“In word and deed”: War-time support between Serbia and Israel in contravention of the international order

Lola Davies is a final year History student, having just completed a year abroad at Universiteit Leiden.

War-time relations between Serbia and Israel can be defined as a mutual defiance of the so-called ruled-based international order. Since the attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7th last year, the political zeitgeist in Europe and the United States has come to revolve around whether weapons sales to Israel continue to be justifiable, as a result of accusations of genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This is in stark contrast to the political scene in Serbia where support, at least from President Vučić, has been unwavering. The strange and seldom understood relationship between Serbia and Israel often contravenes the institutions and ideologies both parties are either a part of or wish to be. Vučić’s increase in ammunition sales to Israel while also alleging his commitment to EU integration at a time when many EU countries are reconsidering their own armament commitments  is the most recent example of this mutual defiance of international order. 

The origins of this relationship emerged during the Kosovo War, the most brutal and destructive war in Serbia’s recent history, when tentative support was offered by Israel’s then-Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon. Both Israeli and Serb history is underpinned by a deep concern over militant Islamism and a shared understanding of the impacts it has had on both peoples and states. As a result, it is natural for Serbia, as a world-leading producer of ammunition, to send weapons to Israel on the basis of ideological support, but also as a means to strengthen ties to Western powers who have not forgotten Serbia’s non-alignment in the Ukraine war. Finally, Israel’s non-recognition of the massacre at Srebrenica as genocide, both in statements to the media and at the UN General Assembly, demonstrates how an Israeli alliance with Serbia benefits their own military goals beyond material means: by rejecting the claim of genocide in Bosnia, Israel can defend itself from the accusation of genocide in Gaza. The relationship presented in this essay highlights how the international order as it currently stands has been eroded by countries who seek to exploit its weaknesses, and as such is not fit for the purpose of administering the justice it purports to.   

The Kosovo War and Israel

The NATO bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War in 1998 was the watershed moment in the decade-spanning Yugoslav Wars where the U.S-led forces sought to show their military might, once and for all. This show of force arguably had as much to do with attempting to defend Albanians in Kosovo as it did with defending the image of a strong, united, and most importantly, credible NATO alliance. The maintenance of this image was undermined in 1999, when then-Israeli Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon spoke out in tentative support of Yugoslav President Milošević, calling for an end to the bombing, which he called a “human tragedy”. His words, which have been historically very inflammable, did not meet the mood of the rest of Israel, who were holding fundraising telethons and sending plane-loads of aid to refugee centres in Macedonia. Nor were they in line with the rest of the government, whose official position was that of support for Muslim victims, offering 100 refugees settlement in Israel and the same financial aid that is offered to Jews on aliyah - migration to Israel. The contradiction between official Israeli government policy and the words offered by one agitational minister seems insignificant, but the episode highlights a key feature of Israel’s foreign policy which will define Serbian-Israeli relations for decades to come. 

Israel’s close ideological and military reliance on America means that official and unofficial support for U.S policy has always been easily counted on. Indeed, it was this aspect of the Israeli foreign relations mechanism that prevailed in the Kosovo War episode, with Sharon ultimately backing down from his pro-Serb position. But Sharon’s comments were not simply abrasive for the sake of being abrasive; they were based on a defining concept of Israeli international policy, which is the necessity to form close relations with countries with whom they share a common foe: militant Islamism. More fruitfully than in the Kosovo episode, this aspect of Israeli foreign policy was enacted in South Africa to Singapore in the late twentieth century. Unlike in the Kosovo example, however, support offered to these countries by Israel did not directly impinge on U.S foreign policy, and so the anti-Islamist support provided went unchecked. This strategy would increase in the next few decades after the war on terror was declared by President George W. Bush on October 11th 2001. 

Serbian Support: “In Word and Deed” 

Serbia and Israel share one historic phenomena: generations of conflict with Muslims. For Serbia, the modern history of the phenomena began with the Battle of Kosovo in 1398. In Israel, the conflict began in tandem with the state-building process which began in 1948, after the declaration of independence from the British Mandate of Palestine. It is likely that this shared understanding of the impact and dangers of militant Islamism forms part of the ideological reason for the material support from Serbia to Israel. In June, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a huge spike in the number of weapons sales to Israel from Serbia, including €15.7 million worth of weapons in February, March and May 2024 alone. 

In an analysis of flight data, which tracked the movement of Israeli military planes between Belgrade and Israel and customs documentation, it is clear these weapons sales were completed after the ICJ ruling, which ordered Israel to prevent its forces from committing or inciting genocidal acts against Palestinians. Some also took place after the UN Human Rights Council supported calls to end weapons sales to Israel to prevent “further abuses of human rights”. This highlights how the relationship between Serbia and Israel exists in contravention of the international order to which they both claim to belong. 

Although Israel continues to rail against the ultimate hallmark of the international order, the UN, it nonetheless continues to portray itself as the sole outpost of liberalism in the Middle East. The IDF, for example, is portrayed by the Israeli government as “the most moral army in the world”. The state of Israel more broadly is also portrayed as “the only democratic country in the Middle East”, and the only country in the region where women’s and minority rights are respected. On the other hand, Serbia, while it has not attempted to assimilate itself into the international order in the same terms as Israel, is on a path to joining the European Union. In October, EU Commission president Ursula von de Leyden visited Belgrade to express the Union’s commitment to the country’s membership. In addition to the question of Serbia’s future in the EU, weapons sales to Israel may also be an attempt to appease European leaders who have not forgotten Serbia’s non-alignment and lack of condemnation of Russia in the Ukraine war. 

However, as the war in Gaza continues, especially after Israel’s military victories in removing Nasrallah and his successors in Hezbollah and the assassination of the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, many European powers are beginning to question the ethics of continued weapons contracts with Israel, Including in Spain, Ireland, and the UK. As such, this tactic possibly employed by Serbia as a means of reconciling with European powers after refusing to condemn Russia’s war on Ukraine may backfire for Vučić. 

The UN and Srebrenica

The relationship between Serbia and Israel highlights how the so-called rule-based international order is constantly changing, and how weak its impact can be. Two countries who claim to be adherents to the tenets of the international order, through their promotion of ideals like democracy or through their desire to attain membership to institutions like the EU, can also continue to flaunt the rules that they don’t believe should apply to them. The uneven application of rules on which the international order is based results in relationships between countries which seek to exploit the weaknesses, such as the Serbian and Israeli relationship. 

This problem is highlighted no more clearly than in a recent UN General Assembly which sought to establish an ‘International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica’ which Israel failed to vote for. In the month prior to the vote, the Israeli ambassador to Serbia told Sputnik news that Israel does not accept the characterisation of the Srebrenica massacre as ‘genocide’, contrary to the rest of its western allies and the UN. By defying the international consensus of the nature of the massacre, Israel is proactively defending itself from accusations of genocide in Gaza. 

It is this outcome which is most attractive to two countries who form relationships on the basis of their contravention of the international order which they, paradoxically, also claim to belong to. In the long term, the relationships like the one developed between Israel and Serbia erode the ability of the institutions of international order to administer justice on behalf of those who are affected by those who seek to exploit it. As the various pillars of order increasingly seek to admonish Israel for its actions in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond, the weaknesses of global order become less of an abstract, ideological problem and more a tangible barrier to justice. 

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