Israel still sees Russia as the aggressor in the war in Ukraine, says Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, after Israel voted at the UN with the US and Russia and against Ukraine.
“We voted with the Americans and I do believe that Russia is the aggressor,” Sa’ar tells Politico during his trip to Brussels this week. “We haven’t changed our mind, but we thought it is right to give a chance to the initiative of America to try to end this war and solve it by peaceful means.”
Sa’ar also warns that a “military option” could well be the only way to stop Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. He says that Israel prefers a diplomatic solution, but chances of success are “not huge.”
If Iran is allowed to build a nuclear weapon, he says, it would spark a “nuclear race in the Middle East with Egypt, Saudis, Turkey.”
On Syria, Sa’ar notes that “Europe is happy and we are happy that Assad is gone.”
He warns that the new Syrian government is mistreating Alawites, the religious community to which ousted leader Bashar al-Assad belonged.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas will be visiting Israel in March, Sa’ar says.
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