THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS:

In a speech earlier in the day to an army officers' graduating class, excerpts of which he posted on Twitter, Bennett articulated the philosophy that undergirded his reluctance to take sides. "These times teach us that, to our regret, wars between armies are not a thing of the past," he said. "The world is a lot less stable, and our region changes daily." He did not mention Russia.

The omission frustrated Natan Sharansky, a former Prisoner of Zion , or political prisoner, of the Soviet Union who has served as an Israeli Cabinet minister and headed the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after a day of appearances on Israeli media, Sharansky said he felt like Don Quixote fending off journalists and others who wondered why Israel should get involved.

"On all the panels and all the interviews I was usually in the minority of one who says that we have to take the world's position," he said.

Sharansky said he understood what concerned his interlocutors: He would want Israel to supply Ukraine with the anti-missile defensive systems that served Israel well during wars with Hamas and Hezbollah. His critics ask how that would play in Russia, which hs been keeping Syria, Israel's enemy, from procuring similar systems.

That didn't make it any less important for Israel to provide a moral voice, he said. "I felt quite embarrassed in the last days that at this critical moment of the future of the world -- at this moment of moral clarity Israel is not ready to say it clearly," he said. 

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