Ukraine and Israel: United front against modern threats and shared enemies

Kyiv Jewish Forum addresses rising antisemitism and shared Ukraine-Israel goals.

By BORYS LOZHKIN NOVEMBER 12, 2024 02:21

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky hands over a combat flag to a serviceman during the Defenders of Ukraine Day celebrations, amid Russia’s attack on Kyiv, October 1, 2024. The wars in Ukraine and Israel are ‘interconnected,’ the writer asserts. (photo credit: UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE/REUTERS)

Our countries have common enemies. On October 19, an Iranian-made kamikaze drone launched from Lebanon attacked the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea. By a lucky chance, the prime minister and his wife were not injured; they were simply not at home.

Ukraine fights off attacks by dozens of such drones every day and is now sharing its experience with the IDF.This is just one episode that shows how interconnected our wars are.

Thousands of Jews, including hundreds of Israelis, are fighting on the front lines defending Ukraine. The IDF, in turn, has many repatriates from Ukraine.

Today, our countries are at the forefront of the fight against the modern axis of evil. The composition of this axis has already become clear: Russia, Iran, and its proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis – and, more recently, North Korea. All tyrannies have united.

Ukraine has been fighting on this front for over 10 years; Israel, – for over a year.

The fate of the civilized world is being decided

I am sure it is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of the entire civilized world is being decided in Ukraine and Israel these days. Both nations are interested in each other’s victory. However, who will win largely depends on the position of international partners and, in particular, the United States, where the presidential and congressional elections were held recently.

The results of these elections were probably expected in Ukraine and Israel as much as in the US itself. After President-elect Donald Trump’s convincing victory, Ukrainians and Israelis have additional hope for a fair and speedy end to their wars.

Ukrainians also remember that it was during Donald Trump’s previous presidency that Ukraine first began receiving significant arms supplies.

Israel is still grateful to Trump for the Abraham Accords of 2020, which significantly expanded the circle of Arab countries that recognized Israel’s right to exist.

How America can influence the future of Ukraine, Israel, and the world as a whole will be discussed by speakers and guests of the Kyiv Jewish Forum on November 13.

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I am sincerely grateful to The Jerusalem Post for helping to organize this international forum. It will be the second KJF during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war and the first after the October 7 massacre. The guests and speakers of the forum will have no shortage of topics to discuss.

IDF soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip, November 11, 2024. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

The rise of antisemitism and the role of the Diaspora

After October 7, 2023, the world got split. On the one side – those who support Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists. On the other – those who side with the aggressor. Alas, there were many who justified the Hamas massacre and the kidnapping of hostages.

Under the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the idea of ​exterminating the Jews was imposed on the world with renewed vigor because in the Palestine that started being promoted on the streets of cities around the world, there was no place for Jews. It is especially sad that universities, including the most prestigious ones, were subject to this antisemitic hysteria. It seemed that, due to their level of education, university teachers and students should have condemned the massacres in the kibbutzim and towns near Gaza, but the opposite happened.

I am glad that Ukraine became a positive exception at this time. Immediately after the Hamas attack, Ukrainians made it clear who the victim was and where the aggression came from.

More than a year after those tragic events, not a single anti-Israeli protest took place in Ukraine. According to polls, 69% of Ukrainians clearly supported Israel’s right to self-defense and only 1% spoke out against it.

The answer is simple, but, unfortunately, it was obtained at great cost. The Ukrainians, whom Russia has been trying to destroy for more than 10 years, understood better than anyone what the people of Israel faced.

It is likely that only those who have become victims of aggression, as happened in the case of the Ukrainians, can fully understand the threat of antisemitism. However, this path cannot be wished upon anyone. In my opinion, a flaw has formed in world education. People forgot about the Holocaust and allowed the Re’im carnage in 2023 – and a year earlier, in 2022, the Bucha massacre in Ukraine.

The more we remind people of the consequences of total hatred directed against a particular people, the less chance there will be of genocides in the future. I am sure that the KJF speakers will express their opinions on this matter.

‘Whatever it takes’ instead of  ‘as long as it takes’

Russia attacked Ukraine in 2014. Crimea and part of the southeast were occupied then, but the world, alas, ignored the war that began in the center of Europe.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel. Again, this became possible, among other reasons, due to the inability of international institutions to act preemptively in countering the aggressors.

Concerning to Israel, we are no longer talking merely about the amorphousness of international organizations that were created to maintain peace on the planet.

Employees of the UN agency UNRWA became direct participants in the terrorist attack on October 7. The International Criminal Court in The Hague almost issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, equating them with the Hamas terrorist leaders. During an operation in southern Lebanon against the terrorist Hezbollah group, an Iranian proxy, IDF fighters discovered a tunnel a few meters from the base of the UN peacekeeping mission that the terrorists had been using for years to transport weapons and personnel.

Given all this, the declaration of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as persona non grata in Israel became absolutely justified.

The wars in Ukraine and Israel, unfortunately, have demonstrated the inability of existing international organizations to maintain peace on the planet. This is why the position of each country, first and foremost the United States, has become so important.

Therefore, I once again call for a change in the approach to assisting Ukraine and Israel. To achieve victory and establish a just peace, we need more than just assistance for “as long as it takes.” Our enemies are very strong. To defeat them, “whatever it takes” efforts are needed. Only in this way can the countdown of our wars be stopped. The interests of Ukrainians and Jews completely match here. 

The main thing for us today is mutual victory.

The writer is the president of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, vice president of the World Jewish Congress, and first vice president of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.