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Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Thrive in Russia; Is Putin on a Collision Course with Israel?
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un during a meeting at the Vostochny Сosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. Sputnik/Vladimir Smirnov/Pool via REUTERS
During a speech in 2022 celebrating the annexation of four new Ukrainian territories (in addition to Crimea, which was annexed in 2014), Russian President Putin unexpectedly articulated a new ideology of Russian anti-colonialism, surprising many Western observers.
Putin synthesized a new “conservative” Kremlin ideology with a formally “leftist” Soviet ideology. What could this ideology practically mean for Israel?
Putin stated: “The West is willing to do anything to preserve the neocolonial system that allows it to parasitize, to actually plunder the world through the power of the dollar and technological diktat, to collect real tribute from humanity, to extract the main source of unearned prosperity, the hegemon’s rent.” Putin accused the West of preparing aggression against Russia through Ukraine, in order to maintain its global domination and colonial enslavement. Interestingly, Putin presented his own aggression and annexation of foreign territories as self-defense, ostensibly aimed at dismantling Western imperialism and liberating the Global South.
Naturally, for any unbiased observer, such a peculiar ideology of “anti-colonialism” contains an obvious contradiction: the liberation of nations from imperialism is clearly impossible through attempts to build an empire. However, the experts who underestimated the potential impact of Putin’s new ideology of “anti-colonialism” because of its inherent contradictions were mistaken.
Putin is trying to capitalize on the fact that the war in Ukraine has not been condemned in many non-Western countries. As Peter Rutland wrote: “The war unified the West — but has divided the West from the rest of the world. The majority of the countries in the Global South see the Ukraine war as a problem in that it has caused energy and food prices to rise, but they are not blaming Russia for starting the war, and have declined to join the Western sanctions. This recalls the Cold War — during which most of the developing world adopted a non-aligned stance, preferring to stay out of the contest between the superpowers.” The unexpected appeal of the Russian position for a number of Third World countries is also noted in a report by the Swedish Defence Research Agency.
To support this new doctrine, a powerful media network (including the popular RT TV channel and Sputnik system in many parts of the world, as well as a network of social media accounts) was deployed. In shaping this new doctrine, Russia managed to partially (although not without internal contradictions) overcome its dependence on the conservative and even explicitly racist discourse of Putin’s propaganda, which is widespread in Russia itself.
Putin’s “anti-colonialism” ideology continues to evolve. It looks more like a state-sponsored process than a full-fledged Soviet-type ideology (e.g., as it appeared under Mikhail Suslov, who oversaw Soviet ideology from Stalin to the end of the Brezhnev era). Based on pragmatic considerations, the Russian elite has decided to emphasize the image of Russia as a global “leader of oppressed countries,” just as the USSR did.
According to a leak, the new propaganda aimts to focus on some of the less wealthy European countries (including Southern Europe, parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe), post-Soviet countries, South America, and Asia. However, this propaganda is not limited to these parts of the world.
For Israel, the political implications of promoting such an ideology are quite clear.
The Russian leadership appeals to Soviet anti-Zionist (and implicitly antisemitic) ideology, which in itself would have negative consequences for relations with Israel, even if this process remained purely ideological and did not manifest itself in practical life.
In practice, however, Russia is trying to use the new anti-colonial and anti-Israel ideology to build relations with non-Western countries, countering Western attempts to create a global alliance against Russia’s actions in Ukraine
In this context, it is particularly dangerous for Israel that Russia actively employs anti-colonial (and anti-Zionist) ideology in its diplomatic engagement with Iran.
The surge of leftist anti-Israel sentiment in Western intellectual circles demonstrates that the Kremlin’s appeal to Soviet anti-colonial propaganda is helping to destabilize the modern West to some extent.
Anti-Zionist propaganda in Russia itself (and among far-right groups in the West) appeals to far-right groups whose significance to the Kremlin has increased due to ideological confrontation with the liberal world order.
Let’s examine the points highlighted above.
Appeal to Soviet Anti-Zionist Ideology in the Global South. Putin’s Russia seeks to capitalize on the ideological legacy of the Soviet Union in non-Western countries. The Soviet Union was renowned for its uncompromising anti-colonial struggle against Western colonial empires (although its own policies, for example, in Central Asia or the Caucasus, can be characterized as colonial, and such practices continue to this day).At least since the time of Khrushchev, if not the late Stalin, Soviet anti-colonial struggle has included significant elements of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Soviet policy in the Arab Middle East during certain periods was largely confined to supporting Israel’s opponents, including the governments of Egypt under Gamal Nasser, Syria under Hafez al-Assad, and various Palestinian terrorist groups.The Soviet struggle against Israel and Zionism, however, was much broader. It included active anti-Zionist propaganda spread in Third World countries, drawing direct parallels between Zionism and imperialism (and even Nazism as the most extreme form of imperialism). The regions of most uncompromising Soviet anti-colonial struggle included the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and others. In virtually all of these regions, the Soviet Union actively used anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic propaganda.
