From the Jerusalem Post:
The Foreign Ministry on Monday expressed concern to Russian Ambassador Piotr Stegniy about an “anti-Semitic” promotional video that was shown at a Euroleague basketball game in Moscow last week.
The Russian video clip, which depicted CSKA Moscow as a train running over a hassidic-looking Jewish man meant to represent Maccabi Tel Aviv, was shown to thousands of fans in the arena.
“We view the incident very seriously,” a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post. She said Mark Sofer, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Euro-Asia, had spoken over the telephone with Stegniy, who promised to deal with the matter. Israel also sent a letter of complaint to CSKA’s management…
The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said there was no other way to view a clip, in which Israel is represented by a stereotypical image of a haredi-looking man with side curls and a shtreimel. Anti-Semitic chants were also heard from the crowd, she added.
The Foreign Ministry behaved correctly in taking this most seriously. I hope that they have protested Russia’s continuing sales of advanced weaponry to Syria as strongly.
Update [17 Apr 1713 PDT]: Here’s the video, courtesy of YNet.
Russia because of its nuclear- weapons, its weapons industry, its vast energy resources its greed for hard cash, its history of autocratic rule, its sense of itself as conquering world – power , its traditional Anti- Semitism, its arms sales to Arab states , its nuclear cooperation with Iran is an extremely problematic player on the world- scene. It has been the supplier and supporter of Israel’s enemies in the past, and may be in the future.
It is not at all clear to me how Israel can counter this. My guess is that only the U.S. has the power to do so properly.