Israeli Ambassador to Moscow Simona Halperin was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry over “inadmissible remarks,” TASS reported on Monday.
“Due to unacceptable public statements by the Israeli envoy, which distort Russian foreign policy approaches and historical facts, Halperin will be summoned to the Foreign Ministry,” the ministry said, stressing, “the particular outrage is that the Israeli ambassador makes disrespectful comments about the efforts that Russia is undertaking in its interaction directed at assisting in determining the fate of hostages.”
Also, her “statements that the Holocaust was the extermination of Jewish people alone contradict the resolution of the UN General Assembly,” the Russians said, “while the reflections on the necessity of changing, as Halperin put it, Russia’s ‘state calendar’ border on meddling in the country’s internal affairs.”
In case you were wondering, Simona Halperin assumed office in December 2023. Some ambassadors wait for years to scorch their country’s diplomatic relations with a superpower…
Halperin poked the Bear in a lengthy Sunday profile on Kommersant, circulation 120,000 as of 2013, which aspires to be Russia’s Wall Street Journal. Under the headline, “I really believe in open and direct dialogue,” our Simona, 55, took “open and direct” all the way to the touchdown zone and scored the extra point, too (I always write like this just before the Superbowl).
HAMAS IS TECHNICALLY BANNED IN RUSSIA, ANT YET…
“You have a list of terrorist organizations banned in Russia,” she told Kommersant. “It also includes the Muslim Brotherhood. But Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why isn’t it on this list? Meanwhile, Hamas openly declares that this is not the last October 7, there will be another October 7, ten more such October 7s. They don’t hide it, they don’t hide, on the contrary, they are proud of it. So why doesn’t Russia speak out not only against terrorism but also against a repetition of October 7?”
She then jumped on the Bear’s back and punched it in the neck: “In Russia, they say that they are conducting these negotiations to free the hostages. But soon it will be four months since people remain hostage and they have not been released.
“We are also very concerned about the situation in our region as a whole, where Iran is inciting Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, who are impeding freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, which undermines the stability of world trade and leads to rising prices. But we do not hear a word of condemnation from Russia in the UN Security Council.
“On the contrary, it stands in solidarity with the Republic of South Africa, which filed an absurd lawsuit against Israel with the International Court of Justice, accusing it of genocide. I am glad that the court did not support this accusation but only ordered Israel to “refrain from genocide” and ensure the supply of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Well, as they say, good morning! Israel has been doing this since day one. More than 6 thousand trucks have already delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“Russia’s position worries and depresses me because your country is losing the sympathy of Israelis, including Russian speakers.”
THE HOLOCAUST IN RUSSIA
In case the readers were curious about her Russian pedigree, Halperin shared, “I was born in Riga. And mom too. And my dad is from Leningrad. As young students they met, got married, and, when I was six months old, moved to Pushkin near Leningrad. I lived there until I was six years old. And then my parents divorced, and my mother and I repatriated to Israel.”
There was that, too: “You asked what connects me with Russia? I will answer. Both of my grandfathers fought in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. And the grandfather who was from Leningrad, was even captured. How did he survive? It’s a whole story. As soon as the Germans saw his physical features, they immediately said: ‘You are a Jew.’ And he says: ‘No, I’m a Tatar.’ He spoke Tatar fluently because as a child he had a Tatar nanny and he learned the language. So instead of a death camp, he ended up in a prisoner of war camp. Then he fled from there and fought in a partisan detachment… Why am I saying this? We fought together, this is our common history. Israel recognizes and appreciates the role that the Red Army played in the fight against fascism.”
“Unfortunately,” she said, “International Holocaust Remembrance Day is not yet an official day in the state calendar of the Russian Federation. I will talk about this with my Russian colleagues.
“And I don’t really understand why Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov downplays the significance of this monstrous event (the Holocaust). Yes, many nations suffered heavy losses, the Russian people paid for the victory over Nazism with millions and millions of lives. And we remember this. But never before in history has the world known such a massive and systematic extermination of people solely on ethnic grounds. Only the Jewish people experienced this. I will repeat this tirelessly.”
Well, if she does, she’d be summoned again, because the Russians are in no mood these days to honor and respect Jews, living or otherwise. After more than two decades without the constant antisemitic drone, the drone is back, most notably when Russians in the media push the idea that the Jews from Israel are collaborating with the Jewish cabal in Ukraine (that’s President Zelensky) against the ancient brotherhood of Russians and Ukrainians.
You thought pro-Hamas antisemitism was bad? Remember, these people gave us the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Halperin is a firebrand, no doubt about it, but Russia is not a hospitable place for firebrands, especially not in February.
