On the day the following interview took place, the White House released
its long-awaited peace plan for Israel and Palestine, and Israeli media
were peppering Gilead with requests for comments. But that was not why
he had come to Washington. He was here to discuss Israeli perspectives
on Russia’s role in the Middle East, publicly and in a track II working group that the Kennan Institute and IPS have run for some time.
So, while the rest of Washington was trying to make sense of the “deal of the century,” we focused on a different set of issues: why Israel’s seemingly blossoming relationship with Russia cannot compare to its relationship with the United States; whether Russian-speaking Israelis are a target of a charm offensive by Russian president Vladimir Putin; and how Israelis viewed the seizure and release of Naama Issachar, the young Israeli woman who was sentenced to seven and a half years in a Russian prison after Russian security services found 9.5 grams of cannabis in her checked-in luggage at the Sheremetyevo airport.
We also touched on Putin’s recent high-profile appearance at a Yad Vashem forum in Jerusalem dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which raised some eyebrows in Washington. Just yesterday Yad Vashem issued an apology for having appeared to legitimize Russia’s version of World War II history. But in the interview last week Gilead expressed a perspective that is common in Israel: “My mother, a Holocaust survivor—who was the first human being she saw after years of suffering during the Holocaust? Red Army soldiers who shared food with her,” he told me. “In Israel we have Jewish veterans of World War II who served in the Red Army. They are real heroes, and we needed to recognize them.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
For the complete interview click on this link: Israel and Russia: An Interview with Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilead | Wilson Center
So, while the rest of Washington was trying to make sense of the “deal of the century,” we focused on a different set of issues: why Israel’s seemingly blossoming relationship with Russia cannot compare to its relationship with the United States; whether Russian-speaking Israelis are a target of a charm offensive by Russian president Vladimir Putin; and how Israelis viewed the seizure and release of Naama Issachar, the young Israeli woman who was sentenced to seven and a half years in a Russian prison after Russian security services found 9.5 grams of cannabis in her checked-in luggage at the Sheremetyevo airport.
We also touched on Putin’s recent high-profile appearance at a Yad Vashem forum in Jerusalem dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which raised some eyebrows in Washington. Just yesterday Yad Vashem issued an apology for having appeared to legitimize Russia’s version of World War II history. But in the interview last week Gilead expressed a perspective that is common in Israel: “My mother, a Holocaust survivor—who was the first human being she saw after years of suffering during the Holocaust? Red Army soldiers who shared food with her,” he told me. “In Israel we have Jewish veterans of World War II who served in the Red Army. They are real heroes, and we needed to recognize them.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
For the complete interview click on this link: Israel and Russia: An Interview with Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilead | Wilson Center
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