by Isi Leibler
The international crisis created
by Putin’s military incursion into Crimea has also served to highlight
again Russia’s relationship to the Jews. The Russian President has
included radical nationalism and anti-Semitism in the Ukraine as major
justifications for his intervention.
I have personal experience of
the feral anti-Semitism which pervaded the region from my direct
dealings with senior Soviet authorities in the campaign to free Soviet
Jewry which was the central focus of my public life for many years. I
have no doubt that both in the Ukraine and Russia, a substantial
proportion of the population continues to hate and fear Jews.
Yet today it is almost surreal,
particularly when recalling the major contribution of Soviet Jewish
dissidents towards the downfall of the Evil Empire, to observe President
Putin, the authoritarian, former KGB official, displaying overt
friendship towards Jews and Israel.
We are under no
misapprehensions. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is a democracy. But on a
relative scale, the corruption and xenophobia currently dominating
Ukraine is more extreme than in Russia where Putin has suppressed
anti-Semites and repeatedly made friendly gestures to the Jewish
community. For example, he provided $50 million of state funding for a
Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow in addition to which he
symbolically personally donated a month’s salary. In this he displayed
total indifference to enraging the powerful anti-Semitic elements in
Russian society.
Putin is a nationalist and his
primary motivation is to restore Russia as a global power. This is what
propelled him to intervene in Georgia and now in Ukraine to what he
regards as a threatening NATO intrusion in his sphere of influence and
on his borders. Russians compare this reaction to that of Kennedy’s 1962
response to Khrushchev’s effort to introduce missiles into Cuba.
Ukraine, like Russia, has a long
history of violent anti-Semitism that dates back to the 1648
Khmelnitsky pogroms and continues through the Beiliss blood libel -
still an issue of contention amongst many Ukrainians - and the Russian
Civil War when tens of thousands of Jews were butchered.
The existing Ukrainian Jewish
community, estimated to be around 200,000, has good reason to be
fearful. Since gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine has spawned
thriving xenophobic right-wing parties which are alleged to have
spearheaded the revolt against the corrupt President Viktor Yanukovich.
Although only gaining 10% electoral support, these are genuine neo-Nazis
who even employ swastika symbols and are openly anti-Semitic.
Successive Ukrainian governments have ignored or condoned their
extremist activities and made no effort to prosecute them.
Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of
Svoboda, the largest right wing extremist nationalist faction, which
holds 37 seats in the government, has called for the liberation of
Ukraine from the “Muscovite-Jewish Mafia” and refers to his opponents as
“Zhids”. His deputy, Yuri Mykhalchyshyn, founded a think tank initially
called “The Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre”
The party activists have
circulated translations of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion. They revere Stepan Bandera, a onetime ally of Nazi Germany whose
troops murdered tens of thousands of Jews. Their anti-Semitism is overt
and has led to the desecration of synagogues and brutal acts of violence
against Jews.
In an attempt to portray himself
as a moderate, Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the ultra-nationalist leader
“Right Sector”, currently Deputy Director of Ukraine’s Security Council
and a candidate for president, has sought to dissociate himself from
anti-Semitism. He even opened up a hotline with Israel’s ambassador in
Kiev. But Yarosh, a renowned expert in firebombs, made it clear that he
has no intention of disbanding his black garbed paramilitary units.
Not surprisingly, President
Putin is exploiting these Ukrainian fascist and anti-Semitic groups in
order to discredit the new government.
However a number of Ukrainian
Jewish oligarchs and the Jewish umbrella body known as the Vaad,
insisted that anti-Semitism posed no threat and called Putin a liar.
One of the “Chief Rabbis”, Rabbi
Yaacov Bleich, a Karliner-Stoliner Hasid from New York, even accused
the Russians of dressing up as Ukrainian nationalists and engaging in
anti-Semitic provocations. In what may come to haunt him, Bleich also
downplayed the influence of the anti-Semitic parties in the new
government, saying that he received assurances that the safety of Jews
will be protected.
Jews who engage in the politics
of an unstable country in which successive governments condoned or
ignored nationalist anti-Semitic groups, are playing with fire. Chabad
Chief Rabbi Reuven Azman gave sound advice when he urged his community
to leave the country, although after subsequent pressure he was obliged
to tell the media that he was “unaware of any new anti-Semitic acts
since the downfall of Yanukovich”.
Despite pressure from the Obama
administration to condemn Russia, Israel has acted in its own interests
and avoided taking any position.
Long before the confrontations
with the US, Putin indicated that he respected Jews and made great
efforts to display friendship to Israel. He has already paid two state
visits to Jerusalem, the most recent immediately after his reelection in
June 2012. He repeatedly expressed pride that former Russians make up
Israel’s largest immigrant group. He visited the Kotel – the Western
Wall, even donning a yarmulke which would have made his Bolshevik
predecessors turn in their graves. He seemed utterly indifferent to the
fact that this outraged Islamic groups in Israel and abroad.
This does not mean that Putin is
a philo-Semite. He is above all, a Russian nationalist. Nor is Putin an
ally. He has provided lethal weapons to those seeking our destruction
and is considered an ally of both Iran and Syria.
Yet he is also far more of a
realist than President Obama and must be under no illusion that Islamic
fundamentalism represents a real threat to his country. He must also be
concerned about the repercussions facing Russia should Iran become a
nuclear power.
As a result of his disastrous
foreign policy, President Obama has now paved the way for Russia to
reassert itself into a possibly more dominant position in the Middle
East than at the height of the Cold War. US support for the Moslem
Brotherhood even alienated Egypt, which now seems to have also joined
the Russian camp. Unlike Obama, whose partners no longer feel he can be
relied upon, Putin has also demonstrated his ability to stand up and
deliver on behalf of his allies.
Yet, despite Russia’s current
support for Iran and Syria, our leaders communicate with Putin on a
regular basis and seek to convince him that radical Islamic countries
also pose a threat to Russia.
Thirty years ago, I would never
have visualized myself supporting closer relations between Israel and
Russia. We remain overwhelmingly dependent on the support of the United
States and above all cherish our alliance and shared democratic values
with the American people. Yet we are also obliged to develop relations
with authoritarian, undemocratic countries like China. It is thus
clearly in our national interest, without being under any idealistic
illusions, to nurture ties with a Russia whose leader seems to have
dramatically broken with centuries of Tsarist and Bolshevik
anti-Semitism and now displays friendship towards the Jewish people.
The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
Isi Leibler may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com
Source:
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5023
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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