Israeli Ambassador to Moscow Simone Halperin was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry because of statements addressed to the Russian authorities during an interview with the Kommersant newspaper. TASS reports this with reference to Russian diplomats. Halperin took office only in January.
The Foreign Ministry considered the ambassador’s statements “unacceptable,” noting that the Israeli representative “distorts” Russia’s foreign policy. The department also stated that such a start to a career at the embassy could be considered “unsuccessful.”
The day before, Galperin, in a conversation with reporters, noted negative trends in Russian-Israeli relations. According to the ambassador, Russia is no longer worried about Israeli security, although previously the Russian leadership at the presidential level confirmed the principle of interest in a secure and strong Israel. In addition, Halperin criticized Moscow’s late response to the Hamas attack last October. According to the diplomat, Russia did not fully understand that Israel had found itself “in a different, terrible reality.”
In addition, Halperin said with regret that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is “downplaying the significance” of the Holocaust, due to recent statements by the head of Russian diplomacy regarding the victims of World War II. The ambassador emphasized that Jews suffered during the war solely for the reason that they were Jews. At the same time, the head of the diplomatic mission noted that Israel well remembers that the Russians and many other peoples “paid for the victory over Nazism with millions of lives.”
Let us recall that Russian President Vladimir Putin, a week after the Hamas attack on Israel, said that the Jewish state was faced with an “unprecedented attack in its brutality” and has the right to protection. At the same time, Putin noted that Moscow would like to resolve the conflict peacefully through the creation of a Palestinian state.
Later, the Russian Federation asked the UN Security Council to facilitate a ceasefire and condemn terrorist acts, but the resolution was rejected.
Source: Rosbalt
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