“I think that everything that Israel has done since the 7th of October is justified. Israel should not suffer.”
These words were spoken last month by Milorad Dodik, the de facto leader of Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
This statement was hardly surprising. In recent years, Dodik has been outspoken in his support for Israel and its genocidal war on Gaza at a time in which relations between Republika Srpska and Israel are growing.
From high-level political endorsements and the opening of an Israeli Chamber of Commerce office in Banja Luka to increasingly explicit expressions of mutual solidarity. Such growing alignment speaks to how both leaderships are seeking to bolster their international legitimacy amid mounting political pressures.
For Dodik, deep relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could strengthen his access to Washington and bolster his long-standing ambitions to expand the Bosnian-Serb entity’s autonomy, while Israel may see the relationship as an opportunity to cultivate new allies and increase its diplomatic leverage in Europe.
The implications, however, extend beyond bilateral cooperation. In BiH, where the fragile constitutional order rests on the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, the growing alignment raises questions about the international legitimisation of separatism, the resurgence of ethnic and religious nationalist narratives, and Brussels’ ability to preserve stability in Europe’s “Inner Courtyard.”
Political calculations
Republika Srpska’s mounting tensions with some Western European governments and international institutions provide some of the necessary context for understanding the significance of Israel’s growing engagement with the Bosnian-Serb entity.
According to Dr Asim Mujkić, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Sarajevo, the sharp decline in international support for Israel’s government has made Tel Aviv more open to unconventional partnerships.
By engaging with Dodik publicly, Israel demonstrates its ability to maintain existing partnerships while forging new ones. At the same time, Israel’s ties to the Republika Srpska government may provide Tel Aviv with greater leverage in its dealings with European powers.
“I would say the ever-growing lack of international support for [Netanyahu’s] government, the rise of criticism and even boycott by traditionally amicable countries and organisations made Netanyahu open to political adventurism of this kind. For [the] domestic public it is surely advantageous to be able to show that some political leaders in fact visit Israel,” he told The New Arab.
Giorgio Fruscione, a research fellow at the Milan-based Italian Institute for International Political Studies, sees a related but broader set of motivations. He holds that Netanyahu’s government seeks international legitimacy via relationships with political actors that have strong connections to Washington and Moscow.
Fruscione also understands disputes over the interpretation of the Srebrenica genocide as part of the political context shaping Israel-Republika Srpska relations.
Viewed at a regional level, the expansion of Israel’s partnerships with actors in the Balkans serves to counter the influence of Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, which have their own networks in southeastern Europe.
Put simply, while Israeli officials will frequently stress the importance of commercial cooperation, trade, and investment with Republika Srpska, Albania, and other players in the Balkans, there is no denying that the significance of these partnerships goes beyond stated economic objectives.
Dodik’s search for political leverage
Above all these considerations, Dodik’s main motivation for establishing closer ties with Israel seems to be his desire to enhance his access to Washington.
Although Dodik was officially removed from the Republika Srpska presidency last year, he remains the de facto leader in Banja Luka, and the Bosnian-Serb strongman is determined to continue advancing his political agenda at the expense of BiH’s fragile stability. International support, therefore, remains valuable to Dodik as he pursues his political ambitions, even if full independence is not necessarily his ultimate goal.
In terms of cultivating deeper ties with the Trump administration, Dodik has relied on conventional lobbying. But that alone might not suffice for the Bosnian-Serb leader, who can probably count on Netanyahu as a key intermediary in Washington.
Support, or at least accommodation, from the United States and Russia has benefited Dodik’s political position. With an Israeli Chamber of Commerce office opening in Banja Luka and officials from Republika Srpska and Israel increasing their public engagement, Dodik has an easier time presenting his leadership as globally connected instead of isolated.
At the heart of Dodik’s desire to bolster ties with the United States, Russia, and Israel is his interest in obtaining greater bargaining power when dealing with other actors in BiH and internationally. By invoking independence without necessarily attempting to establish Republika Srpska as an independent state (a process that would be extremely challenging and messy in practice), Dodik can gain such leverage.
There are important economic and security dimensions to Israel and Republika Srpska’s deepening ties. Dodik wants greater cooperation with Israel in technology and investment, while Netanyahu’s government is focused on energy and security as key areas of this bilateral relationship.
