An Honest Broker

 

There’s a Talmudic parable that best describes Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s predicament:
“It’s like a man who has two wives, one old and the other young. The young wife plucks the grey hairs from his head to make him look young while the older wife pulls out the remaining black hairs to make him look old. As a result, he is completely bald.”  

Our prime minister lost most of his hair long before he tried to mediate between Russia (Vladimir Putin) and Ukraine. Initially, his efforts offended Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy and annoyed some Israeli politicians as well.

Nevertheless, Patrick Wintour, the diplomatic editor of the Guardian upgraded Bennett in an article he wrote listing him among the world leaders pushing for peace in Ukraine, and their motives. Then Wintour denigrated him along with the others, before giving him credit for his efforts.

“They claim to be honest brokers, but is that just a fig leaf to cover their moral bankruptcy?” I’ll skip his remarks regarding Narendra Modi, Mohamed bin Zayed, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and mention only what he had to say about Naftali Bennett. 

“Bennett’s visit to Moscow on Saturday was the most surprising and consequential. He apparently consulted Macron, Scholz and US president Joe Biden in advance of breaking Shabbat to spend three hours with Putin before travelling on to Berlin to brief Scholz. Erdoğan was also given warning, since he needed to use Turkish airspace.

Since the visit, Bennett has spoken to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, twice, and is due to speak to Putin again. His foreign minister Yair Lapid will fly to meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken in Lithuania, suggesting he may be making some progress. Bennett, prime minister since June, is a diplomatic novice, but he was accompanied by Ze’ev Elkin, a veteran of former PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s meetings with Putin from 2009 onwards and, according to Israeli accounts, is the official who has spent the longest time with the Russian leader.

But Bennett’s visit has come under domestic attack from those angry that Israel has in effect decided to stay neutral by blocking Zelenskiy’s request Israeli arms supplies. Zelenskiy himself complained at first: ‘I don’t feel Bennett is wrapped in our flag.’

His early stance also displeased Washington, but the anger was tempered when Bennett was persuaded to support the UN general assembly resolution on March 2 condemning Russia.

Berating the “peacemakers” Patrick Wintour quoted a phrase from the Gospel of Matthew, taken from the Sermon on the Mount:

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”

 “The world leaders pushing for peace in Ukraine claim to be honest brokers, but is that just a fig leaf to cover their moral bankruptcy?” Winter queried.

“How blessed are the peacemakers? After the first wave of intermediaries led by Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, a new group have beaten their way to Vladimir Putin’s long table since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or at least sought to intervene by phone.

These countries have all defended their interventions and various shades of neutrality over the war, saying it puts them in a good place to act as honest brokers. Their critics, by contrast, say the peacemaking
is a fig leaf behind which to hide moral bankruptcy and to justify the maintenance of deep commercial ties with Russia, still a potential victor from this trial of strength.

Israel has motives to stay onside with Russia. If Moscow can be persuaded not to sign off on a revival of the Iran nuclear deal, currently close to completion in Vienna, that would be a diplomatic triumph for a country that has long opposed it. Israel also needs Russia to maintain a deal inside Syria that allows it to mount attacks on Iranian positions.”

Patrick Wintour also quoted a furious piece in Haaretz saying, the author Uri Misgav complained: “We’re walking on eggshells, wary of offending Vladimir Putin’s inflated honour […] Bennett was even pulled out of a meeting to take an extended phone call from him. The excuse was that it involved Israeli ‘mediation efforts’. Instead of hanging up on a psychopathic, ruthless dictator, Israel is acting like a Russian client state, nearly an ally.” However, Haaretz is by no means mainstream Israeli opinion

Further to that, Wintour quoted former director general of the Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs, Alon Liel. “Can it be that the defence ministry can say that because we need to bomb Syria once or twice a week, we’re going to stay neutral in this war?” he asked. “Bennett’s trip to Russia gave Putin the stamp of neutral Israel’s approval – which we won’t be able to shake off.”

Bennett denies that his efforts should be seen in such a light, saying he has a moral responsibility to try to bring peace. “I went to Moscow and Berlin to try to help bring a dialogue between all the sides, with the blessing and encouragement of all the players,” he said. “Even if the chances are not great.”

Herb Keinon concurred in his column for the Jerusalem Post “Bennett acknowledges that he doesn’t have to worry about whom he will be antagonising or what part of his base he will be alienating with any particular policy, because he doesn’t have much of a base. So, without a base, he can do what he thinks is right.

It’s an interesting governing model but one that is hard to believe any politician actually strives for. Bennett has never given off the sense that at the age of 50 he feels his best political days are behind him and that he will walk gently into the good political night once his term is up in August 2023.”

There’s an ongoing internal debate that has not been mentioned so far in foreign news outlets.

Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Sunday, “We need to stop beating ourselves up... We are fine. We are helping Ukraine with significant humanitarian aid, more than our share. We are taking a clear political position, including voting in international fora. More refugees from Ukraine entered Israel last week than any other country without a border with Ukraine... There is no reason for national masochism in the discourse.”

“Sa’ar’s statement was about the debate over how many Ukrainian refugees who do not fall under the Law of Return should be taken in. However, knowing the discomfort some in the cabinet feel with Bennett’s shuttle-diplomacy efforts, it’s not hard to read between the lines to suspect why he needs this mediation headache.

Bennett, however, is the unstoppable force of the classic paradox.

The world is getting an introduction to Bennett’s personality now, after he had a relatively low international profile. But his behaviour in recent days is very familiar to those who have been observing him over his decade in politics: He is someone with big ideas that he will try to push regardless of the obstacles.

That means Putin finds talking to Bennett to be useful in other ways, whether it’s being able to say there are still leaders of democracies willing to meet him or to pass messages to the West.

There have already been reports that Putin demanded that Israel not provide weapons to Ukraine during the meeting, and that may have been reason enough for him to agree to meet with Bennett. The best-case scenario is that Putin is keeping the channel with Bennett open in case he needs it for the end of the war in Ukraine.

Bennett is smart, but it’s possible that his earnestness and unwavering resolve could be leading him straight into a trap set by a far more cynical Putin.”

Just the same, Bennett is not naïve and it certainly occurred to him that Putin might be using him as a useful but disposable intercessor.

We will have to wait and see how this plays out. In the meantime, Naftali Bennett still fits the description of an honest broker.

 

Have a good weekend

 

Beni,                                                               10^th of March, 2022