Russia’s Involvement in the Israel-Hamas War
By Ekaterina Zolotova - October 16, 2023
Despite unfounded allegations to the contrary, Moscow is much more interested in mediation than aggression.
After Israel said it was at war with Hamas, several countries expressed concern over the conflict’s escalation and called on both sides to halt hostilities. One of them was Russia – despite the fact that some heads of state have accused Moscow of aiding Hamas’ initial attack on Israel, saying it would prove a useful distraction from the debacle in Ukraine. Israel itself has dismissed these allegations as purely conspiratorial, and though Russia could benefit from the conflict, it would do so only as a mediator, not an aggressor.
After all, it’s certainly true that the world has shifted its attention from Ukraine to Israel, and it’s certainly true that Russia welcomes the reprieve. The Kremlin has spent untold resources on its war effort, and it can’t afford to come out as a loser. Losing would rob Moscow of the international status it so desperately seeks, it would very likely lead to domestic discontent, and it would result in the very thing Russia sought to avoid: NATO troops close to its border. These facts have led many to believe Russia will use this moment to launch another offensive. But the opportunity isn’t as good as it appears. Russia is too deeply involved in Ukraine, and in the revitalization of economic growth in the face of labor shortages and crippling sanctions, to aid or abet either side of the Israel-Hamas war. And even if it weren’t, Russia has an interest in maintaining good relations with both parties. The worse the war gets, the harder it is for Russia to do either.
Moscow understands that one way or another, the Ukraine war will end. It understands that Ukraine isn’t its sole avenue for expanding its influence. And it understands that, given the circumstances, it needs to engage politically and economically as much as it can with countries it has good relations with.
Israel and the Palestinian Territories are just such states, and Russia continues to maintain dialogue with both accordingly. In fact, Russia’s ties to the territories are nothing short of historical. After Israel reoriented its foreign policy to the West during the Cold War, the Soviet Union supplied weapons to the Palestine Liberation Organization and trained its militants at Soviet military educational institutions. They’ve remained in contact ever since. Its support for the Palestinian Territories has contributed to its status among other Middle Eastern countries, many of which have increased trade with Russia dramatically since the onset of Western sanctions. These countries include Iran and Algeria, which also need Russian economic support in these difficult economic times. More, Islam is the second most popular religion in Russia, with many of its practitioners found in the North Caucasus, whose support the Kremlin needs to maintain stability in its southern reaches. Last, there are some 2,000 Russian citizens throughout the formal territory of the Palestinian Authority, of which 1,200 are in the Gaza Strip. This explains why President Vladimir Putin has advocated for Palestinian statehood with a capital in East Jerusalem.
Even so, Russia continues to maintain relations with Israel. Roughly 80,000 Jews live in Russia, and the Russian Jewish diaspora in Israel is likewise large. Israel was also one of the preferred destinations for Russians who fled the country after the invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, more than 37,000 people fled to Israel from Russia, and in 2023, ahead of stricter immigration laws, the number of people leaving Russia for Israel has increased sharply. In terms of foreign policy, Russia sees Israel, a nuclear power, as a stabilizing factor in the Middle East and appreciates the fact that it has abstained from the Western sanctions regime. Of the war with Hamas, Putin said that Israel is under unprecedented attack and has the right to defend its citizens.
But perhaps the most compelling evidence that Russia is not involved in the Israel-Hamas war is that, so far, Russia hasn’t really used it to its advantage. It hasn’t undertaken any new offensives, nor is there any indication that the military was on alert for anything too dramatic to happen. All it has done is try to position itself as a mediator in the conflict. In addition to calling for a cease-fire, Putin emphasized the importance of diplomatic efforts to establish a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, noting that a ground operation in Gaza would lead to dire consequences and the death of civilians.
Russia knows that the Middle East is a much higher priority for the United States than Ukraine is, and that Washington might be particularly interested in having someone else mediate so that it doesn’t get drawn back into yet another regional conflict. And unlike Russia, the U.S. doesn’t curry much favor among the Palestinian Territories anyway. Already, the Kremlin is trying to figure out how to use its position to resolve its own issues, and there are already rumors of potential dialogue between the U.S. and Russia. Last week, a working-level meeting of the Nuclear Five was held in New York with the participation of Russian representatives.
For Russia, the benefits of mediation are twofold: It helps Moscow break out of its (relative) international isolation by working with partners it otherwise wouldn’t, and it potentially helps stop the war from escalating further or from implicating other regional countries with which Russia has lucrative economic, infrastructural and logistic partnerships.
The real question is whether Moscow will have time to seize the moment, given all the problems it is juggling. The benefits are high, and there’s an opportunity cost of inaction. If the war broadens to include Russian allies, it’ll be that much more difficult for Moscow to balance its powers in the Middle East, and Russia will lose its moment.