Establishing Relations with Non-Western Countries through a New Anti-Colonial and Anti-Israeli Ideology. The Kremlin is using a new anti-colonial and anti-Israeli ideology to build relations with non-Western countries, countering Western attempts to create a global alliance against Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Currently, in the context of the war in Gaza, old leftist forces historically linked to the Soviet Union and actively opposing Israel’s policies have re-emerged in these regions.In Latin America, most of the countries most actively opposed to Israel (primarily Bolivia, but also Chile, Colombia, Honduras, and Belize) have leftist governments that to varying degrees associate themselves with Soviet anti-colonial ideology. However, it should be noted that other factors also influence foreign policy decisions. Some leftist governments in the region have been relatively cautious in their statements. Such additional factors include national interests, diplomatic traditions (e.g., Belize tends to take a position opposite to Guatemala, which has expressed pro-Israel sentiments), or the presence of large Arab diasporas (e.g., Chile, which has a half-million Arab minority).The African National Congress in South Africa, which has a strong anti-Israeli stance, has also historically been linked (through its militant left wing) to the USSR. The Syrian regime in the Middle East, which opposes Israel, is directly linked to Soviet times: the Assad dynasty had ties to the USSR. This list could go on for a long time.
Numerous statements by Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Maria Zakharova (spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) contain elements of anti-Israel discourse and antisemitic global conspiracy theory.
For instance, Putin repeatedly stated that Volodymyr Zelensky, who he said was “installed by Western curators,” was covering for “Ukrainian Nazis” with whom Russia is at war. Lavrov added to this by suggesting that “Hitler was allegedly of Jewish descent.” Zakharova published an article justifying a position that some experts (especially in Ukraine and Israel) consider to be a soft version of the Holocaust denial prevalent in the USSR.
In this regard, there is currently an active discussion (in Russia, Ukraine, and Israel) about whether a Soviet style policy of state antisemitism is being revived in Russia. At that time, propaganda equating Zionism with Western imperialism and even German Nazism was widespread]. This idea was utilized both domestically and in specific Soviet propaganda aimed at Arab countries in the Middle East.
Russia also actively supports anti-Israel forces in the Gaza war, including various Palestinian groups, Iran and Hezbollah.
New Anti-Colonial Ideology in Diplomatic Interactions with Iran. Russia is actively using its new anti-colonial ideology in diplomatic engagement with Iran. Iran’s “axis of resistance” ideology, although adapted to a Shiite framework, is very reminiscent of Soviet anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist propaganda and often incorporates elements of the Soviet system (e.g., Assad’s Syria). I analyzed publications on the website of the Russian embassy in Iran and the Iran-related section of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website. A significant part of the publications from 2022-2024 contains elements of anti-colonial rhetoric. This rhetoric has become a mandatory component of diplomatic documents signed in recent years by Russian and Iranian representatives.
Of course, it cannot be said that anti-colonial ideology and even anti-Israel stance were the main reasons for the rapprochement between Russia and Iran. It was more a coincidence of situational factors. From Moscow’s perspective, the key reason for rapprochement was that Iran, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s international isolation, became an important source of technology (primarily in the production of drones), a political ally in the fight against the West, and an example of long-term economic survival under Western sanctions. Finally, the Iran-Israel conflict was very convenient for Russia to distract the US leadership from the Ukraine problem. Nevertheless, the new anti-colonial rhetoric ideologically reinforces the Russia-Iran rapprochement.
The Explosion of Leftist Anti-Israeli Sentiment in Western Intellectual Circles, Especially in Universities, in the US, and Moscow’s Influence. Putin’s Russia is largely not directly connected to the ultra-leftist circles in the US. Instead, Moscow interacts with right-wing circles in the US that support Trump. The ties of some left-wing parties, such as Germany’s Die Linke, to Russia are more characteristic of Europe.
Nonetheless, Russia has contributed to anti-imperialist and anti-Israeli propaganda in the .S. Notably, Moscow’s ideology is most actively promoted in English-speaking countries through the RT network. RT head Margarita Simonyan largely anticipated Putin’s turn to anti-colonial rhetoric and has sought to recruit journalists with leftist, anti-imperialist, and anti-colonial views in several countries, including the United States.
