Russia earlier this week invited the leaders of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas for talks in Moscow. Ukraine hoped Israelis were paying attention, but also that they wouldn’t be too surprised by this turn of events.
Ukraine’s embassy in Israel had harsh words for Russia after a senior Hamas delegation led by Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political bureau, visited Moscow and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss their ties.
The delegation expressed its appreciation for “the Russian position in support of the rights of our Palestinian people, their valued role in Palestinian internal affairs, and their keenness on the unity of our people.”
Ukraine described Russia and Hamas as two peas in a pod.
In a Hebrew-language post to Twitter accompanied by an image of the Russian and Hamas flag converging with the headline “Surprised?!,” the Ukrainians stressed:
“Only a country that murders thousands of children, women, and men under the pretext that it is ‘liberating its citizens,’ can host a leader of a terrorist organization of the first order. The world must not sit idly by and watch all this madness from the sidelines.”
איסמעיל הניה – מנהיג ארגון הטרור חמאס, נפגש עם שר החוץ הרוסי כדי לדון בקשרים שלהם.
רק מדינה שרוצחת אלפי ילדים נשים וגברים בתואנה שהיא "משחררת את אזרחיה", יכולה לארח מנהיג ארגון טרור מהדרגה הראשונה. אסור שהעולם יישב בחיבוק ידיים וייצפה בכל הטירוף הזה מהצד. pic.twitter.com/q5aemOdOva— Ukr Emb in Israel (@UKRinIsrael) September 13, 2022
Israeli analyst Yoni Ben Menachem, of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), explained that Hamas is taking advantage of the fact that it did not participate in the attack on Israel during Operation Breaking Dawn, “in order to leverage its political activity and present itself as a pragmatic and ‘moderate’ organization.”
Russia “needs every possible friend in the international arena, especially in view of the international coalition that the US managed to form against it following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. Russia sees great importance in its relationship with Hamas. Hamas sees an opportunity to try and improve its international status,” he wrote.
With reporting by Aryeh Savir/TPS.
