JERUSALEM (Parliament Politics Magazine) – According to Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Russia’s decision to close the organisation that handles Jewish immigration to Israel would be a major event for bilateral relations.
A hearing on July 28 has been scheduled after a Moscow court last week stated that the justice ministry had asked for the “dissolution” of the Jewish Agency due to various unspecified legal breaches.
Some experts saw that as the Kremlin firing a warning shot at Lapid, who has adopted a more forceful rhetorical stance regarding the Ukraine conflict than Israel’s former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who stepped aside on 1st July.
A statement given by the government said that Lapid warned a gathering of top officials on Sunday that shutting down the Jewish Agency offices would be a serious event that would impact ties between the two countries.
Along with diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, he also directed that a legal team must be prepared to depart for Moscow as soon as Russia approved for discussions and to make every effort to complete the legal dialogue.
The Jewish Agency, which was founded in 1929, was crucial to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
Thousands of Jews from all over the USSR moved for Israel after it started operating in Russia in 1989, two years before the end of the Soviet Union.
Today, over a million Israelis originally come from the Soviet Union.
Closing the agency’s Russian office wouldn’t stop Russian Jews from emigrating to Israel; only a complete blockade of the Russian border could accomplish that; however, it would slow the process down.
Lapid, who serves as foreign minister, accused Russia of being the reason for violation of the “world order,” after it invaded Ukraine on 24th February. Bennett on the other hand emphasised Israel’s close ties to both the countries, refrained from criticising the invasion directly. He later attempted to serve as a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.
Since becoming prime minister, Lapid has stepped up his criticism of Russia, but he has also tried to tread carefully in order to maintain relations with Moscow, which are considered as essential to maintaining Israel’s capacity to launch airstrikes in Syria where Russian forces are present.
