March 9, 2022

So maybe Naftali Bennett knows what he’s doing after all.

Israel’s still-new prime minister has received credit from many quarters for the way he has maintained a fragile governing coalition since taking office last summer. But despite a lengthy military career (and a few short months as Defense Minister), Bennett has been a much less known quantity on the international stage. And when tensions at the Ukraine-Russia border — between two strong allies of Israel — rose to new levels last fall, it was difficult to predict how Bennett would handle such a complicated geopolitical challenge.

When those tensions turned into outright warfare, many observers (myself included) wondered how Israel would maintain its neutrality as condemnation against Russia’s aggression spread across the globe. Despite the close coordination that had developed between the Israeli and Russian militaries in Syria in recent years — a relationship that has provided valuable security benefits to Israel in the region — it seemed inevitable that U.S. pressure on the Jewish state to join the international coalition would be impossible to resist.

But it now looks as if Bennett has emerged as a key interlocutor with Russian president Vladimir Putin and may even end up playing a critical role in brokering a peace deal at some point. And Bennett’s new role at the center of the tensions has also given him greater influence in the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations.

Just two weeks ago, Putin had dismissed Bennett’s offer to mediate between the two sides with the back of his hand. 

Just two weeks ago, Putin dismissed Bennett’s offer to mediate between the two sides with the back of his hand. But because the international coalition against Russia’s aggression has come together so quickly, and because Ukrainian resistance to the invasion has been much stronger than anticipated, Bennett’s suggestion has now become much more appealing to the Russian leader. Bennett and Putin spent three hours together last weekend, discussing the safety of the Ukrainian Jewish community and the broader state of the conflict and potential paths forward, but Bennett was apparently making his case against a future nuclear agreement with Iran. 

After leaving Putin, Bennett then spoke to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and had meetings planned with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other Western leaders with key roles both in the anti-Russia coalition and in the Iran negotiations. For years, Israel’s lobbying efforts against an Iranian deal have largely fallen on deaf ears. But now Bennett is not just pleading for his country’s security, but may be playing a role with Putin that will force Western leaders to take his warnings more seriously.

It’s difficult to see how a new nuclear agreement with Iran is prevented at this point. But unlike his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, whose vociferous opposition to the entire deal left him sidelined as it was finalized, Bennett has been focused on making sure the negotiators understand that some aspects of the potential agreement would be more damaging than others. This may allow Israel to have more of an impact as an influencer of a final deal than a more absolutist approach. And Bennett will now be in the room with the key players for the foreseeable future as the war in Ukraine continues to worsen.

It’s impossible to guess what Putin’s ultimate goals are in Eastern Europe, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in allowing the violence to subside anytime soon. That means Bennett will be a rare trustworthy point of contact for the U.S. and Western Europe with a direct line to Russia’s leaders. And when Putin does decide that negotiations with the West are in his best interest, Bennett’s presence will become even more important.

The best possible outcome for Israel would be to maintain its relationship with Russia, continue to protect its own interests in Syria, provide for the safety of Ukrainian Jews, strengthen its ties to Western Europe and enhance its stature on critical global matters outside the Middle East – all without endangering its enduring ties to the United States. There’s no guarantee this is the way matters play out, but in the midst of a worldwide tragedy, it wouldn’t be such a bad place to be once the dust finally settles.

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Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www/lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.

The horrifying invasion of Ukraine is reawakening traumatic memories for many people who have seemingly nothing to do with Ukraine. That includes me, a former child refugee. And as much as I worry for the people of Ukraine, especially the sick, the elderly, and small children, I find myself incessantly worrying about someone of whom I had never even heard before 2019: Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. 

Yes, I’m struggling with existential anxiety over the safety of a foreign leader. And something tells me I’m not alone. 

In the last two weeks, Zelensky has proven himself strong and heroic to the point of disbelief. Whereas any other world leader would be sheltered in the kind of impenetrable bunker that not even a fly could enter, or snuck out of the country in the dark of night, Zelensky has not only stayed in Ukraine, but he’s strapped on military attire, taken up arms, and sent precious messages of hope to his own people and the world. 

This has rendered him unquestionably endearing and heroic. And the more I find someone endearing and heroic, the less I want them to die. 

My affection for Zelensky is only matched by my fear of Russia. I have no doubt that Putin and his agents know Zelensky’s exact location. It’s Russian intelligence, after all, serving a regime headed by a former KGB operative. Maybe they’ve issued a clear order that Zelensky’s not to be targeted because the last thing the Russians want is to render him a martyr. No, Putin wouldn’t be foolish enough to kill Zelensky on purpose, though, as a child survivor of the Iran-Iraq War, I know that bombs dropped overhead aren’t always precise.

I feel connected with every Jew in the world, and these days, I can’t help but feel like Zelensky is a family member — an older brother, perhaps — who is facing existential danger each day.

