There is a growing (if slowly) increase of sympathy towards the Arabs among Russians. Even though, according to the Levada center survey taken from June 18-22, 2010, 64% of the respondents said that they are sympathetic to neither Palestinians nor Israelis in their conflict, 14% found the question hard to answer, and another 14% said they sympathize with the Arabs. In 2007-2008, around 9-10% sympathized with the Arabs. The percentage of those who sympathize with Israel remains unchanged throughout the years – 9-10%.

The republics of the Northern Caucasus are becoming a hospitable environment for anti-Israeli views, where the support of radical Islamists by the populace keeps growing.

According to the poll taken by the philosophy and sociology department of the Dagestan State University (part of the federal focus program “Scientific and Scientific-Educational Personnel of Innovative Russia” and with the aid of the “Peoples of Dagestan” editorial staff), in January-May 2010, 30% of the respondents expressed a desire to live in a religious state, 23% thought that forcing their own faith on people was acceptable. 35% said that even if they knew that their family, friends, and acquaintances were extremists, they wouldn't tell the police, and another 39,5% found this question too difficult to answer. When answering a question on the goals of radical Islamists, 20% said that they were fighting for the creation of a Shari'ah state, 13% - for the purity of Islam, 6% considered them to be fighting for social justice, 7% - for combating immorality in society, and 16% thought that they fought the non-believers.

On March 27, the Islam News website published I. Shamir's article aimed at the delegitimization of Israel. Israel was called “the Nazi pet project” and “a settler project intended to displace the aboriginal population” (“aboriginal population” meaning the Arabs), comparable with the SAR Apartheid. It was said that Israelis allegedly “killed a thousand Palestinians for one Israeli.” Speaking of anti-Semitism, Shamir said that no anti-Semitism exists, but that Israelis are being deliberately intimidated by the idea so that they “kept their loyalty to world Jewry... So that the Jew would hate the goy.” Twisting the idea of the “shelter-country,” Shamir wrote that the Jews need Israel as “a shelter-country, a place to run in case they fail, as the flag of their crusade, as the headquarters of the impending world order.”

There is a constant movement of the more radical “Orthodox” anti-Semites towards a situational alliance with radical Islamists. A symbol of this movement is the discussion between Nazarov and Anzimirov, in which Anzimirov's attempt to admit the irrelevance of racial anti-Semitism and to make Islam out as the main enemy of Orthodox Christianity was met by Nazarov accusing him of being “an Orthodox Judaizer.” Nazarov himself came out with the following statements: “the Zionist occupation of the Holy Land” and the “Genocide of the Palestinians.” It is interesting that the Bogolyubsky monastery, where the necessity of war against Judaism was openly propagated (see above), the radical Islamists of Northern Caucasus were given as positive examples of “those who battle world Zionism.”

The detention of the so-called “Freedom Flotilla” by Israel at the end of May 2010 elicited a number of public rallies and speeches. The most active to condemn Israel were, as usual, representatives of Muslim organizations, as well as members of parties which are either formally (like the CPRF) or practically left-wing. The main stress was on two things: the alleged complete absence of essentials in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade (and in a number of cases parallels were drawn with the Nazis and their concentration camps) and the purportedly illegal character of the Israeli's invasion of the “Freedom Flotilla” boats.

On June 1st, the CPRF leader G. Zyuganov made a statement that called the actions of the Israelis “an act of piracy.” Repeating old Soviet clichés, the CPRF leader called the IDF operation “a bloody crime of the Israeli military clique.” Zyuganov called for “making Israel submit to international decision on Palestine,” meaning the creaion “of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.”

On June 1st, the CPRF website published an appeal by a certain Council of Societies of Arabic-Native Citizens. The appeal of this “Council of Societies” mostly painted a false picture of life in Gaza (“the citizens of Gaza suffer from an absence of medicine, water, food, and the most basic essentials for children, the elderly, and the disabled”) and over-dramatized the events on board of the Mavi Marmara.

On June 1st, an article by journalist D. Aslamova, who already gained some infamy for anti-Israeli material during the “Cast Lead” operation, appeared in the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” newspaper. As early as in the subheading of the article, the actions of the Israelis were called “an outrageous incident of state piracy.” The people of Gaza were called “siege survivors,” an associative link to the survivors of the Leningrad blockade – such rhetoric was actively used by anti-Semites in January 2009 – and the Gaza sector itself was called “a concentration camp created by the Israelis for the Palestinians” with a million and a half “hostages without citizenship, without the right to migration, and without the right to leave their cradle to grave prison.” She also said that the blockade of Gaza by the Israelis was forty years long. At the end of her article, Aslamova gives the unfounded statement that “the monopoly on human rights and liberalism had been bought by the Israeli lobby in the international media for dozens of years in the future,” and that is purported to be the reason that liberals and human rights defenders allegedly do not criticize Israel.