In addition, RT is connected to a large group of social media accounts actively spreading anti-Israeli propaganda in the context of the war in Gaza. Thus, the Kremlin is also contributing to the West’s division along this line.
Anti-Zionist propaganda in Russia itself, as well as among far-right groups in the West, appeals to ultra-right antisemitic groups. One of the paradoxes of the new doctrine is that it utilizes propaganda aimed at both far-right and far-left circles. The involvement of prominent right-wing ideologue Alexander Dugin in the formation of the new “anti-colonial” discourse indicates a certain continuity in shaping the right-wing propaganda (directed primarily at wealthy European countries and the US) with the new formally left-wing “anti-colonial” propaganda (directed mainly at the Global South).Dugin, in his various works (for example, on the well-known ideologue of the Third Reich, Carl Schmitt), has demonstrated how elements of Nazi ideology can be introduced into a formally leftist discourse (for example, referring to Carl Schmitt’s theory of the partisan, which in the perception of a number of Russian far-right circles acquires distinct imperial and even antisemitic connotations).
Among other far-right figures involved in the anti-colonial discourse, Konstantin Malofeev, a well-known oligarch, stands out. He played a significant role in the annexation of Crimea and in the outbreak of the war in Donbass, and was a source of funding for Igor Strelkov, the former “defense minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic.” Malofeev’s propagandist TV channel Tsargrad was initially modeled on American ultra-conservative propaganda. Now Malofeev finances the Tsargrad Institute, intellectually controlled by Dugin. Thus, there is an attempt to appropriate the anti-colonial discourse by Russian far-right circles. There is also a clear misuse of elements of anti-colonial discourse for Russian propaganda in developed Western countries, especially in Europe.
Dugin and Malofeev are known for their numerous antisemitic and anti-Israeli statements, which they now disguise as anti-colonial ideology. This approach is well-received by far-right antisemitic circles in Europe. Unlike the United States, Europe has very influential far-right groups with anti-Israeli and antisemitic positions. Russia’s traditional ties with some far-right parties in Europe fit well with this abusive strand of anti-colonial discourse, transforming it from left-wing to right-wing. Despite the internal contradictions in Dugin’s theses related to right-wing misuse of left-wing theories, they are fully in line with the Kremlin’s propaganda directives in Europe, where the emphasis of “anti-colonialism” should be on supporting traditional, “normal” values.
In addition, “duginism” becomes a means of reinterpreting the anti-colonial foreign policy discourse for the needs of domestic propaganda in Russia. As part of the transition to the “anti-colonial” discourse, a total mobilization of intellectual forces is planned, which involves purging the country of liberals who have not yet left. This ideology also includes a significant share of anti-Semitism. The ideologues of this process also include Dugin and Malofeev, who have proclaimed ideas of “decolonization” of Russian science.
An analysis of the anti-Israeli elements in Putin’s new ideology of “anti-colonialism” shows that as this ideology takes hold, Russia may find itself in a situation of systematic ideologically motivated confrontation with Israel, similar to what took place during the Soviet era. This ideology is currently evolving under the influence of various situational factors related to an attempt to overcome the international isolation of Putin following the invasion of Ukraine. However, this does not mean that it will quickly disappear. After all, anti-Israeli ideology in the USSR also developed under the influence of various situational factors, but lasted for decades during the Cold War.
The author is an Affiliated Research Fellow at the PSCR Program, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, PhD (Israel). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Down and Out in Paris and London
The Oxford Circus station in London’s Underground metro. Photo: Pixabay
JNS.org – In my previous column, I wrote about the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Paris at the hands of three boys just one year older than her, who showered her with antisemitic abuse as they carried out an act of violation reminiscent of the worst excesses of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel. This week, my peg is another act of violence—one less horrifying and less traumatic, but which similarly suggests that the writing may be on the wall for the Jews in much of Europe.
Last week, a group of young Jewish boys who attend London’s well-regarded Hasmonean School was assaulted by a gang of antisemitic thugs. The attack occurred at Belsize Park tube station on the London Underground, in a neighborhood with a similar demographic and sensibility to New York’s Upper West Side, insofar as it is home to a large, long-established Jewish population with shops, cafes and synagogues serving that community. According to the mother of one of the Jewish boys, an 11-year-old, the gang “ran ahead of my son and kicked one of his friends to the ground. They were trying to push another kid onto the tracks. They got him as far the yellow line.” When the woman’s son bravely tried to intervene to protect his friends, he was chased down and elbowed in the face, dislodging a tooth. “Get out of the city, Jew!” the gang told him.
