Joe Biden gets his revenge on Netanyahu by forcing Ukraine to vote against Israel
YNet is reporting that serial groper Joe Biden got his revenge for being 'humiliated' by Prime Minister Netanyahu six years ago by pressuring Ukraine to vote in favor of a Security Council resolution calling Israeli 'settlements' 'illegal' on Friday.
Ukraine’s decision to vote in favor of the resolution appears to
demonstrate the extent to which US President Barack Obama was behind the
decision.
According to officials in Israel, Ukrainian Prime Minister
Volodymyr Groysman, a Jew who is thought of as one of Israel’s main
supporters, wanted that his country not be involved in the consultations
held on the resolution.
However, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko decided to vote in
favor of its passage following a telephone conversation with US Vice
President Joe Biden.
"The text of the resolution is balanced," Kiev asserted. "It
calls for taking measures necessary for peaceful solution from both
Israeli and Palestinian sides: Israel should stop its settlement
activities while Palestinian authorities – to take effective measures
toward fighting against terrorism."
"Our country consistently advocates the respect for the
international law by everyone and everywhere as has experienced itself
the tragic consequences brought by its violation," the Ukrainian Foreign
Ministry added.
Perhaps this is why one of the first places in which the Netanyahu government has announced that it will build in response to the United Nations is the scene of Biden's 'humiliation,' RamatShlomo.
Russian plane brought down by 'external force' in Sinai
Russia is saying that a Kogalymavia Airlines passenger jet that crashed in Sinai on Saturday while enroute from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg was brought down by an 'external force.' ISIS has claimed that it shot the plane down presumably as revenge for Russian military activity in Syria. All 224 passengers and crew on the plane were killed.
"We exclude technical problems and reject
human error," Alexander Smirnov, a Kogalymavia airline official, said at
a Moscow news conference as he discussed possible causes of the crash.
He
added that the crew did not issue any warnings or communications during
the final moments, indicating that the flight crew must have been
disabled and not able to radio out.
However,
Smirnov said that while the plane's flight and voice data recorders had
been recovered, they had not been read or decoded.
But no one else wants to believe that ISIS is responsible. No one, that is, except Lufthansa, Air France, Emirates, Air Arabia and Air Dubai, all of which have announced that they will not be flying over Sinai until further notice. This is from the first link.
Officials have played down an apparent
claim by Islamic militants in Sinai that they brought down the Airbus
A321-200, saying technical failure is the most likely reason for the
crash.
But so far, they haven't been
able to give a definitive explanation for what happened, with the
Egyptian President suggesting investigations could take months.
This is not the first flight out of Sharm to crash since Israel returned the resort to Egypt as part of the Camp David treaty. In 2004, a Flash Airlines charter flight from Sharm to Paris crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff. A former work colleague of mine who had subsequently moved to France was aboard that flight.
You might recall that in 2006, El Al announced that all of its planes are equipped with the Flight Guard anti-missile system. In 2008, American Airlines decided that the system was too expensive for its planes. Given that this is the second time in the last 16 months that a commercial passenger jet has been shot down, perhaps the airlines ought to consider installing the Flight Guard system.
Russia - not Israel - is touting strategic cooperation
It is Russia - and not Israel - that has gone public about the strategic coordination between the two countries. The Israelis, while realistic about the decline in American activity in the region due to the Obama administration's tendency toward isolationism and Islamophilic behavior, nevertheless do not wish to stick it in the United States' face, probably in the hope that some day a different administration will take charge. The Russians, on the other hand, have no reason to hedge their bets and are proud that Israel is cooperating with their camp.
"We don't interfere with
them and they don't interfere with us," Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon
said in a radio interview, tersely summing up Israel's accommodation
with Russia.
Another reason Israel is holding back could be because it does
not know the full extent of Russia's plans for Syria or what effect they
could have on Assad's allies – Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group
Hezbollah.
A de-facto axis between Moscow and Israel's two most powerful
regional enemies could seem an unsettling scenario for Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's government, but it might also be seen as providing a
moderating influence.
"The new order in the Middle East is loose coalitions for
specific purposes, so a Russian partnership with Iran and Hezbollah to
save Assad is not necessarily bad for us," a Netanyahu confidant told
Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Russian President Vladimir Putin "is not looking to mess with
Israel, and it's unlikely he would look kindly on Iran or Hezbollah
messing with Israel now, either," the confidant said.