A member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, journalist Maksim Shevchenko, also made anti-Israeli statements. On June 2, in the “Special Opinion” program on the “Echo of Moscow” radio station, he said that the “Freedom Flotilla” was allegedly ready to go through the Israeli customs before it was attacked. The attack itself was called “an act of piracy.” He also made the customary accusation that the Israelies “are ready for any kind of banditry in any place on Earth,” and of using chemical weaponry against the population of Gaza, as well as of planning the attack of the Georgian army on Russia.

Muslim activists also made a whole number of anti-Israeli statements on June 1-3. The Deputy Head of the Religious Administration of European Russia Muslims Damir Gizatullin said on June 1 in an interview to the Interfax agency that the actions of the Israelis were “barbaric.” The mufti also said that he believed “an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council is necessary, so that the Israeli leadership would answer in full for the destruction of a humanitarian convoy in neutral waters.”

On July 1st, the head of the Kazyat (Muslim “eparchy”, subdivision of the Islamic High Council – transl.) Administration of the Muslims of Tyumen Fatyh Garifullin made a statement, in which he called the actions of the Israelis “a vile crime against humanity,” and also said that “the global community has once again been shown the danger of the delusional extremist Zionist ideology of being better than the other peoples on the planet.” He also reproduced the classical anti-Semitic cliché about the equity of Zionism and Nazism.

That same day, the First Deputy of the Mufti of the Unitary Religious Administration of Muslims (RAM) of Penzenskaya Oblast, Chairman of the Penza Regional Community Organization “Enlightenment” Aburrauf Zabirov sent an appeal to the Islamnews.ru website, in which he called for a ban of Zionism as an “anti-human” and “anti-God” ideology.

The Penza oblast Muslim activist Ibragim Gurkin gave an interview to Islamnews.ru. The interview, which was published on June 6, called the actions of the Israelis a “flagrant crime of the XXI century,” a crime against humanity, and so on. There were also demagogic passages about the “robbery and destruction of the long-suffering Palestinian people, the destruction of the Muslim faith,” and also an attempt to give grounds for the delegitimization of Israel as a state – he referenced some German historian and stated that the Israelis are worse than the Nazis.

Chairman of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Karelia Visam Ali Bardvil said that “Israel has yet again proven the illegitimacy of its regime” and expressed hope that “Russia will take more drastic measures against Israel.”

Head of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan, Mufti Gusman Ishakov said to Islamnews.ru that this even was “a horrible disregard of the laws, that has outraged the entire world.” The Mufti of Chuvash Republic Albir Krganov noted that “it is impossible to not be outraged by the crimes of those who attacked a humanitarian mission.” Head of the RAM of Adygeya, Mufti Nurbiy Emizh, in turn, said that “the one who committed this terroristic attack against a humanitarian mission has sinned gravely.” The Chairman of the Chechen Republic RAM Sultan Mirzaev placed the main blame on the United States, by stating that “whatever crime Israel might commit, America would keep defending them. At the same time, any movement against the USA Zionists is suppressed.” This kind of statement (and certain muftis, like Bardvil, have made them numerous times) allow to note that anti-Semitic stereotypes are widespread among the Muslim clergy. Such stereotypes are in many ways a byproduct of first flirting with so-called “pure” Islam, and then an attempt to “outplay” radical Islamists.

The Muslim activist Gaydar Jemal said in his interview to the “Free Press,” published on June 3, that the events surrounding the “Freedom Flotilla” is a “major defeat for Israel” and predicted a “color revolution” for Israel, as well as the possible beginning of an armed conflict. He also freely equated Israel with the racist SAR Apartheid regime.
Former professor of the University of Jerusalem Artem Kirpichenok published an article in his blog on June 3, titled “Our course is Palestine, our cargo is freedom.” In it, he made a demagogic comparison of Gaza with the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust, and equated the actions of the Israelis with the actions of the Nazis. “The world has not seen such a dramatic event since the Warsaw ghetto, Kirpichenok wrote demagogically.

The Internet media Segodnya.ru published two anti-Israeli articles. The article “Bloodbath on Deck,” published on June 7 and signed by V. Drapkin talks about the purported attempts of Israel to “strangle the citizens of the Gaza sector in a merciless blocade ring” and of an alleged bribing of officials of the highest level by Israel to support their actions. The unfounded statement that the soldiers who boarded Mavi Marmara already had a list of activists to be killed was also repeated, as well as the fabrication that 19, and not 9 people were killed. As a whole, the article uncritically repeated the statements of the passengers of the ship. Drapkin published another article on the same day, titled “Freedom Flotilla against the Jewish terror,” in which he spoke of an alleged similarity between Israel and the Third Reich, and makes the triumphant statement, “from now on, Europe begins to live without the 'fear of Jewry'”.

