire cities into ruins, causing a humanitarian catastrophe that continues to this day. In December 2016, Human Rights Watch published a report entitled War Crimes in the month of the bombing of Aleppo, in which 440 civilians were killed, including 90 children. All of this came after President Obama drew a red line for the Syrian regime against the use of chemical weapons. This line did not prevent Assad from using such weapons against his citizens, and Obama then made do with a proposal by Putin to remove chemical weapons from Syria in coordination with Israel. This paved the way for Putin’s takeover of Syria, including the Latakia Port and the Khmeimim Air Base. From then until today, the understandings between the Israeli government and Putin are clear: Russia will not deprive Israel of freedom of action in the air above Syria, and in return Israel will not interfere with Russia’s actions anywhere else, which today means Ukraine.

As the crisis in Ukraine worsens, Israel is exposed in all its shame. Bibi Netanyahu, we recall, had warm relations with Putin and Trump, both of whom helped in his election campaigns. Putin gave Israel the bodies of its soldiers who had been buried in Syria, while Trump gave Bibi an embassy in Jerusalem and recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights. Putin helped Trump in the 2016 election campaign, and Bibi bluntly intervened in Congress against Obama and the nuclear deal with Iran. This alliance was undoubtedly ideal for Bibi while it lasted. With the rise of Joe Biden, however, the celebration ended, but Israel’s “government of change” refuses to acknowledge the new reality.

According to Israel, the danger to world peace is Iran and not Russia. Israel’s position is that compared to Iran, whose fundamentalist regime seeks regional dominance, Ukraine is an intra-regional problem. Asked about his position on Ukraine, Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he was not at all interested. What interests him, he said, is what is happening in Vienna, where a new nuclear agreement between the West and Iran is afoot. For the U.S. and the West, however, Iran is a regional issue with marginal impact on world peace, whereas Putin, via Ukraine, wants to change the world-order, bringing Europe back to the days before the fall of the USSR. Russia, they point out, is not alone in having territorial claims. So do Serbia, Romania, Turkey, Greece, and Poland (vis-à-vis the Czech Republic). A Russian occupation of Ukraine will take us back to the 19^th century border conflicts.

It is no secret that Putin is using Russia’s army to gain points in the face of his domestic failures. Russia is a backward country that has nothing to offer its people. The USSR disbanded because of the nature of the totalitarian communist regime, whose corruption pervaded all spheres of life. Putin’s Russia renounced socialism and the nationalized economy, but it remained centralized and totalitarian: the oligarchy replaced the communist bureaucracy and took over the country’s resources. It is a failed state not because of the US or NATO, but because of Putin. The oligarchs he nurtured plundered the country’s treasures. They smuggled their wealth to the West, settling in London, Europe and North America with the kind help of Britain, Germany and even the United States. Despite its richness in minerals, Russia’s GDP remains at $10,000 per capita, compared to $60,000 in the United States and $40,000 in Israel. An occupied Ukraine, which is even poorer, will not cure the ills of Russian society, but only aggravate the suffering of Russians and Ukrainians alike.

Putin’s ideology and course of action are very much in line with Israel’s ideology and course of action. Israel also views military power as its chief means of achieving political goals. Its military force imposes the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza, deters Iran and motivates the alliance with the Gulf states. In this respect, the American reluctance to go to war, its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and the diversion of attention to the economic confrontation with China are all perceived in Israel as signs of weakness. The prevailing Israeli perception is that the world is a jungle, military power is the guarantee for the existence of the state, and it must not look too closely at friendly dictatorial regimes and the atrocities they inflict. On the contrary, best give them full backing— and sell them Pegasus spyware.

Israel is now torn between loyalty to Putin, its ideological ally, and America, its strategic ally. Biden is a liberal who opposes Trump and everything he represents. He tries to revive the welfare state, seeks to impose taxes on the internet giants, supports the rights of minorities (especially blacks), conducts a conscious climate policy, opposes totalitarian regimes, boycotts Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman (responsible for the murder of journalist  Jamal Khashoggi), abhors the Chinese regime, opposes the theory of racial superiority, and fights xenophobia. All of these qualities are incompatible with Zionist nationalist ideology, with Israel’s citizenship law and nation-state law, and with the apartheid it practices toward Arabs. Thus, Israel’s strategic ally is an ideological adversary, while tactical allies such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Emirates, Morocco, Egypt and Sudan give Israel the leeway to do what it pleases in the Middle East.

The position of the Da’am Workers Party toward Putin did not have to wait for his aggression against Ukraine. It was already determined by the genocide he committed in Syria. Those who did not stop him in Syria now receive him at the gates of Ukraine. Putin is not only the enemy of America and the democratic West, he is the enemy of all those young people in Syria, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the rest of the world who aspire to live free in the 21st century. The West’s struggle against Putin brings hope back to the hearts of millions of Syrians, Egyptians, and Iraqis who have taken to the streets to overthrow dictatorial regimes under the slogan “Bread, freedom and social justice!” Putin’s defeat will be the victory of all who demand these things. Da’am stands squarely on the side of Ukrainians who refuse to accept a life shorn of human rights like the life imposed by Putin on Russia.

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