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Thursday, March 3, 2022

03/03 Links Pt1: The Lessons for Israel from Russia's War on Ukraine; Darkest days of Ukraine invasion lie ahead, U.S. and European officials say

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: The Lessons for Israel from Russia's War on Ukraine
The courageous conduct of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has personally led the defense of his country rather than fleeing for his life as most people expected he would do, has turned the former comedian into an unlikely 21st-century Jewish hero. In the last decade, Russia became a Middle East power. With American acquiescence, Russia became, along with Iran, a full-fledged combatant in the Syrian civil war. With the brutal use of military might now being employed in Ukraine, the Russians enabled their ally, Assad, to prevail in a war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and rendered another five million homeless.

The Russians remain the dominant force in Syria, making Putin a powerful neighbor to Israel, rather than just an international symbol of tyranny and aggression. It is only via the good graces of the Russians that the Israel Defense Forces is able to have the freedom to strike at Iranian forces and those of its Hizbullah terrorist auxiliaries in Syria.

Most Jews are rooting for Zelensky to somehow avoid the fate that usually befalls those who are forced into fights with ruthless and militarily powerful neighbors. However the war in Ukraine turns out, it is a warning to small countries to reject the notion that their safety can depend on international guarantees.

The 1994 agreement in which Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons it inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union involved both Russia and the U.S. guaranteeing its independence. It's not just that Putin couldn't be trusted to abide by that pact. It's that the U.S. can't be relied upon to stand by its allies.

Just as important, the Biden administration is currently embarking on a policy of appeasement of Iran. With a new and even weaker nuclear deal, Israel is faced with a situation in which its sole superpower ally is prepared to enrich and empower a regime that poses an existential threat to the existence of the Jewish state.

Israelis know how fickle international opinion can be when it comes to a country's right to defend itself. Everyone likes underdogs - something that generated support for the Jewish state's efforts to defend its existence in the past, when many military analysts thought it could not survive Arab efforts to wipe it out in its early years. Israelis have learned that they must forget about being popular, so long as they are strong enough to resist campaigns aimed at their destruction.


Ruthie Blum: Putin’s move to undermine the woke West
NO KIDDING. He just forgot to mention his own part in Russia’s past and ongoing repression against oppositionists. Nevertheless, he had the nerve to express relief that “what we are witnessing now… in a number of Western countries… we have left, I hope, in the distant past.”

For example, he continued, “the fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past – such as Shakespeare – are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood, memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what color or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”

And he ought to know.

Reiterating his disgust with cancel culture and the obsessive emphasis on race, he invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech about skin color versus character. And then he turned to the Western zealots who ostracize anyone who “dares mention that men and women actually exist, which is a biological fact,” or who refer to fathers and mothers as “parent number one and parent number two,” while calling breast milk “human milk, because [not doing so] might upset the people who are unsure about their own gender.”

As for the “truly monstrous things [that] children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa,” it “verges on a crime against humanity, and is being done in the name and under the banner of progress.”

AS IF his appropriation of traditional Western civilization weren’t cheeky enough, Putin stunningly invoked George Orwell’s anti-communist novel 1984 by saying that “in the 1920s, the so-called Soviet Kulturträgers also invented some newspeak [the fictional language of the totalitarian super-state Oceana], believing they were creating a new consciousness and changing values that way.”

Putin clearly didn’t expect the West, weakened by wokeness, to react to his Ukraine incursion with such rhetorical vigor, let alone by increasing defense spending and uniting to impose sanctions of all kinds on his regime and its oligarchs. But his miscalculation didn’t stem from stupidity.

In fact, given the great success of the very Soviet agitprop of which he spoke, there was a sad logic to his trying to strike while the iron was hot. He seems to have imagined that democratic societies in the throes of a moral and spiritual crisis would be ripe for the picking.

As a country in constant peril from Iran and its auxiliaries, Israel can’t afford to be the one proving him wrong. Whether the rest of the West is really receiving a wakeup call about its need to cherish and fight for genuine freedom, rather than distort the meaning of the concept and destroy itself from within, remains to be seen. Biden’s desperate push for a deal with Iran certainly doesn’t bode well.
JCPA: Ukraine's President Zelensky Is Winning the Narrative Campaign
The war between Russia and Ukraine has a military dimension, in which Ukraine, with limited Western assistance, mainly in the realm of intelligence, tries to make the most of the natural advantages that being the defending side in a conventional war inevitably confer.

