JERUSALEM, Dec  20, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Among the nations condemning Israel's

war in Gaza, one has stood out -- Russia had built a growing friendship with
Israel, but that dalliance is over, analysts said, erased by the shifting sands
of Middle East geopolitics.

       Just under two years ago, the picture had been very different.

       When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Israel didn't join the West
in sanctioning Moscow, a demonstration of the alliance of convenience between
the two governments.

       Now, Russia's President Vladimir Putin is among Israel's loudest critics
and has refused to denounce Hamas's bloody October 7 attack.

       Instead, his war against Ukraine has driven Russia into a different
coupling, this time with Israel's sworn enemy Iran.

       Russia has officially backed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza at
the UN, while early in the war Putin accused Israel of contemplating tactics
comparable to Nazi Germany's brutal siege of what is now Saint Petersburg
during World War II.

       The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says Israel's offensive, aimed at
destroying Hamas, has killed more than 19,600 people, mostly women and children.

       In late October, Moscow went as far as to host envoys from the Palestinian
militant group and Iran, which the Russian government said included talks on
releasing foreign hostages. Israel called the meeting "a reprehensible step
that gives support to terrorism".

       This month, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Moscow for talks with
Putin, while on Wednesday Russia made a joint demand alongside the Arab League
for a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution.

       In Israel, the mood is one of shock and anger. Putin's decision not to
criticise Hamas, even with Russian citizens among the roughly 1,140 people
killed by the militants on October 7, was "a foul betrayal", said Israeli
historian Semion Goldin.

       Russia has come down squarely "on the side of the aggressor, not at all on
our side", said Golding, a researcher in Russian studies at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
       
       - 'Israel deluded itself' -
    
       
       It's all a far cry from where Israeli-Russian relations were as recently as
last year.
       During much of the Cold War, Soviet-Israeli relations were frosty. The
Kremlin prevented many Jews from emigrating to Israel, while the Soviet Union
propagated anti-Zionist propaganda and provided military aid to Arab states, in
particular during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

       However, following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, the newly
re-emerged Russia established much closer ties with Israel, that saw increased
tourism and a massive wave of Russian Jewish migration to Israel.

       Today, there are more than a million Russian-speakers from the former
Soviet Union in Israel, forming a substantial political bloc.

       Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the relationship appeared to grow
even closer.

       Following Moscow's intervention in the Syrian civil war, Israel worked
closely with the Kremlin as it mounted its own air campaign in Syria targeting
Iranian-backed forces, said former Israeli ambassador to Russia, Arkady Milman,
now a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

       Russia controlled Syria's airspace and was, in effect, authorising Israel's
raids, he said.

       With eyes on the military situation in Syria, the large Jewish populations
in Ukraine and Russia, and its own sizeable Russian and Ukrainian communities,
Israel opted against slapping sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
       That position held through three Israeli prime ministers.
       
       - Raised hackles -
    
       
       As Putin's war in Ukraine has dragged on and his international isolation
deepened, he has turned against Israel's quiet friendship.

       Instead, the Russian president has forged a new alliance with Iran, with
Tehran delivering drones to Moscow and the pair cooperating in evading Western
sanctions.

       That inevitably raised hackles in Israel, which fears Iran joining it as a
nuclear-armed state.

       Moreover, Iran would like Russia "to neutralise Israel in Syria", said
Edward Waysband, an associate researcher at New Europe College, a prospect
"that is unacceptable for Israel".

       Israeli linguistics professor Cyril Aslanov said Moscow's reaction to the
Israel-Hamas war had revealed that the "so-called rapprochement" between Israel
and Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union "was profoundly illusory".

       Aslanov once travelled back and forth to Russia, visiting universities to
spread Jewish culture, but he said that appeared a bygone era, with
anti-Semitic incidents in Russia and warnings against travel to some regions.

       Now, Israel finds itself denouncing its erstwhile partner. Netanyahu
criticised "the dangerous cooperation between Russia and Iran" in a phone call
with Putin in early December and expressed his dissatisfaction with the
Kremlin's stance at the United Nations.

       Iran aside, the Kremlin has chosen to use the Israel-Hamas war as a chance
to denounce the United States and its allies while positioning itself as a
champion of the Global South and "Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land", said
Waysband.

       With Moscow prioritising anti-Western rhetoric and Israel a close ally of
Washington, it "finds itself de facto facing this alliance against the West",
said Milman.