PSCRP-BESA Reports No 63 (June 11, 2024)
On June 5, 2024, Russian President Putin, at a meeting with heads of global news agencies on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, described the events in the Gaza Strip as “the total annihilation of the civilian population.” Meanwhile, according to Putin, the ultimate blame for this lies with the United States. On June 7, 2024, for the first time since October 7, Israeli Foreign Minister Katz spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. In the conversation, Lavrov emphasized the need to stop attacks in Gaza and to ensure adequate humanitarian aid for all those in need. Russia formally does not participate in the procedures of International Court of Justice (ICJ) caused by South Africa’s perceived genocide case against Israel connected to the war in Gaza that was brought before ICJ on 29 December 2023. The Russian authorities, on the other hand, use genocide rhetoric about Israel in an instrumental way.
Even before South Africa filed a lawsuit, Putin compared the siege of Gaza to the German siege of his hometown of Leningrad. The latter, according to an official court ruling in Russia, is classified as genocide. On 12 January 2024, the official spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said that Russia understood the motives of South Africa’s appeal to the ICG. Russia’s Special Envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, also supported the position of South Africa. On 21 January, Zakharova criticized Germany for its support of Israel.
This position of the RF authorities, that was widely publicized through Kremlin-affiliated media, made an immediate impact on local public opinion. While a national survey conducted a week after the October 7, 2023 massacres showed that support of Israel and “Palestine” (a broad term grouping together both the Hamas and Abbas administration’s controlled territories) was almost equal (9 and 10 percent, respectively), and 73% more did not support either of the side, very soon the situation changed dramatically. A week later, after a number of clearly anti-Israeli steps that had been taken by Russian diplomacy, a poll by the Moscow-based Levada Sociological Center registered that the share of respondents who sympathized Palestinian Arabs (in this case, to Hamas, in particular) was 3.5 fold higher than that of supporters of Israel .
According to most experts and as consistently stated by the Russian leadership itself, the Kremlin under Putin is characterized more by Realpolitik than by idealistic motives in foreign policy. It is doubtful that Russia has direct interests in the Gaza Strip. Therefore, it is more likely that Russia supports Israel’s adversaries because of its own interests in other spheres and areas. These interests may include overcoming diplomatic isolation in the non-Western world, circumventing international sanctions, gaining advantages (such as effective drone production technology) through military cooperation with Iran, diverting Western attention from Ukraine, causing internal division within the West, and appealing to the most conservative and anti-Semitic segments of the population within Russia itself. A direct conflict with Israel is not currently in Russia’s best interest, especially given its deep involvement in the armed conflict with Ukraine. Therefore, the Russian leadership maintains a certain level of dialogue with Jerusalem.
In order to understand the prospects for future Russia-Israel relations it is also important to recall that the position formulated by the Russian leadership regarding accusations against Israel of genocide in Gaza is also closely tied to the use of neo-Soviet rhetoric of soft Holocaust denial in the official discourse. The accusations against Israel in ICG are tightly connected in the perception of Israeli society and state to the issue of Holocaust as Israeli line of defense in ICG indicated.
It is worth recalling that during the Cold War, in the context of Soviet-Israeli confrontation, the suppression of Holocaust memory in the Soviet Union became one of the manifestations of covert state anti-Semitism. The key feature of this soft form of Holocaust denial was not in outright denial of the Nazi extermination of Jews, but in the refusal to acknowledge the specificity of Nazi anti-Semitism and their unique policy towards Jews as a primary victim group[1]. In contemporary Russia, this practice has begun to re-emerge. Official Russian historiography has put forward the thesis of the Nazis’ “genocide of the Soviet people,” suggesting that the extermination of Jews was only a small part of this genocide. On December 20, 2022, the Russian President ordered the development of an appropriate history teaching course. Its materials will be included in core educational programs and textbooks.
On July 19, 2023, Zakharova published an article in the official newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta titled “In Memory of the Holocaust Victims” with a telling subheadline: “Today, the descendants of the victims of the Nazi genocide are becoming advocates for their ancestors’ executioners. And this is already one step to the apocalypse.” On the same day, this article was published on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs[4], so it can be considered as an official statement.
