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Most Russians Don’t Support Israel, Even as It Fights for Its Survival

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 7, 2023. Photo: Sputnik/Sergei Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS
It is hard not to notice that the war Israel is waging, with the support of the United States and other allies in the Western bloc, against Iran’s terrorist alliance and its radical Islamist Arab proxies — Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and others — has its reflection in the ideological, political, and diplomatic discourse of post-Soviet conflicts, primarily the Russian-Ukrainian and Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts.
This also introduces adjustments to the foreign policy stance of those USSR successor states that have various geopolitical interests in the Middle East.
A prime example in this regard is the Russian Federation, whose return as a key player in the second half of the 2000s became an important factor in the new configuration of political forces in the region. In Israel, the early Middle Eastern reflections of Russia’s bid to reclaim its status as a global superpower was met with mixed assessments. Optimists were inclined to believe that Moscow was returning to the Middle East not as a proponent of any particular ideology, but out of purely pragmatic considerations. Therefore, even if global geopolitical interests might, in principle, place Israel and Russia on opposite sides of the barricades, this would not necessarily lead to direct confrontation between the two countries, leaving ample room for cooperation beyond points of disagreement.
On the other hand, pessimists were convinced that Russia would sooner or later revert to the global political models and views of the late Soviet era — including seeing Israel as a potential adversary, given its strategic partnership with the United States.
Consequently, the dynamics of a potential intensification of US-Russian competition in the Middle East would ultimately shift almost any discrepancies between Jerusalem and Moscow from the category of “disagreements between partners” to that of “direct confrontation, leaving little room for compromise,” according to experts and staff from relevant Israeli, American, and Russian think tanks.
Initially, Moscow indeed attempted — with some success at times — to position itself as a party capable of cooperating with virtually all actors in the Middle Eastern conflict and even mediating between them.
However, after October 7, 2023, Russia explicitly supported Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian bloc as a whole. At the same time, the profile of the rapidly developing Russian-Israeli relations of the past decade sharply diminished, although Moscow and Jerusalem attempted to maintain a semblance of “business as usual”.
In other words, recent events appear to conclude the nearly 15 year debate between “Kremlin optimists” and “Kremlin pessimists.” The current situation fits into a normative framework characteristic of a substantial and influential segment of Russia’s foreign policy elites: Russia’s strategic partner in the region is Iran, which supplies critically important weapons for use on the Ukrainian front and secures Russia’s “southern flanks” in terms of geopolitical interests. This logic does not, however, extend to Russia’s view of Israel’s interests, as Israel is a strategic ally of Russia’s adversary — the United States. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that numerous practical steps and statements by Russian leaders have been widely interpreted as expressing solidarity with Iran’s Arab satellites, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Overnight” Shifts in Russian Public Discourse
The Russian public’s response has closely mirrored the foreign policy positions of the Russian political establishment, shaped largely by state-controlled information channels, as outlined in Part 1 of this article.
According to one of the earliest sociological surveys conducted in the USSR — though not fully representative, it provided some insight into the effectiveness of Soviet propaganda and the internal and external policies of Soviet leadership — Israel was among the top five enemies of the USSR, along with the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany, and China.
This survey, conducted by Professor B. Grushin in the late 1960s, highlighted these perceptions. However, after the collapse of the USSR and a shift in foreign policy, attitudes toward Israel appeared to change drastically. Regular sociological measurements by the reputable Yuri Levada Center in Moscow, beginning in the late 1980s, indicated that in the absence of state-driven anti-Israel or anti-Semitic sentiment, Russian public opinion toward Israel was predominantly neutral (“similar to other countries in the region”) or mildly positive.
From the mid-1990s and over the next 25 years, approximately 60% of respondents consistently reported a lack of hostility or animosity toward Israel. About one-fifth of those surveyed expressed positive sentiments or interest in Israel, while an average of only 1 in 10 respondents indicated a negative view of the country. Isolated years marked by “spikes” in anti-Israel or “negatively neutral” attitudes — such as during the 2006 Lebanon War, noted in the first part of our article—were unfortunate exceptions.
Despite this generally neutral or favorable stance, research from this and other sociological agencies found that a considerable legacy of Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda persisted in the public consciousness, particularly among older individuals, residents of rural areas, and those with lower levels of education and income.
Superficially, the longstanding Arab-Israeli conflict seems to have little effect on current levels of anti-Semitism in Russia or public attitudes toward Israel. Only 3% of Russians closely follow Middle Eastern political news or actively seek related information, primarily those who have traveled to Israel or have relatives or close friends there. Another 17% follow the situation “from time to time,” while the majority remain indifferent, uninformed, or simply do not follow developments in the region. Three-quarters of respondents stated they do not support either side in the conflict, while 10% expressed sympathy for both. Among the remaining respondents, support was almost evenly split: 8% sided with Israelis, and 7% with Arabs. This neutrality is gradually increasing, as previous surveys showed support levels at 12% and 10%, respectively.
Nevertheless, anti-Zionism, though less overt than in the Soviet era, remains an “acceptable” expression of latent antisemitism among certain groups. This includes belief in Zionist conspiracies and notions of Jewish plans for global dominance. “Traces of this ideological indoctrination and propaganda, along with a rejection of liberal values and democracy,” note the authors of a 2020 study by the Levada Center, commissioned by the Russian Jewish Congress, “are still evident today in attitudes toward Israel and Jewish emigration.”
The reversion of Russian leadership to Soviet-era narratives on the Arab-Israeli conflict has notably shifted public sentiment. In an October 2024 Levada Center survey, respondents had a favorable view of China (81%), Brazil (55%), Turkey (52%), and Iran (50%), with only 27% expressing positive views of Israel — comparable to views of France (20%), the UN (19%), the EU (16%), the US (16%), and Ukraine (14%).
