Every Israeli who experiences combat knows that one does not fall in love with a firing position. One moment you think you have the greatest vantage point on the lay of the land and a command of the combat, and the next moment – when the situation on the ground changes – this very place is no longer any good and you have and you have to move to another position. If you hesitate to react and remain entrenched in your position – you are in deep trouble.
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The political battlefield is sometimes similar to real combat. The position that served you well yesterday may be excellent, but if the situation changes and the enemy fighters change their positions, you better change accordingly lest your location become irrelevant.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel succeeded almost a decade ago – from scratch almost – in building a special relationship with Vladimir Putin's Russia. It required political courage and thinking outside the box, as it deviated from the conventional thinking. It showed great results.
Israel gained a lot from this unique position, allowing it to have an open dialogue with the White House and the Kremlin for a while. However, this constellation ended – not because of Israel, but due to Russia's conscious decision to engage in an uncompromising clash with the free world and stand against it in a contrarian position.
In this confrontation, Russia's only allies will be those that have already been outcast by democratic countries: North Korea, Syria, Iran, and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas.
The Russians are not in love with these allies, but they have not disavowed them because they simply do not have other partners. Israel cannot stop this process because Jerusalem has no clout over it.
A small example of Russia's strategic choice in Iran and its murderous consequences emerged just days ago when progress was reported in establishing the first production facility for Iranian UAVs in Tatarstan.
Russia's handling following Hamas' massacre in Israel on October 7 erased any doubts, if any existed, over its stance. The warm embrace for Hamas leaders in the Russian Foreign Ministry, the hostile language in the ministry's official statements that cleared terrorists of guilt and blamed the US and Israel using endless chatter on Russian TV– all of these should have us face the inconvenient truth: the past relationship is gone; reality has changed in an irreversible way and Israel must respond to the change and adapt to the new lay of the land.
This does not mean we have to immediately privet to the other extreme by provoking a showdown with Moscow. There are a whole host of ways to signal to the Kremlin that Jerusalem does not intend to be a "beaten child" and absorb verbal or even non-verbal attacks from the Russians, like the lynching attempt on travelers from Ben Gurion Airport who had landed in Makhachkala.
The Russians have many vulnerabilities, many sensitive points. If Israel knows where to press in a careful way, it could make it clear beyond any doubt that it is not to be messed with. In Moscow, they understand the language of power, and some would say that it is the only language that they understand.
Whatever Israel's response in the short term may be, it does not absolve Israel of coming to terms with the fact that holding on to its previous posture toward Russia is simply no longer viable. Putin's wrong choice to confront the free world, culminating in the invasion of Ukraine, is leading to Russia's slow decline, and there is no reason why Israel should rely on a sinking ship.
All other players, who have been cautious so far not to anger Moscow (from European countries to Azerbaijan and Turkey), have realized that things have changed. They did not hesitate to change their approach and distance themselves from their traditional stance toward Russians. Israel, too, needs to move to a new diplomatic position that will serve it better today and tomorrow.
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