The article contains criticism of Germany and the Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Brodsky. The main theme of the publication is the exposure of “entrenched Western nationalism, tinged with ideas of superiority and exclusivity,” as well as the existing, as claimed by Zakharova, Western policy of “segregation… based on nationality,” “on the principle of blood.” All this boils down to the accusation of the West and Israel of racism (the term itself is not very popular in Russia’s official discourse, therefore, Zakharova uses some synonyms). As an argument in favor of the existence of such a policy in the West (with Israel perceived as a part of it), the Russian Foreign Ministry representative cites payments made by Germany in 2021 as compensation to residents of Leningrad – blockade survivors, who can prove their Jewish origin. It is important to note that these payments were made under the formal binding document – Luxembourg Agreement of 1952 between West Germany and the Jewish Claims Conference, which provided for reparations to Israel and compensation to Holocaust survivors. Initially, Jews who survived the siege of Leningrad did not meet the criteria for one-time payments of 2556 euros. However, in 2021, it was decided to also include the blockade survivors in the category eligible for German pensions.
Zakharova asserts that this constitutes discrimination against non-Jewish blockade survivors and hints at hidden racism. Consequently, the article under consideration interprets the Holocaust as a form of “privilege” for Jews in comparison to other victims of World War II. Zakharova bases his interpretation on accusations against the Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine and the German government for “distorting historical memory.” Ultimately, according to Zakharova, the majority of the victims of the genocide initiated by Germany are Slavs, not Jews. As a result, Jewish victims are “hidden” among non-Jewish victims, with a hint that there were numerically more non-Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide. Overall, this closely resembles mentioned earlier interpretation of the genocide and Holocaust in Soviet historiography, which sought not to emphasize its specific anti-Semitic character.
Let’s summarize the new Kremlin’s approach to genocide and Holocaust issues. On the one hand, Russian authorities, in their rhetoric, actively support accusations against Israel of genocide in the context of the war in Gaza. This trend started long before South Africa filed the lawsuit. This corresponds to Moscow foreign policy and other interests. Primarily, Israel in this case plays the role of the “enemy image”, which helps Russia to consolidate the “global South” against the West (and Israel) and solve a number of instrumental tasks related to military actions in Ukraine. On the other hand, the Russian leadership is returning to the old Soviet rhetoric of “soft denial” of the Holocaust basically with the same purpose. Therefore, the new concept of the “genocide of the Soviet people” is introduced. Within its framework, the suffering of Jews during World war II is “dissolved” in the general context of losses of citizens of the USSR.
One can interpret this situation from the following perspective: Russian authorities tend to view the Holocaust as a symbolic resource “privatized” by Jews and Israel. They would like to use this resource for their own benefit. In many cases official Russian ideology portrays the armed conflict in Ukraine as a repetition of World War II, sometimes even the terms like “the aggression of the imperialist, Racist, and “Nazi” West against Russia” are used. This resembles, according to official ideology, the dominant Russian interpretation of World war II, when Russia and the Russian people were the most significant victim of the imperialist, Racist, and genocidal policy of Nazi Germany. Now, as the Russian leadership declares, this situation is repeating itself, and Russia and Slavs, supposedly, have become the “victims” of “Western imperialist policy” in Ukraine. Accusations against Israel of genocide in Gaza are intended to help popularize this position among countries of the global South. So, Russia’s current discourse on genocide and the Holocaust is connected to the same situational interest connected to the Ukrainian issue.
On January 18, 2023, Lavrov, speaking at a press conference, likened the international isolation of Russia resulting from the war in Ukraine to the killing of Jews in Europe during the Holocaust. “Just as Hitler wanted to finally solve the ‘Jewish question,’ now, if you listen to Western politicians, they unequivocally say that Russia must suffer a strategic defeat.” One can say that there’s an explicit exaggeration here. Even if the West desires a strategic defeat for Russia’s leadership, this does not necessarily indicate a desire to destroy the Russian people. However, ideologies often build on such disregard for certain nuances.
Theoretically, Russian authorities continue dialogue with Israel and leave themselves the possibility to change their approach at any time if this corresponds to their interests in the constantly changing situation. This is typical of Putin’s style of Realpolitik in foreign policy. Therefore, paradoxically, being indirectly involved in Israel’s conflict on the side of the Iranian “axis of resistance“[2] , Russia would like, at least rhetorically, to maintain certain elements of its old post-Soviet position as a disengaged player, equally distant from Israel and Palestinian groups. This ambiguity is a main reason that Russia continues some dialogue with Israel. But even considering this specificity of Kremlin’s foreign policy style, the real opportunities for any deals between Moscow and Jerusalem are slim, while Russia continues to actively use the rhetoric of “genocide of Palestinians by Israel” and elements of neo-Soviet soft Holocaust denial doctrine.
[1] Gitelman Z. History, Memory and Politics: The Holocaust in the Soviet Union // Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 1990. 5(1), 23–37. doi:10.1093/hgs/5.1.23