This international commentary by Uncle Mu is to analyze the relationship between Russia and Israel.
On October 17, former Russian President Medvedev warned Israel not to provide weapons to Ukraine, otherwise it will have an impact on Russia-Israeli relations.
This is the latest example of tensions in Russia's relations with Israel in recent months.
More than a month ago, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov also criticized Israel's air strikes on Syrian while communicating with Syrians.
In fact, Russia and Israel have "touched understanding" in the past few years. The Israeli army has attacked Syria hundreds of times, and Russia has not reacted much, because Russia knows that Israel will not overthrow Bashar , and basically wants to solve the Iranian in Syria and the Shiite forces supported by Iran.
However, under the Russian-Ukraine war, Russia has repeatedly publicly criticized Israeli air strikes on Syria. Is Israel's strategy changing to overthrow the Russian-backed Bashar? Of course not. Therefore, it can only be said that there is a problem in the relationship between Russia and Israel, and Russia has changed its attitude towards cooperation with Israel on the Syrian issue.
plus Medvedev's concerns about Israel's support for Ukraine, these are likely to cause a qualitative change in relations between Israel and Russia.
Once this happens, Russia may push Israel toward its most worried enemy - NATO .
One sign is that at the NATO summit held not long ago, Israel and NATO interact well. Because Israel realizes that Russia suddenly attacks Ukraine and undermines the security order in Europe, the EU is facing a new era of strategic conflict. Therefore, Europe and NATO are now looking east. Israel is one of their goals.
For Israel, the developments that NATO has been and is experiencing are important for two reasons.
First, Israel is increasingly aware of the importance of strengthening its relationship with NATO alliance .
Israel is a country based in science and technology. Its capabilities in innovation, networks, intelligence, military fields, and Israel's creed that high-tech thrives have attracted NATO. And strengthening cooperation between Israel and NATO can benefit both its defense system and the private sector.
Second, in addition to military and technical cooperation, NATO is also an important diplomatic platform. That is to say, various NATO conferences provide a stage through which Israel can strengthen its ties with democratic countries and Mediterranean countries including Turkey . In fact, Israel and NATO have a close relationship. As early as 1989, Israel was the third country to gain status as a non-NATO alliance.
In addition, the recent changes in Israel and NATO relations are not only related to the Russian-Ukrainian war or the large-scale geopolitical development, but are also affected by the warming relations between Israel and Türkiye.
A few days ago, Türkiye and Israel announced the restoration of comprehensive diplomatic relations and were preparing to send ambassadors to each other. This has brought the tension between the two sides to an end since 2010. Of course this relationship has been slowly developing over the past few months.
In particular, Türkiye, which is an important military force in NATO, has agreed that Israel will open an office at its headquarters in NATO. This means that the development of the relationship between the two countries is closely related to NATO. NATO headquarters has become an important stage for the transmission of information between Türkiye and Israel.
The strategic interest of Israel and NATO approaching is also to expand the intelligence sharing circle. For example, some NATO member states are interested in some military trends in Iran. In the past, Israel and the United States shared more intelligence, and had more institutionalized cooperation with some European countries, and had more limited regular exchanges of intelligence with the NATO. Expanding the intelligence sharing circle means that Israel can have more strategic space to realize national interests.
Therefore, under the Russian-Ukrainian war, Israel's strengthening of exchanges with NATO is not good news for Russia. This is likely to be a strategic mistake for Russia.
But it is precisely because the relations between Russia and Israel are becoming more and more problematic that Israel has greater diplomatic choices.
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