RETURN OF COLD WAR? IS UKRAINE ON THE EDGE OF CIVIL WAR? JEWISH COMMUNITY WATCHFUL, & ISRAEL KEEPS ITS DISTANCE

How the Ukrainian Crisis Impacts the Middle East: Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 3, 2014— Red Village rises up along the Qudiyal River like a Jewish Brigadoon.

Putin’s Dangerous Misadventure: A ‘Greater Russia’ or a ‘Great Russia?’: Aurel Braun, Globe & Mail, Mar. 3, 2014 — This extensive exhibition of more than 100 objects originated at the Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv and surveys more than 2,500 years of Jewish presence in Persia, known since the early 20th century as Iran.

Feeble Western Threats Won't Halt Putin: Matthew Fischer, Montreal Gazette, Mar. 3, 2014, 2014— When secret police opened fire on protesters near her home, Maia Morgenstern headed for the Jewish State Theater.

After Yanukovych, Maidan’s Next Fight Will Be To Preserve a Ukraine Safe for Minorities: Amelia Glaser, Tablet, Feb. 25, 2014 — Zionism, a polemical issue, still causes fiery debate amid Israeli and international politics and is seen by some as a movement, culture and mentality that is no longer viable in the current Israel.

On Topic Links

New 'Leaders' Pop Up Amid Upheaval in Eastern Ukraine: James Marson, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 2, 2014

President Obama’s Foreign Policy is Based on Fantasy: Washington Post, Mar. 2, 2014

As Russia Invades, Ukraine Jews Pray For Miracles: I24 News, Mar. 3, 2014
The Historical Ties Binding Crimea and Russia: Globe & Mail, Mar. 2, 2014

HOW THE UKRAINIAN CRISIS IMPACTS THE MIDDLE EAST     

Herb Keinon                                                                       

Jerusalem Post, Mar. 3, 2014

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu meets US President Barack Obama in the White House on Monday, he will be meeting a president preoccupied with the Ukrainian crisis, a crisis that some have called the most dangerous situation in Europe since the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Israel has no dog in this fight, and will try as best it can to stay out of it. Obviously it does not want to do or say anything that would antagonize the US, its greatest ally. But, likewise, it has no interest in doing or saying anything that would rile or alienate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Israel has a good and cordial relationship with Moscow, and – with Iran and Syria, two areas where Moscow has significant influence – does not want to unnecessarily irritate Putin.

Putin can, if he would want, make things much more difficult for Israel. That explains Jerusalem’s total radio silence regarding the crisis. Just as Brazil and Singapore are not issuing statements about the situation in the Crimean Peninsula, neither does Israel feel the need to get involved. Not only does Israel not have any vested interest in the fight – though obviously there is a concern for the Jews there, but those Jews have the opportunity to leave – but anything Israel would say on the matter has no real relevance. Obama, for instance, is unlikely to turn to Netanyahu and ask for some unequivocal statement on the matter, knowing that such a statement, even if it was forthcoming, would not really mean anything to anybody. And this is one area where, as far as Israel is concerned, the Ukrainian crisis is somewhat different from the Georgian crisis in 2008. Then the Georgian government did look for diplomatic support from Jerusalem, which had hitherto sold weapons to Georgia, and wanted it to exert some diplomatic pressure on Moscow. Those in charge now in Kiev have no such expectations.

Israel, like every other country in the world, is following the Ukrainian situation carefully. Jerusalem’s concern, however, is not only the possibility that the crisis there could trigger a full-blown war, but also that a revival of a Cold War-like rivalry between the US and Russia would harm Israel’s interests. With the P5+1 – which includes Russia and China along with the US, Britain, France and Germany – now engaged in sensitive negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, Israel is keen on Russia working together with the US, and not against it, on this issue. Worsening relations between Washington and Moscow could also have negative ramifications on other areas of great importance to Israel, such as the sale and delivery of “game changing” weapons to Syria, and their possible transfer to Hezbollah.

Putin may strike back at western responses to his Ukrainian moves – such as trade sanctions and kicking Russia out of the G8 – by actively undermining US and western policy regarding Iran, or working against the current diplomatic process with the Palestinians For more than a decade Israel and the US have agreed that when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, it is good to have Moscow “inside the tent” feeling a part of the process, rather than outside the tent feeling that the only way it could make its presence felt would be by causing mischief. That was part of the logic in including Russia as part of the Quartet – along with the US, EU and UN – in Middle East peacemaking.