The assurance has been echoed by Russia, which hosted Netanyahu for Syria "deconfliction" talks on Sept. 21.
It took until this week for the United States, whose forces have long
been in sync with Israel on Syria, to agree on similar coordination
with Russia.
...
Shein said Russia was
familiar with the reasoning behind past Israeli air strikes in Syria,
including against alleged arms transfers by Iran or Assad's army to
Hezbollah, and "fully aware of Israel's strategic importance in the
Middle East."
But he said Syria's neighbors and overall regional stability were
threatened by the conflict, suggesting Israeli security might be best
served by an Assad victory.
Israel called for Assad to be ousted after the civil war began but
the Netanyahu government has recently preferred neutral rhetoric even
though Western powers continue to demand an eventual change of
leadership in Syria.
...
Moscow, meanwhile, has made no secret of seeing vindication for its Syria strategy in the Netanyahu government's posture.
"Israel’s prudence from the outbreak of the conflict in Syria has
become apparent in the fact that Israel did not consider the overthrow
of President Assad as an indispensable condition to avoid foreign
intervention and impediment for the beginning of a national
reconciliation," Shein said.
He linked this to what he described as Israel's "wisdom" in not
taking sides when Russia seized the Crimea region from Ukraine last year
following the removal of a Ukrainian president who was sympathetic to
Moscow.
"I hope it reflects concern for the development of Russian-Israeli
relations in a true, friendly and cooperative manner," Shein said.
Israeli officials have spoken respectfully, but not lavishly, about their evolving relationship with Russia.
A diplomatic dividend such as Russian recognition of Israel's
ownership of the Golan Heights is nowhere on the horizon, and Moscow's
growing relationship with Iran worries the Netanyahu government.
As some of you might recall, I visited Uman two years ago, albeit not on Rosh HaShanna. Thousands of Jewish men spend Rosh HaShanna in Uman at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Many who cannot afford to rent apartments (there are few or no hotels) stay in tents. Over the Sabbath, the tent city that was erected for the visitors this coming week was destroyed by Ukrainian nationalists.
“On Shabbat, when they knew we wouldn’t be able to respond or
activate the communication device, they simply knocked down the fence,
pushed the light poles and security cameras, and caused damage estimated
at half a million dollars,” Eliezer Kirshboim, chairman and director of
the Jewish association in Uman, told the Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot. “We are approaching the High Holidays, and this disrupts all our work arrangements.”
Police officers did not intervene to stop the attacks, the newspaper reported, citing witnesses.
Since the fall of communism, Uman has seen the arrival of thousands
of pilgrims on the Jewish New Year who come to visit the gravesite of
the Breslover movement’s founder, Rabbi Nachman.
The pilgrimage often has created friction between the predominantly
Israeli new arrivals and locals, many of whom resent the cordoning off
by police of neighborhoods for the pilgrims.
Kirshboim said the mayor of Uman was “appointed” by members of the
nationalist Svoboda party following the revolution in Ukraine.
There's an election in October, and whoever harasses the Jews the most is likely to win.
Speaking to official state media in Russia, Putin said that any such
deals between Israel and Ukraine would be “counterproductive” and would
“only cause a new round of hostility.”
“The death toll would
rise, but the result would not change,” Putin was quoted as telling
Rossiya, the official state-run television channel.
...
“It’s a choice for the Israeli leadership to make, they can do what they see necessary,” Putin said.
Something tells me that Putin doesn't really want a direct confrontation with Israel. He just wants money from Iran. Perhaps we should offer to buy the S-300 instead?
On Monday, Russia's Presidential Spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said that supplies of the Russian S-300 air defense missile
systems to Iran may begin any moment in line with the relevant decree
signed by the Russian president,
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree
on Monday to lift the ban on the delivery of S-300 air defense missile
systems to Iran.
"The decree stipulates… no delays," Peskov told
journalists adding that the second provision of the decree states that
"it comes into force on the day it was signed."
...
In January, Tehran and Moscow signed an agreement
to broaden their defensive cooperation and also resolve the problem with
the delivery of Russia's S300 missile defense systems to Iran.
The agreement was signed by General Dehqan and his
visiting Russian counterpart General Sergei Shoigu in a meeting in
Tehran in January.
