Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Yad Vashem head Dani Dayan and many Israeli political and civil society leaders expressed outrage at Lavrov’s words, even as the Russian Foreign Ministry kept pouring oil on the fire and issuing statements about Israel “supporting neo-Nazis” in Ukraine and “Israeli mercenaries fighting with the Azov Battalion.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who for years maintained close ties with Israel, hasn’t yet reacted to this public row. However, even before Lavrov’s statements, the tensions between Moscow and Jerusalem were mounting.
Just last week, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Smolenskaya Square after Michael Brodsky, Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine, suggested that a few streets in Kyiv be renamed after righteous Ukrainians who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Before that incident, Russia strongly rebuked Lapid for denouncing the Russian war crimes in Ukraine and voting to expel Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
