President Putin confirmed his country’s truly balanced approach towards the latest Israeli-Hamas war when he refused to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the self-professed Jewish State for the Gaza hospital catastrophe like Muslim-majority societies, the Alt-Media Community (AMC), and others have done. He didn’t rule out its culpability, but he didn’t ascribe blame to it either even though he could have scored cheap political points by doing so. Here’s how President Putin replied when asked about this incident:
“As regards the hospital [attack], the tragedy that happened there is horrific. Hundreds of dead and injured is, of course, a catastrophe. [It happened] in one place, the place of humanitarian nature. That’s why I expect this to be a signal that the conflict should be ended as soon as possible. Anyway, it is necessary to initiate some contacts and talks.”
The reason why his remarks are newsworthy is because the partially US government-funded Center for European Policy Analysis’ Julia Davis conflated some Russian social media influencers’ opinions on this conflict with their country’s policy to allege that it’s against Israel. At the same time, many among the AMC spun his condemnation of Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas’ sneak attack as supposedly proving the same, thus leading to these two pushing the same disinformation from different angles.
The end effect of these uncoordinated but nevertheless complementary perception management operations is that false credence was extended to the US’ thinly veiled innuendo at the UNSC earlier this week that Russia’s draft humanitarian ceasefire favored Hamas at Israel’s expense. If Russia was really biased against Israel, however, then President Putin wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to score cheap political points by jumping on the bandwagon of blaming it for the Gaza hospital catastrophe.
His mature response to being asked about this after his meeting with President Xi in Beijing on the sidelines of the 10th Belt & Road Initiative Forum confirmed Russia’s truly balanced approach towards the latest Israeli-Hamas war. Top anti-Russian propagandist Julia Davis (who was banned from Russia in May 2022), those putatively “Russian-friendly” influencers among the AMC who spin its policy for their own reasons, and the US’ Permanent UNSC Representative were therefore all discredited in one fell swoop.
Here are some analyses for readers to review if they want to learn the truth about Russia’s policy:
* 8 October: “Interpreting Russia’s Official Reaction To The Latest Israeli-Hamas War”
* 10 October: “It’s Misleading To Claim That Russia Benefits From The Latest Israeli-Hamas War”
* 10 October: “Russia Is Unlikely To Let Syria Get Involved In The Latest Israeli-Hamas War”
* 11 October: “Russia’s Support Of Palestinian Independence Shouldn’t Be Spun As An Anti-Israeli Policy”
* 12 October: “Russia Has A Balanced Approach Towards The Latest Israeli-Hamas War”
* 14 October: “Russia’s Draft Ceasefire Is The Last Chance To Prevent An Unprecedented Humanitarian Crisis”
* 16 October: “The US & Qatar Are Trying To Discredit Russia & India’s Policy Towards The Israeli-Hamas War”
* 17 October: “Putin’s Condolences To Bibi For The Loss Of Israeli Lives Discredit A Top Disinfo Narrative”
In brief, while Russia blames the US for failing to resolve this long-running conflict during the heyday of its unipolar hegemony when it could have easily done so if it had the will, it believes that both Israel and Hamas are responsible for the latest war because they’ve become trapped in a cycle of violence. Moscow’s priority is therefore to halt the fighting for humanitarian reasons and then ideally revive the stalled peace process, the latter of which is only possible if Washington’s monopoly over it is broken.
This explains why its ultimately unsuccessful ceasefire resolution didn’t explicitly blame either of the warring parties in order to focus solely on the humanitarian dimension of this latest war and also keep the option open of Russia mediating between them in the event that both request its related services. That scenario is likely a far way’s off even in the best case and might never even come to pass, but it’s still a very noble effort on Russia’s part, which shows how balanced its policy truly is.
Back to the Gaza hospital catastrophe, President Putin would have discredited the aforementioned approach to this conflict had he jumped on the bandwagon of blaming Israel before his experts had the time to determine whether it was at fault or if it can’t be confidently concluded who’s responsible. In order to help them with this, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier in the day that Israel should share detailed intelligence since “There cannot and will not be implicit trust in their words.”
That’s fair to request too since it certainly seems like Israel was to blame, but prematurely condemning it would have been at odds with Russia’s balanced policy as was explained, though some will predictably spin her words as supposed proof that Russia supports Hamas at Israel’s expense. Anyone who does so, especially among the AMC, will only expose themselves as propagandists since President Putin’s own words in response to the Gaza hospital catastrophe confirm that this isn’t the case whatsoever.
