Opinion | Ukraine War: Why Most Israelis Blame Putin, but Most Palestinians Don't

A demonstrator holds up a sign with Adolf Hitler's face superimposed on the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Tel Aviv, Israel.Credit: JACK GUEZ - AFP

Before three terror attacks ripped through Israeli cities in late March, Israelis had drifted back to an illusory sense of stability. Memories of the May 2021 war were fading, just as hypothetical notions of peace had been fading for years. Palestinians live a parallel reality, in which they cannot forget life under military occupation. 

It is almost cliché to observe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and occupation are off the public agenda – but it’s wrong. In fact, these contrasting Israeli and Palestinian experiences of the conflict are such defining aspects of life they may appear to be transparent; but they color how the people of the region view of the world.

 
As a result, it’s no surprise that Israelis and Palestinians hold differing attitudes towards the apocalyptic war Russia is waging in Ukraine. But the opinions of each side defy expectations. 
 
It would be logical for Palestinians living under occupation to identify with Ukraine, as the victim. Israel, in turn, might have recognized itself in Putin’s justifications: the opponent is not truly a nation, the land truly belongs to us, and our country is under imminent, permanent threat. Israeli commentators have noticed the rhetorical similarities.

Instead, recent surveys asking about the war in Ukraine show the opposite. Israelis overwhelmingly blame Russia; Palestinians are for more divided about who’s to blame. And when asked about what to do about the crisis, it gets even more complicated…

 

Israelis take part in a protest against Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, in Israel's Mediterranean coastal city of Tel AvivCredit: JACK GUEZ / AFP

In the new Peace Index survey from early March, a robust majority of Israelis completely reject Russia’s arguments. 

 
The survey, conducted by Nimrod Rosler and Alon Yakter of Tel Aviv University, asked whether Russia was justified using force to safeguard its interests and protect Russian people outside its sovereign borders: A sweeping majority, 78 percent, said it was unjustified; 61 percent of the total said it was "completely" unjustified. Another 76 percent said the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories and annexation of Crimea were unjustified, with slightly lower, but similar intensity. 

Israel’s immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) also reject Russia’s justifications: In the Peace Index, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of this group also rejected both the notion that Russia needs to protect its interests with military force, and rejected its occupation/annexation of parts of Ukraine. 
 
A new survey by the Israel Democracy Institute from March, with special oversamples of immigrants from Russia and Ukraine (and other FSU immigrants), found similar trends. When asked which party was responsible for the war, the IDI survey offered several responses: "Russia headed by Putin; the U.S. and NATO states; Ukraine led by Zelenskyy, all equally, or other/don’t know." Two-thirds of all Israelis blamed Putin and Russia. 

 
Jews who were not FSU immigrants blamed Russia in the greatest numbers – 77 percent. Seventy percent of immigrants from Ukraine, and two-thirds of those from Russia, blamed Russia. 

A demonstrator burns her Russian passport during a protest against Russia's military operation in Ukraine, in front of the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv, IsraelCredit: AFP

Notably, despite my own criticism of sluggish activist engagement from the Israeli anti-occupation left, the IDI survey found that fully 84 percent of left-wing Jews blame Putin, compared to 73 percent of right wingers (still very high). 

 
But Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel told a different story. By contrast to the powerful rejection of Putin’s actions and justifications among Jews, just over half of Arab respondents in the Peace Index (TAU) thought the Russian positions on the use of force and occupation/annexation were unjustified (55 percent and 53 percent, respectively). 

 
The IDI findings were even more stark: when asked which side is to blame from the list of responses, just 27 percent of Arab respondents blamed Russia and Putin (but over three-quarters of the Jewish sample). And nearly one-quarter of Arab citizens of Israel chose "NATO countries and the U.S.," as the party responsible for the war.

 
The finding is consistent with Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. In a new survey by Khalil Shikaki and Walid Ladadweh of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 43 percent blamed Russia for the war, barely more than those who blame Ukraine (40 percent), in a question offering just those two options.

 
Why would Israeli Jews become the strongest critics of Russia’s occupation and attempt at military conquest, while far fewer Palestinians do – and nearly the same proportion of Palestinians blame Ukraine and the West? 

 

Protest in Tel Aviv, Israel near the Russian embassy against Putin's war on UkraineCredit: Hadas Parush

For Israeli Jews, the explanation is intuitive: Israeli Jews do not see themselves as aggressors or bullies; they identify with the victims, identify Russia as the aggressor, and their own occupation isn’t part of the calculus.

