(JTA) Israel will back a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, days after declining to support a similar one put forward for a vote in the Security Council by the United States and Western allies.
With close ties to both countries, Israel has found itself firmly in the center of the web of diplomatic negotiations taking place around Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine that it launched last week.
Yair Lapid, who is currently Israel’s foreign minister but slated to rotate into the prime ministership next year, has pushed for sharp condemnation of Russia, while Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been more hesitant.
On Friday, Israeli officials said they demurred from supporting the Security Council resolution because it was obvious that Russia, a member of the Security Council, would veto it.
Lapid said Monday that the country would back the new resolution in the U.N.’s General Assembly, a much larger body with nearly 200 members whose size means a few individual objectors cannot tank widely supported measures.
“Israel was and is on the right side of history,” Lapid said in a statement. “We have a moral duty and historical obligation to be part of the effort.”
The announcement came as Israel announced the first death of an Israeli in Ukraine and as the country prepared to send supplies to the country. Lapid said Israel is sending warm clothes, medical equipment and water purification equipment to Ukraine — after Bennett, on a call Sunday with Vladimir Putin, reassured the Russian president that no military equipment of any kind will be on the Israeli planes.
In his statement, Lapid also said that the United States understands Israel’s diplomatic predicament, given Russia’s large military presence in Syria, a neighbor that has historically been one of Israel’s main enemies.
This article regards the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The information in this article may change. All information is current as of publication.
By Gabe Friedman, JTA