About: Ekaterina Zolotova
Ekaterina Zolotova is an analyst for Geopolitical Futures. Prior to Geopolitical Futures, Ms. Zolotova participated in several research projects devoted to problems and prospects of Russia’s integration into the world economy. Ms. Zolotova has a specialist degree in international economic relations from Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. In addition, Ms. Zolotova studied international trade and international integration processes. Her thesis was on features of economic development of Venezuela. She speaks native Russian and is fluent in English.
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Palestinian president among international leaders to attend Cairo peace summit
CAIRO: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be among international leaders to participate in the Cairo summit for peace on Saturday, an official source told Reuters.
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah also confirmed their presence in Cairo.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, European Council President Charles Michel and EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell have confirmed their presence in the meeting, which will discuss the Palestinian-Israeli issue, according to reports. Colonna had already travelled to Cairo, Beirut and Israel last week as Paris looks to reduce the risk of an escalation across the region.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will also participate in the peace summit, government sources told Reuters.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed his attendance to discuss the conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip, his office said.
“President Ramaphosa has been deeply concerned by attacks on civilians, the resulting enormous loss of life, displacement of people and the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the Gaza Strip,” South Africa’s presidency said in a statement on Friday.
“South Africa stands ready to join the global effort that will bring about lasting peace to the Middle East.”
The other attendees expected so far are Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and British foreign minister James Cleverly.
The summit, which was called by Egypt’s President Abdelfattah El-Sisi, aims to de-escalate the violence in Gaza, help reach a ceasefire and arrive at a just solution for the Palestinian issue.
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Read more:
UPDATE 2: Cairo Summit for Peace: Sisi proposes a roadmap for peace starting with a ceasefire in Gaza
.....The Egyptian president emphasized the need to prevent the conflict, which broke out on 7 October, from escalating further and jeopardizing regional stability and global peace and security. He extended an invitation to the world community to work collectively on a specific roadmap.
"This begins with ensuring the full, safe, unfettered, and sustainable flow of humanitarian aid and relief to the people of Gaza, followed by immediate negotiations on achieving calm and a ceasefire," he said.
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"Subsequently," he stressed, "discussions on reviving the peace process should commence to implement the two-state solution and establish an independent Palestinian State, living alongside Israel based on international legitimacy resolutions."
The Egyptian president added that this plan should occur concurrently with efforts to strengthen the Palestinian Authority to fully assume its duties in the Palestinian territories.
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The Green Electric Power Grid Isn’t Coming
The International Energy Agency says it would require millions of miles of transmission lines.
By The Editorial Board - Updated Oct. 19, 2023
The International Energy Agency said this week that 49.7 million miles of transmission lines—enough to wrap around the planet 2,000 times—will have to be built or replaced by 2040 to achieve the climate lobby’s net-zero emissions goal. This amounts to a plan for everyone to buy more metals from coal-fired plants in China.
Grid investment, the IEA report argues, is needed to carry additional renewable energy “as the world deploys more electric vehicles, installs more electric heating and cooling systems, and scales up hydrogen production using electrolysis.” By its estimate, the world needs to spend $600 billion annually on grid upgrades by 2030.
Unlike fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, solar and wind projects are typically many miles from population centers. That means long transmission lines, some under the sea to take electricity from off-shore wind installations. Tens of thousands of extra power transformers will be needed to step up and down voltage.
All of this would cost trillions of dollars and require enormous quantities of metals. “Copper and aluminium are the principal materials for the manufacture of cables and lines,” the IEA report says. Transmission lines also need insulators, such as cross-linked polyethylene and ethylene-propylene polymer—both derived from fossil fuels.
Transformers are made of the same specialized steel used in charging stations for electric vehicles. Smaller transformers require non-oriented electrical steel, used in EV motors. The green-energy gold rush has contributed to shortages of both types. Buyers of transformers “face a wait of over 18 months,” the report notes.
Meantime, advanced economies must replace aging equipment to prevent power outages and safety hazards. About half of the transmission and distribution lines in the U.S. are more than 20 years old, according to the IEA.
Where are the materials going to come from? The report doesn’t say, but the most likely answer is China, which dominates global copper, steel and aluminum production, owing to its lax environmental regulation and low labor costs. Over the past 20 years, primary aluminum production has increased ninefold in China while declining 68% in the U.S.
Metals manufacturing takes massive amounts of power, and coal accounts for 60% of China’s electric generation. In other words, the IEA’s path to a net-zero grid would involve emitting a lot more CO2, even assuming it wasn’t a political nonstarter, which it is.