The Iranian and Russian defense ministers agreed
to resolve the existing problems which have prevented the delivery of
Russia's advanced air defense systems to Iran in recent years.
The two sides also agreed to broaden their defense cooperation and joint campaign against terrorism and extremism.
In 2007, Iran signed a contract worth $800mln to buy five Russian S300 missile defense systems.
But the deal was scrapped in 2010 by the
then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was unilaterally expanding
on sanctions against Iran imposed by the UN Security Council.
Iran filed a $4bln lawsuit against Russia in the international arbitration court in Geneva, which is currently pending review.
But Amir Rappaport reports that Israel is not taking this lying down. Israeli defense officials have told him that Israel may sell advanced weapons systems to Georgia and Ukraine in response to the Russian move.
To understand the relationship between the transactions between Israel,
Ukraine and Georgia and the recent Russian move, we should go back to
the background of things: Russia was planning to sell Iran the advanced
S300 missiles defense system at the end of the last decade.
The weapon system is considered to have strategic
capabilities. Although the Russians have not offered the Iranians the
most advanced version of the system they possess, it is still an
anti-aircraft system that can hit aircraft even at ranges of 150 km – a
huge challenge for every Air Force, including the Israeli Air Force.
The deal between Russia and Iran was canceled in 2010,
under the pressure of Israel and against the background of global
sanctions imposed on the Iranian regime. In a silent understanding,
Israel has refrained from selling advanced weapons systems to Ukraine
and Georgia, that are both considered enemies of Russia. Regarding
Georgia, the supply of Israeli arms was completely stopped after their
war with the Russians at the end of the last decade (and after Israeli
weapons brought down several Russian helicopters). Regarding Ukraine,
several transactions were on the agenda recently, including the sale of
advanced unmanned aircraft amounting tens of thousands of dollars. These
transactions were frozen based on a demand of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, in view of the "delicate" relationship between Israel and
Russia. Now, it is quite possible that the approval for exporting Israel
arms to Ukraine will be granted.
Rappaport also reports that the S-300 systems being sold to Iran are not the most advanced of such systems (but would still complicate an Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear facilities), and that contrary to other reports, delivery will take at least three years.
Still, I would view any prospect of delivery of the S-300 to Iran as reason for the advancement of an Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Throwback Thursday: Ukraine rediscovers its Nazi past
Last Thursday, January 1, there was a huge demonstration in Kiev to honor the memory of Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator during World War II.
Via AFP:
The march on what would have been Stepan Bandera’s 106th
birthday moved along the same streets on which hundreds of thousands
rallied for three months last winter before ousting a Moscow-backed
president.
Some wore World War II-era army uniforms while others draped
themselves in the red and black nationalist flags and chanted “Ukraine
belongs to Ukrainians” and “Bandera will return and restore order”.
“The Kremlin is afraid of Bandera because he symbolises the very idea
of a completely independent Ukraine,” Lidia Ushiy said while holding up
a portrait of the far-right icon at the head of the march.
Bandera is a mythical but immensely divisive figure in Ukraine whom some compare to Cuba’s Che Guevara.
His movement’s slogan — “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” — was also the catchphrase of last year’s pro-European revolt.
As noted above, the marchers in Kiev are honouring what amounts to be
a Pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist, chanting that he will return and set
Ukraine free.
Western propaganda, and shoddy AFP reporting aside, Bandera is not a
“mythical” figure. He was a very real and polarising person, who
ordered the death of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Jews, and Russians
during WW2.
So who is this Ukrainian nationalist messiah? Via Wikipedia:
Stepan Andriyovych Bandera was a Ukrainian political activist and leader of the Ukrainian nationalist and independence movement.
In 1934, he was arrested in Lwów (in Ukrainian, Lviv) by Polish authorities and was tried twice:
for involvement in the assassination of the Polish minister of internal
affairs, Bronisław Pieracki; and at a general trial of Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists executives. He was convicted of terrorism and
sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
In September 1939, while Poland was being invaded, under unclear circumstances Bandera managed to get freed from prison and proceeded to work, with German support, for an uprising in the Kresy.
These eastern Polish territories had a majority Ukrainian population,
and went on to become modern Western Ukraine. At the same time, he tried
to stoke unrest in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, modern
Eastern Ukraine. His goal was to establish a unified Ukrainian state,
composed of areas inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians, but that had been
under the control of Poland and the Soviet Union.
