Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In their first face-to-face meeting since 2021, the two men are expected to discuss Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Kremlin maintains relations with both Israel and Palestine, but experts say its real influence on the conflict is limited and the meeting is more of a symbolic nature.
“When you look at Russia’s engagement in the Palestinian issue, it’s not just about Palestine,” Samuel Ramani, author of Russia in Africa, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“It’s about consolidating their presence in the Arab world, showing that they are in solidarity with the Palestinian cause while the Americans support Israel. So that these meetings are not only about Palestine, they are also about Russia’s soft power in the Middle East.”
Unlike the United States and the European Union, Russia has not blacklisted Hamas as a “terrorist” organization, welcoming the group’s delegates to Moscow shortly after their victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections and treating them as a legitimate political force.
In February, Russia hosted a conference with representatives from Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad, aimed at bridging the sometimes deep divisions between them.
“But nothing ever came of it,” noted Ruslan Suleymanov, an independent Russian Middle East expert based in Baku.
“In general, this is all Moscow is capable of; it has no serious influence on the Palestinian factions. In addition to its support for Palestine, Moscow must also criticize Western countries for their support for Israel. Russia today takes an anti-Western, and therefore anti-Israeli, position. For example, when the UN Security Council meets to discuss Anglo-American proposals (on Gaza), Russia has always used its veto, which the Palestinians appreciate. But this does not turn into capital.”
Russian motions for a ceasefire in Gaza presented to the UN Security Council in October were rejected by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Japan.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry also reportedly sent hundreds of tons of aid, mainly food and hygiene products, to the besieged Palestinian enclave, to be distributed through the Egyptian Red Crescent.
“It is simply important that the Kremlin shows once again that it plays a role, but I do not think that this will lead to anything,” Suleymanov added.
“Abbas will soon be 90 years old. It is clear that a transition of power in Palestine is imminent. I think the Kremlin has also understood this and, if it has not already understood it, it will be watching closely who will take over from Abbas. Perhaps this will also be a subject of discussion.”
Russia and Israel
At the same time, Israel’s history with Russia is deeply intertwined.
Fleeing pogroms and persecution, Jews from the Russian Empire formed the first wave of mass migration from Europe to Palestine.
After World War II, the USSR initially supported the 1947 Partition Plan, ostensibly on the grounds that Western nations had failed to protect their own Jewish populations, and was the first to recognize the Jewish state.
The nascent Israeli army even received weapons from communist Czechoslovakia, then subordinate to the Kremlin. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin may have thought that Israel could be a useful lever against British interests in the Middle East.
But the USSR quickly disavowed Zionism, instead arming and equipping neighboring Arab countries as well as Palestinian liberation movements.
As a student in the 1970s, Abbas earned his doctorate at the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow, writing a controversial thesis on what he saw as shared interests between early Zionists and the Nazis.
Israeli researchers have even claimed, based on Soviet documents, that Abbas was a KGB agent – a suggestion Abbas has denied, accusing the researchers of trying to derail the peace talks.
After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Kremlin completely cut off diplomatic relations with Israel until the end of the Cold War, only reestablishing contact after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s.
Modern Russia has tried to balance its relations with Israel by supporting Palestine.
Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are publicly friendly, and have even been spotted together attending a ballet performance. The relationship is complicated by Russia’s involvement in Syria, where it collaborates with Iran-backed Hezbollah, Israel’s arch-enemy.
“There are things that each expects from the other,” said Mark N Katz, professor emeritus at George Mason University, adding that at the same time, Israeli officials “fear” that if relations deteriorate, Moscow could harm the Jewish community in Russia.
“Moscow does not want to see Israel do anything to arm Ukraine, and it has appreciated that the Israelis have shown restraint in this regard. The Israelis, for their part, cite the deconfliction agreement between Russian and Israeli forces regarding Syria, under which the Israelis strike the Iranians and Hezbollah, but do not harm the Russians,” Katz said.
According to Ramani, “the Israelis are acting increasingly unilaterally in Syria, sometimes simply informing the Russians, instead of consulting and engaging in dialogue with them.”
Israel has so far refused to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. But relations between the two countries have cooled noticeably.
“Remember Putin’s openly anti-Semitic comments about Zelensky’s Jewish roots, or Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments about the responsibility of Jews in the Holocaust… all this happened long before October 7,” Suleymanov said.
“But after October 7, relations became even more tense. In Israel, it is now completely unacceptable for Russia to accept Hamas. If before October 7 this was understandable because it was assumed that Moscow would play the role of an intermediary, today it is completely different. And when Putin compared the bombing of Gaza to the siege of Leningrad, this was also very badly received in Israel.”
Israel is home to a large diaspora of Russian origin, and the Kremlin used its channels with Hamas to facilitate the release of some Russian-Israelis captured on October 7.
“With Russian-Israeli relations having become so strained because of their criticism of the war and their relations with Iran, the Russians now have smaller diplomatic goals, such as engaging with Hamas to get Russian hostages out of their territory,” Ramani explained.
The Iranian factor
In July, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, for which Iran, a close ally of Russia, vowed retaliation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the killing, calling it a counterproductive step for ceasefire negotiations and urging all sides to exercise restraint.
“I think if there is an Israeli-Iranian conflict, what are the chances that the United States will enter such a war, and what can Russia actually do?” Katz said.
“Russian forces (in Ukraine) are stretched quite thin: one week they seem to be ahead, and now they seem to be on the defensive. Will Russia have the capacity to act in a way that will determine the outcome of the conflict?”
