1) At the Jerusalem Post, Seth Frantzman discusses ‘The disingenuous attempt to link Ukraine with Palestinians’.
“When the war broke out in Ukraine, a number of people came forward to try to shift the debate to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Many of these voices are laser-focused on being critical of Israel, and for them, there can be no news story in the world without reference to Israel.
The Israel-obsessed camp is made up of several groups, all of which express disingenuous talking points trying to link the conflicts.”
2) At the JNS, Yaakov Lappin looks at Israel’s operational interests in Syria against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“As the world is shaken by Russia’s war on Ukraine’s sovereignty, the battle for the future of the Middle Eastern order continues. Israel’s critical operational interests in Syria have remained unchanged, but there is no guarantee that the conditions in the northern arena will not change following the war in Europe.
Since Russia agreed to enter the Syrian civil war in 2015, taking over air operations and bombing rebel-held areas, Iran managed ground operations on behalf of the Assad regime. Israel found itself with a new superpower neighbor to its north, and had to adjust quickly.”
3) Emanuele Ottolenghi argues that ‘Accommodating Iran Will Be No More Successful Than Accommodating Russia’ at the Tablet.
“Vladimir Putin has opened the gates of hell by invading Ukraine at the end of his 23-year journey to destroy Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture and re-establish Russia’s lost imperial glory. As the civilized world confronts a threat that we should have seen coming at us from the moment, more than 20 years ago, when Putin turned Grozny into Stalingrad and got away with it, our response is constrained by the fact that Putin’s Russia has a formidable nuclear arsenal, which the Russian tyrant has proclaimed himself willing to use. The shocking and horrifying scenes we witness on our television screens—and our inability to do anything about them—should be foremost in the minds of Western leaders as they blindly embrace a new nuclear deal with Tehran.”
4) At the JCPA, Yoni Ben Menachem analyses ‘The Palestinian Stance on the Invasion of Ukraine’.
“The Palestinian Authority is keeping quiet. It needs Russia, but at the same time, it does not want trouble with Ukraine. It needs Russia to push the Middle East Quartet (the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia) to convene an international conference that would seek to force Israel to an international peace conference despite Israel’s and the Biden administration’s opposition.
The PA is trying to curtail the role of the United States which, since the Oslo accords, has traditionally been the mediator between the PA and Israel. Abbas is working, with Russia’s help, to divest the United States of that role, claiming that it is not an “honest broker,” and to install the Quartet as the body that will oversee the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations instead of the United States.”
