Has Vladimir Putin now "apologized" for the statements made by his foreign minister?

This is what the office of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said after a phone call with the Russian President on Thursday evening.

In Israel, Sergey Lavrov's words from an interview with an Italian television station - that Hitler had "Jewish blood" and "the most zealous anti-Semites were themselves Jews" - caused great outrage.

Lavrov himself had been asked by Israeli Foreign Minister Jair Lapid to ask for forgiveness.

Christian Meier

Political correspondent for the Middle East and Northeast Africa.

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Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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For Lavrov, and even more so for the head of the Kremlin, such a thing is completely unusual.

Putin demands.

Putin accuses.

Sometimes he also pardons.

But Putin does not forgive, nor does he apologize.

In the message about the phone call with Bennett, there is no mention of Lavrov's failures.

Instead, Putin congratulated on Israel's Independence Day on Thursday and spoke of the development of friendly relations.

In addition, Ukraine was discussed, especially the situation on the site of the Azovstal steel plant, the last remaining place in the devastated Mariupol, which is still being fought over.

The Ukrainian defenders report renewed attempts by the attackers to storm the country – although Putin himself recently ordered his defense minister to stop the storm and told UN Secretary-General António Guterres that there was no more fighting in Mariupol.

Chief Rabbi in Russia put pressure on

Then, according to the Kremlin, the phone call was about the special meaning of the "Victory Day" of 1945, which Russia and Israel celebrate on May 9th.

The date is particularly significant for the peoples of both countries, who "carefully uphold the historical truth of the events of those years and honor the memory of all those who died, including the victims of the Holocaust," the Kremlin said.

However, Lavrov's comments were made as part of the Russian effort to justify the war against Ukraine with its alleged "Nazism", against which, according to Lavrov, the Jewish origins of President Volodymyr Zelenskyj do not protect: "I can be wrong, but Hitler also had it Jewish blood.” The Russian commemoration on Monday will also be dedicated to Putin's “fight against Nazism”.

It remains questionable whether Bennett criticized this instrumentalization of the past in the war of aggression against Ukraine.

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday dismissed Israeli criticism of Lavrov in an angry statement.

But even in Russia, the minister had been urged to seek an apology in Israel: the country's chief rabbi, Berl Lazar, said "it wouldn't be bad if he apologized to the Jews and simply admitted that he was wrong." “.

Then you can "close the chapter".

Israel's seesaw policy under scrutiny

That's probably what Putin was about in the phone call with Bennett on the one hand.

On the other hand, the Russian president is likely to want Israel not to side with Ukraine more strongly.

After the government in Jerusalem found it difficult to name the Russian aggression in the first days of the war, American pressure in particular has meanwhile led to Israel following the line of the West more closely.

Israelis voted in early March for the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian attack;

Bennett had previously declined to support a similar motion in the Security Council.

Israel is also providing humanitarian aid: a field hospital was made available to Ukraine, and in late April the Ministry of Defense gave the go-ahead for the delivery of thousands of helmets and body armor for Ukrainian emergency workers.

Heavy weapons or a missile defense system, which Ukraine had requested from Israel last year, have not been up for debate.

However, the United States and European countries are pressuring Israel to do more.

Last week, a representative of the Israeli Defense Ministry attended the Ukraine meeting in Ramstein.

Such developments do not go unnoticed by the Russian side either.

It has various means of exerting pressure on Jerusalem, most notably that it could make Israeli military strikes in Syria more difficult.

The Israeli government seems undecided whether it wants to continue to be on good terms with all sides.

As a solution to this dilemma, Bennet has meanwhile brought himself into play as a mediator between Zelenskyj and Putin.

Not much came of it.

When things go badly for him, both Russia and the West end up upset with Israel.

It was therefore also in Israel's interests not to allow the conflict with Moscow to escalate further after Lavrov's statements.