Maybe they will feel better now that about 500 signatures in support of Israel were collected in the Moscow Choral Synagogue in a couple of hours. More signatures will be added online. The drive will continue until Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Then the collected signatures will be sent to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Normally, you would never see a man with his head uncovered in a synagogue, or women praying with men in the same hall. But on August 9 nobody in the Moscow Choral Synagogue paid attention to religious traditions. People came to the synagogue for a rally. They were praying for Israel and against terror. No one asked them about their confession or nationality. They were all united by the desire to say no to terrorism.
Upon entering the praying hall of the synagogue everyone saw the slogan "We are against terror"; the organizers handed out small Russian and Israeli flags; black posters were hanging from balconies with drawings of bombs and the names of cities that have been hit by acts of terror in recent years. The list was not limited to Israeli cities - it included Cairo, Baghdad, Istanbul, Amman, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, Madrid, London, Washington, New York, Moscow, and Russian cities in the North Caucasus: Makhachkala, Budennovsk, Beslan, and Grozny. All those present observed a minute of silence to honor victims of terror regardless of where they perished.
The rally was organized by the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations in Russia, the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities (Va'ad), and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. President of the Institute for Israel and Middle East Studies Yevgeny Satanovsky was the rally's leader. He stressed that people of different nationalities and religions came to the synagogue, not just representatives of the Jewish community.
"An Ossetian approached me and said: 'We are with you.' He came because his relatives perished in Beslan. Tartars, Ossetians, Russians, and Azeris came to the rally. These are the people who came up to me after it, the people I know of. They came to express their solidarity with the struggle against terror, their support for Israel. Maybe there were people of other nationalities - I simply don't know," Satanovsky said.
He said that the organizers were happy to see so many people. "Considering that we spent only three days preparing for the rally, that there was no advertising, and that in August Moscow is empty - young people are on vacation, many people are away, and it was raining the whole evening - I can say that many people attended the rally," Satanovsky said. He thinks about a thousand people attended the rally. By other estimates, there were between 600 and 700 people in the synagogue. But this does not matter much; in any event, this rally was the biggest show of support for Israel in Russia.
A number of Jewish communities have been conducting prayers to support Israel and honor the victims. A rally with the slogan "I love Israel - no to terrorism and fascism" took place in a synagogue in Chelyabinsk. Two pickets attended by about 60 people were held at the Israeli Embassy in Moscow. An obscure movement -- the Russian Radicals - organized one of them. It decided to back Israel as "the only democracy in the Middle East." Musicians from the group "Tokyo" gathered at the other rally and urged everyone to pray together for Israel.
Israeli Embassy officials told me that about ten anti-Israeli demonstrations had taken place next to their building in the month since the start of the second Lebanese campaign. "An average of 30 people take part in each rally," they added.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is one of the most energetic organizers of anti-Israeli rallies. On August 10, the Communists and a number of other leftist organizations staged a nationwide demonstration, "Against Israeli Aggression".
Apart from Communists, representatives of the Arab Diaspora in Moscow, including Lebanese, took part in the picket at the Israeli Embassy. About 150 people were present. Some Arabs were holding not only Lebanese flags, but also portraits of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and were chanting: "Hizbollah, we are with you!" and "Hizbollah will overcome!"
In St. Petersburg, representatives of leftist organizations held a demonstration against the war in Lebanon at the U.S. Consulate. They also protested against the scheduled joint Russian-American war games. Participants in this rally threw tomatoes at portraits of U.S. President George W. Bush, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, which were spread on the pavement in front of the building.
Communists in Omsk staged an anti-Israeli rally on the square at the Legislative Assembly. It attracted about 200 people, most of them pensioners, although leaflets all over the city said that the "youth of Russia" was organizing the protest.
Alexander Kravets, a Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Omsk Region, called on all those present to support the Arabs. "These young and energetic people are opposing unpopular American laws," he explained.
The local media report that there were even some Jews among the participants in the anti-Israeli picket in Yaroslavl. Demonstrators decided that Lebanese children should have an opportunity to spend a vacation in Russia, and that the people behind the war should be tried by a tribunal.
As in other cities, many people lamented the loss of the U.S.S.R.'s might and remembered the time when Moscow could intervene to stop a war.