If Russia wants to hit back at the US, thwart its moves, one place it could do so would be on the Israeli- Palestinian track. The Palestinians could also use increased US-Russian rivalry to stiffen their own positions. Up until now Moscow has stood on the sidelines as US Secretary of State John Kerry continued his efforts to broker a deal. But if the Palestinians are unhappy with what they think might emerge, they could conceivably now take more inflexible positions, knowing that Moscow might back them more than in the past, if for no other reason than to hinder US efforts. It is critical – from Israel’s vantage point – for the US and Russia to work together on Iran, and to be on the same page regarding the diplomatic process with the Palestinians. To get an idea of what happens when they work against each other in this region, all one needs to do is look at the current situation in Syria.

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PUTIN’S DANGEROUS MISADVENTURE:

A ‘GREATER RUSSIA’ OR A ‘GREAT RUSSIA?’                          

Aurel Braun

Globe & Mail, Mar. 3, 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy additional Russian military forces in Ukraine’s Crimea, combined with the unanimous vote of his rubber-stamp Federation Council to potentially allow the use of military force throughout Ukraine, looms as a stark demonstration of the Russian leader’s brazen flexing of military muscle in pursuit of his strategic goals. In reality, it is much more a sign of desperation and weakness, with Mr. Putin disoriented and fearful.

Just a few months ago Mr. Putin successfully bullied and bribed the now ousted corrupt and feckless president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, into forgoing his promise to sign the Eastern Partnership association agreement with the European Union. Instead Ukraine would move toward joining the Russian-controlled Eurasian Union which Mr. Putin views as the centerpiece of his legacy in his quest to restore Russia to superpower status by rebuilding a 19th-century style Russian Empire.

The “Maidan Revolution," which led to the truly ignominious collapse of Mr. Putin’s client regime in Kiev, has now put in jeopardy Mr. Putin’s entire dream of imperial restoration. Further, that revolution, in Mr. Putin’s perception, poses two specific great dangers. First, the new government in Kiev, built on the sacrifices of the Ukrainian people, may face down Russian pressure and might in the future put at risk Russia’s strategic position in the Crimea where Moscow has based its Black Sea fleet and from where it sends the vital military supplies that help keep the Syrian regime in power. Second, if the long-suffering Ukrainian people succeed in achieving their goal of building a modern society that guarantees the rights and dignity of Ukraine’s citizens in a prosperous and stable political order, this “Ukrainian virus” could well spread to Russia where opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has already suggested that a Russian “Maidan” is inevitable. That would be a direct danger to the increasingly repressive and often risible regime of Mr. Putin, which has long wasted its opportunities for desperately needed fundamental reform in favour of an odd mix of fantasy and increasingly limited reality, what we may call political magical realism, that too often entails an evasion rather than a resolution of key problems.

In the foreign policy version of this we are witnessing an attempt by Mr. Putin to use 19th-century style military imperialism to try and battle 21st century Ukrainian aspirations. He has responded to the sacrifices and dreams of the Ukrainian people for dignity, democracy, and prosperity with brutal intimidation and disruption. Moreover, he seems to believe that he can induce a kind of controlled chaos in Ukraine that would destroy the new government and force the country back on to a path that would both lead it to become a Russian vassal and pivotally aid Russian superpower restoration.

Though the Federation Council authorized the use of forces throughout Ukraine, Mr. Putin so far seems to be focused on Crimea where additional Russian forces have and are being deployed. He is undoubtedly though exploring his options in the rest of Ukraine. Mr. Putin seems to work under the belief that just as since 2009, when Washington’s failed “reset button” basically gave Russia a free pass on his 2008 invasion of Georgia, the West, rhetoric to the contrary, will remain largely disinterested and impotent. Sadly for Mr. Putin, though, the bane of international relations has often been misperception and many plans and policies have fallen victim to miscalculation. Though Mr. Putin may have acted with considerable impunity internationally and within Russia for a number of years this is more the result of Western disengagement rather than of genuine Russian power and efficacious policy.

