At a dinner in June for the Russian ambassador in Jerusalem, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered some insights into how he had wooed Vladimir Putin into the most fruitful partnership of any western leader.
First, he paid homage to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Then, he thanked the Red Army for defeating the Nazis. He spoke of the million Russian-speaking Jews now living in Israel. And he thanked the Russian president for fighting anti-Semitism. “I have great respect for Russia,” Mr Netanyahu said. “I have respect for its contribution to civilisation and the courage of its people.”
Mr Netanyahu’s cocktail of praise has proved to be seductive. As the war in Syria raged across the Israeli border, he forged an unlikely alliance with Mr Putin, one that has benefited both leaders militarily and survived the shifting loyalties of that civil war.
Their positive relationship stands out on the global stage as Mr Putin is assailed by political leaders elsewhere for election meddling and Moscow’s alleged involvement in nerve agent attacks in the UK.
Gestures such as those in Jerusalem have helped smooth the way for Mr Netanyahu, said Alex Selsky, a former adviser to Mr Netanyahu on relations with Russia. But he has also reaped the rewards of his decision to express public empathy with Mr Putin’s worldview, which includes annoyance with a western narrative of the second world war that diminishes Russia’s contribution in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
“What matters above all are the shared interests, but this kind of understanding builds an open trust, and it allows us to speak about complex issues,” said Mr Selsky, now an academic at Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem “We are the only western ally who can deeply understand the Russians as well as we understand the Americans.”
In Syria, Mr Putin has allowed Mr Netanyahu free rein to pound Iranian targets near the Israeli border, discovering a counterbalance to the larger Shia forces within Syria, where Russia backs the regime of Bashar al-Assad in an uneasy collaboration with Iran.
By looking to Mr Putin to apply pressure on Iranian forces, Mr Netanyahu hopes to have found a way to keep a staunch rival away from his borders without getting involved in the complex Syrian conflict itself.
The two leaders have met nine times since early 2016 — including when Mr Netanyahu attended a Victory Day Parade in Moscow — and speak on the phone almost monthly.
At the same time, Israel’s Soviet-born defence minister and former nightclub bouncer Avigdor Lieberman, whose father served in the Red Army, has helped smooth regular meetings between Israeli and Russian military brass with references to famous Russian battles, literature and cinema, said Mr Selsky.
The relationship also highlights Russia’s successful diplomacy in the Middle East, where Moscow is working with a broad range of countries whose interests often run counter to each other.
In the absence of any US forces in south-west Syria, which juts up against Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, Mr Netanyahu’s pivot to Russia has made clear the countries’ shared strategic interests in Syria, according to former diplomats and analysts. Israel, for instance, has largely given up any opposition to the survival of the Assad regime, a government it has been at war with since the birth of the country.
“The relationship has grown much closer,” said Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Israel sees Russia as responsible for security in Syria, and the two militaries co-ordinate very closely. The model works.”
That co-ordination has included a hot line between the Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv and a Russian air base in Syria, regular meetings between their chiefs of staffs, and a careful focus on avoiding any inadvertent encounters between their jets over Syria skies.
The relationship has worked because Mr Putin has been receptive to Israel’s security concerns over Iranian forces near its border, said Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy think-tank in Moscow. “He does not always see what other countries say are their security concerns as legitimate, but in Israel’s case, he does, because it is about real security, it is about survival.”
Russian diplomats praise the relationship with Israel as “non-ideological”, a compliment directly contrary to the accusations Moscow frequently levels at western governments. The Kremlin holds the Israeli government in high regard for not having joined western anti-Russian sanctions.
Zvi Magen, a former Israeli ambassador to Russia and Ukraine, cautioned against reading too much into the personal relationship between the cold, taciturn Mr Putin and the smooth-talking Mr Netanyahu. Israel served a role for Russia too, as a counterbalance to the Iranians, who Mr Putin does not fully trust, said Mr Magen.
And Israeli firepower, which far outweighs the Russian deployment in Syria, made it necessary to work with the Jewish state, rather than make it an adversary.
“For the Russians, Israel is a very dangerous country,” said Mr Magen, adding that Russia’s actions reflected an awareness that Israel could threaten Moscow’s interests. “It is a unique situation, and it is not because they like Israel, but because they are afraid.”
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