Furthermore, this war has a significant political-security dimension, centering on the long-term consequences for the balance of power between the liberal West (of which Israel is a part), and the West's autocratic adversaries (Russia, China, and their proxies) and ideological enemies (radical Islam, especially Iran).

Even if he may soon be defeated and perhaps even lose his life, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has succeeded in winning the campaign for the narrative through personal example, determined and exhilarating messages, and leveraging the heroic conduct and sacrifice of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.

If Zelensky succeeds, against the odds, he can position Ukraine and himself as an example of fighting for freedom and present Ukraine as a role model for other nationalities, especially in Russia's environment and perhaps even within Russia. Therefore, it is clear how great a danger Zelensky's moves constitute in Putin's eyes.


FDD: Putin is not crazy and the Russian invasion is not failing. The West’s delusions about this war – and its failure to understand the enemy – will prevent it from saving Ukraine
Nobody knows for sure, but Putin’s actions appear to be that of a cold and calculating adversary.

Dismissing his decision to invade Ukraine as a form of madness is effectively an excuse to ignore Putin’s likely motivations and future actions.

Strategically, Putin’s advance on Ukraine began well over a decade ago, when he invaded and Balkanized Georgia by recognizing the Kremlin’s puppet regimes in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In 2014, Putin occupied and annexed the strategic Ukrainian region of Crimea, which served as a launchpad for the current invasion.

Putin paid little price for either action.

The United States and Europe imposed limited sanctions but continued to engage with him on the Iranian nuclear deal and other top issues.

Today, Putin has calculated that taking Ukraine by force is in his and Russia’s interest.

He no doubt anticipated that the West would impose diplomatic and economic sanctions, which U.S. and European leaders threatened beforehand.

Putin may have miscalculated Ukrainian resistance and the intensity of the West’s opposition, but it doesn’t mean he is crazy, or didn’t consider the possibilities and chose to invade regardless.

It remains to be seen if Putin’s plan will succeed or fail, but what is clear is that there was a plan to invade Ukraine in force, and that plan has been executed since day one.

Ukrainian troops are putting up a valiant fight facing long odds and difficult conditions. Russia holds most if not all of the advantages.

It can, and has, attacked Ukraine from three different directions. The Russian military holds a decided advantage in manpower, as well as air, naval and armor superiority.

It has vast resources to draw on. While Ukraine has the support of much of the international community, which is providing weapons, Ukraine is fighting alone.

Believing Russia’s assault is going poorly may make us feel better but is at odds with the facts.

We cannot help Ukraine if we cannot be honest about its predicament.
Darkest days of Ukraine invasion lie ahead, U.S. and European officials say
Behind the scenes, U.S. officials have in recent days been telling U.S. allies that the situation in Ukraine will get very “ugly,” as one of them put it. Another said officials have increasingly given the sense of no “light at the end of the tunnel.”

These officials say Russia is likely to expand on the methods it has used in recent days: Targeting urban areas and inflicting more damage on civilian buildings and sites.

Fueling the dire predictions is the assessment by the West that Russia is not backing down but doubling down in the face of Ukrainian resistance.

“We’re seeing more assets and armor and others being brought up,” a European official said. “So we know they’ve got difficult days ahead.”

The Western intelligence official noted that in the early days of the invasion, Russia used lighter military units that were highly mobile but less able to support themselves for long periods, as well as spearhead units, special forces and airborne capabilities that could move quickly but don’t carry as much with them.

But now, the official said, “the concern we have is that they seem to be now bringing in heavier forces, with more armor, more long-range artillery, heavier weapons, that are not just more destructive in their nature, but frankly, are also less precise.”

Of Ukraine’s resistance so far, the official echoed what U.S. officials have said: “It’s great that they’re that brave, the military and the civilians. It’s awesome. But I’m not going to tell you that’s enough on its own.”


Ukraine Has Shown that Nationalism Can Be a Force for Good
In March 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BBC that Russia "is part of European culture," and he would not rule out the possibility of joining NATO. When NATO went to Afghanistan, Putin was happy. When Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania entered NATO in 2004, he even said that Ukraine could do so, stating, "It's none of my business."

