We are at a turning point and we have the opportunity to make the post-Ukraine world a better one with better values and ideologies and leadership by better people.
This is part Two of a two-part series. Part One is entitled Leadership in a Time of Crisis: Israel and America
“The presidency is not merely an administrative office…It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”-Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is… not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.”- Vladimir Putin
For many years now War has been an alien concept in the West, especially for the Woke Left. When it came to Afghanistan, President Biden knew his base would not object if he just pulled out the troops, leaving American allies to their fate, and gifting billions of dollars of military equipment to the Taliban. Perhaps war was seen as something America was unsuccessful in, and should avoid at all costs.
For many years the West does not judge leaders, their own or others, by the Biblical standards of morality. The last time we did so was after the 1991 to 1999 wars in the Balkans where Slobodan Miloševi? and Radovan Karadži? were tried for war crimes. One can be cynical and note that in conflict, the winners get power and wealth and the losers get war crime trials.
After Vietnam, Americans simply refused to see the wars around them, especially those in Africa or other parts of the “Third World”. With a viewpoint that sees conflict in the context of “power” relationships, the West could ignore much of what should have been obvious. For example there is a very definite war by radical Islam (termed the “Islamists”) against the rest of the world. Its focus has been in Africa and especially countries that bordered the Muslim world.
The West has opened its borders to those from a culture of rape, terrrorism and hostility to women, gays, Christians, and (most of all) Jews. The West ignored the long history of genocidal practice and intent by Islamists and the radical Leftists against Israel. The West has refused to even do a proper vetting of those Muslims who wish to perfect the demographic war by Islamists in the West, which war is actively promoted by our universities and some media.
One egregious example is Angela Merkel who imported from Syria close to a million young single men and then had to live with the consequences of rapes and other sexual assaults by the immigrants who sought to carry into the West their culture of rape. The Germans, most in the world, should understand that culture and ideology were the foundations of the Third Reich just as they are today for terrorism and genocide.
Who in the West in the last dozen years cares much about the war on the Yazidis, the Chinese war on the Uyghurs, the war against Israel by Hamas and Iranian proxy Hezbollah?. Who speaks out for the African Christians and others kidnapped, terrorized and murdered by Islamist thugs from Africa? Who cares about the Islamist war in the Phillipines or Iran’s explicit threats since at least 1996 to acquire nuclear weapons and use them against the more than six million Jews in Israel at the same time as they manipulate history to claim that there were not six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust?
To the secular West, war was viewed as the practice of religious zealots, not woke Western elites. And so, ignoring all context, and imputing racist motives to white males only, our elites have been fighting a “culture war” – where diversity and inclusion, and cultural relativism and moral equivalency have become the lenses through which our cultures view the world. Spending on defense was for reprobates like Trump even though military strength is our best defense against war.
There is no understanding and little empathy in the West for Israel’s situation of having to fight wars almost continuously against Arabs and Iranians who quite clearly advance their position that Israel is illegitimate and must be destroyed.
Not understanding the real world, our ideologues turned their attention to implementing Critical Race Theory, miseducation of children especially in their moral education, now replaced by woke promotion of the LGBTQ agenda, transgenderism, BLM, and the bizarre hatred evidenced in Israel Apartheid (sic) Weeks.
American President Joseph Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won elections notwithstanding multiple known ethical breaches. Don’t people care anymore?
The policies of the Biden Administration have been exactly wrong in every area and, looking at recent polls showing rapidly declining support for the Democrats, that has become apparent to the population now inflicted with inflation due to runaway spending, an open border at the south, defunding police, no bail policies for even dangerous criminals, homelessness in wealthy cities, abuse of process against Trump and his supporters when no legal process was commenced against the BLM rioters and murderers – and giving priority to attempts to control the climate and adopt “green” policies promoted by a now-famous 17 year old girl and self-serving members of the plethora of NGOs to employ the otherwise unemployable over-production of unskilled university graduates.
Our young people would benefit from the study of moral leadership, and that study should include such leaders as Winston Churchill. It should also include studying the very worst of leaders in America.
It is my contention that the evil invasion of Ukraine by the Russians and their evil dictator and, especially, the moral turpitude of bombing civilian residences and laying waste to a beautiful country, may well become a turning point in the ideological confusion of the West. That confusion was based on secularism and a turning away by Christians and Jews from Biblical notions of good versus evil. When we become loath to judge the character of leaders on the basis of biblical standards, there are repercussions. Why did Americans vote for a corrupt politician like Biden who, together with his son Hunter, were obviously corrupt? Why are we so little interested in how it is our politicians leave office with ten times the amount of their entire accumulated salary?
