Foreign policy doesn’t always reflect public opinion since it’s supposed to be formulated independently thereof with the aim of advancing national interests first and foremost, after which perception managers attempt to convince the public of that selfsame policy’s morality so that they support it. Russia’s principled neutrality towards the latest Israeli-Hamas war is a notable exception of the aforesaid trend since it already aligns with public opinion without the state having to convince folks to support it.
RT cited Moscow-based pollster FOM in their article about how “Most Russians neutral on Israel-Palestine conflict – poll” to report that “73% of respondents said that their personal sympathy lies with neither side, while 10% said they support the Palestinians, and 9% said they favor Israel. Nearly 40%, however, could not answer what they believe is the root cause of the current wave of hostilities in the region.” That country’s foreign friends and foes alike might be surprised by these findings.
After all, top “Non-Russian Pro-Russian” (NRPR) influencers in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) have gone all-in supporting Hamas over Israel, which led to their followers and average Westerners falling under the false impression that their activism reflects Russian state policy and possibly public sentiment. Likewise, the Mainstream Media (MSM) has tried to discredit Russia’s principled neutrality by outright lying that it’s allied with Hamas, which reinforced the false impression that was just touched upon.
Both media camps are unhappy with its balanced position towards this conflict, albeit each for different reasons, and the combined effect of their respective activities is that many people aren’t aware of Russia’s actual policy. It’s therefore imperative to clarify where this country stands, ergo one of the reasons why publicly financed RT probably decided to inform their audience about this particular poll, which also serves to tacitly encourage influential NRPRs in the AMC to keep this in mind going forward.
Anyone can support anything for whatever reason, but the impression that people are naturally left with when practically every influencer of a certain category takes a hardcore partisan stance on a sensitive international issue is that there’s some connection between these causes. In the analyzed context, it’s thus understandable why folks might think that the NRPRs reflect Russian state policy and possible also public sentiment, but this perception works actually against the first and disrespects the second.
Such information products correspondingly extend false credence to the MSM’s lies that Russia supports Hamas, which its Ambassador to Israel explicitly declared isn’t the case whatsoever, while misportraying average Russians as radical anti-Zionist revolutionaries when they’re nothing of the sort. In fact, the latest poll proves that Russians don’t even care all that much about this conflict, unlike the AMC’s NRPRs whose views their followers wrongly think reflect that society’s sentiment to some degree.
Those who purport to support Russia can hold views at variance with its foreign policy and/or public opinion, but they should take always inform their audience about where the latter truly stand so as to avoid misleading them about those two’s positions. The latest Israeli-Hamas war is one of those notable exceptions where foreign policy aligns with public opinion, and sincere NRPRs can advance state interests and show respect for its society by raising awareness of this instead of continuing to ignore it.
