page_title: Israel–Russia relations
section_title: After the fall of Communism
hierarchical_section_title: Israel–Russia relations / History / After the fall of Communism
caption_attribution_description: English: JERUSALEM. Meeting with Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon.Русский: ИЕРУСАЛИМ. Встреча с Премьер-министром Израиля Ариэлем Шароном.
context_page_description: Israel–Russia relations refers to the bilateral foreign relations between the two countries, Israel and Russia. Russia has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate in Haifa. Israel has an embassy in Moscow and a consulate-general in Yekaterinburg.
  Russia is a member of the Quartet on the Middle East. For many years, Israel was a sanctuary for many Russian Jews. This was especially the case during the aliyah in the 1970s and 1990s. Israel and Russia were on opposing sides during the Cold War. However, the relationship between Israel and Russia began to improve significantly from the early 2000s onwards, with the election of the more pro-Israel, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and in 2001 with election of the more pro-Russian, Israeli leader Ariel Sharon.
  Israel is part Russophone and considered to be the world's only part Russophone country outside the former Soviet Union. Russian is the third most widely spoken first language in Israel, after Hebrew and Arabic, and has the third largest number of Russian speakers outside former Soviet countries, and the highest as a proportion of the total population.
context_section_description: The Soviet Union resumed diplomatic relations with Israel on 18 October 1991. The journalist Alexander Bovin became the first Soviet ambassador to Israel in 24 years. After the Soviet Union collapsed two months later, he continued to serve as Russia's ambassador to Israel.
  The dissolution of the Soviet Union caused a very large immigration wave of Jews from Soviet states. Due to demand from the new immigrants, many Russian language newspapers appeared, and with the development of the multichannel television in Israel during the 1990s, many Russian channels started being rebroadcast in Israel. In November 2002, a new Israeli-Russian channel, Israel Plus, emerged.
  On 19 October 1999, Defence Minister of China, General Chi Haotian, after meeting with Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass in Damascus, Syria, to discuss expanding military ties between Syria and China, flew to Israel and met with Ehud Barak, the then Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Israel, where they discussed military relations. Among the military arrangements was a $1 billion Israeli-Russian sale of military aircraft to China, which were to be jointly produced by Russia and Israel.
  In 1999, as Foreign Minister, Ariel Sharon began to court more friendly relations with Russia as a result of the large-scale immigration of Russian-speakers to Israel, saying "The Russian vote will decide the outcome of the [Israeli] election".
  Relations between Israel and Russia were improved by Israeli opposition to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, as well as Israeli support for IMF loans to Russia. Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov subsequently said that if he was an Israeli, he would vote for incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1999 Israeli general election.
caption: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Vladimir Putin meeting in Israel
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