KIEV – No matter how much politics tosses and distorts the issue, and no matter how much international positions are based on interests, history remains a testament to the status and sanctity of the land of Palestine apparently, not only for Muslims, but for many peoples and religions around the world.

Tens of thousands of residents and visitors to the Ukrainian capital pass daily in front of one of the landmarks of this city, which bears witness to a period in the 19th century, when Palestine was present in name and deed, decades before the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and before many contemporary countries were born.

Palestine Name and Blessing

Volodymirsky slope is one of the most famous historical roads paved with ancient stones in the center of Kiev, and it includes on one side - until this day - the "Palestine" building, which was a hotel for the city's visitors and pilgrims, and has a filter to filter the water of the neighboring "Dnieper" River.

Palestine is the name of carrying blessings for the inhabitants and visitors of Kiev in the 19th century (island)

The idea of building goes back to Saint Volodymyr I, Prince of Kiev (Al-Knyaz), who baptized his sons in the Jordan River in the blessed land of Palestine, before deciding to build the hotel and refinery in 1886, to transfer the blessing of name and place to his land and its Christian pilgrims, especially since the Kingdom of Kiev was the first region of Eastern Europe to embrace medieval Christianity.

On the basis of the hotel and the refinery, a long staircase was built that survives to this day, connecting the hotel to the riverbank, and in some historical references it has been called the "path of Palestine" as well.

The staircase "Maslak Palestine" connects the hotel to the riverbank (Al-Jazeera)

Thus, a hotel that later ceased to exist where Soviet communism controlled Kiev was named Palestine, but remained the name of that staircase, and of the first refinery from which the city's inhabitants drank, and is one of its most prominent historical monuments.

The refinery building bears witness to the status of the name and land of Palestine for the people of Kiev and the Christians of the region (Al Jazeera)

Israel-aligned Ukraine

The historical place is only a few hundred meters away from the main government headquarters of Kiev. However, history does not seem to play a role in its position on the current and unprecedented Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

The position of the presidency in Ukraine quickly and strongly sided in favor of the occupation at the beginning of the war, before the Foreign Ministry later amended it with a statement that talked about the importance of the two-state solution to resolve the issue.

However, it remains clear that most Ukrainian media outlets approach the war from a perspective that is biased in favor of Israel, and have even devoted a large amount of hours of coverage to this purpose, sometimes equal to the magnitude of their attention to the Russian war on Ukraine.

Several Ukrainian media outlets address the Israeli war on Gaza from a pro-Israel perspective (Al Jazeera)

Political transformations

The uniqueness of the Ukrainian position this time comes from the fact that it did not harmonize, as usual, with the more careful European position on international issues, but rather came at the beginning identical to the position of the United States, which is strongly motivated in favor of Israel and the continuation of the war.

According to many figures of the Arab and Muslim communities, this is because Ukraine needs to cajole the United States to ensure its continued generous support against Russia, even if Washington's compass suddenly shifts toward the Middle East.

Another reason is that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, and a large proportion of his ruling party members, are of Jewish descent, and that the pro-Israel Jewish lobby controls most influential local and international media.

One of the symbols of the Jordanian community in Kiev, has asked not to be named, says to Al Jazeera Net, "This fact is no secret to anyone in Ukraine, but I think that adulation interest overshadows the religious side in Ukraine, even if it is present in secret."

"Believe me, the Ukrainian people are completely absent from the reality of what is happening in the Middle East because of the media directed in favor of Israel, which markets its military actions as similar to Ukraine's right to defend its territory against Russia," he said.

"This is due to the absence of alternative or balanced media, which is why we do not see great reactions to Israel's massacres, but we see that a large segment of the public views the Palestinians as savages, and that their society is full of terrorist organizations," he said.

List that reads "Palestine is the first refinery in Kiev" (Al Jazeera)

The voice of the Arabs is absent

Some people familiar with Ukraine ask the question about the absence of Arab and Muslim roles and voices in Ukraine, and why it never reacted this time to the Israeli war on Gaza, as was customary in previous wars.

The reason for this, observers say, is the Russian war on Ukraine, which under the pretext prevents communities from calling for any gatherings or demonstrations that were usually organized in front of the United Nations building or the Israeli embassy.

Some of the symbols of these communities confirmed to Al Jazeera Net also that the various security authorities stressed the matter at the moment, and considered it contrary to the law of the state of war declared in the country.

They also noted that there were few Arabs and Muslims and their supporters, because a large proportion of them left Kiev and the rest of the country because of the war as well.

Some members of the communities are afraid to talk to Al Jazeera Net for fear of punishing the advocates and participants to any effectiveness, distributing recruitment instructions to them, a punitive method that has become widespread in wartime Ukraine and is used to silence violators.

Unit after split

Despite the weakness of the resourcefulness, Arabs and Muslims in Ukraine are no longer what they were before the war, and unity against the ongoing massacres has become a remarkable and unmistakable image today, and has replaced the division, bias and previous political and ideological disharmony.

Their sessions after Friday prayers and on the evenings of the rest of the week reflect the unity of pain, whereas before that they were divided and controversial, sometimes recriminated.

The Palestine Refinery Building was part of a hotel for Kiev pilgrims and visitors (Al Jazeera)

Many of them are busy communicating with the available media, and publishing what they can publish on social networking sites of photos, videos and information in Russian and Ukrainian, in order to find some balance, and the pages of the Palestinian embassy on social networking sites have also become an official platform for publishing statements and exposing the crimes of the occupation.

By talking to some figures of the communities in Ukraine about what is happening in Gaza, everyone rallied around the idea that "there is no reproach for the enemies or the positions of those we considered friends and people of values, if the brothers of blood, race and religion are unable to take honorable positions."