Why Russia’s liberal opposition is so anti-Palestinian

Haven't seen much discussion about this topic. The article is definitely written by a

In July, Uzbekistan-born, Russian-speaking Israeli writer Dina Rubina gave an interview to the Russian opposition channel Rain TV, which caused a stir in the Russophone world. During the hour-and-a-half programme, she declared that there are no “peaceful residents” in Gaza, Israel has the right to “cleanse Gaza and turn it into a parking lot”, and that Palestinians need to be “dissolved in hydrochloric acid”.

Holy mother of God. The article continues citing incredibly disgusting statements by prominent members of the Russian opposition movement.

Popular Russian oppositional media outlets – the Nobel Prize recipient newsletter Novaya Gazeta, Meduza publication outlet, and TV Rain – disproportionately feature pro-Israeli news with little counter-narrative offered. As a result, racist, anti-Palestinian rhetoric thrives in Russian-language social and traditional media.

I only now learnt that Novaya Gazeta earned a Nobel Prize, but yeah, that tells you what kind of audience and funding such publications have and the points of view they're bound to support.

The roots of this pro-Israeli stance among Russia’s liberals – who make up the majority of the Russian opposition – go back to the 20th century.

The Jewish people were persecuted by the Tsarist regime during the Russian Empire, which the Bolsheviks initially denounced. But the communist regime itself eventually embraced anti-Semitic views under Joseph Stalin. Discrimination against Jews continued, and it peaked during 1951-53, when Stalin accused a group of Jewish doctors of conspiracy against the state and launched a campaign of persecution. Even after the Communist Party dropped the accusations, Jews continued to be subject to forced assimilation and structural discrimination.

Within this context, the emerging liberal opposition of the 1980s came to perceive Israel as a protector of the victimised Jewish community and a democratic, liberal state, part of the West.

In parallel, there was an immigration wave towards Israel, which was seen as a place of safety for Soviet opposition figures. This also fed into an unconditional allegiance to Israel and Zionism among dissidents, which was inherited by subsequent generations of the liberal opposition.

Incredible liberal brainworms calling the USSR antisemitic for the doctor's plot at the time of the creation of Israel, I'd like to see a contemporary analysis of the Doctor's Plot with archival evidence by a socialist. Forced assimilation and structural discrimination against Jews in the USSR is laughable, how wonderful that they don't mention the same Stalin was in charge of the country that DEFEATED THE NAZIS AND ENDED THE HOLOCAUST. But sure, super antisemitic to create the Jewish Autonomous Oblast'. Like, the Bolsheviks were so pro-Jewish that fascist for all of history have linked the Soviet Union with Jewish cabals, such as in Spain where Francoist propaganda would describe the Soviet Union as "Jewish-Bolshevism".

The pro-Israel bias of the Russian opposition intensified even more after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which sent hundreds of thousands of opposition-minded Russians fleeing abroad. Israel has been one of the main destinations; by some estimates, in 2022 alone, some 70,000 Russians moved there, compared with 27,000 in 2021, contributing to a total of about 1.3 million Russian-speakers in Israel.

Yuck, "let's flee the warring nation and go to the democratic genocidal nation".

This reflects a longstanding pattern within Russian liberalism: claiming moral superiority over the Kremlin while sharing the same problematic and prejudiced thinking. The truth is, even if Putin’s regime were to fall tomorrow and this opposition come to power, it is unlikely that it would carry out any major reforms to remove structural racism. The concerns of peripheralised regions that seek greater autonomy within Russia, non-Russian ethnic people, and Indigenous and migrant populations in Russia, do not seem to trouble Russia’s liberal opposition.

The only government in Russia capable of supporting Palestine is the one that actually did so for 40+ years: the USSR. Here's a Soviet post stamp from 1983:

All in all, very disappointed in the analysis full of anticommunist brainworms, especially in an article arguing in favour of Palestine, when the Soviet Union was one of the largest supporters of Palestine throughout its history, aiding the PFLP materially and in propaganda, and fighting against Zionism by supplying the neighboring countries with weapons such as Egypt during the war with Israel. Also incredibly sad that the author made no mention of the single largest element explaining Russian opposition's Zionism: US and Israeli propaganda and funding. I still think it's worthwhile to have this discussion to remember what the Russian opposition stands for, which the article accurately describes and evidences.