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is creating an unexpected Western narrative in which politically correct pacifism is making way for a new ethic of courage that even requires weapons. Putin's arrogant invasion of Ukraine caused a lightbulb moment among Western leaders - that Ukraine had to do the obvious: defend itself and affirm its choice for Western democracy. What Ukraine has shown, and Europe may be starting to understand, is that nationalism can be a force for good and democracy.
Ukraine-Russia war: Zelensky disappointed with Israel's response
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky discussed on Thursday Israel's policy regarding the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia – something he said he was disappointed with.

"I expected greater support from Prime Minister [Naftali] Bennett," Zelensky told Ynet at an underground press conference in Kyiv.

The two spoke on the phone on Wednesday as Zelensky appealed directly to Israeli public opinion to help his country.

The call came soon after Zelensky released a statement in Hebrew calling for Jews of the world to speak out against the attacks on Ukraine.

The statement was a translation of part of Zelensky’s daily video statement, in which he cited Jewish sites struck by Russia in its assault on Ukraine. Releasing it in Hebrew is likely an attempt to appeal to Israeli public opinion; Korniychuk said earlier this week that he hoped that he hoped the Israeli public’s support for Ukraine would influence the government.

“I am now addressing the Jews of the world: don’t you see what is happening?” Zelensky asked. “That is why it is very important that millions of Jews around the world do not remain silent now.”
Babi Yar memorial said to be undamaged by Russian missile strike
The Babi Yar memorial was not damaged by the Russian missile strike, according to a Ynet reporterin Ukraine who visited the site on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, it was reported that Russian forces shelled an area in Kyiv next to Babi Yar - the site of a World War Two massacre of tens of thousands of Jews by German occupation troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries. The attack prompted outcry from many world leaders and organizations, including from Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ynet's reproter in Kyiv, however, said after visiting the site the memorial was not harmed and no bomb, missile or artillery shell hit the site itself.

The damage was caused to nearby Kyiv's communications and television tower complex, some 300 meters (400 feet) away from the new memorial and a kilometer (3,000 feet) from the old one.

The massive new site that was built with funding from Ukrainian and Russian affluent Jews, includes a large bronze memorial and many smaller ones, all in memory of the dead, including Ukrainians who were murdered in the area's swamps by the Nazis and their helpers. The Ukrainian government on Tuesday reported the site and the surrounding Jewish graves were damaged.

Three missiles - launched from aircraft flying above the cloud cover - did land around the compound surrounding the communications tower, causing great damage to buildings belonging to its administrators.


Israel Advocacy Movement: Does Ukraine Need De-Nazification?
Putin is justifying his brutal invasion of Ukraine by saying the country needs de-nazification. As Jews we felt we had to speak out against this spurious propaganda.


‘Get Out of Ukraine, You B*stard’: Holocaust Survivor in Kyiv Sends Defiant Message to Putin
Two Jewish women who survived the Nazi Holocaust in Ukraine as children were at the center of a defiant video message sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin that went viral on Thursday.

The video showed a group of people taking shelter in a basement in the capital Kyiv from the Russian onslaught outside. The two elderly women looked directly into the camera as they reminded Putin of the suffering of their families during the Holocaust, before demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.

Sitting in front of the flags of both Ukraine and Israel, Tamara Oleksiivna recalled that she had been born in 1939, the year Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

“All my Jewish relatives from my mother’s side were taken to Babi Yar,” she said, referring to the site of an infamous massacre just outside Kyiv in Sept. 1941 in which more than 30,000 Jews were slaughtered. “All of them died there.” The memorial at the site was hit by a Russian airstrike on Tuesday.

Pointing out that she was in Kyiv now — “and this year, it’s a horror” — Oleksiivna then turned her ire on Putin.

“Putin, I wish you would die,” she declared, in a voice breaking with emotion. “Leave us, leave us, you bastard. We don’t want to see you, we don’t want to hear you, we want peace!”

In the same video, Valentyna Romanova said that she had been born in Ukraine on June 22, 1941 — the day that Nazi Germany launched a ferocious assault against the Soviet Union.


Father of Israeli killed in Ukraine speaks to i24NEWS

300 Ukrainian Jewish Olim to Land in Israel on Sunday
More than 300 Jewish olim fleeing Ukraine will arrive in Israel on Sunday, March 6, in a joint operation led by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). Their arrival is made possible by donations from the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), Keren Hayesod, and support from donors and friends of Israel from around the world.

Minister of Aliyah and Integration Pnina Tamano-Shata, Acting Chairman of The Jewish Agency Yaakov Hagoel, and President and CEO of the IFCJ Yael Eckstein will be at Ben Gurion Airport to welcome the new Israeli citizens.

