Middle East in Israeli-Russian-Iranian triangle
Review by Shereshevsky

ANALYTICS  01 November 2023 - 16:16

The cooling of Israeli relations with Russia is not yet fatal or fundamentally irreversible. But it has deep reasons behind and can affect global processes.

The current deterioration is caused by the fact that it is important for Russia to confront the United States and attack the West ideologically. American support for Israel does not benefit the West in the global South, especially in the Middle East. Russia understands this and takes advantage of it. The Middle East is generally pro-Palestinian, and Moscow would like to increase its influence there. Nevertheless, the chill between Russia and Israel has not yet become fatal and irreversible.

The Benjamin Netanyahu government is closely linked to the Kremlin. At the heart of this connection is a broad agreement on Syria and Ukraine.

It can be formulated approximately like this: “We, Israel, bomb Iranians and Hezbollah, our main enemies; we do not allow Iran, our main geopolitical rival, to turn Syria into its military base; For your part, you - Russians do not fire at us from your S-400 air defense systems stationed in Syria. We Israelis are not attacking your positions in Syria, we are not supplying precision lethal weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and, moreover, we are helping some very rich and influential Russians solve their health problems with the help of highly developed Israeli medicine.”

In addition, the parties took other steps towards each other, such as Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow on May 9, 2018, which was important for the Kremlin.

Now there is a cooling, but Israel still remains Russia’s partner. Can the situation change? Indeed, if during the current big war, Israel enters Syria. In this case, it will come into direct conflict with Russian interests, since Russian troops are stationed in Syria - Moscow supports the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

At the same time, Hezbollah and Iran have military bases in Syria. Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad - all this is a network of Tehran's allies. When Israel fights Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it is fighting a proxy war with Iran. For its part, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and Iran, is firing at Israel from Lebanese territory. Israel responds by shelling Lebanon. The Israeli Air Force attacks Syrian airports to prevent the transfer of militants and Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. All this could escalate into a full-scale war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Assad government in Syria; ultimately, with Iran itself if the parties begin to exchange missile strikes. And this could mean the development of a direct conflict between Israel and Russia.

In any case, the further expansion of Israel’s conflict with Iran, the state that stands behind Hezbollah and Hamas, and at the same time is a military-political ally of Moscow, may increase the cooling between Russia and Israel.

Another factor that could affect relations between Russia and Israel is of a long-term strategic nature. We are talking about a rapprochement between Moscow and Tehran: a full-fledged Russian-Iranian military-political and economic bloc is gradually being shaped. This is not as a simple and linear process as some might think. There are a lot of difficulties, including mutual distrust of the Russian and Iranian leaderships, due to the history and geopolitics of both countries, whose interests have repeatedly collided in the past. What is even more important are the divergent economic interests.

Both countries are oil exporters by nature and need industrial equipment and products from the technology sector (although both Russia and Iran have their own strong industries). Both countries, being oil exporters, compete with each other in the Chinese market. Russian business feels uncomfortable in Iran, a country where, without strong ties with the elite of the IRGC, no major projects are possible due to monstrous corruption and the massive bureaucratic rules that entangle the market, and the Iranians are very slowly and not always successfully trying to enter Russian markets, where they many surprises await.

However, the trade turnover between Moscow and Tehran is growing: at the end of 2022, it amounted to $4.9 billion – 20 per cent more than in 2021. Countries can exchange military equipment and technology. Iran has recognized supplying Russia with kamikaze drones until February 24, 2022 (although Russia does not recognize the existence of such supplies), while Moscow is ready to provide Iran with the latest Russian Su-35 aircraft, which have proven themselves effectively in Ukraine.

As Moscow's political and military ties with Tehran strengthen, driven by their common opposition to America, a cooling of Russia's ties with Israel, Iran's main enemy, is inevitable. This factor determines relations between countries from a strategic perspective. That is, in the future, Israeli-Russian relations are highly likely to worsen.

Russia and Israel are still holding on to their agreements on Syria. This may be due to the fact that they fear an unpredictable and dangerous mutual escalation in Syria. If the cooling becomes irreversible and fatal, it will greatly affect international relations. For example, in parallel with the supply of Russian weapons to Iran, there may be a flow of high-precision Israeli weapons to Ukraine - Spike long-range anti-tank missile systems, Harop kamikaze drones, cruise missiles, etc. But today there are no conditions for such a development of the situation.

Caliber.Az