 
Indeed, the enormity of Russia’s war looks very different from the occupation at a glance – Israel’s violence is lower-level, stretched out over decades; other than wars, many Israelis don’t even see it. Terror attacks by Palestinians add empirical evidence to the Israeli view of victimhood, unlike Putin’s fabricated accusations of Ukrainian violence against Russians.

 
But what explains Palestinian skepticism, or even both-siderism, about who’s to blame? 

 
One explanation is found in the PSR survey (Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem): One quarter of respondents worry that one consequence of the war is that Israel will expand settlements and annex territories. (A far larger group worried about bread-and-butter consequences: 63 percent said that war will cause price hikes "particularly wheat and gas.") 

 
However, the explanation surely runs deeper. For Palestinians, the war may have come to symbolize two festering wounds: the Western powers they feel have failed them, and Israel. 

 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken deliver a joint statement following their meeting at the West Bank city of Ramallah last weekCredit: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser

In one question, the PSR survey noted how quickly the U.S. and EU imposed economic, financial and sport-related sanctions on Russia, and asked how this compares to Israel: 57 percent of Palestinians said the U.S. and Europe "follow a double standard, as they treat Israel differently and do not impose any sanctions on it." Only ten percent said, "these countries stand against the Israeli occupation as they stand against the Russian occupation of Ukraine." 

 
The West’s unprecedented unity and sweeping actions against Russia might eventually bring the bear to its knees – something that has never happened on behalf of Palestinians. Palestinian accusations of Western hypocrisy are heard widely – most recently Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas himself told U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken: "Despite the crimes of the Israeli occupation that amounted to ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination... we find no one who is holding Israel responsible for behaving as a state above the law."

 
The tense dance between Ukraine and Israel has no doubt deepened Palestinian cynicism. Israel’s reluctance to take significant steps against Russia such as sanctions, while demurring at sending arms, has led Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to practically plead for help. 

 
A sophisticated speechmaker, Zelenskyy has famously tried to tug heartstrings in Israel (as he has elsewhere): Quoting Golda Meir, referencing the Holocaust, tapping into Israel’s own experiences of threat, terrorism and victimhood to inject solidarity. These themes ultimately, if implicitly, blame and thereby alienate Palestinians by reinforcing Israel’s narrative. 

 

Rally in Tel Aviv in solidarity with Ukraine and against Putin's war during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to Israeli parliamentarians Credit: Moti Milrod

Yet the Israeli public’s clear-eyed diagnosis of which side is to blame is not, well, blameless. On the question of policy Israelis take a similar view to Palestinians: In the last two Voice Index surveys from the IDI, over 60 percent support either Israel "not taking a firm stance against Russia," or its decision not to join Western sanctions. Only a minority support Israel arming Ukraine – not even one-quarter. 

 
The war has apparently boosted international realism in Israel. In the IDI survey, the vast majority of Israelis, and nearly 90 percent of Jews, said Russia’s war on Ukraine teaches that Israel cannot rely on international bodies, only on itself. Yet if Israelis are so self-reliant, why is the country suddenly so dependent on Russia in Syria that it cannot help Ukraine more? 

 
It seems for this Israeli government and a majority of Israeli Jews, at least, there is no such thing as a calculated risk for a country at war its whole life; every threat is existential – even if some top Israeli security figures think otherwise, calling for more proactive assistance for Ukraine.

 
Finally, the recent surveys show ever-deeper despair about peace in this region.

 
Seventy percent of Palestinians now oppose Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which they see as fruitless, and 58 percent oppose a two-state solution, in the PSR survey. In the Peace Index, 56 percent of Israeli Jews oppose a Palestinian state next to Israel and just half even support negotiations – the averages for Israeli society rise only slightly when Arab respondents are factored in. Only 15 percent of all Israelis believe negotiations will lead to peace. 

 
The conclusions are less surprising than the findings: War is bad for peace. Generations of conflict suck the empathy and global solidarity out of the people living through it. The international rules-based system was supposed to prevent war; but perhaps peace is not only a result, but a condition for true commitment to its principles. The world must do everything to ensure Russia and Ukraine avoid our fate; the war cannot fester – it must end. 

Dahlia Scheindlin is a political scientist and public opinion expert, and a policy fellow at The Century Foundation. Twitter: @dahliasc