Israel is Self-Sabotaging on Ukraine

Again.

Just when you thought the situation with the ABINSK vessel—which arrived in Haifa earlier this month, unloaded grain almost certainly exported from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, and faced no real action from Israeli authorities—couldn’t get any worse, it did.

Because another cargo vessel is now about to enter the port of Haifa: PANORMITIS. And it is, again, almost certainly carrying stolen grain.

I won’t repeat why this is such an issue for Ukrainians—an issue that goes well beyond Russia’s war. You can revisit my earlier blog on the matter, but the short version is this: it’s about being starved to death. More than once.

What I will say is that Ukrainian authorities, as well as journalists and others closely following this issue, are watching Israel’s actions very carefully this time. To the extent that Axios journalist Barak Ravid has reported that a Ukrainian diplomatic source told him that if Jerusalem lets the PANORMITIS case slip, it could lead to a crisis in Ukraine–Israel relations.

I cannot independently confirm that claim. But I can say that the tone among Ukrainian diplomats I’ve spoken to is reservedly negative.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022, Ukraine has struggled to understand Israel’s position. This is, after all, one of the countries with historically strong ties to Israel—Golda Meir was born in Kyiv—yet Israel has taken very limited steps to assist.

There have been many explanations. Syria. Iran. Regional constraints. But Assad is now gone, and Ukraine has been largely supportive of Israel on Iran—certainly more so than many other states—yet no real shift has followed.

On the contrary, there appears to be some level of deterioration, which is difficult to explain. Especially given that Kyiv has recently adopted an antisemitism law, does not host large-scale pro-Hamas or “Free Palestine” mobilisations, does not detain Israelis to interrogate them and does not spread obscene anti-Israel propaganda.

To me, this does not look like self-sabotage on Israel’s part.

I dare repeat that Israel is one of the least liked states in the world, for reasons right or wrong, and its interests should at least in theory lie not only in military actions and geopolitical concerns but also in how people perceive it. And you simply cannot be perceived well or claim that you’re morally superior to your non-democratic Arabic neighbour when you’re not obstructing the import of stolen grain from a universally supported country that’s been fighting off the Russian bear for over four years now. 

Israel is a country capable of doing much-much better. And I genuinely struggle to understand why, in this case, it isn’t.