A child wrapped in an Israeli flag is seen at a solidarity demonstration with Ukraine in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square. Photo: Reuters/Corinna Kern

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the Knesset last Sunday would have enjoyed greater impact had he emphasized Israel’s struggle for independence rather than the Nazi Holocaust, a leading Israeli-Ukrainian solidarity activist stated on Thursday.

“Israel as a country has been fighting for its right to exist for more than 70 years,” Anna Zharova — CEO of the Tel Aviv-based Israeli-Ukrainian Alliance — told the Ukrainian RBC news agency in an extensive interview.

“If the president of Ukraine wanted to reach the hearts of Israelis, it would be more accurate to talk about the struggle for independence,” Zharova said.

Addressing concerns in Ukraine regarding Israeli policy towards refugees from the Russian onslaught, as well as the vexed question of Israeli military aid to Ukraine’s armed forces, Zharova argued that while Israel’s security concerns in Syria, where Russia has a strong presence, needed to be understood, Jerusalem could still do more to support the government in Kyiv.

Up to 20,000 Ukrainians who were in Israel when Russian troops invaded their country have been permitted to remain, while Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has said that Israel will accept an additional 5,000 refugees, and impose no limit on the entry of Ukrainian refugees who have Israeli relatives.

However, Zharova said that government immigration and entry restrictions were preventing Israelis from taking Ukrainian refugees with no links to Israel into their homes.

“There are many people in Israel who want to help, but the state does not allow them,” said Zharova. “The other day I was approached by an Israeli family who lived in Ukraine for a long time. They are now back in Israel and they are trying to bring their child-carer with them, but the state won’t allow it.”

Zharova said it was unlikely that Israel would grant Ukraine military aid. In his speech last Sunday, Zelensky urged Israel to supply Ukraine with its Iron Dome anti-missile system, generating an agonized debate about the feasibility of transporting its components and its effectiveness against the full range of Russian missiles and artillery.

Explaining that Israel “has always fought alone, so it cannot put the interests of another country at the forefront,” Zharova stressed that Israeli policy was hampered by “problematic neighbors” like “Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria, where Russia is represented on a very large scale. Therefore, despite all the desire to choose only one side in the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel cannot afford to do so.”

In that light, she urged Ukrainian authorities to pay greater heed to influencing Israeli public opinion directly. “Israeli society absolutely supports Ukraine and helping Ukrainians,” she said. “And this is important: from the schools where aid is collected, the municipalities and various government agencies that publish information and words of support on their websites in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, the businesses that sponsor planes carrying humanitarian aid. This is all done by society — by people.”

Zharova underlined that she was “not talking about immigrants from the former USSR who have already decided whether they are with Ukraine or with [Russian President] Putin.”

She continued: “The Ukrainian authorities need to look beyond the government, to civil society. Because in Israel, as in any normal democracy, the non-profit sector, activists, and the media all influence the agenda.”

Zelensky’s speech last Sunday — in which he invoked the Holocaust by claiming that Russia was preparing a “final solution” for Ukraine — had failed to make an impression on that part of Israeli society still undecided about the war, Zharova said.

“Zelensky’s speech affected everyone. But for those who are neutral, or who are not paying attention, it didn’t work,” Zharova stated. Noting that Zelensky’s speech was live streamed to thousands of people in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, many of them draped in blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags, she said the president “could have won the hearts of all those present.”

“But he didn’t do it, he didn’t succeed,” she added.

Instead of comparing Ukraine’s current plight with the Nazi Holocaust, Zharova argued, Zelensky would have been better off referring to Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 — when the nascent Jewish state defeated a combined force of five invading Arab armies.

The Ukrainian authorities also need to understand that the Holocaust “is a very painful topic for the Jewish people,” she said. “Although we can call the atrocities committed by the Russian army genocide, it is difficult for Jews to accept comparisons with the Holocaust, because most Jews were exterminated in Ukraine.”

Asked whether there were tensions inside Israel between immigrants from Russia and Ukraine as a result of the invasion, Zharova said that relations were mainly positive.

“The protests we organize in support of Ukraine, in particular in Tel Aviv, are attended by many people from Russia — people we know, with whom we communicate, those who do not want to stand to one side,” Zharova said. “In our volunteer movement, too, there are many people from Russia who came and said: ‘We want to help.’ We don’t check who’s Russian and who’s Ukrainian. Anyone who wants to help can come.”