The morning after Israel voted, the leading Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that the elections had turned out as expected: the rightists showed impressive results, giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more room to maneuver. The rest of the world, however, was talking about the rightists' amazingly poor performance and the difficult position Netanyahu now finds himself in.

The explanation is simple. The press time for Russia’s print newspapers is earlier than for publications in other countries, and due to the time difference, election results from other countries usually come in too late and have to be published the next day. Since every single forecast expected Netanyahu and Lieberman to win a convincing victory, the journalists at Kommersant decided to scoop their colleagues around the world rather than delay publication. The resulting embarrassment was rather symbolic.

Russian attitudes toward Israeli politics are quite unique. On the one hand, the Soviet tradition, which remains strong, tends toward solidarity with the Arab world, particularly the Palestinian people. This school of thought is also influential in Russian diplomatic circles, in which the guru — the Russian equivalent of Henry Kissinger — is Yevgeny Primakov, a veteran of big-time Middle-East politics. The view that Israel is inherently aggressive toward its neighbors is widespread in the right-wing media, whose representatives play a prominent role in the public debate. Russia’s Muslims generally have a negative view of Israel, and they accuse the government of following a policy of accommodation toward the Jewish state. The Muslim community does not significantly influence Russian foreign policy, but its influence is likely to grow. Among both conservatives and Muslims, there is a widely held belief that the state of Israel, through its “emissaries,” exerts significant influence on Russian policy. Liberal commentators, who are just as numerous as conservatives in the public arena, tend to justify Israel’s actions, whatever they may be, seeing the nation as a victim of historical circumstances.

At the same time, given the psychology of the Russian regime under Vladimir Putin, the Russian leadership views Israel as its most kindred spirit. The rise of Putin to the position of Russia’s “boss” began in 1999 with the war in the Caucasus, when the decisive prime minister took a hard line against the separatists and Islamic radicals in Chechnya, and was indifferent to both the international reaction and the protests within the country. He modeled his actions on Israel, which has always declared that softness or flexibility toward terrorists can only lead to an escalation of the violence. The same approach was taken after the year 2000 when terrorists seized the theater in Moscow and the school in Beslan. Putin categorically rejected negotiations.