Instead of applying the ‘never again’ principle, we repeatedly see shameful behaviour by Israeli governments in the face of atrocities and war crimes. The conduct of the Bennett-Lapid government in the face of Putin’s criminal war in Ukraine is a disgrace. Instead of policies, we only see shticks (gimmicks) and PR stunts.
The head of the Meretz party, Minister of Health Nitzan Horovitz bragged on Twitter about the government’s decision to establish a field hospital in Ukraine.
“כוכב מאיר” יוצא לדרך. חדר מיון, חדר יולדות, מעבדת רנטגן ומחלקות ילדים, נשים וגברים, כל אלו חלק מבית חולים השדה שייצא לאוקראינה. האנושיות שלנו נמדדת קודם כל בשעות משבר ואנחנו מחוייבים לסייע איפה שאפשר לעם האוקראיני שנמצא תחת מתקפה אכזרית. כבוד גדול למשלחת שלנו. שובו הביתה בשלום❤ pic.twitter.com/YIXn9IdB1k
— Nitzan Horowitz نيتسان هوروفيتس ניצן הורוביץ (@NitzanHorowitz) March 14, 2022
“Emergency room, maternity ward, X-ray laboratory and paediatric wards, women and men, all part of the field hospital that will go to Ukraine. Our humanity is measured first and foremost in times of crisis and we are committed to helping wherever possible the Ukrainian people who are under brutal attack. Great respect for our delegation. Return home in peace,” the tweet reads.
There is nothing to get excited about in the establishment of an Israeli field hospital in Ukraine. This is a shtick intended for public relations that the second Rabin government also made.
In the summer of 1994, the Rabin government sent a medical aid delegation to the genocide survivors in Rwanda, headed by late minister of environment protection, Yossi Sarid. This was done as part of a PR stunt to cover the fact that arms shipments from Israel to the genocidal Hutu regime, including Uzi submachine guns and hand grenades, took place before and during the extermination. When Minister Sarid was asked about the arms shipments, he replied, “We have no control over where our weapons go”.
Of course, this was a lie, since planes with weapons cannot take off without the approval of the authorities in Israel.
Also read: Ukraine’s Prosecutor Office Says 112 Children Killed in War
The Israeli field hospital in Ukraine will be built while Putin’s forces are deliberately bombing hospitals across the country and impairing the power supply and the ability to deliver drugs and other medical equipment to the hospitals that have not yet been bombed – exactly like Putin’s forces also did earlier in Syria.
Unlike the Hutu regime in Rwanda, Putin does not need weapon shipments from Israel for the war crimes he commits in Ukraine; he just needs Israel to continue to serve as a loophole that will allow his regime and oligarchs to circumvent international sanctions. As long as the loophole in Israel and other countries is not closed, sanctions will mainly affect the ordinary Russian citizen and not the oligarchs and elites who are directly responsible for preserving Putin’s regime.
Instead of foreign affairs minister Yair Lapid demanding an immediate convening of the Israeli government and its vote on a decision to close the loophole, the government is engaged in a public relations campaign on the Ukrainian border, which serves both Lapid’s personal political interests and the Israeli government’s need to soften international criticism. Without having any authority to do so, the minister announced vaguely, “Israel won’t be used as a means to bypass the sanctions on Russia” – a genius shtick. Afterwards, journalists and others published fake celebratory reports that Israel announces publicly for the first time it will comply with the international sanctions against Russia.
Lapid was not asked what actual steps the Israeli government intends to take, and the oligarchs’ flights continue to land in Israel. It is no coincidence that neither Prime Minister Naftali Bennett nor anyone else in the government has issued a clarification to Lapid’s announcement. It is very convenient for the Israeli government that the world will think that Israel joined the sanctions, without actually joining the sanctions.
The Bennett-Lapid government’s excuse that Israel lacks a sanctions law is also a shtick. A government decision is enough; if not, then three weeks have passed since the beginning of the war during which time the law could have been legislated, since the government fully controls the Knesset. There is not even a government bill for sanctions, which proves this bluff.
Anyway, Israel is not an autarkic economy; it is part of the global economy. For example, The European Union is Israel’s biggest trade partner, accounting for 29.3% of its trade in goods in 2020. The main Israeli banks have branches in countries that have already declared sanctions and if Israeli companies and banks do not comply with the sanctions set by the EU and the US, European and American companies and citizens will not be able to do business with them, so as not to take risks.
There is no excuse for the oligarchs’ flights being allowed to continue landing in Israel. In recent years, the State of Israel has repeatedly prevented Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) activists and critics of the Israeli occupation (of Palestine) from entering both Israel and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Recently, a new military procedure restricting foreign lecturers and researchers’ entrance into Palestinian territories was published. If the Israeli government can prevent Noam Chomsky from entering the West Bank, there is no question that the Israeli government could also prevent oligarchs associated with Putin’s kleptocratic regime – and that help him finance the war – from landing, if only there was the political will to do it.
No Mossad investigation is needed to identify them. Foreign Minister Lapid can simply search Google for the lists of Russian people and companies under the sanctions that the EU and the US have published on their official websites.
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As long as the Bennett-Lapid government does not close this loophole, Bennett’s talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seem like a shtick meant to whitewash the immorality and illegality of the Israeli government’s conduct.
This conduct comes despite the fact the Ukraine had close relations with Israel. Two years ago, when the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Zelensky, Netanyahu said, “I am very, very happy with the way that our relations are going, the visit I had in the Ukraine with you, the deepening relations that we have”.
This is reminiscent of how Israel dumped the president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, under the tank in July 1974 after the coup carried out by the Greek military junta and the Turkish invasion of the island in its wake. According to documents from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the state archives, in the years prior to the coup, Israel had built close relations with the military junta in Greece, which encompassed arms sales, oil transportation and diplomatic support.
Israel did not mind that thousands of Greek opposition members were arrested and tortured – and some also murdered – by the junta, as it identified them as its critics and recognised the potential for business relations with the military generals. Israel was aware that the junta in Greece had transferred military equipment to its forces and militias it held on Cypriot soil. According to a document in the archives, two months before the coup, on May 2, 1974, the Israeli Foreign Ministry approved handing over unmarked 81 mm mortars to the Greek army in Cyprus, “And over time, this can be brought to Makarios’ notice”.
After the coup, on July 22, 1974, the exiled President Makarios sent a telegram to the then Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, in which he asked for assistance in maintaining the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus. The Israeli government decided to send him only a “warm greeting” from the former Israeli ambassador to Cyprus, Rahamim Timur, who asked how Makarios was and wished him health and all the best.
All those who support the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people should condemn the conduct of the Israeli government, that again chooses to be on the wrong side of history, and that of those who continue to help Putin’s war machine.
Eitay Mack is a human rights lawyer and activist based in Jerusalem.
