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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to Israel’s parliament over Zoom will be broadcast on Sunday at Habima Square in Tel Aviv. Israeli and Ukrainian officials confirmed last week that Ukraine’s leader will address Members of Knesset and government ministers at 6 pm local time. While parliament is in recess and is undergoing renovations, MKs without access to Zoom will be able to attend a joint viewing of the address from a specially designated room inside parliament.
Following President @ZelenskyyUa’s request to address the Israeli people, this morning we offered the Embassy of Ukraine to broadcast the speech at HaBima Square – so that the Israeli public can hear the President live.
— Mayor of Tel Aviv (@MayorOfTelAviv) March 11, 2022
In response to Zelenskyy’s planned speech, Russia’s Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov requested an “urgent meeting” with Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy, local media reported last week, adding that Jerusalem was readying itself for the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin will also ask to address Israeli lawmakers.
Ukrainian MP Olga Vasilevskaya-Smaglyuk said that during his Knesset address, Zelenskyy will invoke his Jewishness, as well as liken his country’s struggle to fight off Russia’s invasion to World War II and Nazi Germany. “He will talk about the Holocaust and the situation of the Ukrainians now, because it is really similar — killing Ukrainians only because they are Ukrainian,” she said.
Moscow on Friday issued a warning to Jerusalem not to become “unbalanced,” saying that too much support for Ukraine could see Israel lose its ability to mediate the conflict.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been holding talks with Zelenskyy and Putin in a bid to find a way to cease the hostilities.
Israel’s parliament is one of many across the world that Zelenskyy will have addressed. On March 16, he spoke virtually to members of the US Congress, urging lawmakers to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
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Amid push back from Jerusalem over the reported possibility that Washington could remove Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its terror blacklist, a State Department official said on Saturday that the US was ready to make “difficult decisions” in order to revive the nuclear deal with Iran.
“We are not negotiating in public and are not going to respond to specific claims about what sanctions we would be prepared to lift as part of a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA,” the State Department official said, using the official acronym for the nuclear deal. But, he said, “We are prepared to make difficult decisions to return Iran’s nuclear program to JCPOA limits.”
His comments came after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid together urged the US not to delist the IRGC as a terror organization on Friday. “The Revolutionary Guards are a terrorist organization that has murdered thousands of people, including Americans. We have a hard time believing that the United States will remove it from the definition of a terrorist organization,” Bennett and Lapid said in their joint statement, adding: “We believe that the United States will not abandon its closest allies in exchange for empty promises from terrorists.”
The US official said on Saturday that Jerusalem and Washington “share a common interest: seeing to it that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. We’ve been clear that a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA is the best diplomatic path forward and the best way to achieve this objective.”
The United States said last week that it was “close” to a deal with Iran on reviving the 2015 pact that saw Western powers provide sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program.
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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is scheduled to head to India on April 2 at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The visit will mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of relations between the two countries. “Modi restarted relations between India and Israel, and this is of historic importance,” Bennett said on Saturday evening.
“The relations between our two unique cultures—the Indian culture and the Jewish culture—are deep, and they rely on deep appreciation and meaningful collaborations,” Bennett continued, adding: “There are many things we can learn from the Indians, and this is what we strive to do. Together we will expand our cooperation to other areas, from innovation and technology, security and cyber, to agriculture and climate change.”
In addition to meeting with Modi, Bennett will hold talks with other government officials and visit with members of India’s Jewish community.
The leaders met last year at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. During that meeting, Bennett said he knows Modi’s approach towards Israel “comes from the heart. It’s not a matter of interests, but a deep belief that you hold, and we feel it. In the name of all citizens of Israel, we appreciate your new approach.”
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Israel is the ninth happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report, a project of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Israel has moved slowly up the rankings in recent years, going from No. 14 in 2020 to No. 11 in 2021. The report, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, says it factors a country’s GDP, social support, life expectancy, “freedom to make life choices,” citizen generosity and perceptions of corruption into its ranking.
Each country’s response to COVID-19 was also a factor in the ranking, the report noted. Israel was one of the first countries to successfully vaccinate a large percentage of its population.“Deaths from COVID-19 during 2020 and 2021 have been markedly lower in those countries with higher trust in public institutions and where inequality is lower,” the report reads.
Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland placed in the top four, with the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway being the only others ahead of Israel.
Recommended Reading
- Russia’s War Reaches Into the Middle East (Shoshana Bryen, Newsweek)
- The Covert War Between Israel and Iran Rises to the Surface (Jonathan Schanzer, Foundation for Defense of Democracies)
- Another Palestinian ‘Moderate’ Is Exposed (Stephen M. Flatow, Jewish News Syndicate)
- Stop Teaching Kids to Hate Jews (Florina Rodov, Algemeiner)
- Menachem Begin’s Legacy and the Security of Israel (Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Jerusalem Post)
