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Russians’ Negative Views About Israel Are Unprecedented in Modern Times
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
A year has passed since the beginning of the war that Israel, with the support of its allies, primarily the United States, has been waging against the “Axis of Evil” — an anti-Western alliance consisting of Iran, its satellites (Syria, Iraq), and terrorist proxies that have effectively taken control of their respective regions, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
As the conflict escalates, the issue of international support for Israel’s actions has become increasingly pressing.
Of particular concern to Jerusalem, naturally, is the stance of Western countries, especially Israel’s allies, most notably the United States and several key European nations.
As the fighting intensifies, the diplomatic rhetoric of these governments has increasingly emphasized the “humanitarian dimension” of the conflict, largely driven by the growing trends in local public opinion, which are not always favorable to the Jewish State. However, a closer look reveals that the sympathies of some segments of the public in democratic countries towards the Palestinian Arabs do not, in most cases, translate into support for the radical Islamist terrorist groups in the Middle East. The primary diplomatic message from Washington and the majority of its NATO partners remains steadfast support for Israel’s right to self-defense.
Another perspective is that of the so-called “Global South,” a diverse and loosely organized conglomerate of developing and moderately developed countries from the Third World and, to some extent, the former Second World. The majority of these nations tend to hold either moderately pro-Palestinian views regarding the current Middle Eastern conflict or, more commonly, remain neutral. However, this does not prevent both groups from almost automatically voting in favor of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, in line with the traditions of the still residual “Non-Aligned Movement.” The approach of regimes vying for leadership of the “Global South” looks fundamentally different. Competing for this status, they attempt, to varying degrees, to challenge the global economic and political dominance of the so-called “Global West,” typically associated with the US-led bloc of “old” and “old-new” democracies of both the New and Old Worlds.
The discussion is generally about Russia, China, and, to a lesser extent, India. While Delhi, whose relations with Jerusalem have reached a state of strategic partnership in recent years, maintains a largely neutral position in the conflict between Israel and Iran, as well as its Arab proxies, Moscow and Beijing have taken sides — and it’s clearly not Israel’s side.
China’s support for Iran remains largely moral, and Tehran has little chance of dragging Beijing into a direct confrontation with Israel. However, Russia’s support for its current closest partner in the region — Iran — is significantly more tangible, despite some differences between them. This includes direct solidarity from Moscow with Tehran’s Arab satellites, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
All of this significantly distinguishes the current situation from Moscow’s previous strategy of balancing and mediating between nearly all parties involved in the Middle East conflict, which was intended to position itself as an “impartial mediator.”
Factors of Views of Israel in the Russians Public Discourse
Over the course of 12 months of Israel’s war with Iranian proxies, the Russian leadership’s propaganda and diplomatic efforts in support of these regimes and groups, often loosely and not always convincingly framed as “solidarity with the Palestinians,” have become quite significant. On the flip side of this trend, there has been a series of anti-Israel moves, featuring elements bordering on antisemitism.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction of Russian society, which is highly susceptible to official propaganda — particularly pro-Kremlin television (which, according to polls, remains the main source of information for Russians) — and “patriotic” Telegram channels, has also shifted.
Public sentiment among Russians, who were generally quite favorable toward Israel in the past, changed almost instantly. This is notable given that, according to public opinion monitoring conducted by the reputable Levada Center since 1988, Israel has historically been viewed positively in Russia. The country’s economically established, younger, and better-educated citizens, as well as residents of Moscow, have been the most likely to show interest in and sympathy toward Israel.
Twenty years ago, in 2004, over two-thirds of respondents in a Levada Center poll reported very positive or somewhat positive attitudes toward Israel, while fewer than one-fifth of those surveyed held the opposite view. One possible factor contributing to such favorable sentiments was the emerging public partnership between Jerusalem and Moscow in the fight against terrorist groups. This included Russia’s willingness — expressed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a visit to Israel — to learn from Israel’s experience following the Beslan school tragedy in North Ossetia, where an attack by armed Islamists killed over 350 people, half of them children.
However, by 2006, the proportion of those with positive views of Israel had dropped by about half, while the share of those holding negative opinions increased from less than 20% to over 30%.
A March 2006 poll appears to have captured a surge in public frustration, likely driven by the sharp and widely discussed response from official Jerusalem to Moscow’s refusal to classify Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations. This frustration was compounded by the high-level reception of a Hamas delegation in the same month (and again a year later), led by Khaled Mashal, the head of the group’s political bureau and one of Israel’s most bitter enemies. Additionally, the Hamas delegation’s meeting with Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was seen by many as not just political but also religious legitimization of the radical Islamist group.
These negative sentiments among the Russian public regarding Israel were, at the very least, not softened during the 34-day Second Lebanon War in July–August 2006, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation against Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Shia terrorist group controlling southern and eastern Lebanon.
The rise in Russian-Israeli relations began in the second half of the 2000s, as Russia reestablished itself as a significant player in the Middle East. Moscow recognized that, unlike the Soviet Union, modern Russia could not rely solely on its ties to the Arab world and sought greater understanding with Israel as well. This approach was positively received by Israel’s leadership at the time. The shift toward a close partnership with Russia was considered one of the foreign policy priorities of Benjamin Netanyahu’s second government (2009–2013). Netanyahu viewed his personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a valuable political asset.
