Ahead of Israeli Diplomat’s Visit, Ukraine Serves Some Chutzpah

If necessity is the mother of invention, war is surely a brother of audaciousness: How else to explain Ukraine’s demand of Israel for a $500 million loan ahead of an anticipated visit by the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, to Kyiv this week? President Zelensky’s requests of Jerusalem do not end there. Senior Ukrainian and Israeli officials told the Israeli news site Walla that other demands include a clear public condemnation of the Russian invasion “in favor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” and that Israel provide medical care for hundreds of injured Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.Before Russia’s war on its neighbor, it was unheard of for Ukraine — a large but newly independent country with scant diplomatic clout — to flex its muscle in this manner. Yet nearly 12 months of fending off and often clobbering Russian forces have made the country not only a symbol of resistance to the Kremlin’s wartime brutality, but also burnished its credentials on the global stage.Asking for half a billion dollars from Israel, which is arguably the universal epicenter of chutzpah, certainly takes some of that characteristic. Israel has had to walk a careful line with its public support for Ukraine so as not to imperil a fragile balance of power in the Middle East, where Moscow’s lock on a number of military bases make it more than a bit player. But if internecine conflict in the Levant comes with the territory, patience with months of Russian missile strikes and artillery fire in Ukraine is understandably running thin, and Kyiv wants the nightmare to end. Mr. Zelensky therefore will leave no stone unturned in that quest. Indeed, his ubiquitousness in global parleys and his team’s social media prowess recall some of Israel’s own persistence on the international stage in calling out the fallacies frequently peddled by its detractors with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So it is that while Mr. Cohen has asked to meet with Mr. Zelensky during his visit, Israel’s Channel 13 reported that according to a senior Ukrainian official, “The president will not meet with Cohen for a photo op.”Walla reported that the official also said that the degree of responsiveness to Ukraine’s requests during Mr. Cohen’s visit would testify to the sincerity of Israel’s intentions.The nominal purpose of Mr. Cohen’s trip — the exact duration and itinerary of which could not be immediately confirmed — is to reopen the Israeli embassy in Ukraine, which, unlike many other diplomatic missions at Kyiv, has remained closed. Despite high-level communication between capitals, it will also be the first known time a member of the Israeli government visits the Ukrainian capital since the outbreak of the war. While a meeting with Mr. Zelensky is not officially on the books, Mr. Cohen will meet with his counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba. An issue they are likely to discuss is Ukraine’s request for Israel to provide it with a rocket alert system similar to the one that Israel’s Home Front Command has used to alert Israeli civilians to incoming rocket fire.The half-billion dollar loan will likely not be forthcoming, though according to some reports a loan of some kind, more likely in the neighborhood of $50 million, could be on the table. It is worth recalling how the French provided America with many loans during the Revolutionary War, and that John Adams secured a loan from the Dutch in 1782. Amsterdam’s largesse of five million guilders to help stabilize a very young United States of America would, according to the Dutch embassy, be as impactful as a $150 billion loan today.In any event, securing Jerusalem’s unambiguous endorsement for Mr. Zelensky’s peace plan could prove more elusive, at least in this timeframe — and not only because of the Russian bear in the room. In an interview with Sky News that aired Sunday night, a former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was asked by the channel’s Beth Rigby whether as part of any negotiated settlement Crimea “goes back to Ukraine.” Mr. Pompeo replied that the peninsula “is clearly a part of Ukraine” but also that “the ultimate resolution they will have to sort their way through.” While Israel and America are not always in lockstep, it is unlikely that Jerusalem’s envoy to Kyiv will stray far from what could be emerging sentiments in the upper echelons of diplomatic power both in and near the White House. Restoring all of Ukraine’s territorial integrity is part of the 10-point peace plan Mr. Zelensky floated at the G20 parley in November. The most robust all-around support for each of its points will likely come from Poland and the Baltic states before it does from anywhere else.

Ahead of Israeli Diplomat’s Visit, Ukraine Serves Some Chutzpah

Ahead of Israeli Diplomat’s Visit, Ukraine Serves Some Chutzpah

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