The Ukrainian Jewish refugees will arrive on three separate flights from Warsaw, Moldova, and Romania. The Romanian flight will depart from Iași, carrying 100 orphans thanks to the efforts of Chabad.

These olim escaped the harrowing fighting in Ukraine and were assisted by Aliyah (immigration to Israel) centers operated by The Jewish Agency and IFCJ in four bordering countries.

Immediately after landing at Ben Gurion Airport, the new olim will be under the care of the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. The Ministry’s teams will provide each immigrant with an extended benefits package and will arrange temporary housing in hotels across the country.
Israel Helps Rescue 100 Jewish Orphans From Ukraine
Around a hundred Jewish orphans successfully escaped the fighting in Ukraine on Tuesday, as part of a complex rescue operation that will ultimately see them relocated to Israel.

Several Israeli diplomats and officials were involved in the effort, with Jerusalem’s consul in Romania, Roni Shabtai, leading the way, Israeli news site Walla reported.

“When it was all over, I asked the security guards to move aside, I went between two buses, and I burst into tears,” Shabtai recounted. “I’m 57 years old and worked for 30 years in service of the state. I’ve had emotional moments in my career, but never anything like this.”

The operation required complex advance planning, since many of the children, who began their journey in the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr, did not have proper travel papers. They faced serious logistical problems exiting the country, with thousands of people streaming to land borders. The children ultimately had to walk long distances on foot in difficult weather conditions, including in temperatures below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and were stranded in the border area for six days before being successfully extracted.

“We went out to greet them from the Romanian side and the emotions were high to see the faces of the children,” said Shabtai. “I tell you this not just as the consul but as a human being, as a father. The oldest was maybe 12 years old, the youngest were two.”

The children were placed on buses after arriving at the border. They will be sent to the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca and from there to Israel.

Shabtai described the operation as emotional for “every Jew,” adding that it brings up “feelings that come from deep inside, from other eras and other places.”
Tel Aviv University offers full scholarships to Ukrainian students, academics
Tel Aviv University is offering dozens of scholarships to Ukrainian academics whose studies and research have been compromised due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has so far displaced over 1 million people.

The university announced the plan, totaling about NIS 1 million, on Thursday, as the conflict in Ukraine entered its eighth day with no end in sight.

The initiative invites Ukrainian students and researchers to spend the coming semester in Israel and continue their academic work at Israel’s largest university.

The scholarships offered by TAU include tuition as well as living expenses in Israel.

“TAU will soon contact the embassies in both Israel and Ukraine, as well as their academic colleagues, to facilitate the researchers’ arrival in Israel within the next few days,” read a statement issued by the university.

The academic institution referred to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “red flag requiring all of us to make an all-out effort to help the Ukrainian people, many of whom have become homeless refugees overnight.”

The university noted that as an institution that raises “the banner of academic freedom,” it is its responsibility to provide “our Ukrainian colleagues with immediate assistance.”


Doctors in Israel Care for Ukrainians 2,000 Km. Away
At Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, a doctor checks the lungs of a Ukrainian refugee who is 2,000 km. away, part of a new "virtual hospital" in Chisinau, the Moldavan capital, that has Israeli medical staff caring for people injured in Ukraine.

Prof. Gadi Segal, head of internal telemedicine at Sheba who is part of a delegation sent by United Hatzalah of Israel, said, "We learned during the pandemic how telemedicine can revolutionize medicine, and it's moving to be able to use it to treat the refugees virtually from Israel."
EXCLUSIVE: The Palestinian doctor stuck in Ukraine, Chabad helps out

Determined Leadership Everywhere but America: Open the Spigots, Open the EastMed Pipeline
Leadership starts at the top, and Zelenskyy's leadership -- even that of Europe -- stands in sharp contrast to the failed leadership coming from almost every corner of the Biden Administration.

The Biden Administration has been quick to join in on the sanctions and other measures targeting Russia, but note: Biden has joined, he has not led.

[T]he Biden Administration still refuses to reverse America's dependency on Russian oil and gas by increasing domestic production and opening pipelines at home. There also has been no move to close the gigantic loopholes that fail to sanction Russia's oil and energy sector...

Under Biden's leadership, we are experiencing policies that ask Americans to sacrifice and end up paying for Russia's aggression, rather than unleashing American ingenuity and creativity to meet the challenge.

