The Moscow Times - 04.16.2002

The Moscow Times

Russian Jews and Muslims Take Sides

By Andrei Zolotov

Their numbers are nowhere near those of the pro-Israeli rallies in the United States or the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in several European cities. But the surge in Middle East violence is leading thousands of Russians to express their pain and take sides.

About 1,500 Jews -- after passing through extensive security checks -- filled a hall in Moscow's Maryina Roshcha Synagogue for an emotional ceremony Monday evening to commemorate Memorial Day in Israel, a tribute to hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians killed in suicide bombings and clashes with the Palestinians.

"Our task is to make the public aware of the fact that the Russian Jewish community fully supports Israel," said Borukh Gorin, spokesman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, or FEOR, which organized similar rallies in about 100 Russian cities Monday.

Prayers were sung in Hebrew and Russian, and candles were lit on the stage where Israeli Ambassador to Russia Nathan Meron and FEOR's Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar took turns with other Jewish dignitaries praising the Israeli army and stressing the similarities between Palestinian and Chechen terrorists.

More candles were lit before a display of photos of 415 Israelis killed in the recent violence.

"When houses were blown up in Moscow, everybody knew what to do," Lazar said, referring to the 1999 explosions of apartment blocks that the authorities blamed on Chechen terrorists and used as a pretext to launch the second Chechnya war.

"Today our brothers in Israel also know what to do," he said. "Our meeting sends a clear message: Our support for Israel is unshakable."

"I am strengthened by your participation, and I am grateful to you from the bottom of my heart for your coming to express your solidarity with us," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a prerecorded video address.

Sharon described President Vladimir Putin as "our friend" and praised his firm stand in "fighting terrorism."

Yet the loudest applause Monday did not go to Sharon, Meron, Yevgeny Oxman, whose son Michael was killed by a suicide bomber, or even well-known jazzman Alexei Kozlov, who played his saxophone together with a Jewish choir. Instead, after hearing speech after speech about the bravery of the Israeli army, participants gave its most enthusiastic welcome to Boris Bolshem, an Israeli soldier who emigrated from Russia five years ago and now serves in a military unit near Nablus.

The speakers and people interviewed in the audience had little tolerance for suggestions of talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

"I came here because I am a Jew," said retired Soviet Major-General Pyotr Bograd, 81.

He said in a hallway that he had experienced strong conflicting emotions when he served in the Soviet Army, which supported the Arabs. Today, the government's policies have become more balanced but not enough, he said.

"It is nice to say that both parties should stop the violence," he said. "But Moscow should assess the situation more adequately. If this criminal -- Arafat -- is not stopped, God knows what will come out of it."

Russian Muslims, however, who are much more numerous than Russian Jews, see matters the other way around.

About 300 people, among them Palestinian students, gathered Friday for a protest outside the Israeli Embassy organized by State Duma Deputy Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov.

Although it received little coverage in the Russian media, a much larger rally of more than 3,000 people was held on the same day in the Dagestani town of Khasavyurt.

Sergei Rasulov, a reporter for the privately owned Dagestani newspaper Novoye Delo, said Monday by telephone that organizers, who included several town officials, complained that police blocks outside the town prevented a much larger crowd from arriving from the neighboring regions.

While most slogans called for peace, others read "Hands Off Palestine" and "Sharon Is Terrorist No. 1," according to Rasulov. Muslim leaders who spoke at the rally accused the Russian media of giving one-sided, pro-Israeli coverage and called on the government to support the Palestinians, he said.

"It was clear that this message struck a chord in the hearts of the people," Rasulov said.

"We are absolutely dissatisfied with Russia's attitude toward the Palestinian problem," Ilyas Ilyasov, imam of one of Makhachkala's mosques, passionately told a visiting group of Moscow reporters Friday.

When the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was raised, the audience of Islam teachers and students became visibly excited.

"There are more than 25 million Muslims in Russia, and if Russia is not taking into account the position of its citizens, this may lead to serious problems," Ilyasov said.

His comments were echoed in a sermon delivered by Imam Muhammad-Rasul Saaduyev of Makhachkala's central mosque on March 29.

"Palestinians are fighting for freedom and independence and have the right to resist the occupation," Saaduyev was quoted by the official Muslim newspaper As-Salam as saying. "One should not follow the pro-Zionist media and consider Palestinians to be terrorists."

However, such strongly voiced support for the Palestinians from Russian Muslim leaders is rare, and the number and size of rallies remain miniscule compared to those in Europe.

Maxim Shevchenko, head of the Eastern Policy press club, said that Dagestan, as "a part of the Muslim world," is not typical of Russia, where society in general is much less politicized than in the West.

Alexei Malashenko, a prominent Islam expert with the Moscow Carnegie Center, said Monday that the Russian Muslim community's seeming silence hides a strong, pro-Palestinian sentiment.

He said that after most Russians backed the Christian Serbs in their fight against the Muslim Albanians and NATO in the Yugoslavia war, Russian Muslims began to distance themselves from the rest of society. Now, Russian Muslims "don't want to poke the bear and are afraid of growing Islamophobia," he said.

Gorin of the Federation of Jewish Communities said he believed Muslim fundamentalists are silent because they are under pressure. "Both in Russia and the United States, the public has tied the recent terrorist acts to Islamic fundamentalists, causing them to retreat into the underground," Gorin said. "In Russia, Islamic fundamentalists these days are not the enemies of the Jews. They are the enemies of the state."