The Palestinian case and its place on Russia’s foreign policy agenda

Abstract

The events of the “Arab spring” and its consequences as well as the “Iranian threat”, which became a key security challenge for the Gulf States, not without the efforts of Benjamin Netanyahu and supported by the pro-Israel Trump administration (2016-2020), seemed to have removed the Palestinian case from the priority list of Middle East issues. The role of Russia, the traditional partner of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since Soviet times, also looked more lowkey after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, especially amid resolution of the military-political crisis in Syria. Russian diplomacy on the Palestinian track remained unnoticed compared to the activity in the region of Donald Trump’s envoys, who promoted a peace plan for settling the Palestinian- Israeli conflict known as the “deal of the century”. Having failed to achieve the main goal, the White House contributed to the signing of the “The Abraham Accords”, which was a breakthrough given that the Arab states declared the solution of the Palestinian issue as precondition for formal relations with the Jewish state. If Arab-Israeli normalization continues, Israel will have peace treaties with more than half of the Arab and Muslim states despite the deadlock in the peace process with the Palestinians. Based on the analysis of political processes amid the unresolved Palestinian problem, and above all, Russia’s attempts as a mediator to achieve a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the author suggests that the Palestinian issue has not lost its political significance and relevance as much as the Israeli government under Netanyahu tries to sell it.