Ukraine, moreover is not Georgia. It is a vast, strategically crucial, country with 46 million people, the majority of whom, despite Russian-inspired and emboldened disruptions in Donetsk, Kharkiv, or Mariupol, (where there are predominately Russian-speaking Ukrainians), have not sacrificed so much to again become vassals of Moscow. The acting President of Ukraine and its new Prime Minister have ordered full military mobilization and the safeguarding and security of Ukrainian airports, nuclear facilities, and strategic sites and warned conditions are “on the brink of disaster”. They indicated that that there would be mass resistance to a Russian attempt to take over the country.

Furthermore, the 1994 treaty that was signed by Russia, the UK, and the U.S., which bound all to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty places legal obligations on the West, and Ukraine’s government has called on the U.S. to help. U.S. President Barack Obama has characterized Russian actions a “violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty” and warned that “there will be costs” and Secretary of State John Kerry has labelled Moscow’s moves as an “incredible act of aggression”.

Perhaps the West will not go beyond rhetoric, but it should be kept in mind that today Russia is but a pale remnant of the Soviet Union with a uni-dimensional economy and a per capita GDP roughly that of Barbados. Its economy is increasingly stagnant and large-scale political dissatisfaction in many parts is smouldering just beneath the surface. Ensnared in his own political fantasy, Mr. Putin has failed to transform Russia into a modern state, has wasted vast resources, missed all historic critical opportunities, and depleted Russian international prestige by trying to save the murderous Syrian government, defend Iran’s genocidal regime, and coddle Belarus’ repugnant dictatorship. Russia is very vulnerable to economic sanctions and international ostracism.

There is an alternative though to confrontation and escalation. “Losing Ukraine” could be a blessing in disguise for Mr. Putin if he were to give up his delusionary imperial ambitions and focus instead on transforming Russia itself into a modern democratic state that the Russian people deserve and would welcome. Rather than try to prevent a Russian “Maidan” through repression, Mr. Putin could change tack and try to create a Russia on par, for example, with Japan. In short, Mr. Putin could opt for a “Great Russia” rather than a “Greater Russia.” If he continues to insist on the latter, however, his sordid military adventure in Ukraine is likely to bring nothing but grief for everyone, including the people of Russia.                                                                                          

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FEEBLE WESTERN THREATS WON'T HALT PUTIN                        

Matthew Fischer                                                  

Montreal Gazette, Mar. 3, 2014

The military conquest of Crimea by Russian President Vladimir Putin's armed forces continued to be a straightforward, bloodless walkover on Sunday. With Russian forces operating freely in Crimea, Ukraine's caretaker prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, put Ukrainian forces on "red alert" on Sunday and warned that if Russia seized more territory, that would be considered "a declaration of war against my country." With Ukraine on what he termed "the brink of disaster," Yatsenyuk appealed to the West for immediate help to counter the Russian forces.

There seemed to be no chance of that. Stunned western leaders and diplomats blustered and issued feeble threats again Sunday as Putin's military juggernaut completed its stranglehold on the Black Sea peninsula. With western nations paralyzed by what has so far happened in Ukraine, Putin warned U.S. President Barack Obama that he would broaden the invasion to include mining cities in northeastern Ukraine such as Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv if Russia found it necessary "to protect its own interests and those of Russian speakers," the official RIA/Novosti news agency reported from Moscow. Such an action could lead to Ukraine breaking in two. Were that to happen, with lots of Ukrainians all over eastern Ukraine and some Russians in the west of the country, there would certainly be violent recriminations and quite possibly civil war.

Speaking with residents of Kyiv and Sevastopol, it already seems as if Ukraine is two countries, not one, with ferocious rhetoric emanating from both sides. "The people of western Ukraine are the grandchildren of those who betrayed us by collaborating with the Nazis," said Yuri Kovalenko who signed up with the Organization for the Defence of Crimea, which sprung up when Ukraine's ousted pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled on Feb. 22 after several days of bloody street battles between his security forces and activists who want Ukraine to cast its lot with western Europe. Outside the self-defence headquarters in an industrial college on Sevastopol's Sovietskaya Street, large groups of men gathered to denounce "the fascists" who now ran things in Kyiv. "Russia has come to defend us and it makes us happy," said Yuri Stupin, who worked for two years as a truck driver in Toronto.