About 40 people took part in a picket in Tula. Like in other places, they collected signatures under the demand to "stop Israeli aggression in Lebanon, try the perpetrators of the aggression before an international tribunal, and compel Israel to reimburse sovereign Lebanon for the damage inflicted on its people and infrastructure." The rally lasted for about two hours, and about 300 Tula residents signed the petition. The collection of signatures will continue during the entire week.
Several dozen people gathered for a demonstration in Vladimir. They also demanded that those who staged the aggression against Lebanon be taken to court. They primarily blamed the Israelis for the death of Lebanese children. Many also criticized Washington for doing nothing. The secretary of the Communist Party's regional committee, Magamed Akhmatov, said: "If Israel did not receive such political and military support from the U.S., it would behave differently in the Middle East." The action was crowned with the adoption of a resolution: "No to bloodshed, yes to settling conflicts through negotiations."
Demonstrations took place in other Russian cities as well. Communists from Kostroma decided not to waste time on a rally. They wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting that he intervene in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict and take part in its settlement. They denounced Israeli actions as undisguised fascism and expressed their conviction that Russia should protest against such aggression.
Assessing the results of Russian demonstrations both against the war in Lebanon and in support of Israel, I would say that although the Russian media extensively cover events in the Middle East and the new war is the subject of heated debates online, as a whole, Russians are not ready to take an active part in actions for or against Israel. What is the reason? Is it a general fatigue of rallies, summer, or the fact that, as many say: "This is not our war"? Probably all factors have played a role.
To an extent, the situation is explained by polls conducted by sociologists in mid-July, when the Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, in response to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, reached its peak, and at the very beginning of the Lebanese military campaign.
According to the Public Opinion Foundation, 13% of the Russians polled sympathize with Israelis in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and 8% side with the Palestinians. But 63% are not sympathetic towards either of the conflicting parties. Some 16% do not have an answer to this question.
It is also interesting to analyze the answers of the 40% who disapprove of Israeli actions following the kidnapping of Gilad Shalid. Among them, 9% believe that conflicts should be settled peacefully, 5% think that military actions cannot be justified as a matter of principle, and the same amount are confident that the Israeli response was disproportionately harsh. Some 3% believe that violence breeds violence, and another 3% are against Israeli actions because children suffer as a result of the conflict. Some 7% do not have an answer to this question.
According to VTsIOM (All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion), 39% of those polled believe that the current events are a clash between Israel, on the one hand, and Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups on the other; 26% of respondents think that Israel is carrying out military aggression against peaceful Lebanon; and 17% are of the opinion that Palestinian, Iranian, and Lebanese extremists have unleashed a war against peaceful Israel.
When asked who is responsible for the war, 23% blamed it on the Israeli government, 21% accused the U.S. and other Israeli allies, 14% denounced Hizbollah, and 13% Hamas; 5% pointed to Iran, Syria, and other sponsors of terrorist organizations in the Middle East; and 4% named the Lebanese government. However, the biggest proportion (28%) believes that all parties to the conflict are equally responsible for it - terrorist organizations, the Israeli and Lebanese governments, and other interested parties. In Moscow and St. Petersburg the opinions are divided almost half and half - 18%-19% think that Lebanon is a victim, and the same proportion believe that it is Israel.
As for Russia's role in settling the conflict in the Middle East, 43% of those polled believe that Moscow should stay out of it, and 38% would like Moscow to offer to be an independent mediator. Only one tenth of respondents are for supporting one of the warring parties - Lebanon and Palestine (7%), or Israel (4%). Young people under 35 prefer non-interference, and older people are more for mediation.
The Yuri Levada Analytical Center got approximately the same results. When asked what position Russia should take on the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 48% said that everything should be done to bring about its peaceful settlement, 29% think that Russia should not interfere, 14% did not answer, 5% think that Israel should be supported in its efforts to curb extremists in Palestine, Lebanon, and other countries in the region, and 4% stand for backing Palestinians and Lebanese in their struggle against Israel.
The polls show that the majority of Russians are in favor of non-interference, or neutral mediation. This makes it clear why people in Russia are not very enthusiastic about rallies related to the Middle East. The latter are of interest only to politicians and the Jewish and Arab communities.
