Global Research

Featured image: On May 9, 2018 Vladimir Putin had talks with Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in the Kremlin (Source: author)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attendance at Victory Day 2018 as President Putin’s guest of honor, the day-long meeting that they had, and then Israel’s bombing of Iranian positions in Syria later that same night forever changed how the Alt-Media Community views the Russian-Israeli relationship.

Up until this Wednesday’s 2018 Victory Day event in Moscow, most of the Alt-Media Community was still brainwashed by the dogma that Russia is somehow “against” Israel despite years of evidence to the contrary, including multiple quotes from President Putin on this topic published on the Kremlin’s official website. That all changed earlier in the week when President Putin invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the celebration as one of his two guests of honor, the other being Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. It shouldn’t be a surprise that this happened because, after all, Russia and Israel are allies, like the author explained in September 2017.

The gist of this assertion comes down to the ethno-religious ties that bind the two parties together and lay the basis for a comprehensive partnership with one another, one which Russia has skillfully sought to use as a fundamental component of its “balancing” strategy. How this works in practice is that Russia, whose military mandate in Syria is strictly about fighting terrorism and not protecting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), passively allows Israel to bomb what it says are suspected Iranian positions in the Arab Republic because it believes that the “phased withdrawal” of Tehran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their Hezbollah allies after the defeat of Daesh is a “necessary compromise” for “ensuring regional peace”.

This “politically incorrect” observation shouldn’t be taken as the author’s personal endorsement of this policy, but simply as a reflection of reality as it objectively exists. Moreover, in case the dozens of Israeli bombings that have occurred without Russian interference since the beginning of Moscow’s anti-terrorist operation in September 2015 weren’t enough evidence to convince the reader that the two parties coordinate these activities, the Russian Ambassador to Israel openly acknowledged this himself when he said late last month that “We are mutually coordinating and updating about Syria … So far, there have been no incidents between us, nor even hints at incidents, and I hope there will not be.”

All of this sets the backdrop for the action-packed 24 hours of 8-9 May, 2018.

Israeli forces carried out air strikes at targets in Syria (Source: author)

Israel launched another surprise attack against Syria on the night of 8 May, just an hour or so after Trump withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, reportedly killing several Iranians in the process. This daring raid was made all the more sensitive because it occurred just hours before Netanyahu arrived in Moscow as one of President Putin’s two guests of honor for the Victory Day events. While in the Russian capital, the Israeli premier was feted with the honor of standing two positions away from his host and was seen amicably chatting with him the entire time.

After watching the parade, the two leaders marched to the Alexander Garden to pay homage to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, during which time Netanyahu proudly held up a picture of a Soviet Jewish World War II veteran as he participated in Russia’s Immortal Regiment, a relatively new tradition that is regarded as almost sacred and in which Russians walk through the streets carrying photos of their family members who served and sacrificed during the war. This entire time, Netanyahu was proudly wearing the St. George Ribbon to commemorate the over 26 million Soviet citizens who died in the war against fascism.

Clearly, Israel’s bombing of Syria the night before had no impact on how warmly President Putin treated his guest of honor, nor on Netanyahu’s commitment to observing the Victory Day events.

During the Putin-Netanyahu press conference, the latter revealed that the war veteran that was between him and President Putin was actually one of the men who liberated Auschwitz, which obviously wasn’t a coincidence and was clearly part of the Kremlin’s meticulous planning of this event. That observation served as the lead-in for the Israeli premier to compare Iran to Nazi Germany and imply that it’s plotting a ‘second holocaust’, ergo the need to ‘contain’ it in Syria. It can only be speculated what the two men discussed behind closed doors prior to that point, but Netanyahu did say before his trip that it would be precisely about Iran and Syria.

Hours after Netanyahu left Moscow and within 24 hours of the last Israeli bombing of Syria, yet another one occurred, albeit this time apparently more large-scale than the last.

At this point, there’s no longer any use in Alt-Media denying it, Russia and Israel are indeed allies, and what took place in the 24 hours of 8 and 9 May was a display of choreographed “military diplomacy” that represents one of the high points of the “Syrian show”.  Sometimes events really are as simple as they appear, which in this case means that – whether one supports it, is against it, or feels indifferent towards it – Russia and Israel were coordinating Tel Aviv’s latest moves in Syria at the highest level of their leaderships, and that what took place after Netanyahu’s departure from Moscow was apparently greenlit by President Putin.

The actual conspiracy theories of the much-ridiculed “5-D chess” explanation or the superficial slogan of “keeping your enemies closer” that Alt-Media demagogues continue to rely on in order to maintain their weaponized disinformation campaign that Russia is somehow “against” Israel are losing their luster as it’s becoming increasingly impossible to continue suppressing the facts about the true relationship between these two. President Putin invited Netanyahu to Moscow to celebrate Victory Day as one of his two guests of honor in order to show the world that Israel is just as much of an ally to Russia as Serbia is, whose president was also personally invited to attend as well.

A turning point might therefore have finally been reached after Victory Day 2018 sobered up the minds of many in the Alt-Media Community and revealed to them that the dogma that some outlets and figures had indoctrinated them with for years about Russia and Israel turned out to be a complete lie.

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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.