Switzerland abandoned its famous neutrality to sanction Russia and freeze the legendary Swiss bank accounts of Russian oligarchs. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reversed course to close Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, now in bankruptcy, to Germany, and to bolster the German military. Sweden and Finland are seriously considering reversing long-held positions, in order to join NATO. Meanwhile the Biden Administration remains stuck on its policy of American energy dependency, even pulling the plug on the crucial EastMed gas pipeline to Europe from America's allies, Israel, Cyprus and Greece. The EastMed pipeline should be built without delay.

Let us see to it that Ukraine does become the end of the line for Putin, who has already accumulated a long trail of war crimes and other atrocities. Putin's Waterloo. We have been imposing only half-hearted financial sanctions, "riddled with loopholes" and not hitting Russia's oil and gas. We have passively been watching Putin's savage assault on Ukraine in real time his countless war crimes -- including "pummeling civilian areas" and reportedly using cluster and vacuum bombs -- as well as the humanitarian crisis he has unleashed. Let us hope that Biden shows real leadership and changes course so that America will no longer be reliant on Russia and China, regardless of the outcome. Now that would be in the best interests of the United States.
1 big thing: Behind the scenes of the UAE's Security Council vote
The Biden administration asked Israel three weeks ago if it could help mitigate possible natural gas shortages in Europe in anticipation of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, a senior Israeli official told me.