...
After the war, in 1959, in Munich, Germany, Bandera was assassinated by the Soviet KGB (secret police).
Assessments of his work have ranged from totally apologetic to
sharply negative. On 22 January 2010, the outgoing President of Ukraine
Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the posthumous title of Hero of
Ukraine. The award was condemned by European Parliament,
Russian, Polish and Jewish organizations and was declared illegal by the
following Ukrainian government and a court decision in April 2010. In
January 2011, the award was officially annulled.
The US and most of Europe is silent about what's going on in Ukraine. The only one who seems concerned is Czech Republic President Milos Zenman.
Here are some words of truth and sanity from one of the last leaders
left in Europe (from Zenman’s interview on Pravo, a Czech daily
newspaper):
“From the statements by PM Yatsenyuk, I think that he is a
‘prime minister of war’, because he does not want a peaceful solution
to the crisis [in Ukraine] recommended by the European Commission.”
Yatsenyuk wants to solve Ukrainian conflict “by the use of force.”
According to Zeman, the current policy of Kiev authorities has two
“faces.” The first is the “face” of the country’s president, Petro
Poroshenko, who “may be a man of peace.”
The second “face” is that of PM Yatsenyuk, who has an uncompromising position toward self-defense forces in Eastern Ukraine.
Zeman said he doesn’t’ believe that the February coup, during which
then-President Viktor Yanukovich was deposed from power, was a
democratic revolution at all.
“Maidan was not a democratic revolution, and I believe that
Ukraine is in a state of civil war,” Zeman said, responding to what he
described as “poorly informed people” who compared Maidan with
Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution in 1989.
...
Via ITAR TASS News Agency:
That the European Union has refrained from saying at
least something critical about the recent torch-light street procession
by neo-Nazis in Kiev is a sure sign some something is fundamentally
wrong with the EU, Czech President Milos Zeman said on a local radio
station. The procession and the way it had been prepared looked pretty
much like Nazi parades in Hitler’s Germany before World War II.
“Something is going wrong with Ukraine. On the Internet I saw
a video of a crowd of several thousand demonstrating in Kiev’s
Independence Square. They were carrying portraits of Stepan Bandera. I
saw that portrait for the first time. He (Bandera) reminded me of
Reinhard Heydrich (the chief of Nazi Germany’s main security office and
acting Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia – TASS),” Zeman said. “Something is going wrong with Ukraine and something is going
wrong with the European Union, which has failed to protest that
demonstration,” Zeman said.
Eugene Kontorovich reports that those ever consistent Europeans are ignoring their governments' warnings not to travel to occupied territory. In fact, they're buying real estate there.
Make sure to read the whole thing, to follow all the links and to look at the rest of the pictures. The photos (including the one at the top of this post) are by Wilson Shirley, an undergraduate
at Northwestern University who conducted research in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus this summer.
The Europeans are just so consistent in their approach to occupied territory, aren't they? /Sigh
Those of you who recall the story from 10 days or so ago when it was disclosed that the United States had denied Israel Hellfire missiles for use in Gaza, and who are aware that Britain and Spain have placed an embargo on weapons sales to us, might be wondering whether Israel has sources for weapons other than the United States and Western Europe. Unfortunately, while we have such sales they are negligible.
According to Defense Ministry figures, around one-quarter of the
output of the Israeli defense industry is intended for IDF use. The rest
is exported.
Despite official Israel’s reluctance to get specific
about its arms trade, reports submitted by various states to the UN’s
Register of Conventional Arms shed some light on the matter. For
example, Ukraine’s official reports state that two years ago, Ukraine
sold Israel 193 missiles and 32 launchers. According to reports made as
part of the voluntary disclosure mechanism, in 2010 Ukraine sold Israel
four Strella (SA-7) missiles and two launchers, about 75 Igla missiles
of various models and 10 launchers for them. It is not clear why Israel
purchased so many Russian-made shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.
The assumption is that they are being acquired as part of Israel’s
development of systems to counter them, such as the aircraft-defense
system. As recently as February, Defense Ministry officials and Elbit
Systems announced the successful completion of tests of the Sky Shield
system, which is intended to protects civilian aircraft from
shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Arms experts have said it likely
that Russian-made missiles were used in the test. Still, the number of
missiles Ukraine reported selling to Israel is relatively large even for
that purpose. Defense Ministry officials declined to comment for this
report.
