Even before the presidential plane of Russian leader Vladimir Putin landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Jan. 23, everyone in Israel knew he was the most powerful and influential leader invited to attend the stately event to mark 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp by the Russian Red Army. It was no wonder that as far as Israelis were concerned, Putin overshadowed any other leader to grace the Fifth World Holocaust Forum with his presence.
Everyone knew that Putin not only holds the key to the fate of the young Israeli Naama Issachar, who received a disproportionate prison sentence in Russia for smuggling drugs. He also has a say in Israel’s activity in the skies over Syria. Nevertheless, very few Israelis were aware of or had dwelt on one important point: Putin had come to Israel to participate in an event initiated, funded and produced by his close friend and confidante Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor, a Russian Jewish oligarch and chairman of the European Jewish Congress. Nothing about this event, which could easily be called a “Russian event,” happened by chance.