Moscow on Friday attacked Foreign Minister Yair Lapid more than a week after Israel joined other countries to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council for invading Ukraine.
A statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Lapid of an “anti-Russian attack” with his comments after last week’s vote in the General Assembly, which was only the second time a country has been deprived of its rights to join the council.
“There is an effort to take advantage of the situation around Ukraine to divert the attention of the international community from one of the longest unresolved conflicts – the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” the ministry said.
The statement continued to criticize Israel for “illegal occupation and creeping annexation of Palestinian territories.” He also broke the blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which Israel said was necessary to prevent weapons from reaching terrorist groups in the enclave.
“It is also worth noting that … the longest occupation in post-war world history has taken place with the tacit cooperation of leading Western countries and the genuine support of the United States,” the statement said.
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It was unclear what exactly Lapid, who accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine after the April 7 vote, said to provoke Moscow’s anger.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry at the time condemned the “unjustified invasion” of Ukraine and accused Russian forces of “killing innocent civilians”. The statement quoted Lapid as saying that there was no change in Israel’s position on the Human Rights Council, which Jerusalem claims has anti-Israel biases, without referring to Russia or its invasion of Ukraine.
There is no response from Lapid or the Foreign Ministry to Russia’s statement.
Nadiya Trubchaninova, 70, is sitting next to a plastic bag containing the body of her 48-year-old son, Vadim Trubchaninov, who was killed by Russian troops in Bucha on March 30, near Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 12, 2022. (AP Photo / Rodrigo Abd)
Israel has been avoiding joining too closely with any of the countries since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24. It is one of the few countries that has relatively warm relations with both Ukraine, another Western democracy, and Russia, which controls airspace over Syria, which Israel uses to target Iranian proxies.
However, after irritating the Biden administration by refusing to sponsor the first UN Security Council resolution against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Israel has since joined the West in condemning Russia in several UN resolutions.
Jerusalem is also slowly moving towards a broader Western stance against Russia, although there has been a delegation of responsibility between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who until recently tried to mediate between the countries and largely avoided criticizing Russia, and Lapid, who was much more -voiced in his critique. Both men condemned the Bucha massacre, but only Lapid found Russia guilty.
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