Israel has maintained a delicate balance between its alliance with the United States and neutrality on the Russia-Ukraine war.
India identifies with Israel’s balancing act in more ways than one. Both countries have been looked upon by the world as potential mediators in the conflict. However, they have played that role only in a limited capacity.
Israel’s former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett tried to compensate for his country’s neutral stand on Ukraine by posturing as a peacemaker. At the behest of Germany, Bennett made several trips to Russia to mediate peace talks and de-escalation. None of that worked.
Bennett was in the news again when he claimed that he convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin to not assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Clearly, Bennett was addressing those in Jerusalem who had criticised the former PM for being too soft on Moscow’s aggression. Trying to salvage his political reputation this way didn’t reap benefits for Bennett who resigned from prime ministership soon after and was replaced by political heavyweight Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, this reshuffle in Jerusalem’s power corridors had little impact on the country’s official stand on Ukraine. No arms or weapons were sent despite pressure from the West — and its core ally, the US.
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Why is America so keen?
In January, Netanyahu refused US President Joe Biden’s request to send Hawk missiles to Ukraine. For a country that has received staggering amounts of military aid from the US, saying no to it was significant and caught global attention.
The war in Ukraine is in dire need of ammunition, particularly for artillery. To gain back their lost territory in the ground offensive along the battlefront, Ukrainians need firepower. As per reports, they are firing almost double the quantity of ammunition that American and European arms markets combined can supply. The Pentagon, therefore, planned to dig into alternative supplies of munitions it holds in two corners of the world — South Korea and Israel. With Israel refusing to send weapons to Kyiv directly, the Pentagon has requested its Israeli counterpart to let American stockpiles in Israeli territories be utilised. The US is under pressure to supply one million 155-mm shells promised to Kyiv.
This target will be met only by increasing production back home — which has already increased by 500 per cent — and digging in Israeli and South Korean stockpiles. Although initially hesitant, Israel seems to have agreed to the US’ request of supplying American weapons to any place it deems fit. About 3,00,000 155-mm shells have been reportedly moved to Ukraine.
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A lot rides on Israel’s neutrality
There is one major reason why a core US ally such as Israel has preferred neutrality toward Moscow. Russia emerged as the pre-eminent power after America withdrew from the Middle East in 2018, leaving behind a power vacuum for Moscow to usurp. This vacuum was further enlarged in 2021 when the US decided to withdraw from neighbouring Afghanistan as well. As the US pivoted to the Indo-Pacific, Russia became the unchallenged power in Israel’s backyard. That said, there is another reason too why it is critical for Israel to upend its strategic calculus and not risk it with Moscow.
After the normalisation between the Arab world and Israel through the Abraham Accords brokered by the Donald Trump administration in 2020, the only major destabilising factor for Israel in the region is Iran and its proxies such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and those operating in Syria.
Israel is also determined to stop Iran from further developing its long-range missile and nuclear programmes. Apprehensions about the US bringing back the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to the table are also fuelling Israel to accommodate Moscow.
Russia’s ties with Iran, its backing of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime and its military presence in Syria are all factors to reckon with. The evolution of mutually beneficial Russo-Iranian relations over the last decade entails deep security cooperation that stands on a reliable foundation.
What matters to Israel is that Russia has defined Syria as an arena of continuous cooperation with Iran. Moreover, to Jerusalem’s anxiety, Moscow has also recognised Hezbollah as a major power centre in Syria. Clearly, to protect itself from Hezbollah and other proxies, the last thing on Israel’s mind would be to offend Russia.
It is this dynamic that has determined Jerusalem’s strategy regarding the conflict in Ukraine. And the most convincing plan is – remain neutral.
Neutral countries, too, in an almost delusional way, want to emerge out of the ills of the Ukraine war unscathed. But this war is a major geopolitical conflict that has sent seismic shockwaves across the integrated world markets, triggering a baffling crisis of fuel, food, and fertilisers among others. It has also re-opened the unnerving debate around the possibility of a nuclear war.
Therefore, fence–straddling, though useful in the short term, is not the best strategy in a protracted conflict.
With mediation efforts having failed, what must neutral countries do? Russia and Ukraine have their own peace plans, but they are totally out of sync. Zelensky wants all the captured Ukrainian territories back, including Crimea, and Putin advocates a Korean scenario of dividing Ukrainian territory. Under such an impasse, there’s zilch scope for a peace plan to work.
Limited mediation strategy
Potential mediators should devise a more operational strategy of limited mediation around specific issues of collective interest. A good example is Turkey and the United Nations mediating grain export through corridors via the Black Sea. While both India and Israel may not be in the position to bring the war to an end through diplomatic persuasion, what they can do is identify specific issues and develop strategies to mediate just enough to minimise violence and destruction. That itself would be a significant success.
What lies ahead?
Given the rock-solid nature of the US-Israel friendship, working with Jerusalem can strengthen New Delhi’s relations with Washington. There has been synergistic cooperation between India and Israel’s military industries and intelligence services and plans to deepen the wide spectrum cooperation are already underway.
The two nations should play a more constructive role by favourably etching the emerging contours of a post-Ukraine war geostrategic and geoeconomic world order. As India announces mega plans of going green, they could converge on clean energy production and technological innovation. They could also deepen plurilateral engagements such as the I2U2 (comprising India, Israel, the US and United Arab Emirates) and the India-Israel-UAE trilateral as a more focussed forum for mapping convergences.
The Indo-Pacific has emerged as the epicentre of great power rivalry, trade, emerging technologies, and sustainable economies. Israel must capitalise on the evolving Indo-Pacific pathways of its friends and allies and deepen its engagement with the region.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)