Reports in the UN Register that were examined in recent
years point to some more interesting acquisitions, mainly for
Soviet-made arms that are not considered at the forefront of technology.
For example, in 2008 Ukraine reported that it sold Israel a launcher
for BM-21 rockets — a launcher that the Israeli army used in the past
after it was captured as booty in the Yom Kippur War and used during the
first Lebanon War. Hezbollah uses it to fire Grad rockets. In 2006, the
Czech Republic sold Tochka tactical missile systems to Israel. Two
years previously, Bulgaria sold Israel six 130 mm artillery systems
about which no further details were provided.
Against the backdrop of reports about Britain and Spain examining their
arms sales to Israel, an expert characterized the amount of arms that
Israel purchases from countries other than the United States as
“negligible.”
...
Israel has signed several significant defense contracts with other
countries in recent years. Germany provides Israel with submarines from
its HDW shipyards in Kiel. Israel has purchased six submarines so far,
three of which are in use by the Israel navy. The IDF has taken delivery
of two submarines, with additional deliveries scheduled through the end
of 2019.
Italy last year arranged to sell 30 M-346 training
aircraft to Israel. The first of these are already making their first
flights. As part of the deal, Israel sold Italy several defense
products, an Israeli-made satellite and a deterrent aircraft produced by
Israel Aerospace Industries in a deal estimated at $2 billion dollars.
Last
month, the Defense Ministry issued an international tender for the
purchase of “defense ships,” which will be used to protect the offshore
natural-gas drilling rigs in the Mediterranean Sea. According to an
Israeli Navy plan for the protection of the rigs that the defense
minister and the chief of staff approved about two years ago, four more
large vessels will be required to secure the area properly, at a cost of
roughly 100 million dollars per ship. The names of several foreign
shipyards — in Germany, Italy, the United States and South Korea — were
mentioned in the past as possible makers of the ships that would protect
the natural-gas fields.
There are two answers. In the short term, export less and use our own arms. That will help only when the arms in question are arms that we produce domestically. Obviously, there are things (like submarines) that we do not produce domestically, and for which we will still be dependent on other countries.
But in the long run we should be developing our own military industry more than we have been. If we have learned nothing else in the last six years, we should have learned that there are even situations where we cannot count on the United States. We should not be dependent on anyone. Not even the United States. What if Hillary Clinton - or possibly worse Elizabeth Warren is the next President? We would have 4-8 more years of pressure and unreliability. It's time that we learn to cope on our own. We're a big enough economy to pull it off.
Due to the tension between Russia and Europe, and Russia’s decision
to halt imports from Europe, Israel has been asked to increase exports
of fruits, specifically apples and plums, said Porat.
“Unfortunately,
the Russian market isn’t a big consumer of mangoes, so it can’t replace
the declining demand from Europe,” said Porat.
Porat
noted that lower European demand could be tied to an excess of produce
there created by the Russian boycott, and not necessarily due to
anti-Israel sentiments in Europe.
Hmmm. And the Russians really should try the mangoes. Frozen, they make a great dessert.
Evelyn Gordon reports that while the West is willfully blind to the connection between Ukraine and Gaza, many Ukrainian officials do get it.
Three weeks ago, Andriy Parubiy, the head of Ukraine’s National
Security and Defense Council, compared eastern Ukraine’s situation to
what Israel faces and warned that terrorists would likely adopt similar
tactics in other countries if the West didn’t take a firm stance against
them.
“We, of course, studied the experience of both Croatia and Israel, but here a lot of new features are added,” Parubiy said.
“And, if Russia sees that this experience is successful, this
experience can very easily be used in any Baltic countries, and even in
Belarus and Kazakhstan.”
Yesterday, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Henadii Nadolenko made both the comparison and the warning even more explicit in an op-ed in Haaretz.
Unambiguously titled “Ukraine and Israel: Together in fighting
terrorism,” it declared, “We, the representatives of Ukraine, have,
together with the people of the State of Israel, personally felt the
totality of the threat posed to civilians by the criminal activities of
the terrorists.”
