Israel Dares to Tell Ukraine No and Under the Bus They Go

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

The war in Ukraine rages on as Russia has redoubled its efforts with new troop mobilizations and an escalation in the air war. Fighting has largely centered in the eastern area of the country, but over the last few days, strikes on Kyiv have begun again. That has led Ukrainian President Volydymr Zelensky to ask Israel to donate parts of its ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense system to his war effort.

The idea isn’t new, with requests for the system actually beginning at the beginning of the war. Some in the United States, including Rep. Adam Kinzinger, chastized Israel at the time for not obliging.

The latest news is that Israel has again turned Ukraine down, leading to renewed outcry and claims that the Jewish nation is beholden to Russia.

The details of the decision by Israel likely rest on a combination of practical and political factors. For starters, Ukraine has essentially never sided with Israel at the United Nations over the years, often voting for resolutions condemning the Jewish state. For context, as of June of this year, the number of resolutions against Israel stood at 122. Ukraine voted against Israel in 95 of them and abstained in the rest.

Ukraine has also been downright hostile since the war started, making rash demands of Israel and attacking them publicly for not falling in line with aid. In short, I can imagine the Israelis are now not too keen on giving valuable defensive weapons away to a nation that has not only never lifted a finger to help them but has actively worked against their security situation.

The second part of this is the fact that the Iron Dome is not designed to take down high-tech Russian weaponry over a massive land area. It’s designed to protect cities from mostly low-grade rockets. There’s also the concern of Iron Dome technology falling into the hands of Russia and thereby making its way to Iran and Hamas. Lastly, Israel only has a finite supply of Iron Dome munitions. They simply can’t afford to empty their stockpiles for what is likely a futile gesture.

The bottom line is that Israel is perfectly justified in putting its foot down here. Ukraine’s past hostility leaves it in no place to make demands. And frankly, even though I’m strongly anti-Russian aggression, the sense of entitlement from the Ukrainians is starting to wear thin. No one owes them anything, and their requests for aid should be done with humility and an acceptance of how their own past behavior may affect things. Never mind the issues of anti-Semitism that exist in Ukraine.

As to clowns like Kinzinger pretending every nation on earth must be subservient to the Ukrainian cause, they can go jump in a lake. Israel has a delicate balance to strike in all this, and it should not be expected to put its people in serious danger in order to throw a few bones at Ukraine.