On the sports pitch, Russia and Israel fight for hearts and minds

Russia and Israel share a common problem: much of the international community views them as regional brutes and occupiers of other people’s lands. To address the problem, both use fog to gain lost ground in their information wars. In sports, the difference is that Russia is gaining ground, Israel isn’t. The reason is that Russia plays offense, while Israel, unlike in kinetic battlefields, plays defence, attempting to taint its detractors as anti-Semites.