Analysis: has Israel’s position on the war begun to shift?

When historians look back on the events of this week, will they mark it as the moment that Israel’s stance on the war in Ukraine began to shift?

Quite possibly.

This was the week when Russia announced the result of its self-styled referendums in the regions of Ukraine that it occupies. They surprised no-one: the regions all decided – if that is the correct word – to leave Ukraine and become a part of Russia.

Few Jewish News readers would argue that the voting in Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia was free and fair. The more pertinent question is how Israel, which has spent much of this war trying to keep itself out of it, would respond to a brazen attempt to divide Ukrainian territory.

The reasons for Israel’s indecision are well-documented: it has a large Russian-speaking population, it has closed military and economic ties with the United States, and the IDF needs to maintain contact with the Russian armed forces for its missions against Iranian-backed forces in Syria.

All of these have made for a tricky balancing act.

But this week, there was a public shift. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said plainly that it “will not accept the results of the referendum in the eastern districts of Ukraine.” It’s a position that aligns it with much of the western world.

And that follows more gradual changes over recent months. Israel has been absorbing migrants in their thousands from Ukraine. Some of them are Jewish; many are not. Some are wounded Ukrainian troops arriving for medical treatment.

Then there’s the disgruntlement caused by a legal dispute over the future of the Jewish Agency in Russia, which authorities there want to shut down. That case resumes next month.

None of these examples are to suggest Israel is about to sever its relations with Russia and begin to supply Ukraine with weapons and defence systems.

But they are clear signs that Israelis are no longer sitting on the fence as much as they were.