By Alex Gordon
HAIFA, Israel — There has been a war in Europe for nine months now. What could be more dangerous than a war in Europe? A war in Asia, which could start because of a war in Europe and would go with it.
Who is pushing for war in Asia? The very country that suffers most from war in Europe — Ukraine. The president of Ukraine is demanding that Israel supply weapons for air defense. Israel is not sending weapons to Ukraine because of Russia’s military presence near the border with Israel, in Syria, where S-400 air defense systems are deployed, and the Hmeimim Air Base and the Tartus Naval Base are located in the western part of that country.
Israel also does not want to lose communication channels between Russian and Israeli soldiers. Russia is not preventing Israel from waging a vital war with Iran, which is building a beachhead to attack Israel from Syria. Ukraine is not interested in solving Israel’s vital problems. It has proven this by continually joining anti-Israel U.N. resolutions on all the existential problems of the Jewish state. If Israel were to capitulate under pressure from the Ukrainian government and supply Ukraine with the required weapons, there could be armed clashes between Russia and Israel in Syria. Peace in the East is established very slowly, wars arise very quickly. Violence appears with lightning speed, as it did during the Arab Spring, which engulfed 20 Arab countries over a period of 25 months.
Then there was a chain reaction of anti-government and government violence, revolutions and civil wars and at least 800,000 dead. In Syria, where huge quantities of lethal weapons have been accumulated, a small rocket attack could play the role of a match to a powder keg. Israel would then acquire another front in Syria: Russia.
Russia could ally with Iran against Israel. No one knows better than Ukraine how dangerous such an alliance is, the creation of which has led to deadly Iranian drone attacks used by Russia against Ukraine. Ukraine would be relieved if Russia fought a new enemy. An expansion of the war in Syria because of skirmishes between Israel and Russia could lead to a war in Asia. Ukraine might have been relieved by such a development, but many people in Asia would have paid dearly for this new round of war.
But the Ukrainian leadership does not realize, or is unwilling to realize, that its demands could unleash a war in another part of the globe. Israel is at war with several Arab countries and huge terrorist organizations, as well as Iran. If Ukraine were to impose military action on Israel against Russia, would it be able to assist the Jewish state in that action? I won’t address the history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations before the creation of Israel. But by supporting dozens of anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N., Ukraine has already proven that it is not a friendly country to Israel.
So why should Israel risk its security for its sake? And who will answer for the war between Russia and Israel, provoked by the Jewish state’s military aid to Ukraine? Ukraine’s President Zelensky, the darling of the international community? It is quite understandable that he is acting in Ukraine’s interests. But his insistence on supplying Israeli weapons and imposing Israeli sanctions on Russia reflects a desire to create or intensify military conflicts in other regions. NATO does not intervene in the war between Ukraine and Russia so as not to create a global conflict. Ukraine’s pressure on Israel, President Zelensky’s reprimands and maxims, shaming the Jewish state for its neutral position in the war between the two Slavic nations, must be seen as an attempt to create a global clash, an expansion of military conflict, not its elimination.
Ukraine’s active pressure on Israel could lead to a situation that the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes called “War of all against all,” “Bellum omnium contra omnes.”
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Alex Gordon is a native of Kiev, Ukraine, and graduate of the Kiev State University and Haifa Technion (Doctor of Science, 1984). Immigrated to Israel in 1979. Full Professor (Emeritus) of Physics in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education. Author of 9 books and about 600 articles in paper and online, was published in 79 journals in 14 countries in Russian, Hebrew, English, French, and German.
Insightful analysis.