Epitome Of Hypocrisy: The Israeli Goose & The Russian Gander
by Gerald A. Honigman
So, it appears that the Russians–whose country is the largest in the world, even after the breakup of much of the former Soviet Union–have joined the international chorus of hypocrites assailing Israel. To create their enormous nation, numerous non-Russian peoples were conquered and had their lands annexed in the name of Russian national security.
Covering an area of almost seven million square miles, Russia includes nine different time zones and shares land borders with 14 adjacent countries. Its moves to absorb Ukraine’s Crimea are just the latest (renewed) examples of how Russia views the importance of its own interests–and to hell with everyone else.
Israel National News included a Reuters news organization report on July 4th (Happy Independence Day USA!) that Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, welcomed a pledge of unity between Fatah and Hamas against Israel’s plans to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/282972
And sovereignty is indeed the correct term.
Judeans don’t “annex” Judea–this isn’t Brits in the Falkland Islands; Arabs in Amazigh/”Berber” North Africa, black African Sudan, Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan; the native Copts’ Egypt; and so forth https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13420
I have a question for my Christian friends: Was Jesus born in Bethlehem of Judea–or in Bethlehem of Palestine or the “West Bank”? Check the Gospel of Matthew if you forgot …certainly not Zionist propaganda.
Look at a Roman coin of conquest minted upon suppression of the first major revolt of the Judeans–Jews–for freedom in 66-73 C.E. http://q4j-middle-east.com. Or read what ancient Roman historians knew the land and its people as in the following excerpts from Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus, one of the most important of the ancient Roman sources. Pliny, Dio Cassius, the Roman-sponsored Judean historian, Josephus, and others provide similar accounts:
“It inflamed Vespasian’s ire that the Jews were the only nation which had not submitted…Titus was appointed by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea…he commanded three legions in Judaea itself…To these he added the twelfth from Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria…amongst his allies were a band of Arabs, formidable in themselves and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity usually subsisting between neighboring nations” https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/59239/a-plague-of-coleitis-in-academia-on-juan-cole .
Do those nations now assailing Jews for insisting that they’ll never return to the 9-15 mile wide sardine can state, that the ’49 UN-imposed Auschwitz/armistice lines left their nation as after it was attacked immediately upon rebirth in May 1948, have anything like such claims to lands that they’ve taken themselves hundreds or thousands of miles away in the name of their own interests?
The territorial compromise built into the final draft of UNSC Res. 242 in the wake of the June1967 war still holds the key to any real peace between Arabs and Jews. Asking the latter to sacrifice themselves on the petroleum-greased altar of international hypocrisy for the creation of a 22nd Arab state–second in the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine (today’s Jordan was gifted with almost 80% of the total in 1922) is a non-starter. And this is what the settlement and “annexation”/sovereignty issues are largely all about.
Now back to the Russians…There are certain verbal expressions which clarify specific situations. You’ll see one below.
On January 18, 2011, America and Russia took steps to recognize that Arab 22nd state, following the collapse of the then latest round of Obama Administration Jew arm-twisting (“negotiations”) in Washington.
During a visit to latter day Arafatians-in-suits (the PLO/Palestinian Authority) in Jericho–Russian President Medvedev reiterated his country’s recognition of that Arab second state in Palestine. Arab nationalism is permitted many different subspecies, while scores of millions of other native peoples in the region are permitted none. Check here for further enlightenment https://ekurd.net/arabism-zionism-journeys-2019-01-12 .
It was noted that Medvedev’s stopover was the first time a major world leader visited the PA without traveling to Israel first–giving evidence to support his words.
Perhaps none of this would have been intrinsically wrong…except that the additional Arab state that Moscow and others are gifting recognition to (while some 40 million Kurds remain stateless) still refuses to grant Jews, in one tiny state which sits on about 11% of the original 1920 Mandate’s land, that same recognition and requires a magnifying glass to find on a world globe.
To date, the allegedly moderate, latter-day Arafatians of Mahmoud Abbas have stated they’ll never recognize Israel–regardless of how much land it concedes–as a state of the Jews. And they’ve called negotiations with Israel simply a “Trojan Horse.” Check out what they say in Arabic to their own folks–not to willingly gullible Dhimmi cash cows in the West.
