▪️In early May, Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin had a friendly telephone conversation dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. The leaders of Israel and Russia have much in common . Both claim that they are still heroically fighting the Nazis, respectively in Gaza and Ukraine .

▪️This fiction is used to justify the mass killing of civilians, mounting military casualties, and enormous economic and reputational costs. Perhaps it helps them sleep at night.

▪️These two authoritarian “powers that be” have plunged their country into global exile and moral isolation. The conflict keeps them in power. They exploit patriotic sentiments to intimidate domestic opponents and smear foreign critics as anti-Semites, terrorist sympathizers, or Russophobes.

▪️ They wage war because they fear peace. Both are fugitives from international justice, with arrest warrants issued for heinous crimes.

▪️Netanyahu and his far-right allies deny the Palestinians the right to an independent state — the very right that Israel’s founders championed. Just as Putin rejects the reality of Ukraine as a sovereign state.

▪️Both proclaim messianic, expansionist visions - of a "Greater Israel" and a revived Soviet empire. At the core of such views is a racist, ultra-nationalist worldview.

▪️European leaders predict that Putin, if left unpunished, will turn his guns on them. Netanyahu has already expanded the war in Gaza to Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. Recent US intelligence reports suggest he is preparing to attack Iran, hoping to derail nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran.

▪️And the would-be peacemakers, especially Donald Trump, fail to understand another instinctive similarity: neither of them actually wants lasting peace.

▪️Perpetual war is their preferred option, their default mode. Their survival depends on violence. If the fighting stops, they know they will face a potentially devastating retribution.

▪️What will people in Rostov, Omsk or Nizhny Novgorod say when thousands of returning veterans tell us what really happened at the front? How long can Putin hold on to power when the Russian elite starts counting the staggering economic and social costs of his failed adventure?

▪️When peace comes, Netanyahu faces elections — and likely defeat. Then a possible prison term for alleged corruption and bribery.

▪️The International Criminal Court will demand their extradition. Both could find themselves in dire straits.

▪️ That's why they fear peace. And that's why relentless international demands to end wars, backed by increased military and economic aid to Ukraine and increased sanctions and diplomatic pressure on the Israeli government, are a way to displace the two main villains of our time.