Netanyahu and Putin have had warm relations for many years and Israel and Russia frequently have discussed Syria over the years.
After
the UAE-Israel deal was announced in August the Russian perspective was largely
ignored in most western media. However, Russia has expressed differing views on
the deal as it matured and came to include Bahrain.
Russia
appears to both embrace it and have skepticism about it. But the official views
on the surface may be only part off the story. The deals are an American affair
and could be s setback for Russia’s increasing role in the region.
An
article at the Middle East Institute in August basically asserted that Moscow
is of two minds on the issue. Now a new report at Tass news provides more
insight into Russia’s views.
In late
August, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu spoke by phone and discussed the UAE deal. At the time Bahrain was
not yet in the news.
Netanyahu
and Putin have had warm relations for many years and Israel and Russia
frequently have discussed Syria over the years.
This has
meant a reduction in tensions. However, Russia has expressed the traditional
view in the last week that peace is not possible in the region without an
Israeli-Palestinian deal.
Russia
should know since its Cold War policies helped arm states that were hostile to
Israel and Palestinian groups, including terrorists, looked to eastern bloc
states for support or at least transit and shelter.
Thus
Moscow helped fuel the paradigm that sees the Palestinian conflict as a center
of the Middle East. Yet Moscow also plays a limited role in solving this
conflict and has been more pragmatic than US policymakers who have sometimes
bordered on naivety when looking at chances for peace.
Foremost
for Moscow is the importance of stability in the region and not having
ungoverned spaces that breed extremism. Moscow is willing to work with
authoritarian regimes and doesn’t care about the US former policies of
democracy promotion in the Middle east or humanitarian intervention.
Given
this history and complexity of Russian policy it is important to recall that
Lavrov met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah earlier this year and the leader of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Israel
complained about these March meetings. Russia has generally said it could play
a larger role in hosting Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
The new
report at Tass news over the weekend, is presented as a press review of Russian
media. Tass is an official Russian outlet.
The
review notes that Palestinian Authority Ambassador to Moscow Abdel Hafiz Nofal
told Russia’s Izvestia said that the Palestinians support the 2002 Arab Peace
Initiative hat envisions Israel leaving all “territories occupied in 1967.”
Tass
then noted that “Oman could be the next one to recognize the Jewish state,” a
statement it attributes to Israeli officials. The newspaper indicated Israel
had not fully given up annexation plans for the Jordan valley.
Tass
also notes that the Chairman of the Federation Council Foreign Affairs
Committee Konstantin Kosachev “believes that the normalization of ties between
the UAE, Bahrain and Israel is unlikely to bolster the peace process in the
Middle East, stressing that on the contrary, the escalation is going to mount.”
Furthermore
a Senior Fellow of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of
Oriental Studies in the Russian Academy of Sciences named Boris Dolgov, has
said that the “Bahraini and Emirati recognition of Israel did not come as a
surprise. Both countries are known for their pro-US position: Bahrain hosts the
Fifth Fleet of the US Navy and the US air force’s Al Dhafra air base is located
in the UAE.
This
step won’t drastically change the situation in the Middle East, but it will
split the Arab and Muslim world,” Tass news reported that the expert explained.