After enumerating the losses both countries have suffered, Nadolenko
continued, “I am convinced that the huge loss of civilian and military
life might have been avoided had the activities of terrorist
organizations had been condemned by the international community.” Then,
citing the recent downing of a civilian airliner over eastern Ukraine,
he drove the point home:
I would like to emphasize once again that the crime,
which killed 298 innocent civilians from around the world, is another
confirmation of the fact that today’s terrorism is not constrained by
borders…
In this regard, once again I would like to appeal to the thinking and
caring people of the world to demonstrate their support for these
peoples, who came upon a fight with an evil that threatens the security
of everyone, regardless of nationality or place of residence.
I believe that the countries that are faced with terrorism and who
try to fight this evil should support each other, and should join their
efforts in order to draw the world’s attention to our cause. We must
begin to receive real help and support from international organizations
in order to combat this threat.
I feel sorry for the Ukrainians. They cannot fight Russia on their own, and the odds of them getting any help from the West so long as the Hussein Obama administration is in power are not good. They have to hold out for at least another two and a half years (longer if Obama is replaced by Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren).
The Malaysia Airlines plane, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala
Lumpur, was travelling at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 metres)
when it was shot down, Russia's Interfax reported.
An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry said the Boeing 777 was brought down by a Buk ground-to-air missile.
All 280 passengers and 15 crew members who were on the plane are believed to have died, he added.
A spokesman for Malaysian Airlines, still reeling from the loss of
flight MH370 in March, confirmed it had lost contact with flight MH17,
which took off from Amsterdam at 12.15pm local time.
The flight disappeared from radar as it flew over Ukrainian airspace, the spokesman said.
A number of videos apparently filmed near the village of Grabovo,
Donetsk, where the plane came down, show plumes of thick, black smoke
rising high into the air.
TV channel Russia 24 broadcast similar pictures, while a Reuters
correspondent at the scene said he could see the wreckage of a burning
aircraft and bodies on the ground.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk ordered an immediate
investigation into what he described as a "catastrophe", while his
Malaysian counterpart Mohd Najib Tun Razak said he was "shocked".
Alexander Borodai, the eastern Ukraine separatist leader, claimed the
airliner was shot down by Ukrainian government forces, although
officials in Kiev denied any involvement.
There has been no official comment from authorities in Russia.
Sky's Katie Stallard, in Moscow, said media reports suggest the plane
came down in an area where there has been recent heavy fighting amid
continuing tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
On Monday morning Israel time, I blogged a Mark Steyn piece whose real title (which I changed) was the one in the picture above (credit for the photoshop goes to Twitchy). I am pleased to tell you that America's... ahem... you-know-what's... have been found... in Israel.
Israel denied a request by Moscow to let a Russian missile boat
anchor at Haifa a month ago, making the decision against the backdrop of
the crisis in Ukraine, said a senior official in Jerusalem involved in the matter.
Israeli
officials were worried that allowing a Russian naval vessel to visit
Haifa would worsen tensions with the United States. There were also
concerns about possible espionage.
The request was handled by the
national security adviser, Yossi Cohen. He asked for the opinion of
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin
Bet security service, but not the Foreign Ministry. All opinions were
negative and the request was denied.
The official said Israel
strives to maintain neutrality in the big powers’ confrontation over
Ukraine; pictures of a Russian warship at Israel’s main naval base would
convey that Israel was siding with Moscow.
Okay, so the motivation wasn't so pure - they didn't want to increase tensions with the US.... But the botoom line is that Israel stood down Russia. When was the last timedid Obama ever do that?
Not because they're Jews, just because they're in danger
JPost reports (via Hot Air) that the Jewish community of Odessa in the eastern Ukraine may be evacuated after several Jews were hurt in riots over the weekend and the synagogue was temporarily closed.
While they don't believe they're being targeted, they're ready to leave on a moment's notice.
But not to Israel. To Moldova. Kishinev. I wonder what Israel's Moldova-born foreign minister thinks.
Pro-Russian units in Ukraine connected to Cossak's?
A magazine from the Ukraine reports that at least some of the pro-Russian forces in the eastern Ukraine are connected to the Cossack's. Yes, those Cossack's.
From the identified militants, a few notes can be made from the
following gunmen who appear to be connected to the raids in Sloviansk
and Kramatorsk. For one, not all are from Russia.
