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There was no way Israel could remain neutral in the Russian war against Ukraine. Yet, for the Bennet/Lapid government, the dilemma was difficult to resolve: on the one hand, public opinion – especially among the country’s many Russian-speakers – was not overwhelmingly in favor of a Ukraine with an anti-Semitic past; on the other, it was important to avoid offending Vladimir Putin, who controls Syrian airspace while Iran increases its presence and influence via its proxies in the Golan Heights.But the new Netanyahu coalition, in place since December 2022, has decided to comply at least in part with Western demands (notably in terms of sales of detection systems), since the USA and the EU account for almost three-quarters of the Hebrew state’s imports and virtually all its investments. That said, Western pressure doesn’t explain everything; in return for his pro-Ukrainian stance, the nationalist Netanyahu demanded and obtained a great deal of restraint and the absence of pressure on the Palestinian issue...Solicited for its technical military capabilities but politically incapable of resisting pressure from its supporters, Israel demonstrates both its strength and its weakness.