But it was difficult to see who the Russian forces, or their allies in the ragtag civil defence unit, might have to defend Crimea from, as there has not been a whiff of opposition to them anywhere in Sevastopol. "We have not seen the enemy here," spokesman Stanislav Nagoril said. "But we see them on TV all the time. Our volunteers must be ready to defend ourselves against any provocateurs." Nagoril went to great lengths to refute the notion that Crimeans were separatists. "We are citizens of Ukraine and what we want is the return of our democratically elected government." Why then, he was asked, was he standing under a Russian flag, which had been raised when the Ukrainian flag had been taken down. "That isn't the flag of another country," he said, referring implausibly to the Russian tricolour. "It is the flag of Russian-speaking people everywhere."

In a new development Sunday, thousands of Ukrainian sailors and soldiers were locked inside their own bases across Crimea by Russian troops or by pro-Russian Crimeans apparently acting in close concert with them. One of the last Ukrainian military installations that Russian troops surrounded was an army base at Perevalnoye, about a two-hour drive to the north of Sevastopol, where Ukrainian and Russian troops stared grimly at each other from a distance of only a few metres. By the terms of a treaty with Ukraine signed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has the right to moor its Black Sea Fleet and base about 6,000 sailors and marines at or near Sevastopol until 2042. But that lease agreement specifically forbade Russia from deploying forces elsewhere in Crimea or to bring in more troops from Russia without the Ukrainian government's consent. The tactics at Perevalnoye were virtually an exact repeat of what happened one day earlier at Balaklava, where 300 Russian marines backed by armoured personnel carriers seized the storied port from which survivors of the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade made their way home to England in 1854.

The Russian troops that occupied Balaklava actually wore black balaclavas similar to those worn by British troops during the Crimean War. Where today's Russian troops at Balaklava were later ordered to move to was not known, but it could not have been far. Crimea is only half the size of Nova Scotia. Ukraine's top sailor, Denis Berezovsky, who had only held the job for two days, defected Sunday. He was shown on local television swearing allegiance to the new Crimean navy, which he will now lead. It was the first high-level defection from the Ukrainian armed forces. Ukraine's immediate response was to charge Berezovsky with treason. Despite reports in the Russian media of mass defections, it does not appear that many members of Ukraine's armed forces have yet walked away or switched sides. Among the military facilities that local self-defence groups laid siege to on Sunday were the Ukrainian navy's headquarters in Sevastopol. Closely watched by about 20 pro-Russia Crimeans, the distraught mother of a Ukrainian officer arrived at the headquarters with bottles of water for her son because there were none available inside. Until now, her son had decided to stand his ground on what is one of last vestiges of sovereign Ukrainian territory in Crimea.

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AFTER YANUKOVYCH, MAIDAN’S NEXT FIGHT WILL BE TO                       PRESERVE A UKRAINE SAFE FOR MINORITIES                          

Amelia Glaser                                                                              

Tablet, Feb. 25, 2014

Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti—Independence Square—is a 20-minute walk from where I lived a decade ago. I was a graduate student, researching the historical interaction between the region’s subcultures—especially Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians. I arrived expecting, from my readings on 19th- and even 20th-century Ukraine, these groups to be isolated from one another, and yet their circles, in an independent and rapidly modernizing Ukraine, overlapped. It was a country where the late actor Bogdan Stupka could move audiences by playing Tevye the Dairyman—in Ukrainian. In 2004, during the Orange Revolution—triggered by protests against a fraudulent election “won” by Viktor Yanukovych—my Ukrainian friends demonstrated alongside Boris Naumovich, an octogenarian veteran of the Red Army with whom I practiced speaking Yiddish. Now, a decade later, an equally diverse coalition has turned out for the past three months again to protest Yanukovych, who over the weekend was ousted from the presidency he took over in 2010, and who appears to have fled to the Crimea.