On June 1, a small Islamist took rally near the Embassy of Israel in Moscow. 20 people were present at the rally – though according to data given by the Islamists themselves, as much as 100 people were present, mostly representatives of Muslim diasporas in Russia. The Islamists brought Turkish, Russian, and Palestinian flags to the rally, and were dispersed by the police, because the rally had not been sanctioned by the authorities. 15 people were apprehended (another version lists over 20 people). The journalist N. Kevorkova in her speech at the rally stressed that it was because of the Israelis that Gaza allegedly did not have any of the bare essentials of survival.

On June 7, a meeting of the CPRF was held at that same place. However, there were no more than 30 people at this rally, some of whom were representatives of the Palestinian diaspora. The participants of the rally demanded that “Israel be court martialed,” and some had posters with the following slogans: “Israel, you'll answer for the murders!”, “No to Israeli state terrorism!”, “The blockade of Gaza is a crime against humanity!”, “Palestine! The Communists are with you!”, “The Fascist government of Israel must stand trial!” “The Israeli Special Forces are the present-day SS!” A. V. Potapov, a member of the Moscow City Committee of the CPRF, demanded that “an international tribunal be created, so that all guilty of these crimes can be punished accordingly.” A small scandal was incited by the appearance of a pro-Israeli activist with the Russian and Israeli flag in his hands, and who stood up with the following posters in English: “Free Gilad Shalit” and “Free Gaza from HAMAS.” The police had to isolate the picketer from the other people at the rally, some of whom were shouting insults at him.

On June 5, approximately 10 activists of the Socialist League Vpereg, the “Left Front” and the DSPA walked the Old Arbat to show their support for the Palestinians. The participants on the unsanctioned march shouted “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” , “Free Gaza – Free Moscow!”, and “Solidarity!” The manifest spread by the organizators of the march reproduced the myth that because of the Israelis the people of Gaza do not have enough medicine and food: Gaza was made out to seem like a “present day reservation with people who have no future.”

Only one anti-Israeli rally was recorded outside of Moscow. On June 2, the Sobornaya mosque of Kamenka city hosted a meeting of Muslim activist of Penzenskaya Oblast. They condemned the operation of the Israeli Navy to deter the Free Gaza flotilla and called for a ban on Zionism. A. Zabirov, who spoke at the meeting, said that Zionism is the “infeed of extremism and terrorism on a state level.” A decision was reached to create the Penzenska Oblast committee for aid to the Palestinian people and the citizens of the blocked Gaza sector. An address written at the meeting reads that the Israelis allegedly “committed a terroristic act against the ambassadors of peace,” and that “with this they have shown their bestial essence, their true face of an aggressor.” The citizens of Turkey who died in the fray were considered to be Shakhids – martyrs for the Islamic faith.

The minimal number of public events was mostly because of the transience of the conflict, which did not allow the Communists and Islamists to carry our long-term campaigns on mobilizing activists.

For the first time in many years, 2010 has recorded incidents of negative statements from functionaries of the highest level about the actions of Israel to intercept the “Freedom Flotilla.” The President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev said at a Rostov-na-Donu press conference summarizing the results of the Russia-EU summit that the death of the Mavi Marmara passengers was “uncorrectable and absolutely unmotivated.”

In a reaction to Medvedev's statement, State Duma International Affairs Committee member Ruslan Kondratov stated that very day that the incident with the “Freedom Flotilla” (which he descrived as a “horrible tragedy”) needs to be investigated immediately. “If the fault of the Israeli side is proved in full, appropriate measures will need to be applied immediately to this country, and Russia will have to support them,” the deputy said.

On June 8, a joint press conference of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Erdoğan took place in Stambul. At the conference, Putin stated the following: “[As for] the attack of the Israeli Special Forces on a humanitarian convoy. We immediately expressed not only our concern, but also our condemnation of this act... It is especially regretful that this took place in neutral waters. Such acts towards peaceful ships are inadmissible in general, and holding this act, or other similar acts in general, in neutral waters raises special questions, and, naturally, needs detailed scrutiny and investigation.” During a meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), which was held on the same day, Putin called the actions of the Israelis a “gross violation of universally acknowledged norms of international law” and said that Russia stands for terminating the Gaza blockade as soon as possible.

Vladimir Putin also touched upon this topic in an interview to the Agence France-Presse and the France 2 TV channel, published on June 10. In particular, he said, “we were always for removing the blockade. I do not think that the problems in that region can be solved through those methods. But we always – and I want to stress that – proceeded from the point of view that all people who live in the region have the right to their own safe development, including Israel. But the methods to use to solve these problems, to reach this goal are something that needs to be given special consideration and discussion after the recent tragic events.”

The careless statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel Avigdor Lieberman, who, in an attempt to gain more support from Russia said on June 4 that the organizators of the “Freedom Flotilla” have been supporting the “Chechen separatists” for many years, incited a sharp reaction from Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov, who always reacts acutely to any mention of Chechen separatists as an existing force, was quick to label Lieberman's words as propaganda. He said that such information is being spread only to “distract the attention of the global community from the bloody tragedy in the Mediterranean.”