For our populations, from young to old, never experienced the Second World War with its bombing, massive land battles, its Holocaust, of little interest to most of the world as it happened, and the Allies’ eventual victory, which in Japan was the product of nuclear bombs. When I was a child in the 1950s, the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba and President Kennedy’s ultimatum were enough to make us all fearful of nuclear world war between the only two countries then possessing such weapons. Yet today when North Korea and China are armed to the hilt and yawns are the reaction to a treaty with Iran allowing it to get nuclear weapons in less than a decade even though it has not respected the previous treaty – and has in fact promised to use its eventual nuclear weapons against Israel and then the United States – these threats are of little interest.
The War on Ukraine, however, may be the catalyst for change – where the world will pay more attention to evil dictators. We should abandon what I call “tolerism” – the virtue signaling excessive tolerance of evil.
Evil regimes now understand that controlling the flow of information, from television cameras to social media, is an essential part of the propaganda war attached to every conflict. Evil countries, like evil people, know that the manipulation of images is the first step in public relations victories. Think of the fake images used against Israel – where the photo of an alleged injured Palestinian youth held down by an Israeli soldier was in fact the photo of an injured Yeshiva student from Chicago; or where the supposed convoy of dead Palestinian Arabs covered with sheets was exposed when the men carrying one “body” tripped and the fellow under the sheet ran off.
But such lies and immoral practices are harder to produce when reporters are embedded in wars in the West – Ukraine being the center of attention. Now every person with a cell phone is a reporter, so every massacre can be witnessed by dozens of people, from every angle, although technological manipulation in the aid of fake news is possible.
With respect to professional journalists, Russia is disallowing free reporting. For example, journalists are not supposed to call the war by the accurate word, “war” but are to term it a “special military operation” to “demilitarize and de-Nazify” Ukraine.
Americans and Europeans alike are aghast at Putin’s invasion – but even more so at the war crimes of attacking residential buildings, hospitals and the like. Even old nuclear contaminated sites like Chernobyl have been disturbed and newer nuclear sites are not off-limits to the Russians, who may now control the largest nuclear power plant in the country..
Even though Ukraine has a good army, it is much dwarfed by the size and weapons of Russia. The fact that most Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 are mandated to stay in the country and fight, and that everyday Ukrainians are using rifles against tanks and students are manufacturing molotov cocktails useful only in a lengthy occupation and insurgency, has captured the opinion of those in the West who have never before seen Europeans, that is, the West, in full view of the cameras, fight a very bloody war. The fact that President Zelenskyy vowed to stay in the country and lead the David versus Goliath fight has resulted in an emotional groundswell of support for the Ukrainians.
Ukraine itself is not without blemishes, to put it mildly. Antisemitism and murderous pogroms in the late 19th century and early 20th century drove hundreds of thousands of Jews to emigrate to America and Canada – and that was preceded by the Cossack massacres. The Ukrainians were as vicious as the Nazis and volunteered to help run death camps. Zelenskyy is himself Jewish and had family members, including a grandfather, killed by the Nazis, Those knowledgable about modern day Ukraine know of the corruption there, and the hightest number of neo-Nazis in all of Europe. That is why Putin said one of the reasons for the invasion was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. But this is not relevant to the supporters of Ukraine, who see this like a rationale for controlling Covid by the murder of its carriers.
The majority of the secular west, has not often seen people who are so willing to take up small arms and fight to the end. That way of understanding nationhood is unknown in our increasingly globalist world. And the students whose passion and justice-seeking has been corrupted by the professors and media elites turning their attention to Israel, are perhaps being re-educated to understand the evil side are in fact those who invade and kill, not those who seek to protect by walls or military operations against those invaders.
When Putin says Russia and Ukraine are one country, whether the Ukrainians like it or not, that is the equivalent of Arabs saying all of Israel is their country and they are, like Putin, willing to do whatever it takes to enforce that.
It is now known that Russia conspired with its new best friend, China, to delay the start of the invasion until after the winter Olympics. While the West was asleep and while Western businessmen and politicians cemented close relationships with China, China has amassed huge assets and influence around the world, including American farmland. Now it seems to many that China will use the present geopolitical situation to finally attack and subdue Taiwan. It is hard to argue with those who warn that economic sanctions against the invaders must not transition to military conflict between nuclear powers. But the lines are not clear. Russia is said to be using cluster bombs and thermobaric weapons, which, if true, is a type of mini-nuclear war.
The largest transformation resulting from the Ukraine war, may be the realization that energy and national security are two sides of the same coin. Biden has been unduly influenced by the radical leftist part of the Democratic Party, which is itself highly influenced by the climate-justice warriors. And as a result of this war, the West is learning just how wrong-headed it has been to give priorities in energy policy to these naifs. America, thanks to Trump’s policies, had become energy self-sufficient by the end of his administration. On day one of Biden’s tenure he canceled the Keystone pipeline to Canada and began an attack on oil and gas drilling, fracking and exploration. So a country with lots of energy began to buy 10% of its needs from Russia, and the revenue to Russia was in essence a way to fund the war against Ukraine.
