Put an end to “bloodshed” and find the basis for a lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: this is the ambitious program that Sergei Lavrov mentioned before receiving the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Moscow on Monday October 9. Alas, after the consultations, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs could only repeat a call for a ceasefire and consider that the Russian positions were “practically in unison” those of the Arab League.
“Moscow continues to want to present itself as a credible intermediary in the negotiationnotes Arkadi Dubnov, expert on Russian foreign policy, in Moscow. But it does so almost out of inertia, and to accuse the West of sabotaging its efforts. In reality, any prospect of playing any role disappeared on February 24, 2022.with the invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Gheit’s visit, announced after the start of the Hamas attack against Israel, nevertheless serves as a reminder that Russia occupies a privileged position on the Middle Eastern scene: it is one of the rare states able to speak to all parties. actors. Moscow is on good terms with Iran and the Sunni Gulf states as well as with Israel, and maintains direct contacts with Hamas. On October 10, Vladimir Putin was still due to welcome the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Chia Al-Soudani, to the Kremlin, and the RIA Novosti agency reported on the “preparations” of a visit by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Parties called by Moscow to “cease fire”
Regarding Hamas, two high-ranking delegations have been received in Moscow over the past year – the first, in September 2022, led by the head of the organization, Ismaël Haniyeh, who met with Sergei Lavrov; the second by his second, Saleh Al-Arouri, in March 2023. Each time, the good quality of relations between Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu made it possible to attenuate criticism of Israel.
Russia secures its place in the regional game at the cost of a balancing act which, faced with the extreme brutality of the Hamas attack, is today attracting criticism, both externally and within the country. . Russian opinion is in fact overwhelmingly pro-Israeli, often for the simple reason that many Russians have relatives living in Israel.
Already on Saturday, the first reaction of Russian diplomacy seemed to send the belligerents back to back. Moscow then called “the parties to the conflict to cease fire”, in the words of Mikhail Bogdanov, who is both deputy foreign minister and Vladimir Putin’s special representative for the Middle East. The next day, during discussions at the UN Security Council, Russia, which currently has one dead and four hostages according to the Russian embassy in Israel, condemned the attacks against civilians but without naming the Hamas.
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