In the turmoil and bloodshed unleashed by the current Middle East conflict, there is no black-and-white, no absolute right and wrong. Both sides are engaging in excesses, and there is no way to build a road to a peaceful future except a cease-fire declared by all belligerents and a return to the negotiating table.

That, refreshingly, is Russia's advice to all parties concerned.

Unlike in past decades, including at the 1991 Madrid conference, Russia is being accepted today as a balanced broker that is even-handed in dealing with both Israelis and Palestinians.

For decades, Soviet policies were overtly anti-Semitic, and Israel, as well as Russian Jews both inside and outside of it, was understandably fearful or distrustful of Soviet posturing and its knee-jerk identification with the agendas of Arab nations or movements.

The last two years in Russian politics have seen a phenomenal change in foreign policy in the Middle East. Gone are the heady days of standing by the Iraqis or Iranians at any cost. The hugging and kissing with Yasser Arafat is ancient history – even more distant than Camp David walks with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

It has been almost a decade since the Palestinians could expect any support from Russia for free education or training. Russia no longer supplies arms to Palestinians with links to Syria or Iran.

Instead, under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has strenuously tried to forge a new relationship with Israel and the international Jewish community as a whole. This was noted recently when Russia's chief rabbi said that conditions for Jews living in Russia today are better than they have ever been in the history of the country.

In fact, Russia has been noticeably more supportive of Israel's current policies than has Israel's traditional sponsor and ally, the United States, which views events in Jenin and elsewhere as undermining its relations with other allies in the region – whose help will be needed if the United States is to carry out its projected war against Iraq.

There is also some sympathy for Israel in today's Russia because of the terror attacks that have become an almost daily occurrence there and a few years ago killed more than 300 innocent people here. As Russians have learned the hard way in Chechnya, combating terrorists with conventional forces is a messy affair. It is undeniable that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is an extremely hawkish politician allied with the extreme right. He would be willing to unleash massive and sometimes indiscriminate violence for the sake of his country's security – but, when faced with terrorist attacks, nations have few choices in self-defense.

In addition, Russia's new turn toward Israel can be in part explained by the large number of Russians now residing in that country. In fact, Sharon still speaks Russian, which he learned as a boy – something that serves him well on the campaign trail in ethnic Russian neighborhoods in Israel.

Palestinians claim that the murderous and terrorist suicide attacks taking place in the occupied territories and Israel proper are the result of the state of siege that Palestinians have been living under for the past 35 years. Well, the Israelis are under a state of siege as well, surrounded by hostile Arab nations that refuse to recognize it as a state.

Russia has distanced itself from past policy, when it repeatedly found itself against the large number of Russian Jews that now live in Israel by supporting movements or states that used terror as a weapon without reservation.

Russia's position in the conflict will not create any winners and, indeed, it is likely that there will be no winners to speak of in the current scenario, which is clearly creating anger and bitterness on all sides and likely undermining any possibility for a lasting peace.

But what is emerging in Russia in this case, as in others, is a new clarity in foreign policy and a new relationship with the Jewish state. The Israelis are getting a harder line from Washington than they are from Moscow nowadays, and that should tell us something about the state of things to come.