‘Israel’ has its own considerations to weigh when it comes to US sanctions on Russia, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said on Monday.
In light of the latest tensions between Russia and Ukraine, Lapid said he told Washington and Moscow that Israel “will do the right thing according to our set of values.”
While “Israel has liberal democratic values,” Lapid said, there are other considerations, as well, Israeli media reported.
Lapid described ‘Israel’ as being “in a bit of a Baltic situation.”
“We have a kind of border with Russia…the important force inside Syria,” he explained, in an interview with Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ mission to the Zionist entity.
In addition, Lapid pointed out that Russia and Ukraine have large Jewish communities, and as such, asserted he has to be “more careful than any other foreign minister in the world.”
“I think there is an understanding of this,” he said. “This is where the special relationship [with the US] comes into play. They understand this because they understand us. We have a mutual vocabulary, a language that we share.”
Lapid said he thinks that an alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine was still avoidable, and expressed hope that French President Emmanuel Macron’s mediation efforts will be fruitful.
“There is still enough room for a diplomatic effort to try to make this invasion – that looks inevitable – not happen,” he said.
Source: Israeli media