Those who promoted the insane policy of giving power to Russia have the blood of Ukrainians on their hands. With an inability to end conventional energy supplies for notions that wind and solar and batteries for electric powered cars could empower the world’s largest economy, there is proof that relatively clean oil from the U.S. is less dangerous to climate than dirtier oil from Russia and coal-burning energy plants in China.
There is a lot of geopolitical nonsense which is starting to be noticed, none sillier than attacking the western world for unproven effects on climate while the reductions in energy supply will be taken up by countries that care not a whit about pollution.
But, more than energy, ideology and culture are the main issues. This is the most important result of the war. Without a war in Europe (except for the war in the former Yugaslavia) the people of the west have been misled by notions of cultural relativism and moral equivalency to believe that all leaders of all peoples are more or less moral. In my own country of Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau on the death of Cuba’s murderous dictator, said Castro was a “remarkable leader”. And when asked which countries he admired, he mentioned China due to its ability to turn on a dime to implement economic policies.
In a recent Canada Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), interview, Oleksander Danylyuk, of the Ukrainian Institute of Defence Reforms, made the point (that has been heard elsewhere) the Ukrainians see themselves as fighting not just on behalf of their country, but on behalf of all western civilization. We might learn something from them.
Americans, to me, look like fools for voting in Biden to replace Trump, when you look at Biden’s unwise policies at home and abroad. I was appalled at the number of times Trump was called a “white nationalist” or a white “supremacist” or even a Nazi. Too many educated people in the West do not know the difference between Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump. But perhaps Putin’s immoral and genocidal actions are now waking up Americans and Europeans to the fact that the ex-KGB operative is not just a more authoritarian version of Trump, but is the opposite. All those Americans who couldn’t tell the difference should apologize to what is left of the Ukrainian people.
However, there is an important matter which has been kept secret by most of the American media (except for Miranda Devine of New York Post and a few courageous colleagues) and most of Democratic Party elites who know the truth. This matter is the serious corruption and kickbacks and other substantial financial benefits given to the Biden family by Ukraine, and to a lesser extent by Russia, and by China.
Biden is “owned” by China. And Putin and the Chinese have enough criminal evidence against the Biden family, that at a time of their choosing these enemies of American freedom and ideology may well decide to use the evidence in a way that could seriously damage American interests; we don’t know for sure what will happen when irrefutable proof of the Biden family corruption is given to the American people – but a return to expecting the powerful to be moral might yet be a better “reset” than other matters that Biden and the socialists and globalists have in mind.
It seems probable that Putin will be successful at seizing certain Ukrainian territory but holding on to it may be more difficult. In a world of high tech communications, and social media, Putin will not be able to hide from Russians the world-wide sympathy for the Ukrainian people as they bravely fight against all odds. Nor will he be able to hide the economic effects of sanctions and other boycotts that will affect not just the value of the currency but small and large businesses and employment figures.
It is already apparent that Russia will have big problems administering conqyered cities when the local people are willing to fight until death. Short of bombing and demolishing every structure, we are likely to see people adopt the model of the first “conquered” city of Kherson where a day after the conquest, thousands of residents took to the streets for a large protest, unafraid of their Russian masters. Videos show, for example, one protester jumping on top of a Russian military vehicle while waving a Ukrainian flag. In another city, a resident lay down on the road in front of a tank – thus showing contempt for Russian power.
What a clear lesson we are seeing in the power of the people, even Russians, to thwart all the power of Putin. And what a lesson for the future is the refusal of President Zelensky to flee the country but to stay and fight with the people, even with the knowledge that there are special Russian forces looking to assassinate him. We must understand that in the future Americans will not elect again weak and corrupt leaders like Biden but will emulate the brave Ukrainians in their ideology of nationalism tempered by liberal democracy and will likely reject the globalists’ attempts to weaken nationalist movements with pride in their cultures..
Germany broke its long-standing policy to give military equipment to Ukraine. Many countries in the West are now sanctioning and isolating Russia. This is how it should be. There is a growing understanding that if you don’t like war, you must judge all policies such as energy and cultural and ideological matters(such as support for Israel and the leftist-Islamist intersectionality) by how much they support peace not war.
Putin has done us a favor by showing the West that we must be on guard against evil. We must understand that being “pro-peace” requires actions to undercut those who are evil and who use war as their ideal means for getting and keeping power. But supporting BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel alone is an indication of antisemitism, not peace-making.
Being on guard against evil leadership might just be the catalyst for a new ideology of freedom and a positive nationalistic culture rather than globalism, Marxism, woke restrictions on freedom, cancel culture, relativism, moral equivalency and miseducation of our young.
