Russia claims Israel has no right to self-defense as an 'occupying power'

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations claimed on Wednesday that Israel has no right to defend itself as an “occupying power.”

UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya made this statement during an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly, despite the United States and most Western democracies stressing that Israel has the right to self-defense against the Hamas terror organization and its unprecedented and brutal assault against Israeli civilians. 

“The only thing they can muster is continued pronouncements about Israel’s supposed right to self defense, although as an occupying power, it does not have that power as confirmed by the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice handed down in 2004,” Nebenzya said. 

The Russian UN envoy’s hostile statement ignored the fact that the Jewish state decided in 2005 to uproot 8,000 Israelis and unilaterally withdraw from 100% of the Gaza Strip. Israel seized the disputed territories of Gaza and the West Bank during a multifrontal defensive war in 1967.

Moscow’s position on Israel ironically undermines its own war in Ukraine as Russia currently occupies parts of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea Peninsula. 

The Russian Federation does recognize Israel’s right to “ensure its security.” However, Nebenzya argued that the Jewish state’s security could only be guaranteed by solving the political conflict with the Palestinian Authority. 

“As for Israel’s security - and we recognize its rights to ensure its security – this security can only be fully guaranteed if we resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of relevant UN Security Council resolutions."

The key UN Security Council Resolution 242, which was adopted after the Six-Day War in 1967, recognizes Israel’s right to exist within secure and internationally recognized boundaries. The resolution calls for an Israeli withdrawal from “territories” but not necessarily all territories seized during the Six-Day War. Furthermore, the resolution demands a complete end of hostilities toward Israel as a precondition for any Israeli withdrawal.

Russia, which maintains good relations with Hamas and the Gaza-ruling terror group’s Iranian patron, has refused to condemn the Hamas massacre of over 1,000 Israeli civilians including women, children and elderly Holocaust survivors. However, Nebenzya, nevertheless, lectured Israel on Jewish history. 

"The Jewish people suffered persecution for many centuries and the Jewish people should know better than anyone that the suffering of ordinary people, innocent lives lost in the name of blind retribution, will neither restore justice, nor bring the dead back to life, nor console their families,” the Russian envoy said. 

The terror organization Hamas openly calls for Israel’s destruction. During a recent interview, senior Hamas terrorist Ghazi Hamad justified Hamas' massacre of 1,400 Israeli men, women and children. In addition, Hamad said Hamas intended to perpetrate similar atrocities in the future, until the Jewish state was annihilated. 

“Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation, and must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force,” Hamad told a Lebanese TV channel. 

The Israeli Foreign Ministry recently summoned the Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov after Moscow hosted senior Hamas terrorists. 

The deputy director of Israel's Foreign Ministry Euro–Asia Division, Simona Halperin, argued that Russia’s actions indicate that it legitimizes the Hamas atrocities, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. 

“Hosting Hamas leaders who are directly responsible for the murderous terror attack on October 7, the kidnapping of hostages and with the blood of over 1,400 Israelis on their hands, sends a message of legitimacy for terror against Israel,” Halperin said.