Since the attack, her son has had trouble sleeping. “My son is very shaken. He couldn’t sleep last night. He said ‘It’s not fair. Why do they do this to us?’” she disclosed. “We love this country,” she added, “and we participate and we contribute, but now we’re being singled out in exactly the same way as Jews were singled out in 1936 in Berlin. And for the first time in my life. I am terrified of using the tube. What’s going on?”
The woman and her family may not be in London long enough to find out. According to The Jewish Chronicle, they are thinking of “fleeing” Britain—not a verb we’d hoped to encounter again in a Jewish context after the mass murder we experienced during the previous century. But here we are.
When I was a schoolboy in London, I had a history teacher who always told us that no two situations are exactly alike. “Comparisons are odious, boys,” he would repeatedly tell the class. That was an insight I took to heart, and I still believe it to be true. There are structural reasons that explain why the 2020s are different from the 1930s in significant ways. For one thing, European societies are more affluent and better equipped to deal with social conflicts and economic strife than they were a century ago. Laws, too, are more explicit in the protections they offer to minorities, and more punishing of hate crimes and hate speech. Perhaps most importantly, there is a Jewish state barely 80 years old which all Jews can make their home if they so desire.
Therein lies the rub, however. Since 1948, Israel has allowed Jews inside and outside the Jewish state to hold their heads high and to feel as though they are a partner in the system of international relations, rather than a vulnerable, subjugated group at the mercy of the states where we lived as an often hated minority. Israel’s existence is the jewel in the crown of Jewish emancipation, sealing what we believed to be our new status, in which we are treated as equals, and where the antisemitism that plagued our grandparents and great-grandparents has become taboo.
If Israel represents the greatest achievement of the Jewish people in at least 100 years, small wonder that it has become the main target of today’s reconstituted antisemites. And if one thing has been clear since the atrocities by Hamas on Oct. 7, it’s that Israel’s existence is not something that Jews—with the exception of that small minority of anti-Zionists who do the bidding of the antisemites and who echo their ignorance and bigotry—are willing to compromise on. What’s changed is that it is increasingly difficult for Jews to remain in the countries where they live and express their Zionist sympathies at the same time. We are being attacked because of these sympathies on social media, at demonstrations and increasingly in the streets by people with no moral compass, who regard our children as legitimate targets. Hence, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that while the 2020s may not be the 1930s, they certainly feel like the 1930s.
And so the age-old question returns: Should Jews, especially those in Europe, where they confront the pincer movement of burgeoning Muslim populations and a resurgent far-left in thrall to the Palestinian cause, stay where they are, or should they up sticks and move to Israel? Should we be thinking, given the surge in antisemitism of the past few months, of giving up on America as well? I used to have a clear view of all this. Aliyah is the noblest of Zionist goals and should be encouraged, but I always resisted the notion that every Jew should live in Israel—firstly, because a strong Israel needs vocal, confident Diaspora communities that can advocate for it in the corridors of power; and secondly, because moving to Israel should ideally be a positive act motivated by love, not a negative act propelled by fear.
My view these days isn’t as clear as it was. I still believe that a strong Israel needs a strong Diaspora, and I think it’s far too early to give up on the United States—a country where Jews have flourished as they never did elsewhere in the Diaspora. Yet the situation in Europe increasingly reminds me of the observation of the Russian Zionist Leo Pinsker in “Autoemancipation,” a doom-laden essay he wrote in 1882, during another dark period of Jewish history: “We should not persuade ourselves that humanity and enlightenment will ever be radical remedies for the malady of our people.” The antisemitism we are dealing with now presents itself as “enlightened,” based on boundless sympathy for an Arab nation allegedly dispossessed by Jewish colonists. When our children are victimized by it, this antisemitism ceases to be a merely intellectual challenge, and becomes a matter of life and death. As Jews and as human beings, we are obliged to choose life—which, in the final analysis, when nuance disappears and terror stalks us, means Israel.
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Hamas Says No Major Changes to Ceasefire Proposal After ‘Vague Wording’ Amendments by US
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
i24 News – A senior official from the terrorist organization Hamas called the changes made by the US to the ceasefire proposal “vague” on Saturday night, speaking to the Arab World Press.
The official said that the US promises to end the war are without a clear Israeli commitment to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and agree to a permanent ceasefire.
US President Joe Biden made “vague wording” changes to the proposal on the table, although it amounted to an insufficient change in stance, he said.
“The slight amendments revolve around the very nature of the Israeli constellation, and offer nothing new to bridge the chasm between what is proposed and what is acceptable to us,” he said.
“We will not deviate from our three national conditions, the most important of which is the end of the war and the complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,” he added.
Another Hamas official said that the amendments were minor and applied to only two clauses.
