BESA Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Digest No. 2 (November 2023)
In November 2023, the BESA Post-Soviet Conflict Research Program published a series of texts, half of which focus on the recent surge of anti-Semitism in the region of interest, and the rest on the recent dynamics of military supplies in the South Caucasus, Russian-Georgian relations, and the electoral behavior of Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking minority.
The paper prepared by Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman and Vladimir (Zeev) Khanin is a prompt response to the violent events in the Russian North Caucasus, which have been described as the first anti-Semitic pogroms in post-Soviet Russian history. The authors point to four main explanations for the events that took place in late October 2023, primarily the violent seizure of an airport in Dagestan and anti-Jewish protests in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia. These include anti-Israeli propaganda in the Russian media, an emphasis on the Jewish origins of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the myth of a “New Khazaria” (the “theory” that the war in Ukraine is the result of a “Jewish conspiracy” to settle Jews on the Ukrainian steppes), and the channeling of popular discontent with socio-economic hardships. Kazantsev-Vaisman and Khanin also outline five of the most common versions of what actors may have been behind the pogroms, which are circulating in expert and semi-expert circles. These include the usual official Russian version of “Ukrainian involvement,” sabotage by groups within the Russian security services, initiatives by local elite groups in the North Caucasus, radical Sunni Islamists, or Iran. The authors summarize the actions of the Russian authorities as “attempts to somehow satisfy the demands of anti-Semitic rioters,” suppressing pogroms, trying to blame Ukraine and “the West,” increasing control over online media, and initiating statements by local religious leaders. Kazantsev-Vaisman and Khanin conclude that these measures “have reduced the immediate threat, but the underlying causes of the rise in anti-Semitism in the North Caucasus persist,” and the ultimate responsibility lies with the Russian authorities.
Nati Cantorovich in his paper succinctly reveals the underlying motives behind anti-Semitic propaganda in Russia, Belarus and Armenia — expressed both from the state propaganda and from grassroots activists. These motives in Russian propaganda after October 2023 include the following ideas: “Russia’s traitors who fled to Israel from the war in Ukraine will now also betray Israel that gave them refuge,” “dual loyalty of Jews” (this motive is combined with calls to expel even “Z-loyal” Jews from Russian media space), the aforementioned myth of a “New Khazaria,” the comparison of Israel’s actions against Hamas terrorists to Nazism, and calls for the abolition of Holocaust remembrance. The author emphasizes the generational continuity between the current de facto official anti-Semitism, spearheaded by Israel’s response to the October Hamas attacks, and Soviet anti-Semitism of the old school, often disguised as “anti-Zionism.” This continuity is visible not only in the verbal and textual rhetoric, but also in the visual images, which are often taken from Soviet media and reproduced with minimal corrections. Cantorovich concludes that, following the trend of the last decade, Russia “continues to use anti-Semitism to achieve political goals in both the Middle East and Ukraine, often mixing characteristics of anti-Semitic motifs.”
The “anti-Semitic” block of papers is rounded off by another piece by Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman, this time focusing on anti-Semitism manifestations in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The author provides background and explanations for major antisemitic incidents that occurred in October-November 2023 in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Contrary to the overwhelming alarmism in the world media, Kazantsev-Vaisman argues that despite the “short-term situational circumstances,” “there is no significant interest within Armenian leadership, nor among the majority of Armenia’s population, in fueling antisemitic sentiments.” With the Armenian situation being relatively isolated and linked to a number of “coinciding events,” in Azerbaijan and the Central Asian states, the antisemitic manifestations were significantly “smaller in scale compared to those in Russia” and “were caused by anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish propaganda from various external sources.”
The IDF’s operation “Swords of Iron”, which uncovered the dubious origin of the weapons possessed by Hamas in Gaza, spotlighted some contradictory military developments in post-Soviet military policies. The paper by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin problematizes France’s planned military supplies to Armenia in the aftermath of the September escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. The author stresses that despite the proclaimed “re-orientation” towards the West in Armenian foreign policy, “Armenia has not yet withdrawn from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) […] nor from the Moscow-run Eurasian Economic Union.” In this situation, the joint presence of the French missile systems and instructors in Armenia with Russian military bases does not look hassle-free, especially taking into account Israeli concerns caused by the strong military ties between Armenia, Russia, and Iran.
Two other papers published in November seem more detached from the Israeli and Jewish contexts. The paper by Petr Oskolkov analyzes the demographic and sociopolitical state of the Russian-speaking minority in Kazakhstan, focusing on its political orientations and protest potential. The author points to the political passivity that is now prevalent among the Kazakhstani Russians, especially compared to the 1990s, and concludes that this situation might be the calm before the storm: “Being unable to manifest itself in political decisions, ethnicity might take its share of social influence in other ways and fields, and compact territorial concentration of a non-assimilated and weakly integrated ethnic group might impel the reinvigoration of separatist […] aspirations.” The “situation of geopolitical turmoil and Kazakhstan’s attempts to strike a difficult balance between the Russian, Chinese, Turkish, and Euro-American influences” only exacerbate this risk, and the entire picture is easily extrapolated to political sentiment among Israeli citizens of Arab ethnic origin.
Finally, Gela Vasadze provides our readers with a compact overview of the relations between Russia and Georgia in recent decades. The author indicates the main tools Moscow has at its disposal to “keep Georgia in the ecosystem of Russia’s survival under sanctions”, namely: “cheap supplies of raw materials,” “activation of agents of influence in government” and other relevant structures, “work with ethnic minorities of Georgia in the directions of anti-Western propaganda,” “opening of a railroad through Abkhazia and use of the port of Anaklia […] as a replacement for the sub-sanctioned Novorossiysk,” the “use of the factor of migration of Russian citizens,” and, finally, “threats of destabilization.” Vasadze specifically emphasizes such important factors in the evolution of Georgian foreign policy as the (real and potential) financial involvement of China and the loyal attitude of Georgian public opinion towards Russian citizens and businesses, even despite the negative attitude towards “Russia as a state.”
In the coming months, the PSCR program intends to further monitor the conflict and political dynamics in the post-Soviet space and keep our audience informed of the recent developments.