Russia Plays the Anti-Semitism Card

[Behind the Aegis]

When the Serbs and Croats were involved in conflict in the early 1990s, prior to the Balkan war spreading to Bosnia, the Jewish community in America was getting calls from Serbian Jews urging our communal defense organizations to support the Serbs because of Croatian treatment of its Jews during the Holocaust.

We responded that it is indeed true that Croatian behavior during the Holocaust was among the worst in Europe, but that did not justify what Milosevic, the Serbian ruler, was doing to stoke conflict. Eventually, when ethnic cleansing in Bosnia became a central theme of the Yugoslav conflict, we spoke out forcefully.

I think of that now as the situation in Ukraine deteriorates. There is no doubt that Ukraine, like Croatia, was one of those places where local militias played a key role in the murder of thousands of Jews during World War II. It is also true that anti-Semitism has by no means disappeared from Ukraine. In recent months there have been a number of serious anti-Semitic incidents and there are at least two parties in Ukraine, Svoboda and Right Sector, that have within them some extreme nationalists and anti-Semites.

Having said that, it is pure demagoguery and an effort to rationalize criminal behavior on the part of Russia to invoke the anti-Semitism ogre into the struggle in Ukraine. In fact, it is fair to say that there was more anti-Semitism manifest in the worldwide Occupy Wall Street movement than we have seen so far in the revolution taking place in Ukraine.

more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abraham-h-foxman/russia-plays-the-anti-sem_b_4966730.html

[Behind the Aegis]

2. .

[Purveyor]

3. Nope and I'll self delete. Nighty, night.

[11cents]

4. Russia invites EU far-right to observe Crimea vote

"The Russian government has invited some of Europe's far-right parties to observe this weekend's referendum in Crimea.

The leader of France’s National Front party, Marine Le Pen, told press at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on
Wednesday (12 March) that her executive has not yet decided whether to go.

The Austrian Freedom party, a National Front ally, also got an invitation."

http://euobserver.com/news/123453

On Twitter, the journalist Laura Rozen asked how the Putin government had made these ties with the EU far-right. Someone answered by pointing her to this blog posting:

http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.ca/2013/12/european-extreme-right-and-russian.html

As the author and Rozen herself said, the allegations about the Russian government actually funding EU far-right parties are unproven. But that EU far-right movements are enthusiastic about Putin and support his policies is just an overt fact. Hardly surprising, given the nature of the Putin regime: nationalistic, racist, homophobic, allied with the most reactionary elements of the national church. For neo-fascists and extreme nationalists, what's not to love?

For the so-called "leftists" and "progressives" who find themselves in bed with these people, though -- well, they're never going to admit the implications, because doing so would reveal the vacuousness of their ideology and supposed principles. ("Vacuous" may be too generous for some.)

So cute to see them wringing their hands about antisemitism though. Thank you for your concern.