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COLUMN-China and India struggle to curb fossil fuels: Kemp - Reuters News - 19 Oct 2023
COLUMN-China and India struggle to curb fossil fuels: Kemp - Reuters News 19 Oct 2023 02:00:00 LONDON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - China and India are burning record amounts of fossil fuels this year, even as they also install record renewable power generation capacity, highlighting the slow pace and enormous inertia to be overcome in the energy transition. Both countries are experiencing rapid growth in energy use for services such as air conditioning, heating, cooking, lighting, power and transport as they try to raise living standards closer to those in the advanced economies. Growing demand for energy services is so vast fossil fuels and renewable energy sources are acting as complements rather than substitutes, ensuring consumption from both is increasing simultaneously. In effect, both countries are pursuing an “all of the above” approach to economic development and energy security, similar to the one advocated by then-U.S. President Barack Obama in his state-of-the-union address in 2014. GROWING ENERGY DEMAND In every historical case, the transition from a pre-modern agricultural economy to a modern urban and industrial one has been accompanied by a huge increase in the consumption of energy. Increased consumption provides more labour saving, higher wages, more comfort, more entertainment and more opportunity for travel to visit family and see the world. If they follow the usual pattern, both China and India are likely to consume a lot more energy services in the next few decades as their populations aspire to reach the same living standards as North America and Europe. Chartbook: China and energy consumption In 2022, the populations of China (1.43 billion) and India (1.42 billion) were each similar to the total for countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (1.38 billion).¹ But total primary energy consumption in China (159 exajoules) and India (36 exajoules) was far lower than in the OECD (234 exajoules).² Each person in China consumed only 66% of the energy as their counterparts in the OECD and in India the figure was just 15%.³ Even that overstates the consumption of energy services locally since both countries and especially China export a high proportion of their energy-intensive manufactured output to the OECD. Continued modernisation means both countries will use a lot more energy – making an “all of the above” strategy imperative for policymakers. THE NEED FOR ALL SOURCES In the OECD, total energy consumption has been essentially flat since 2007, so growing production from renewables and especially gas has displaced coal and to a lesser extent oil. Renewables (and gas) have been substitutes for fossil fuels such as coal and oil enabling a significant reduction in greenhouse emissions. But total energy consumption has continued to grow rapidly in China (by an average of 3.1% per year in the last decade) and India (3.8% per year). Renewables (and gas) have served as complements to other fossil fuels – ensuring energy remains affordable and reliable even as consumption increases significantly. China and India’s current trajectory for energy consumption looks a lot like the United States or Western Europe between the 1950s and 1970s, a period of rapid growth in economic output, living standards and energy use. In the Euro-Atlantic economies, rapid growth in total energy demand created a need for more energy from all sources; consumption from older sources continued to rise in absolute terms even as its share was reduced relatively. U.S. coal consumption continued to increase in absolute terms until around 2010 even though it was losing relative share of the energy mix to oil from around 1910 and gas from 1980. China and India appear to be moving along the same trajectory, increasing their use of indigenous coal even as they import more oil and gas, use more nuclear power, and invest in renewable generation from wind, solar and hydro. EMISSIONS PEAK BUT NOT SOON Eventually, China and India’s energy consumption will start to grow more slowly, at which point renewables will substitute for fossil fuels rather than just complement them. But given their current position in the historical development process, that point is likely to be some years in the future for China and possibly decades in India. Since 2018, China’s solar generation capacity has increased at 26% per year, wind generation capacity by 18% per year, while thermal capacity has grown by just 4% per year. India’s solar generation capacity has grown by 25% per year, wind has grown by 5% per year, while coal has risen by just 1% a year. Even so, in 2022, fossil fuels accounted for 82% of primary energy consumption in China and 88% in India, including 70% of total electricity generation in China and 77% in India. Behind both China and India in the development process, sub-Saharan Africa’s population had increased to 1.20 billion in 2022 and is forecast to rise to 2.17 billion by 2050 and 3.57 billion by 2100. The region’s urbanisation, industrialisation and energy consumption per person is even lower than China and India with commensurately greater potential to increase in future. Policymakers from OECD countries use the U.N. conference process and other diplomatic forums to press China and India to speed up their transition from fossil fuels to zero-emission alternatives. But such advice can sound at best impractical and at worst an effort to force them to accept structurally lower living standards. In practice, governments in China and India have prioritised increasing access to energy services and ensuring energy remains affordable and reliable. In that, too, they are following the historical and current example of the OECD nations.
Notes
¹ Population estimates and projections are taken from World Population Prospects (2022) published by the United Nations Population Division.
² One exajoule is roughly equivalent to the annual primary energy consumption of Portugal or Switzerland.
³ Total and per capita energy consumption is taken from the Statistical Review of World Energy published by the Energy Institute and before that BP. (editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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