This is a marked contrast from 2013, when respondents viewed Israel as a friendly state. In September 2018, 52% of Russians surveyed by the Public Opinion Foundation also viewed Israel as friendly, with only 16% holding an opposing view.
Who Is Responsible for the Middle Eastern Conflict?
There is little doubt that the current decline in public sympathy for Israel stems from the official rhetoric and stance of Russian authorities. This trend has had a noticeable impact on Russian public opinion.
A survey conducted by the Levada Center in late October 2023 revealed that while two-thirds (66%) of respondents did not support either side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, those who sympathized with the Palestinian Arabs (in this case, Hamas) outnumbered those sympathetic to Israel by 3.5 times. Support for Israel was more common among members of the “internet party” — younger people aged 25-39 and residents of major cities.
In general, compared to data from 2007–2010, the share of supporters of Palestinian Arabs in the conflict with Israel has doubled (from 9–14% to 21%), while support for the Jewish State has similarly halved, dropping to 6%.
Nevertheless, Russians largely consider the United States and NATO countries to be primarily responsible for ongoing bloodshed and instability in the Middle East — a view shaped by both Soviet-era and current Russian state propaganda. The belief that the US and NATO bear the main responsibility is most prevalent among older respondents (44% of those aged 55 and older), low-income respondents (44%), those who believe the country is on the right track (40%), and those who rely on television for information (44%).
However, compared to the 2023 survey, support for this viewpoint has dropped by nearly a quarter — from 45% to 38% — largely due to a nearly twofold increase (from 12% to 22%) in those blaming Israel entirely. The proportion attributing responsibility to Hamas and Palestinian extremists has remained steady over the past year, with less than 10% of respondents holding this view. Meanwhile, the percentage assigning blame to Iran and its allies, or to Russia, hovered around or below the margin of error.
Some demographic divides are present, though not pronounced, along lines of gender, age, political outlook, and socioeconomic status. Men (27%), respondents aged 55 and older, and those who believe “things in Russia are going in the right direction” (25%) are more likely to hold Israel responsible for the continuation and escalation of the conflict. On the other hand, younger respondents under 24 (13%), more affluent respondents (10% of those able to afford durable goods), and those who believe the country is on the wrong track (13%) are more likely to attribute responsibility to Hamas and Palestinian Arabs.
Interest within Russian society in Israel’s conflict with Arab terrorist groups has noticeably waned over the year since the beginning of the IDF’s “Operation Iron Swords” in Gaza. While over 80% of Russians surveyed by the Levada Center in September 2024 stated that they were aware of Israel’s war with Hamas, only one in five respondents (19%) reported closely following the developments — almost half the figure from October 2023 (32%). Nearly two-thirds (62%) of respondents said they had “heard something but without details,” which is only slightly higher than the previous year (56%). Those who admitted to hearing about the conflict “for the first time during the survey” nearly doubled, reaching 18% in September 2024 compared to 11% in October 2023.
In other words, Russian public engagement with Israel’s fight against Iranian-backed Arab terror — and the Middle Eastern conflict more broadly — remains limited. The “television party,” which represents a significant portion of Russian society, continues to follow official narratives. Should a direct confrontation between Russia and Israel occur in the Middle East, Russian society is likely to accept it with the same “understanding” that many Russians displayed toward the military aggression against Ukraine.
That said, another perspective also exists, such as among the dwindling number of “optimists” in Israel who argue that the differences, or even sharp disagreements, between Israel and Russia on various issues do not reflect a fundamental conflict of interests between the two nations but rather the current global context of Russia’s interests. They believe that if the context shifts or Israel’s role within it changes, so too could the state of Russian-Israeli relations — and, with it, Russian public sentiment.
In any case, if this shift does happen, it likely won’t occur until after the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have concluded — something that does not appear imminent.
Prof. Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin lectures in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and is Academic Chairman of the Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies in Herzliya, Israel. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote

Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.
Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.
Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”
“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”
Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.
UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.
Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.
“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.
“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”
I commend Paraguay and @SantiPenap for the landmark decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens… https://t.co/OzWACbWcno— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 24, 2025
On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”
The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.
“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.
Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.
Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.
“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.
“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.
“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”
During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”
At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.
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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’

Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.
For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.
One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”
The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.
These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference.
Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.
This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students.
Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.
As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.
These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.
McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction.
This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.
We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
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