Yet, given the lack of concrete details available to the general public, the scale and scope of this envisioned economic cooperation remain unclear.
Nonetheless, with Republika Srpska under financial pressure, it is understandable that the leadership in Banja Luka would welcome Israeli capital alongside any political advantages that could come from this growing partnership.
Belgrade's role
Republika Srpska’s growing ties with Israel should be understood in the context of Belgrade’s relationship with Tel Aviv, given Serbia’s influence in Banja Luka. Particularly in the area of defence, Serbia has strengthened its relationship with Israel, underscored by the establishment of a drone assembly plant involving Israeli defence company Elbit Systems and Belgrade’s arms exports to Tel Aviv.
Fruscione holds that Republika Srpska’s foreign policy is not entirely independent and that Banja Luka’s international relationships remain closely connected to Serbia’s priorities on the international stage.
“Republika Srpska does not have an autonomous foreign policy. Although it may appear so, it is aligned with, if not even piloted by Belgrade. Therefore, relations between Israel and Republika Srpska must be understood within this framework,” he explained to The New Arab.
This perspective places Republika Srpska’s growing partnership with Tel Aviv within a broader network of political and economic relationships linking its leadership with Belgrade, Moscow, and Washington.
These relationships reflect overlapping, and at times competing, efforts to secure external support and advance political interests. The relationship with Israel also intersects with political cooperation between Milorad Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats and the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH’s principal Croat nationalist party.
Both parties have sought changes to aspects of BiH’s political arrangements, particularly those affecting entity autonomy, political representation, and the distribution of power, although their objectives and interests are not identical.
According to Dr Mujkić, the Netanyahu government’s engagement with Serb and Croat nationalist leaders risks reinforcing political forces that challenge BiH’s Daytonian balance. Taken together, these relationships could increase pressure on the institutions in Sarajevo and complicate efforts to develop a coordinated Bosnian foreign policy.
They also create a regional dynamic in which developments involving Tel Aviv become increasingly intertwined with Belgrade’s ambitions, internal divisions within BiH, and competing US and Russian interests amid an era of intensifying great-power competition.
"Netanyahu’s government has supported [the Croat nationalist hard-liners of the] ethnic party in Bosnia, HDZ, even economically through the presence of Amir Kabiri, [an] Israeli businessman who not only supported Croat nationalism but also distorted [the representation of the] Bosnian Jewish community. It has supported Serb nationalist hard-liners as well, so of course, such a policy [threatens the] Dayton equilibrium,” he told The New Arab.
According to Dr Mujkić, both nationalist movements have increasingly incorporated Christian nationalism and claims of an “Islamist danger” posed by Bosniaks into their political rhetoric.
The irony of history is that contemporary Croat nationalism is heir to the ideology of the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia, which sought to exterminate local Jews. Meanwhile, contemporary Serb nationalism draws on a radical nationalist tradition that, under Milan Nedić’s collaborationist regime in 1941, proudly declared Serbia the first Judenrein country in the ‘new Europe’
"Yet today, these are - and not, for example, [the] Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina - [who] are the ‘allies’ of [Netanyahu],” Dr Mujkić told The New Arab.
The Dayton order and Bosnia's fragile stability
Republika Srpska’s strengthening relationship with Israel stands to reinforce a political environment in which there is greater acceptance of serious challenges to BiH’s territorial dignity.
This development, as Dr Mujkić explains, fits into a wider geopolitical pattern in which Moscow’s support for local nationalist movements and shifts in Washington’s foreign policy during the Trump 2.0 era risk weakening the European Union’s capacity to respond to instability in the Western Balkans.
As Fruscione told The New Arab, Israeli support is not creating a new secessionist dynamic in BiH. Yet, it might accelerate one already underway, particularly as the EU’s internal divisions serve to complicate Brussels’ engagement with the Balkan country.
The challenges surrounding the appointment of a new High Representative, whose office provides a critical international safeguard for the Dayton framework, highlight the serious issues facing the existing system of oversight.
However, the eventual consequences of the strengthening Republika Srpska-Israel relationship remain uncertain. Tel Aviv’s growing engagement may help Dodik bolster his international standing and bargaining power, but how far Washington or Tel Aviv would go to support him remains unclear.
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics
Follow him on X: @GiorgioCafiero
Edited by Charlie Hoyle