Most of the second decade of the 21st century indeed saw a significant revitalization of Russian-Israeli relations, including rapid growth in mutual trade, as well as increased cooperation in economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and humanitarian sectors — although the scale of this cooperation lagged behind the real potential of both countries. Political dialogue at the highest levels was also very active. While these political and diplomatic contacts were “more symbolic than practical,” as noted by prominent Russian political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov, this symbolism reflected an unusual situation where “Russia’s relations with Israel were better than with almost the entire Arab world. Apart from the Iran issue, there were few significant points of differences between Moscow and Tel Aviv [sic]. Meanwhile, Russia’s cooling relations with most Arab regimes were tied to its support for Syria.”
This positive portrayal of Russian-Israeli relations in both federal and regional Russian media was paralleled by a gradual improvement in Russian public opinion toward Israel. By 2010, according to Levada Center data, favorable attitudes toward Israel had peaked at 70%. However, over the next decade, this support steadily declined. A notable exception was a sharp drop in 2014, likely in response to the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) anti-terror operation in Gaza, Protective Edge. Nonetheless, this dip was short-lived, and thanks to the relatively balanced position taken by Russian authorities during the conflict, public sympathies for Israel rebounded to around 60%. This level of support remained fairly stable over the following four years.
The 2015–2017 agreements on the “deconfliction” of Russian and Israeli interests in Syria, as well as numerous meetings — around two dozen – between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, likely played a key role in the development of their relations. Netanyahu, who valued his warm personal relationship with Putin as a crucial factor in bilateral cooperation and a significant resource for both his foreign and domestic policies, met with Putin roughly twice as often as he met with US presidents during the same period. However, even at that time, it was clear that this was more of a tactical partnership, based on overlapping interests and mutually agreed-upon “rules of the game.” As a result, there were lingering concerns that if the political landscape changed, so would the interests.
The first signal that these fears were well-founded came with the incident in the skies over Syria on September 23, 2018. During this incident, one of the dozens of missiles fired by Syrian air defense batteries equipped with Russian S-200 systems shot down a Russian IL-20 electronic intelligence aircraft. The Russian side quickly blamed the Israeli Air Force, which had been conducting an operation to destroy Iranian equipment intended for the production of precision missiles in Syria. According to Israeli and foreign media, by the time the Syrian forces began their “indiscriminate firing,” the Israeli F-16s had already completed their mission and were back in Israeli airspace.
Despite this, the Russian Ministry of Defense — and to a lesser extent, the Kremlin—blamed Israel without substantiation. However, both Jerusalem and Moscow soon moved to de-escalate the diplomatic conflict, clearly showing a desire to maintain their coordination mechanism in Syria. It was harder to ignore the “patriotic” campaigns in many Russian media outlets, including federal TV channels, where numerous public figures competed in making harsh anti-Israel statements, some of which bordered on or crossed into antisemitism. Although this media campaign was quickly wound down—likely due to guidance from relevant authorities—it became evident that the reintroduction of Soviet-era anti-Israel and antisemitic clichés into Russia’s legitimate public discourse was a real possibility, should such narratives be required by the government.
The impact of this political atmosphere on the Russian public was quickly evident. The once-positive attitude of Russians toward Israel began to sharply decline, while negative sentiment toward the Jewish State increased in parallel. For example, compared to 2018, when 60% of surveyed Russians still had a “very positive” or “mostly positive” view of Israel, and less than one-fifth held an opposing view, by 2020 Israel’s positive rating had dropped by 10%, while negative perceptions rose by 50%.
This trend accelerated dramatically after the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, and even more so with the onset of Israel’s war with the Iranian bloc in October 2023. Although Israel, unlike NATO member states that provided Ukraine with security guarantees, did not directly align itself with the Western coalition opposing Russia, official Jerusalem condemned the Russian invasion, offered significant humanitarian and material aid to Ukraine, provided diplomatic and political support, and supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with some types of defensive and non-lethal equipment. Despite attempts to maintain a sense of “business as usual,” this approach caused notable irritation within the Russian leadership. Consequently, public support for Israel among Russians dropped to 35%, a historic low, nearly matching the share of those holding a negative view of Israel for the first time in Levada Center’s years of polling.
By September 2024, 51% of Russians expressed a negative attitude toward Israel, marking a 34 percentage point increase from 2018. Meanwhile, positive sentiment toward Israel fell by 32 percentage points, reaching just 27%.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Russian-Israeli relations have experienced both highs and lows, but the current situation, where the number of Russians with a negative view of Israel nearly doubles the number of its supporters, is unprecedented in the post-Soviet era.
It seems reasonable to assume that the opinions and sentiments of Russians, at least regarding the subject of this text, are largely — if not entirely — a reflection of the foreign policy vision of the Russian political establishment, shaped by the tools it controls to influence public consciousness. In other words, we are witnessing a phenomenon that, until recently, appeared to be a relic of the distant past.
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.
The post Russians’ Negative Views About Israel Are Unprecedented in Modern Times first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly

US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis

Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.