Why it matters: The U.S. outreach to Israel was part of a wider effort by the Biden administration to prepare for a scenario where a war in Ukraine could lead Russia to cut natural gas supply to Europe, which could cause a severe energy crisis. State Department officials say a disruption in energy supplies transiting Ukraine would most acutely affect natural gas markets in Europe. Driving the news: A senior Israeli official told me that several weeks ago, State Department officials approached the Israeli Ministry of Energy and asked if it would be possible to increase Israel's natural gas production. The U.S. officials wanted to check the possibility that Israel could deliver more natural gas to Egypt in order to process it there to liquid natural gas and ship it to Europe, the Israeli official said. The Israeli ministry asked Delek Group, an Israeli company that is a partner of the U.S. energy giant Chevron, if it could increase natural gas production, a source with direct knowledge told me. State of play: The senior Israeli official said the move hasn’t developed yet mostly because the amount of natural gas Israel can add to its current deliveries to Egypt is relatively small and wouldn't help much to address Europe's needs. What they're saying: A State Department spokesperson told me that, in the context of the Ukraine crisis, the Biden administration is working with countries and companies around the world to ensure the security of energy supplies and to mitigate against price shocks that could affect the U.S. and global economies. “We have been working to identify additional volumes of non-Russian natural gas from North Africa and the Middle East,” the State Department spokesperson said. He added that the U.S. is talking to major natural gas producers around the globe and with suppliers of liquid natural gas to understand their capacity and willingness to temporarily surge natural gas output and to allocate these volumes to European buyers.
MEMRI: Arab Press Articles Slam U.S., Europe: They Have Left Ukraine Alone In The Fray; This Proves We Cannot Trust U.S. To Help Us Confront Iran
In response to the war launched by Russia in Ukraine, Arab journalists slammed the U.S. and Europe for "abandoning this country to its fate" instead of coming to its aid. This conduct, they said, proves that the U.S. and Europe cannot be counted upon to defend their allies with military force in their hour of need. Many of the writers also expressed contempt for the West's decision to impose sanctions on Russia, stating that this measure has already proved to be ineffective. Many of the articles also stated that Russia's invasion of Ukraine reflects the severe decline of America's superpower status. This decline, they added, is caused by the U.S. itself, and in particular by the policy of Democratic administrations, formerly under Obama and now under Biden, which eschews using or even threatening to use military force against various elements, such as Iran, the Taliban, Russia and China. As a result, these elements have gained power and do as they please. The articles also claimed that the present crisis indicates that each country must develop its own military power, so as to rely only on itself in a time of crisis. According to one of them, the crisis proves to the Arab countries that the U.S. cannot be trusted to come to their aid in the case of an Iranian attack on them. The following are translated excerpts from some of these articles. Saudi Columnist: The U.S. And Europe, Who Ignored The Pleas Of President Zelensky, Cannot No Longer Be Relied Upon In his column in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, senior journalist Tariq Al-Homayed wrote that recent events prove that the world has changed and the U.S. and Europe can no longer be relied upon: "The world has definitely changed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, [which is] the first war to be launched against a democratic country in Europe since World War II. The [global] alliances will also change: Those who could be relied upon yesterday can no longer be trusted today, and the enemy of yesterday may now become an ally. "Our generation and the next one will have to face a clear truth, namely that the U.S. and Europe can no longer be counted on, [as evident from] momentous [recent] events, from Afghanistan to Ukraine. The world will never forget the images of the Afghans dropping off the sides of the American planes [as they took off], nor will it forget that the Ukrainian President begged 27 countries to [let] his country join NATO, but they ignored him, and that [now] he can find no-one to stand with him against the Russian invasion.
JCPA: The Palestinian Stance on the Invasion of Ukraine
The Palestinian leadership is hesitant to make declarations on Russia's military invasion of Ukraine. The PA and Hamas are much more sympathetic toward Russia than toward the U.S. On the one hand, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas does not want to lose the Biden administration's support for reopening the PLO offices in Washington and the American consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem. But, on the other hand, he also needs Russia's support for his initiative for an international peace conference. Abbas has long-standing ties with Moscow; some years ago, he claimed he had served as a KGB agent while earning his doctorate in Moscow. The Palestinians are well aware that Ukrainian President Zelensky is a Jew. In their view, he is also a Zionist who backed the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's united capital, as well as Israel's Guardian of the Walls Operation in Gaza in May 2021. Some Palestinians welcome the Russian army's invasion of Ukraine in the hope that it will lead to a new world order in which U.S. power and hegemony will decline. They want to see the U.S., Israel's strong ally, weakened, which would inevitably lead to Israel's weakening as well. On February 26, 2022, Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook tweeted: "One of the most important lessons of the Russian-Ukrainian war is that the era of America as the world's sole bulwark has come to an end." The Palestinian Authority needs Russia, but at the same time, it does not want trouble with Ukraine, where 2,500 Palestinians are currently living, mostly students.
Israel Joins in UN General Assembly Vote to Condemn Russian Invasion of Ukraine, 141-5
Israel was among 141 countries to condemn Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine in the UN General Assembly Wednesday and was among the dozens who co-sponsored the resolution. Five countries opposed the UN-backed resolution: Russia, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea and Belarus. Israeli Ambassador to the UN clapping after the UNGA condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, March 2, 2022. (credit: Israeli Mission to the UN) Of the UN’s 193 member states, 35 abstained including China, Cuba, India and Iran. Twelve were absent. After the resolution’s passage, Ambassador Gilad Erdan stood with the diplomats in the room who burst into applause. Erdan’s office distributed a video in which he can be seen standing and clapping. It’s the second such video the Israeli mission to the UN in New York has published that underscores Erdan’s strong support for Ukraine. On orders from Jerusalem, Erdan was prevented from delivering a speech in favor of the resolution at the plenum Tuesday, where Israel was represented by the country’s Deputy Ambassador Noa Furman. US President Joe Biden applauded the decision on Wednesday night, saying the condemnation "demonstrates the extent of global outrage at Russia's horrific assault on a sovereign neighbor and showcases unprecedented global unity. Her delivery of Israel’s condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be viewed as diplomatic downgrade of the statement, while Israel’s signature on the document itself on Wednesday upgraded the significance of the condemnation.