 The fact that Zelensky is a Jewish leader also plays a role. I feel connected with every Jew in the world, and these days, I can’t help but feel like Zelensky is a family member — an older brother, perhaps — who is facing existential danger each day. In fact, I’ve recently started my mornings by checking the news to make sure Zelensky’s still alive. For some reason, I’ve never done this for Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron or Boris Johnson.

Here’s the thing: I’m a Jew who escaped the tyranny of the Middle East, specifically Iran, in the last few decades. I’m more used to cursing certain foreign leaders and eagerly awaiting their deserved demise than biting my nails and praying they’ll live. 

But I’ve learned something as a result of the invasion of Ukraine: It’s okay to feel existential anxiety over the welfare of a foreign leader, and that anxiety, combined with extraordinary pride for Zelensky’s courageous leadership, has elevated and unified Jews worldwide. 

Lately, I’ve seen Hasidic friends share pro-Zelensky posts from atheist Jewish friends; one meme depicting Zelensky as a superhero was shared by Jewish friends from South Africa, Israel, France, Mexico, Tunisia, Turkey, Australia, Morocco, Paraguay and the United States. This man — a Jewish comedian and actor turned war hero, has managed to do the unthinkable: he’s united the Jewish world.

And it’s all thanks to the interconnectedness of global Jewry through technology and social media. Had I lived in the Middle East in the 1870s, would I have cared if Britain’s then-Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, had been embroiled in a war in London? I probably wouldn’t have even known about it. 

Today, Jews not only know when we’re besieged elsewhere, but we listen to the pleas of Jewish presidents in bunkers or Jewish children lighting Shabbat candles in subway tunnels in real time, as if they’re speaking directly to us. 

Of course, we’re deeply concerned about the safety of all Ukrainians, but as Jews, we know that we’re one of the first (and never the last) casualties of tyranny. As a result, our commitment to helping the Jews of Ukraine escape to Israel has been nothing short of amazing. But there’s something else: while Jews worldwide have been worrying about Ukraine, we’ve also found consolation from certain leaders who have, at least for me, taken on the roles of wise, protective mothers and fathers. 

One of those leaders has been Natan Sharansky, who knows better than nearly every Jew on earth the evil capabilities of the Russian regime. Last week, Sharansky spoke at a Sheva Brachot prayer at the wedding of Yossi and Chana Dickstein in Israel. Sheva Brachot consists of seven beautiful blessings that are showered upon a Jewish bride and groom. They begin the night of their wedding and last seven days. 

Yossi Dickstein, the groom, lost both of his parents and his brother in a terrorist attack near the Jewish village of Carmel in 2002. His father, Yosef Yaakov Dickstein, his mother, Chana, and his nine-year-old brother, Shuvael, were shot at close range when Palestinian terrorists sprayed their car with bullets in the southern Hebron fields. The Dicksteins left behind nine orphaned children, including seven-year-old Yossi. 

I want to share Natan Sharansky’s remarks to Yossi Dickstein and his family with readers because very few were at this wedding last week to hear those words in person, myself included. His office has informed me that the following brief remarks are true and accurate:

“When I grew up in Ukraine in the city of Donetsk, there were people of various nationalities living there. Their ID certificates had the words ‘Russian’, ‘Ukraine’, ‘Georgian’, ‘Kozaki”, it wasn’t that important and there wasn’t much of a difference. One thing was important – if it had the word ‘Jewish’ written on it, that would be as if you had some disease. 

“We knew nothing about Judaism, except antisemitism and hatred towards us.  

“That’s why no one tried to replace the word ‘Russian’ or the word ‘Ukraine’, in order to get accepted to the university.  But if you had the word ‘Jewish’ on your ID papers and you could manage to change that, your chance of getting accepted was so much higher.

“I was reminded of this while watching this week how thousands of people are standing at the borders, trying to escape the tragedy in Ukraine. 

“They stand there day and night, and there’s only one word today that can help them get out: ‘Jewish’. If you are a Jew, there are Jews outside who care for you, there is someone on the other side of the border looking for you, your chance of getting out is so much higher.

“The world I knew has been turned upside down. When I was a child, ‘Jewish’ was an extraordinarily bad word, no one was jealous of us! Today at the border of Ukraine, ‘Jewish’ is an extraordinary word for good; it describes people who have somewhere to go and there’s an entire nation – their family, waiting for them outside.” – Natan Sharansky

“The world I knew has been turned upside down. When I was a child, ‘Jewish’ was an extraordinarily bad word, no one was jealous of us! Today at the border of Ukraine, ‘Jewish’ is an extraordinary word for good; it describes people who have somewhere to go and there’s an entire nation – their family, waiting for them outside.”

I hope President Zelensky hears Sharansky’s message. Yes, his nation of 44 million are counting on him, and they come first. But isn’t it miraculous and comforting to know that Am Israel — the Jewish people worldwide — are holding their arms, their doors and their prayer books wide open for the man whom we pray will welcome Passover next month in peace and freedom from the ubiquitous darkness of evil.

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Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and civic action advocate. Follow her on Twitter @RefaelTabby