In independent Ukraine the region’s historically disparate ethnic narratives have converged to allow for a cosmopolitan coexistence. But conflicts on Ukrainian squares have historically reopened divides among the country’s ethnic minorities. In 1881, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by revolutionaries led to the first major outbreak of pogroms against Jews. The failed 1905 revolution led to another wave of attacks. Literary accounts of the 1918-21 Ukrainian civil war describe the escalation from revolutionary protests to anti-Semitic violence. A voice from a chaotic crowd in Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard, set in Kiev in 1918, comes to mind: “We should go to the bazaar and beat up some Jews.”

It appears that those aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin are happy to stir up those old enmities. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has angrily called the leaders of the Ukrainian Maidan movement “armed extremists” and accused them of committing pogroms against the police. Over the weekend, Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, of Kiev’s Chabad synagogue, urged Jews to leave the city and has even reached out to Israel’s Soviet-born Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, asking for support in the event of anti-Semitic attacks. It would be convenient for Vladimir Putin if the protesters who have been in Kiev’s Maidan and on city squares across Ukraine all winter could be universally characterized as right-wing, anti-Semitic, ethnic supremacists—and, more to the point, if antagonism toward the country’s Jews could be shown to predominate in the country’s west, positioning Russia as the guarantor of their safety in the East. Make no mistake: It is indeed true that portraits of the Ukrainian nationalist hero Stepan Bandera hang near the Kiev barricades, and that some nationalists have been involved in the current revolution. It is also true that over the weekend a synagogue in eastern Ukraine was hit by fire bombs. But some reports suggest that much of the street violence that has occurred has been initiated by so-called Titushki—thugs hired to turn a peaceful protest violent—and that many of the deaths last Thursday were at the hands of snipers who shot at unarmed protesters. Last week’s escalation of violence helped Russia to justify making official announcements calling on the leaders of the “square” to “end the bloodshed on their end.”

The scene that activists in both the West and the East of Ukraine describe involves diversity without ethnic violence. The Maidan demonstrators have been protesting not only Yanukovych, but also those who would like to see the country divided in two, which would both drastically weaken Ukraine and bolster a Russian imperial presence in the region. The Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin has suggested, “Moscow should get actively involved in the reorganization of the Ukrainian space in accordance with the only logical and natural geopolitical model.” Both the governor of the eastern Kharkiv region, Mikhail Dobkin, as well as the mayor of the city of Kharkiv, Gennadyi Kernes, are of Jewish origin, and both have joined Russian proponents of a division of Ukraine into eastern and western segments. Some Internet trolls have made anti-Semitic slurs, but the leaders of the Maidan movement have not. A great number of protest organizers across Ukraine are Jewish intellectuals: artists, teachers, and academics among others, of varying ages. On Monday, Vadym Rabynovych, the president of the Ukrainian Jewish Congress and owner of the TV channel Jewish News 1, issued a statement characterizing the protesters’ relationship to the Jewish community as “tolerant and peaceful” and suggesting that claims to the contrary are merely provocations. Many prominent Jews have come out in support of the Maidan movement, among them the oligarch Victor Pinchuk, the journalist Vitaly Portnikov, and the artist Alexander Roitburd. My friend and colleague Anatoliy Kerzhner wrote to me of the pointed inclusion of Jewish events on the Maidan platform: Rabbi Hillel Cohen of one of the city’s Orthodox synagogues offered a prayer for peace, the Pushkin Klezmer Band performed Yiddish songs, and scholars lectured about Ukrainian Jewish history.

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –ed.]

New 'Leaders' Pop Up Amid Upheaval in Eastern Ukraine: James Marson, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 2, 2014 —The Kiev government appointed a billionaire metals tycoon as governor of this industrial town some 100 miles from the Russian border Sunday, but Pavel Gubaryev says that job is already his.

President Obama’s Foreign Policy is Based on Fantasy: Washington Post, Mar. 2, 2014 —For five years, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality.

As Russia Invades, Ukraine Jews Pray For Miracles: I24 News, Mar. 3, 2014 —Ukraine's Jewish leaders added their signatures Sunday to an urgent letter by religious organizations calling on Russia to pull its troops out of the country.
The Historical Ties Binding Crimea and Russia: Globe & Mail, Mar. 2, 2014 —Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, where pro-Russian sentiment parallels suspicion of the Western-leaning interim government in Kiev, has been fought over and occupied and fitted out with garrisons as far back as Roman times in the first century AD.