Translated material
He's an old soldier
The Israeli Prime Minister will be frank in the Kremlin
Today, the Russian leadership will have to demonstrate miracles of balancing act so that, while warmly welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, it does not offend Moscow’s Arab friends. They will never come to terms with the fact that Russia’s return to a one-sided, pro-Arab policy, like under the USSR, is impossible. Now the Arabs are especially jealous: there is a war in the Middle East.Russian and Israeli diplomats a year ago prepared important agreements: on the protection of intellectual property, on the peaceful exploration of space (it was planned to launch Israeli satellites on Russian carriers) and, most importantly, on military-technical cooperation, which would be a sensational breakthrough. But now the agreements have been postponed, not only because of the Middle East crisis, but also because of Israel's excessive dependence on the United States, including in the military field. So no agreements will be signed in Moscow, and the Israeli prime minister will routinely express concern about cooperation between Russia and Iran. By the way, because of Sharon’s visit, Ali Shamkhani, the Minister of Defense of Iran, a country that does not recognize the state of Israel, postponed his visit to Moscow.
For Sharon's visit to Moscow, Israeli Housing Minister Natan Sharansky managed, according to him, to obtain the consent of the Israeli Ministry of Finance to prepare an agreement on state guarantees for businessmen's trade risks. However, Russian-speaking ministers in Sharon's government - Sharansky and Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman - believe that the current Russian-Israeli trade turnover, not exceeding half a billion dollars a year, is ridiculously small. During the crisis of 1998, trade turnover fell sharply. Now it has been balanced, although mainly due to supplies of raw materials from Russia - diamonds for cutting and, more recently, oil. For some reason, Israel hides which Russian companies supply oil. Although they are unofficially called LUKOIL, YUKOS, TNK. Today, the Russians cover Israel's oil needs by 80-90%.
“I hope that my visit to Russia will serve as a new impetus for the development of mutually beneficial relations,” Ariel Sharon told Russian journalists on the eve of his flight to Moscow. But it is unlikely that Prime Minister Sharon will now be able to bring relations with Russia to the level that the million “Russian” Jews living in Israel would like. “Israeli politicians are still too fixated on America. How many times have Israeli prime ministers traveled to Russia, but the result is zero. Well, they will note mutual sympathies - that’s all,” Yakov Kedmi, the former head of the Israeli Nativ service for relations with Jews in Eastern Europe and the CIS, told the Vremya Novostei newspaper. He admits that Ariel Sharon, whose father was born in Brest and whose mother was born near Mogilev, “has a warmer attitude towards Russia than many previous Israeli prime ministers.” However, the factors connecting Israel with the United States are much greater than those connecting Israel with Russia.
“I am not a diplomat, but a soldier and a farmer. That is, the person is straightforward and I say everything without mincing words. Besides, I understand Russian. My parents lived poorly, we didn’t have shoes, but the shelves were full of Russian classics,” Ariel Sharon told Russian journalists. President Putin will probably like the “straightforward” General Sharon, who in his free time digs beds on his farm in the Negev region. As military people, they will understand each other. But for serious matters, personal sympathy is not enough.