While some may be local radicals, others appear to come from Belorechensk in
Russia, or have connections to related neo-Cossack groups. This does
not necessarily exonerate Russian state involvement, however. While it’s
been known that military veterans and Russian ‘tourists’ have been
actively involved for some time, the presence of Registered Cossacks of the Russian Federation connects Russia officially to the ongoing crisis. Registered Cossack organizations enjoy financial and organizational support from the authorities,
including monthly salary as police auxiliaries. This, of course, isn’t
the first controversial deployment of Cossack forces, who made a name
for themselves on the world stage enforcing the law in Sochi.
Another point of interest is the insignia seen on a number of the gunmen. For clarity’s sake, the symbol is that of Andrei Shkuro‘s ‘Terek Wolf Company’, a detachment of White emigre Cossacks who fought for Nazi Germany during the second world war.
You might surmise that these units that fought for Nazi Germany in World War II aren't exactly lovers of Jews.
The footage was posted by Yisroel Gotlieb, son of the city’s chief rabbi, Sholom Gotlieb.
One firebomb was thrown at the door of the synagogue, which was
unoccupied at the time, and another was lobbed at a window, according to
the blog.
The junior Gotleib told Shturem
that “miraculously a person passing by the shul was equipped with
a fire extinguisher, and immediately put out the fire that had
erupted, preventing massive damage.”
Chief Rabbi of Donetsk now says leaflet was a hoax
The Chief Rabbi of Donetsk now says that he believes that an anti-Semitic leaflet that was handed to the town's Jews as they left synagogue on the first night of Passover was a 'hoax.'
A Ukrainian rabbi whose congregation was the target of an
anti-Semitic leaflet that drew global media interest and condemnation
from the US government believes it was a hoax and wants to put the
matter to rest.
But five days after the incident in the restive
eastern city of Donetsk, Ukraine's prime minister, anxious to maintain
US support against Russia, issued a statement accusing Moscow and told a
US TV channel he would find the "bastards" responsible.
...
Pinchas Vishedski, chief rabbi of the Donetsk area's 15,000 Jews,
told Reuters on Saturday that while it was initially shocking, he was
now satisfied it was a political hoax - "a crude provocation" - though
its authorship was still unclear.
"I'm asking those behind this
not to make us tools in this game," he said. Anti-Semitic incidents in
the Russian-speaking east were "rare, unlike in Kiev and western
Ukraine," he said.
Quoted on the community's website, Vishedski
had said on Thursday: "Since it's only a smear, we should react
responsibly - draw a line under it and close the matter."
...
On Saturday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk vowed to use
"every legal means" to prevent the "import" of anti-Semitism and
xenophobia and indirectly blamed Russia.
"The ideology and practice of pogroms, exported by a neighbouring state, will not be allowed into Ukraine," he said.
Anti-Semitism
remains a feature of militant nationalism in both Ukraine and Russia.
During unrest that saw the overthrow of Kiev's Kremlin-backed president
in February, several attacks on Jews and synagogues were blamed on
Ukrainian far-right groups.
Yatseniuk also spoke of "reports of
pro-Moscow terrorists" conducting "pogroms" against Roma near Donetsk -
an allegation repeated by the interior minister, who, like the SBU state
security service, also issued a press release promising action.
Asked
about the "ghastly reports" by a US television interviewer, Yatseniuk
pointed to his statement and told NBC's "Meet the Press" program he had
urged troops and police "to find these bastards and to bring them to
justice."
I don't find this particularly comforting. It still means that there are anti-Semites out there - plenty of them - who apparently fear nothing.
US says it 'doesn't know' who's behind anti-Semitic flyers in Ukraine
The Untied States government has now told the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center that it 'doesn't know' who is behind anti-Semitic flyers calling on Jews to 'register' their persons and property or face deportation. This is from the first link.
In response to an email query, Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt told the
Wiesenthal Center that the fliers were “clearly part of a general effort
to sow fear among Ukrainian Jews.” Beyond that, the U.S. doesn’t know
much.
“The Wiesenthal Center denounces this grotesque action that is
clearly designed to spread more fear among the Jewish community, already
reeling from the increased instability that has racked the region for
the past few months, “said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper in a
statement released in Los Angeles. “We urge authorities to take all
necessary measures to ensure the safety of Jewish communal
institutions.”
The Anti-Defamation League noted that the leader of the Donetsk
People’s Republic, whose name appeared in the document’s signature, has
publicly disavowed the flier.
