Ukraine has no choice but to become ‘second Israel’ – ambassador

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel to Ukraine Michael Brodsky believes that Ukraine can use the Israeli experience of building a state, while noting the need to rely on its own strength, preserve democracy and strengthen ties with the Diaspora.

“You will simply have no other choice for Ukraine to continue to exist as a strong independent state, other than to become ‘Israel’ in some sense,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to him, there are three points that Ukraine can use. “The first is to rely only on itself. This comes with time and I am sure that Ukraine will learn from this war… Surely, we have partnerships with many countries, we have strategic relations with the United States, this is a very important trump card, but in the military sense, Israel relies only on itself… It has his own military technology, it actively exports them worldwide. It proceeds from the fact that in a moment of danger one cannot count on anyone’s help.”

“The second point is to preserve democracy and freedom of speech at all costs. This is the lesson that Israel has learned in 74 years of its existence, since this is the strength of the state. In different opinions, the opportunity to express their opinions, to conduct discussions. Despite wars, despite such traumatic events as the assassination of the prime minister, for example. In such circumstances, there is a danger of slipping into authoritarianism, strangling freedom of speech. Israel did not follow this path and it was right. Ultimately, this would weaken society and the state,” he said.

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The third, he said, is “everything that concerns connection with the diaspora.” “The Ukrainian diaspora is growing. On the one hand, these are losses for the state. I think that some part of the people will not return to Ukraine. You can look at this as a loss, or you can look at it as an asset of the state with which you need to work. And which in the end can support the country in difficult times and not only. This is what Israel had from the very beginning. Ukraine, I think, needs to work more actively with immigrants from the country in different regions of the world and rely on their support,” Brodsky said.