Conference chair
We are going to start our conference which is held in advance of the official visit of the President Vladimir Putin to Israel. I remind you that this visit will take place on the 25th of June, and today we will talk about the program of the visit, new Russian-Israeli initiatives and the current status of our relations.
Yuli Edelshtein, the Minister of Information and Diaspora of Israel
First of all, I think it won’t be a surprise for you if I tell you that the visit of the President of Russia is being broadly discussed both in Russian-language and in Hebrew-language media. The visit will be short but very busy.
On Monday morning, just after the alighting, Vladimir Putin will attend the inauguration of the monument to the soldiers of the Red Army in Netanya. I should say that this idea, which was proposed at the meeting where I was present when Prime Minister Netanyahu came to Moscow, was welcomed by the Russian side. It is important to note that a lot of monuments to the heroism of Jewish soldiers and of veterans living in Israel have been inaugurated in the last twenty years. As for this case, we are talking about a monument precisely to honour all the soldiers of the Red Army, which is aimed at memorialising its role in the salvation of the European Jews and in the establishment of the State of Israel. These are measures that Israel is applying for the first time, concerning Russia.
After that, Putin has a functional meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel in his residence with the participation of several other ministers, a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, visits to various organizations connected with Russia including the Russian mission in Jerusalem, and an official meeting with the President of Israel. This is all the program of his visit.
Concerning the subjects which are going to be discussed, it is possible to say that the first one is our old subject, a sacred and eternal one for us, and the other is the situation in our region, in the Middle East. It is a known fact that both the whole world and our country are very worried about the instability on our borders, in particular the events in Syria. I think these questions will also be aired at the meetings with the Russian President and his delegation.
Yakov Livne, the Director of the Eurasian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel
We consider the visit of President Putin to be quite important; this is the first time in the history of twenty years of our diplomatic relations that the President of the Russian Federation has come to Israel. The first visit of Mister Putin as the President of Russia in 2005 induced our mutual relations to make progress. Nowadays we expect the coming visit to influence our relations as well.
Our current agenda includes very important subjects; the Minister has just mentioned some of them. These are: the problem of Iran, the problem of Syria, the subject of mutual relations in the field of economics and in other fields. We have seen our mutual relations develop very well recently, and we hope the coming visit will stimulate these relations. Besides, of course, the subject of the centuries-long history of the Russian people and the Jewish people will be discussed. It seems to me that the fact that the schedule of the President Putin includes the inauguration of a monument to the soldiers of the Red Army is a very important factor of the Russian image in Israel and in mutual relations in general.
Alexander Babakov, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for cooperation with organisations representing Russians living abroad.
Concerning the situation in Russia after the last parliamentary and presidential elections, we realize all the complexity and the immensity of our tasks, which are formulated on different levels. Nowadays, assessing the inner potential of our country, we cannot ignore the states which consider Russia to be their equal partner in solving the most complicated problems. The crisis which broke out three years ago demonstrated that the multipolar world has come true and the unipolar world became a thing of the past Consequently, Russia not only supports its old traditional relations but also pass easily and comfortably over to close links with the states who, as I have already said, consider Russia to be their equal partner.
Israel is a state which is associated with Russia not only by the great number of our former compatriots living in Israel but also by the fact that the history of this state is inseparably connected with the history of the Soviet Union and of Russia.
The last years, in particular the last twenty years, were quite difficult for our country. It is quite pleasant that nowadays we can acknowledge that our trade turnover is quite high, though its structure has to be changed substantially.
There have been a lot of changes in the structure of our relations recently: we cooperate in space exploration, in military and quasi-military sectors etc. This fact proves that there are a lot of good prospects in our current relations. However, for me personally as the representative of the State Duma, there is a fact which is a bit more important: it is that we manage to diversify our economic relations. We're speaking not only about tourism and cooperation in the field of culture. First of all, we're speaking of the fact that our states get involved in serious processes of geopolitical changes or other processes on such scales.
The Israeli side has enumerated several such processes which it expects to be discussed. I’m sure that the Russian side also has such expectations. We are certainly worried about the events in your neighboring countries and the problems which our country, as well as yours, gets involved in involuntary. It is very important that the contacts between our heads of state will certainly let us solve a lot of our problems on a new level and not only assess them but also invent a mechanism of solving these problems or at least approaching their solutions. Not only our countries but all the countries of the world are forced to face these problems.
Significantly, Vladimir Putin has already done a lot in solving quite complicated problems. To my mind, amongst the things he has done it is very important to emphasize the Russian endeavour to make peace in countries where, unfortunately, nowadays we can see aggression provoked by both exogenous and endogenous factors. Of course, preventing the escalation of this aggression in the countries which became such “hot zones” will be discussed during the visit.
I would like to pass over to another subject and say that the visit includes the inauguration not only of the memorial, but also of a centre which will let us enhance our relations on the level of our compatriots which live on the territory of Israel. I think this aspect is significant due to the special position of Israel concerning this issue. The reason for it is that the living standards of our compatriots abroad are very important for our country, and I think Israel has a leading positive position, according to this criterion.
Yevgeni Kashtanov, VK
Good afternoon, my name is Yevgeni Kashtanov, I represent the news agency Vestnik Kavkaza. Our delegation has visited Israel recently and signed a large contract with the group of Russian-language Israeli media. I would like to ask you two questions not related to politics.
How would you characterize the general tendencies in presenting Israel's image by the Russian media? And the second question, concerning humanitarian cooperation: are there a lot of examples of opening branches of Russian universities in various countries? In particular, there is Russian-language diaspora in Israel. What do you think about the idea of opening branches of leading Russian universities in Israel?
Yakov Livne
I can present the point of view of the Israeli side. It seems to me that nowadays, as a result of existing contacts and dialogues on different levels, not only on the political one, both Israel's image in Russia and Russia's image in Israel are more favourable than they were, for instance, five or ten years ago.
As for universities and the education system in general, I suppose both Russia and Israel have an opportunity to contribute to productive cooperation in this sphere. Taking into consideration that every fifth or sixth Israeli citizen speaks Russian we see that there are a lot of opportunities for further cooperation. The crucial factor is the quality of education and, if it is high enough, close cooperation will be possible.
Mister Magen, you are a representative of the academic community of Israel, and I know that you cooperate closely with the Russian Academy in Moscow.
Tsvi Magen, ex-head of the Nativ Liaison Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Office, ex-Ambassador of Israel to Russia and Ukraine
Of course we welcome this opinion and this suggestion. As for the branches of your universities, we don’t have any, but we are expanding our collaboration. I beg to say that we are currently establishing relations between our institute of Tel Aviv University and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We hope to hold a large joint conference here in Israel, and if we manage to promote the issue of the branches at this conference, we will welcome this initiative.