“We are skeptical about the flier’s authenticity, but the
instructions clearly recall the Nazi era and have the effect of
intimidating the local Jewish community,” said ADL national director
Abraham H. Foxman. “We have seen a series of cynical and politically
manipulative uses and accusations of anti-Semitism in Ukraine over the
past year. The perpetrators and their targets are opposing politicians
and political movements, but the true victims are the Jewish
communities. We strongly condemn the anti-Semitic content, but also all
attempts to use anti-Semitism for political purposes.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it’s critical that the international
monitors from the Organization for the Security and Co-operation in
Europe deploying to Ukraine as part of yesterday’s Geneva agreement
“examine this issue closely to ensure that religious and ethnic
minorities do not become targets.”
“This sort of intimidation and persecution is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in the 21st century,” he said.
This is from Thursday's US State Department briefing on the issue. Let's go to the videotape.
CNN report on anti-Semitic flyers in eastern Ukraine
Here's a CNN video with old friend Jake Tapper talking about whether the reports of anti-Semitic flyers coming out of the Ukraine are real. The consensus is that they are.
The leaflet, signed by Chairman of Donetsk's temporary government Denis Pushilin, was
distributed to Jews near the Donetsk synagogue and later in other areas
of the city where pro-Russians activists have declared Donetsk as an
independent "people's republic", defying an ultimatum from Kiev to
surrender.
The leaflet was written in Russian and had Russia's national symbol on it, as well as the Donetsk People's Republic insignia.
"Dear Ukraine citizens of Jewish nationality," the flyer began, "due
to the fact that the leaders of the Jewish community of Ukraine
supported
Bendery Junta," a reference to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the
Ukrainian nationalist movement which fought for Ukrainian independence
at the end of World War II, "and oppose the pro-Slavic People's Republic
of Donetsk, (the interim government) has decided that all citizens of
Jewish descent, over 16 years of age and residing within the republic's
territory are required to report to the Commissioner for Nationalities
in the Donetsk Regional Administration building and register."
The leaflet detailed what type of documents the Jewish citizens would
need to supply: "ID and passport are required to register your Jewish
religion, religious documents of family members, as well as documents
establishing the rights to all real estate property that belongs to you,
including vehicles."
If the message was not made clear enough, the leaflet further
stipulated the consequences that would come to those who failed to abide
by the new demands: "Evasion of registration will result in citizenship
revoke and you will be forced outside the country with a confiscation
of property."
...
According to Alex
Tenzer, a Kiev native and one of the directors of the National
Association of Immigrants from the Former USSR in Israel, said: "The
Jewish-Ukrainian leadership supports Ukraine's new government, but it's
hard to tell whether the leaflet is valid or simply a provocation.
"Anyway, the material is very anti-Semitic and reminds me of the kind of material distributed by the Nazis in WWII."
Emanuelle Shechter, from Israel, received a copy of the leaflet via
Whatsapp from his friends in Donetsk. "They told me that masked men were
waiting for Jewish people after the Passover eve prayer, handed them
the flyer and told them to obey its instructions."
Olga Reznikova, a member of Donetsk's Jewish community, told Ynet
that "we do not know if the leaflet was spread by pro-Russian forces or
someone else, but it did manage to create quite a fear. This reminds me
of texts from darker times. Other members of the Jewish community I
spoke with are not afraid, but it is unpleasant.
"I do not intend to register, I am 32, I have lived in Donetsk my
entire life and have never had to deal with anti-Semitism until I laid
eyes on this piece of paper. Though I take it very seriously, I am
uncertain of its authenticity."
Jenia from Israel,
who also received the letter from a Jewish acquaintance, said "the Jews
in Donetsk are uncertain of anything; it is unclear who is responsible
for the leaflet and who controls the city at the moment.
"We don't feel safe like we used to because of the political
instability in the area; there isn't a legitimate president or
sovereign. Currently Donetsk is ruled by a junta."
In a response to a request by a Ukrainian Jewish website, Pushilin,
the interim government's regional chairman, confirmed that the flyers
were distributed by his organization, but denied any connection to the
leaflet's content.
I've read a number of claims that attach significance to the fact that no one has registered yet. Consider that (a) they have until May 3, (b) the flyers were handed out on Monday night which was the first night of Passover, (c) Tuesday and Wednesday were Passover holiday days in Ukraine and (d) these reports are all likely based on Wednesday night or Thursday morning interviews in Donetsk and the Ukraine.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
