Israel's President Herzog Asked Macron's Help in Lifting Sanctions on Putin-aligned Jewish Oligarch
U.K., EU have slapped sanctions on Moshe Kantor following Russia's invasion of Ukraine ■ Sources say Herzog raised issue following requests from Jewish organizations
Israeli President Isaac Herzog asked French President Emmanuel Macron for assistance in lifting sanctions against Moshe Kantor, a Jewish Russian oligarch considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Haaretz has learned.
The sanctions were imposed by the U.K. and the EU following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to sources at the President's Office, Herzog raised the matter in a phone call with Macron following requests from leaders of Jewish organizations.
Kantor, a major shareholder in Russian fertilizer firm Acron and the former longtime president of the European Jewish Congress, has donated millions of shekels for years to Jewish organizations in Europe and to various bodies in Israel. According to sources in the president’s residence, Herzog raised the issue in a telephone conversation with Macron following appeals from heads of Jewish organizations.
London listed Kantor, a triple citizen of Russia, Britain and Israel who had been living in London for over a decade, among eight “oligarchs” active in industries “which Putin uses to prop up his war economy.”
He has denied the allegations against him, and claimed that the decision to impose sanctions on him constitutes an injustice.
Following his election as president of the European Jewish Congress, some Jewish community leaders warned that the elevation of a Putin associate would damage the EJC in Brussels due to the tension between Russia and the EU. However, in an interview with Haaretz, Kantor insisted that his association with Putin serves the interests of the Jewish people.
After being sanctioned, Kantor stepped down from his role as president of the congress, although he retained control over a Luxembourg-based nonprofit he used to fund various European Jewish organizations for the better part of a year afterward, only relinquishing direct control following a Haaretz investigation into his continuing stewardship of the charity.
According to sources, Herzog and Macron’s conversation about Kantor took place about a week after the Israeli president met with Kantor’s handpicked successor at the European Jewish Congress, Ariel Muzicant, in Austria.
“I’m shocked,” one European Jewish leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said of Herzog’s call with Macron. “What else can you say? It’s not appropriate.”
The European Jewish Congress, which was largely funded by Kantor prior to his resignation, has suffered financially due to the sanctions, tightening budgets and cutting security assistance to at least one community. In response, the group began its own lobbying campaign, arguing that its former leader’s inclusion on the list threatened “the well-being and safety of our communities.”
In an open letter to the French president published in French news magazine Le Point last month, Muzicant wrote that “nothing is more false” than the charge that Kantor is “part of the group of oligarchs that surrounds [Putin] and is helping him in his war against Ukraine.”
Other figures associated with the European Jewish Congress have also lobbied Macron on Kantor’s behalf. Last year, Boris Lozhkin, the President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, and Yaakov Dov Bleich, one of the country’s two chief rabbis, called for Paris to “oppose any renewal of the decision to sanction him, not only for his sake but also for the sake of Europe’s Jewish communities who lost a trusted and respected leader.”
Despite his supporters’ claims, Kantor has exhibited close ties to Putin during his time leading the European Jewish Congress, including through his endorsement of the Russian president’s proposal, made during a 2015 meeting with the European Jewish Congress’ Executive Committee, that Western European Jews migrant to Russia to escape antisemitism.
He also was responsible for bringing Putin to Jerusalem in 2020 as part of his World Holocaust Forum, at which the Russian president falsely claimed that 40 percent of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were citizens of the Soviet Union.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media after the summit of Caspian Sea littoral states in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan in June 2022.Credit: Dmitry Azarov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
In a recent interview with Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Muzicant blamed Warsaw, which he accused of harboring a “vendetta” against Kantor, for the sanctions, and indicated that he had pushed for greater support for Kantor from Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Italy.
Hungary has reportedly pushed for sanctions relief on his behalf.
The European Jewish Congress subsequently leveled allegations of state-sponsored antisemitism against Poland, claiming that Warsaw’s criticism of Kantor constituted an assault on organized Jewry across the continent.
These attacks on Poland came after Warsaw appointed a temporary administrator to take control of Kantor’s stake in fertilizer maker Grupa Azoty, arguing that “there is no room for capital linked to Russian authorities in Poland.”
Kantor’s company said that it will challenge the move in the Polish courts, the European Court of Justice and through international arbitration. A person familiar with the details told Haaretz that Kantor is working to remove the sanctions imposed on him in other countries as well.