The latest Israeli-Hamas war has polarized international opinion into diametrically opposed camps, with Russia’s balanced position towards this conflict being among the few exceptions. Both the Mainstream Media (MSM) and the Alt-Media Community (AMC) have spun its support of Palestinian independence as supposedly being an anti-Israeli policy, each in pursuit of their own self-interested ends. The first wants to associate Russia with terrorism while the second wants to disassociate Russia from Israel.
This article here collected several dozen of President Putin’s quotes about this conflict from the official Kremlin website between 2000-2018 to prove that he resolutely supports Israel’s right to self-defense, especially whenever it falls victim to terrorist attacks. This stance took the form of Russia allowing Israel to bomb the IRGC and Hezbollah in Syria with impunity hundreds of times from 2015 to the present on that pretext despite occasionally objecting to it in public, which was documented and analyzed here.
The preceding hyperlinked pieces are important for readers to review in order to debunk the MSM’s false claims that Russia supports those of Hamas’ recent actions that have been described as terrorism. This is pertinent after Zelensky endorsed that conspiracy theory, which serves solely to further discredit Russia in Western eyes and thus ensure continued support for military aid to Kiev. He admitted that “there is a risk that international attention will turn away from Ukraine”, which exposed his motives.
As for the AMC’s motives in spinning Russia’s position, most members are passionate anti-Zionists who consider the Palestinian cause to be the most important in the world, but many also support Russia too. A lot (but of course not all) are also leftists and liberals who are thus predisposed to “cancel culture”. Accordingly, they’re against associating with those who don’t fully share their views on whatever it may be, which explains the dilemma that they’ve found themselves in regarding Russia and Israel.
These folks aggressively attack anyone who doesn’t unreservedly condemn Israel and wholeheartedly support Palestine. In their mind, Israel has no right to self-defense even after falling victim to terrorist attacks since it’s an illegally occupying power, which some also claim has no right to exist. Others go even further by demanding that all of Israel’s European-descended Jewish citizens leave as soon as possible or face the potentially lethal consequences for being colonizers-settlers of legal Palestinian land.
The problem that they’ve come across is that Russia, which many of them support due its role in accelerating the global systemic transition to multipolarity and eroding US hegemony, doesn’t unreservedly condemn Israel or wholeheartedly support Palestine due to its balanced position. They fear that “canceling” Russia for this would lead to some of their peers “canceling” them in response, thus catalyzing a never-ending internecine spat that would ultimately divide-and-rule anti-imperialists.
With a view towards averting that counterproductive scenario predicated on these leftists’ and liberals’ predisposition to “cancel culture”, they therefore tacitly agreed to ignore this significant disagreement with Russia in pursuit of the “greater good”. Some went even further though and lied about Russia’s position towards this conflict in order to generate clout, push their ideology, and/or solicit donations from those among their audience who desperately want to believe that Russia is against Israel.
Supporting Palestinian independence isn’t an anti-Israeli policy, however, but simply the reaffirmation of international law that aligns with Russia’s approach towards global affairs. At the same time, Russia consistently calls on both parties to cease fire and exercise self-restraint. It also condemns civilian casualties in Palestine and Israel. If Russia really had an anti-Israeli policy, then it would only criticize that country and never lay partial blame on Palestine like it did in the following official statements:
* 7 October: “Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the sharp escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict”
– “We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides to implement an immediate ceasefire, renounce violence, exercise restraint and begin, with the assistance of the international community, a negotiation process aimed at establishing a comprehensive, lasting and long-awaited peace in the Middle East.”
* 9 October: “Foreign Ministry statement on the situation in the Palestine-Israeli conflict zone”
– “Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have been wounded. We express deepest condolences to the families and friends of all those killed and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.”
– Sergey Lavrov: “We expounded on our position that it is unacceptable to commit any violence, inflict damage, kill peaceful civilians (on either side) or take women and children hostage.”
* 10 October: “Russia-Iraq talks” (between President Putin and Prime Minister al-Sudani)
– President Putin: “Our position is that harm to the civilian population should be minimised and reduced to zero, and we call on all sides of the conflict to do so.”
* 10 October: “Kremlin urges both parties to Arab-Israeli conflict to show restraint”
– Dmitry Peskov: “It is very important now that both sides show restraint.”
RT shared two articles that add more context to why Russia partially blames Hamas for this conflict:
* “Ten Russians in Israel killed or missing – embassy”
* “Famed Soviet physicist killed by Hamas – media”
Anyone who spins that country’s support of Palestinian independence, which was also reaffirmed in all those statements, as supposedly being an anti-Israeli policy is either ignorant of the abovementioned official statements or deliberately deceiving their targeted audience about Russia’s position. Either way, the official sources shared above from the Foreign Ministry, Kremlin, TASS, and RT websites prove that Russia’s stance is balanced since it also blames Hamas for the latest conflict, not just Israel.
Those among the AMC who continue to manipulate perceptions of Russian policy towards this conflict after being aware of the previously shared facts are inadvertently doing its enemies’ information warfare bidding by falsely implying Moscow’s support for Hamas’ attacks against civilians. They’re also discrediting that same government in the eyes of its people by pretending that it doesn’t care about the killing of its own (dual-)citizens during this conflict, which is counterfactual as was indisputably proven.
These folks can either continue functioning as “useful idiots” in the global information war against Russia by dishonestly clinging to their false claims for whatever their personal reasons may be (i.e. clout, ideology, and/or soliciting donations) or set the record straight by finally sharing all the facts. It’s possible to support Palestine against Israel as well as Russia’s role in accelerating the global systemic transition to multipolarity while also disagreeing with the Kremlin’s policy towards the latest conflict.
There are only three reasons why most of the AMC hasn’t adopted the preceding approach: 1) top influencers are truly ignorant of the full facts about Russia’s stance; 2) they’re aware of the aforesaid but fear being “canceled” by their fellow leftists and liberals if they speak out so they instead stay silent; or 3) they selfishly hope to gain something by continuing to lie about this to their audience. Whatever each top influencer’s reason may be, the end result is that they’re all misportraying Russia’s position.
That being the case, the AMC is therefore lying about the Kremlin’s balanced policy towards the latest conflict just as much as the MSM is, albeit from the diametrically opposite position of falsely disassociating Russia from Israel while their putative rivals seek to falsely associate it with terrorism. Neither is telling the truth since they have self-interested narrative reasons to spin it. The average person is consequently left confused about where the Kremlin stands and kept in the dark about its real policy.
