Two things stand out in particular in the dispute that has erupted between Kyiv and Jerusalem over grain imported from the occupied territories in Ukraine. The first is that this clash could have been avoided, and quite easily so. The second is Ukraine's growing assertiveness on the international stage.
Let us begin with the second point. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's statement against Israel's conduct regarding the grain ships appears to have been unprecedented in its severity. Zelenskyy has previously expressed anger and disappointment over Israel's failure to stand by Kyiv in 2022, as one might have expected from a Western democracy, but until now he had not suggested that Israel was not behaving like a normal country, nor had he used the language of sanctions threats.
One can assume that one reason for this is the status Ukraine is acquiring in the international arena in general, and in the Middle East in particular. Over the past month, Ukraine has provided assistance to the Gulf states and Jordan in operating and intercepting UAVs, an area in which it is probably the world's leading country. According to reports, it even briefed the Americans at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Zelenskyy himself has visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Syria, all of which, it should be noted, are also US allies. Conspicuously absent from that shuttle diplomacy was Israel, the only Western country to which he has not been invited since the start of the war. Moreover, in an interview with Barak Ravid a month ago, Zelenskyy revealed that the last time he spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was shortly after Oct. 7, 2023, adding another layer to Israel's strange, to put it mildly, approach toward Ukraine.
If in 2022 that approach could supposedly still be explained, at least in part, by the fact that Russia was Israel's neighbor in Syria and by concern over possible harassment of Russian Jews, Moscow has since been thrown out of Syria along with the Assad regime, while Russian Jews who wanted to leave the Russian Federation did so long ago. On the contrary, Russia was and remains on warm terms with Iran and Hamas, whose leaders it hosted repeatedly after Oct. 7. Recently, Zelenskyy even claimed that Moscow had passed Tehran intelligence on some 50 facilities in Israel in order to improve the accuracy of its strikes.
An avoidable crisis
Against this backdrop, the crisis over the grain, which Ukraine says was stolen from its occupied territories, looks especially unnecessary. That is not only because it places Israel in the same club as Iran, Algeria and Turkey, with the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman stressing that Kyiv would fight all violations simultaneously, but because it was simply avoidable.
If, regarding the Panormitis, which is waiting for approval to enter port, an examination is still underway and documents are missing, why was the previous ship, the Avinsk, allowed in, even though all the documents required under international conventions were submitted on time, according to Kyiv? And even if they had not been submitted, why get entangled in principle with goods that raise question marks? Questions also arise regarding relations with Russia, which despite its hostility still receives respect and a foothold in Israel, in a way that makes one wonder whether, when the day comes, we will hear arguments that Qatar is not the only complex country.
It is also not hard to imagine that a confrontation with Kyiv could hurt Israel in areas where there is great potential for learning, given Ukraine's unique experience in drone warfare.