US President Joe Biden made the amendments to bridge gaps amid an impasse between Israel and Hamas over a hostage deal mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
Hamas’s demands for a permanent ceasefire have been met with Israeli leaders vowing that the war would not end until the 120 hostages still held in Gaza are released and the replacement of Hamas in control of the Palestinian enclave.
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Sacred Spies?
A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – How far away is theory from practice? “In theory,” a new system should work. But it doesn’t always, does it? How many job applicants ticked all the boxes “theoretically,” but when it came to the bottom line they didn’t get the job done?
And how many famous people were better theorists than practitioners?
The great Greek philosopher Aristotle taught not only philosophy but virtue and ethics. The story is told that he was once discovered in a rather compromised moral position by his students. When they asked him how he, the great Aristotle, could engage in such an immoral practice, he had a clever answer: “Now I am not Aristotle.”
A similar tale is told of one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell. He, too, expounded on ethics and morality. And like Aristotle, he was also discovered in a similarly morally embarrassing situation.
When challenged, his rather brilliant answer was: “So what if I teach ethics? People teach mathematics, and they’re not triangles!”
This idea is relevant to this week’s Torah portion, Shelach, which contains the famous story of Moses sending a dozen spies on a reconnaissance mission to the Land of Israel. The mission goes sour. It was meant to be an intelligence-gathering exercise to see the best way of conquering Canaan. But it resulted in 10 of the 12 spies returning with an utterly negative report of a land teeming with giants and frightening warriors who, they claimed, would eat us alive. “We cannot ascend,” was their hopeless conclusion.
The people wept and had second thoughts about the Promised Land, and God said, indeed, you will not enter the land. In fact, for every day of the spies’ disastrous journey, the Israelites would languish a year in the wilderness. Hence, the 40-year delay in entering Israel. The day of their weeping was Tisha B’Av, which became a day of “weeping for generations” when both our Holy Temples were destroyed on that same day and many other calamities befell our people throughout history.
And the question resounds: How was it possible that these spies, all righteous noblemen, handpicked personally by Moses for the job, should so lose the plot? How did they go so wrong, so off-course from the Divine vision?
Naturally, there are many commentaries with a variety of explanations. To me personally, the most satisfying one I’ve found comes from a more mystical source.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in his work Likkutei Torah, explains it thus: The error of the spies was less blatant than it seems. Their rationale was, in fact, a “holy” one. They actually meant well. The Israelites had been beneficiaries of the mighty miracles of God during their sojourn in the wilderness thus far. God had been providing for them supernaturally with manna from heaven every day, water that flowed from the “Well of Miriam,” Clouds of Glory that smoothed the roads and even dry cleaned their clothes. In the wilderness, the people were enjoying a taste of heaven itself. All their material needs were taken care of miraculously. With no material distractions, they were able to live a life of spiritual bliss, of refined existence and could devote themselves fully to Torah, prayer and spiritual experiences.
But the spies knew that as soon as the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the manna would cease to fall and they would have to till the land, plow, plant, knead, bake and make a living by the sweat of their brow. No more bread from heaven, but bread from the earth. Furthermore, they would have to battle the Canaanite nations for the land. What chance would they then have to devote themselves to idyllic, spiritual pursuits?
So, the spies preferred to remain in the wilderness rather than enter the land. Why be compelled to resort to natural and material means of surviving and living a wholly physical way of life when they could enjoy spiritual ecstasy and paradise undisturbed? Why get involved in the “rat race”?
But, of course, as “holy” and spiritual as their motivation may have been, the spies were dead wrong.
The journey in the wilderness was meant to be but a stepping stone to the ultimate purpose of the Exodus from Egypt: entering the Promised Land and making it a Holy Land. God has plenty of angels in heaven who exist in a pure, spiritual state. The whole purpose of creation was to have mortal human beings, with all their faults and frailties, to make the physical world a more spiritual place. To bring heaven down to earth.
While their argument was rooted in piety, for the spies to opt out of the very purpose of creation was to miss the whole point. What are we here for? To sit in the lotus position and meditate, or to get out there and change the world? Yes, the spies were “holy,” but theirs was an escapist holiness.
The Torah is not only a book of wisdom; it is also a book of action. Torah means instruction. It teaches us how to live our lives, meaningfully and productively in the pursuit of God’s intended desire to make our world a better, more Godly place. This we do not only by study and prayer, the “theoretical” part of Torah but by acts of goodness and kindness, by mitzvot performed physically in the reality of the material world. Theory alone leaves us looking like Aristotle with his pants down.
Yes, it is a cliché but a well-worn truth: Torah is a “way of life.”
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