UN condemns Russia in 141-5 vote Russian FM Sergey Lavrov on Al-Jazeera: The West Is Responsible for the Ukraine Crisis
In a March 2, 2022 interview on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the West is responsible for the Ukraine crisis since NATO had expanded eastward since the dissolution of the USSR. He said: “The whole situation was caused by the West’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s equal rights in defining the security of Europe.” Lavrov said that the West is using and arming Ukraine in order to establish a “hostile belt” in Russian environs. In addition, he said that the U.S. and Britain have built military bases in Ukraine, and that the Pentagon built military biological laboratories in Ukraine as a part of a "secret American program" to build laboratories in former Soviet republics for experimenting “on various bacteria.” Moreover, Lavrov said that the Russian military's goal is to demilitarize Ukraine, and not to overthrow its regime, adding that “the Ukrainians themselves should make the decision once this conflict is over.” When asked if the world is on the verge of a third world war, Lavrov answered that this question should be directed at U.S. President Joe Biden, who he said has stated that a world war is the only alternative to sanctions on Russia. He added that Russia’s “Western partners” do not rule out the possibility of a third world war, which they surely must know “can only be nuclear.” The assertion that America placed biological laboratories in Ukraine was also recently made by Russian economist Valentin Katasonov (see MEMRI TV Clip No. 9403).
As Israel Saves Ukrainian Lives, Media Distort Jerusalem's Position on Russia Invasion
CNN's Christiane Amanpour slammed Israel for what amounts to the country's widely misunderstood approach to the invasion by Russia of Ukraine. While Israel has clearly come out in support of the Ukrainian people, Jerusalem must at the same time navigate a complex geopolitical reality. Russia is the leading actor in Syria, where the IDF must maintain freedom of action to thwart Iranian terrorism. Nevertheless, Israel has delivered at least 100 tons of aid to Ukraine, including vital medical supplies and various other forms of humanitarian assistance. Meanwhile, Jerusalem has helped rescue thousands of people from Ukraine -- including citizens of states that are hostile to Israel such as Lebanon. CNN's Amanpour is doing a disservice to the people of Ukraine by vilifying Israel, which is playing a key role in efforts to end the conflict.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: Ukraine Is a Victim of America’s Greedy Policies
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a March 1, 2022 address that was aired on IRINN TV (Iran) that Ukraine has fallen victim to the policies of the United States. He said that greed is the “foundation of life" in Western and American civilization, and that the American regime is a “mafia” that causes crises in order to increase its profits in the weapons trade. He added that Western civilization is a “modern jahiliyyah [pre-Islamic age of ignorance]” and that it is Iran's duty of Iran to fight against it like the Prophet Muhammad fought against the jahiliyyah of his time.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Society That Accepts Assaults/Boycotts On Jews Re Israel, Suddenly Worried About Mistreatment Of Russians Re Ukraine (satire)
Europeans who view attacks targeting synagogues and related community institutions as a legitimate form of protest against Jerusalem’s policies vis-à-vis Palestinians now find themselves anxious about tolerating harassment or violence upon immigrants, descendants of immigrants, or visitors from, the Russian Federation, and have so far failed to register the cognitive dissonance, observers report. Residents of Germany, France, Britain, and various Scandinavian countries, in addition to several other Continental locales, pivoted over the last several weeks from accepting violence and threats against Jews under the pretext of alleged Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights – with even at least one court judgment resulting in a lighter sentence because the accused offered that excuse – to agonizing over ill treatment of those of Russian heritage, because demonizing and abusing them for the actions of a country over whose decisions they exercise little or no control constitutes a bigotry that Europeans thought they had vanquished in their society long ago. “BDS!” yelled demonstrators last week near a Jewish community center in the southern French city of Marseilles, as if French Jews have anything to with a government a thousand miles away that implements the will of its voters, none of whom reside in France as citizens. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” they shouted, taking out their ire over the persistence of Jewish sovereignty in the ancestral Jewish homeland on a group of Jews who now require armed security at their community institutions because of BDS-related thuggery and terrorism. BDS advocates and allies in progressive movements across Europe voiced their worries that incidents of harassment of Russian-speakers, or of people with Russian-sounding names, not to mention companies making a show of dropping Russian products from their marketing, represents a dark stain on the morality of a continent that defeated Nazism in 1945 and was supposed to better than that.
MEMRI: Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan: Ukraine-Russia War Will Be Undoing of America and Russia
On February 27, 2022, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan delivered his annual Saviours' Day address, which was titled “The Swan Song.” The 4.5-hour address was streamed live on various platforms, and in it he discussed the COVID-19 vaccine, a Jewish plot against him, and the Ukraine-Russia war. He said that the Jews are the enemies of Jesus, that they trick people into sin, and that saying so is not antisemitic because it is written in the Bible. Farrakhan also claimed that the government had a plan to kill him that was meant to be carried out by his own people. He urged his audience not to take the COVID-19 vaccine because it is a "death plot" in line with the Kissinger Report, and he accused Bill and Melinda Gates of planning to use the vaccine to kill billions of people. In addition, he said that there is a “genocidal birth control plot” against blacks and that birth control is “poison.” Moreover, he said that President Biden is the “chief inviter for death” for blacks because he promotes the vaccine. Regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine, Farrakhan said that it was divine retribution against both America and Russia, adding: “[America] can’t win another war. Russia, this will be your undoing, too. You see all white power has to end.”




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