Furthermore, the Arab openly-admitted plan, since the failed attempt at Israel’s destruction in 1967, has been one which they dubbed the destruction-in-phases scenario: first force Israel back, via “negotiations,” to its pre-’67, 9-15 mile wide, ’49 armistice line (not border) existence, and then move in for the kill when the time is ripe. And the time gets riper by the day as Israel gets surrounded by even more heavily-armed surrogates of Iran and others as well.
Arafat called this “the Peace of the Quraysh,” the temporary cessation (hudna) in warfare Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, granted Meccan enemies in the 7th century C. E. until he was ready to deliver the final blow. His allegedly more “moderate” successors also call it their Trojan Horse, as noted above. Add to this the Arab demand that Israel allow itself to be inundated by millions of real or alleged Arab refugees, and the picture becomes complete. By the way, the above were all part of the alleged Saudi “peace (of the grave) plan” that the Obama Administration insisted that Israel accept.
As seen in the beginning of this analysis, it now appears that–despite President Putin’s alleged friendship (while supplying murderous enemies with sophisticated means to attack it)–Moscow still apparently insists that Israel return to its pre-’67, ultra-vulnerable, existence, and backs this up by recognizing a PLO/PA state on the east side of ’49 armistice lines.
So……..Given this reality, perhaps it’s long overdue that Israel do likewise in the Caucasus Mountains and declare its own support of the Russian-conquered Chechen people.
As noted earlier, Russian imperialism engulfed many different peoples throughout Asia and elsewhere, especially during the 18th century. The Soviet Union would later do likewise in Europe. Chechnya has periodically been in revolt against expansionist, annexationist, colonialist Russian conquerors ever since.
The Russians have slaughtered countless Chechens over the years whose overall general crime was to simply want freedom from Moscow.
Some Chechens have resorted to terrorism in response, and kidnapping and lawlessness have become too commonplace in the land. Additionally, warring factions (reminiscent of other lands where positive nationalism has not been allowed to take root) add to this picture of the legacy of Russian conquest.
Unlike Arab nationalism in its various stripes, the Chechen people–like Jews before, the Kurds and Imazighen (“Berbers”) today, and others as well–do not yet have one independent state, let alone almost two dozen.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, temporary independence was proclaimed, but Moscow squashed that hope throughout the late 1990s. Horrendous acts of terrorism, committed by Chechens in response, only backfired on the cause of the people in whose name atrocities were committed. Some misguided folks will draw parallels between the above and Israel and its assorted Arab enemies. But there are very crucial differences…
For starters, how does a nation like Russia–which conquered and annexed vast territories and peoples–dare tell Israel that its desire for a territorial compromise in lands in which Jews have thousands of years of history (unlike the Russians) is “expansionist colonialism?” Those who live in glass houses should definitely not be throwing stones–and the Russian house is indeed one of the most transparent.
Fatah and Hamas are Arab factions determined to destroy Israel–one sooner, the other later. They are, nonetheless, Arabs…and while there are differences between Arabs, there are also differences between Jews–and so forth.
Perhaps Jews, playing the same Arab game, should demand multiple states for themselves too because of their own differences. There are more Jews (as just one of many examples) in Israel, France, the Americas, and elsewhere whose origins are in North Africa than Arabs who got to have independent states in Kuwait and the Gulf Emirates.
While it’s understandable that Arabs–given their own annexationist, “purely Arab patrimony” mindset towards the region–refuse to recognize the rights of Jews (half of whom in Israel were refugees from the “Arab”/Muslim world) and others, this doesn’t mean that their attitude is not morally nauseating. Think about what had/has been occurring in the Sudan’s south and west in Darfur province as another example.
With few exceptions, there is no question, in Arab minds, that the new state(s) they demand will, one way or another, replace Israel–not live peacefully beside it. Official Arab websites, maps, textbooks, media, sermons, children television shows, and so forth leave no doubt about this–regardless of the sweet talking and taqiyya practiced on an all-too-willingly-gullible West. Mahmoud Abbas pays $ millions to award his folks for such heroic deeds as decapitating Jewish infants asleep in their own homes.
Again, Chechens don’t have one state, let alone dozens, and their resort to extremism should no more exclude Chechnya from independence from annexing Russians than the frequent barbarism committed against non-Arabs by Arabs have affected the latters’ own political quests.
What’s good for the Israeli goose must indeed be good for the Russian gander…