Israeli lawmaker wants to see his country join united front against Russia
Image by Noam Galai/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh March 20, 2022
Israel should take a strong stand in the global community’s united front against the Russian assault on Ukraine, said Nir Barkat, a member of Israel’s Knesset, who is on a diplomatic tour in the U.S. He also sees current events as an opportunity to lobby the American people against concessions to Iran.
Barkat, 62, is a member of the Likud Party, the largest opposition faction in the Knesset. A former high-tech entrepreneur, whose net worth is estimated at several hundred million dollars, Barkat has consistently polled as the favorite to succeed former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the leader of the nationalist camp.
In a previous visit to the U.S., Barkat successfully lobbied Congress against the re-opening of a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that served Palestinians. The Biden administration shelved its plans; the mission had originally been disbanded by former President Donald Trump in 2019. Barkat introduced legislation that prohibits the opening of any foreign mission in Israel’s capital and launched a public relations campaign that forced the government to show greater resistance to such a move.
Tom Nides, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, said in a webinar last week that the Biden administration remains committed to re-opening the consulate. “I think both the Palestinians and Israel have made way too big of a deal on this particular building,” he said in a Zoom call hosted by Americans for Peace Now. “I don’t want to spend all of my energy every day trying to open the consulate and let everything else go to hell.”
When this reporter told Barkat about Nides’s remarks, he smiled.
On his current U.S tour, which included meetings in New York, Washington, D.C. and Florida, Barkat hopes to achieve a similar success, building on the American response to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
In an interview at the lobby of a Midtown Manhattan hotel last week, Barkat said he assumes members of Congress are rethinking their positions on the U.S. returning to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in the wake of recent events – the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban following the U.S. withdrawal and the current war in Ukraine.
Member of the Knesset Nir Barkat at the 2021 IAC National Summit on December 09, 2021 in Hollywood, Florida. Image by Noam Galai/Getty Images
Barkat described Iran as one of “the three bullies around the world with an imperialistic approach,” along with Russia and China, who are testing the U.S. on a daily basis and are taking the offer of sanctions relief as an excuse to further their aggression in the Middle East.
He said that lifting sanctions on Iran is not consistent with the world’s current action – imposing sanctions on Russia. “I am presenting a different view that I believe people could connect to,” he said. “The world has to align themselves against all bullies, period.”
He also proposed in his meetings that the U.S. should make it clear to the Iranians that a conventional attack on Israel from either Lebanon or Syria would be met with a direct attack on Tehran. He pointed to President John F. Kennedy’s response during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 as precedent for such a move.
Barkat, who served in the Israeli Defense Forces’ Paratroopers Brigade and rose to the rank of a Major, said Israel “is not going to be the next Ukraine” if Iran decides to follow through with its threats on the Jewish State. “We will retaliate in a way that it’s not going to be pleasant for the Iranians,” he said. “We will prepare to do what we need to do to defend our people.”
Shared values
Barkat said Israel should take “an affirmative approach to stand with the West” as a matter of principle.
“We share the same values, although we may disagree on certain things. But in such an aggressive conflict, we have to take sides.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has attempted to take a lead role in efforts to reach a ceasefire, thus avoiding being critical of Russia and declining Ukraine’s request for military aid.
Barkat said that in conversations with some members of Congress he heard complaints about Israel’s decision not to pick a side in the conflict, while the U.S. took a clear stand against Hamas during the last conflict in Gaza.
Ambassador Nides said in last week’s Zoom call that the Biden administration has “no complaints” about Bennett’s decision to serve as a mediator between the two parties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a short address to members of the Knesset via Zoom on Sunday, criticized the Israeli government for claiming neutrality.
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