We are at a turning point and we have the opportunity to make the post-Ukraine world a better one with better values and ideologies and a leadership by better people. One way to get better leaders is to watch the incompetence of American Vice-President Kamala Harris, and learn the lesson that competence and morality make for a better choice than one based on gender and skin color.
Howard Rotberg, a retired lawyer, is the author of four books on ideologies and values, the most recent being, The Ideological Path to Submission… and what we can do about it.
@Sebastien Zorn
The PTB stands for the powers that be, i. e., our dear rulers.
I am lazy, and don’t want to write it out every time.
@Reader What does PTB stand for? I don’t know this term.
@Sebastien Zorn
Let’s get back to square one before we get into hairsplitting about the leadership definitions (yes, Ben Gurion was a leader AND a politician).
Felix and I agreed that there is a need for new leadership in Israel as well as in the US and Europe.
This meant that there need to be new people in power who would promote new and different policies from those promoted by the PTB.
I expressed my skepticism by saying that any appearance or development of the new leadership (meaning the people who would be willing and able to replace the PTB) is not possible these days because the PTB would suppress or nip it in the bud by having access to the surveillance technology that wasn’t available in the past, and that the TV and smartphones zombify the population and make it easier to manipulate by those who control the mass media.
This situation is new and different from that of 100 or more years ago in low-tech societies when it was easier for the new leaders (those who are able to unite their followers and lead them toward a goal) to appear, develop, and take power from the existing leadership (the PTB).
Obviously, the leadership (people) I was talking about was the kind that would be different from the PTB, and it was obvious to me that the PTB would not welcome with open arms the people who are willing and able to replace them and their policies.
To summarize:
1) Leadership may mean a) the people in power (old leadership); b) the people who want to replace the people in power in order to promote the new policies (rule differently) (new leadership); c) the traits that someone must have in order to be a leader.
2) a leader is someone who is able to unite their followers and lead them toward a goal;
3) in this particular discussion – new leaders are the ones who are fit to replace the old leaders because the old ones cause more harm than good, and I argue that they will not be allowed by the PTB either to appear or to survive if the do appear. At best they will be co-opted by the system like Feiglin was.
OK?!?!
Reader
Good questions
Try to read this it must be in libraries
Felix Morrow
Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain
Shows in a real historical way the issue of leadership
Morrow was very smart indeed. Very valuable work.
We now fight for survival re Ukraine
See also this
https://youtu.be/sq_q7WsiCWs
John Meirsheimer two weeks ago
Sebastien not exactly
I do not want to be prescriptive and Jews will decide
There must be freedom of religion and also for science
Israel as a respite from Antisemitism that rules out that mosque I feel
Keep the. Freedom of worship
But a Marxist as atheist also has freedom too. That latter is important.
In the end dogma will lose and science win…
@Reader Was Ben Gurion a Leader?
@Sebastian Zorn
I think you and I have very different ideas of what leadership is.
You think a leader is anyone who is one of the political elite and who is a very skilled politician.
I think that leaders are the people who can create followers, unite them behind an idea or a set of ideas, and lead them to achieve a certain goal.
In politics, it would be a political goal, and the leaders must not be co-opted by the PTB.
For example, according to my definition, when Feiglin was an activist, he was a successful leader, however, after he went into conventional politics, his leadership qualities disappeared, he was no longer a leader but an unsuccessful politician.
@ Felix The remains of the temple are under the Dome of the Rock not Al Aqsa.
@Felix “I want to protect the rights to worship but also to let people understand.that is by SCIENCE”
@Reader
Like who? Neville Chamberlin? Cordell Hull?
https://www.facinghistory.org/rescuers/cordell-hulls-telegram-hiram-bingham-september-18-1940
@Felix
Sounds like Auguste Comte. Do you agree with his view?
“Auguste Comte believed a scientific society and God could not co-exist. A scientific society and religion, on the other hand, absolutely. He saw God and religion as separate entities, and that God’s ‘death’ should not lead to the death of religion, for the sake of humanity.May 17, 2020
https://adaobiadibe23.medium.com › …”
Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity | by Adaobi Adibe”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_of_Humanity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Comte
Also sounds like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructionist_Judaism
@Seabastien Zorn
Why do you keep mentioning Authoritarian Progressives?
I was talking about leadership in general, and the political leadership that was still possible (but was already dying or getting destroyed), let’s say, as late as right before WWII.
My point is that any real leader these days will be either co-opted by the PTB or destroyed, especially in the West.
Temple Mount and Al Aksa
Aksa was a construction of supremacy and hating
Remove it
The Temple is different. That needs to be placed on a scientific basis.
The power of scientific investigation needs to take over. Place the Jewish experience on a scientific basis.
Get these stories out in the open and let us understand.
I want to protect the rights to worship but also to let people understand.that is by SCIENCE
Reader
Conditions are hard and the hardness of these conditions you are describing well and I agree.
But we cannot give up.
And there may come a turn. Also as you say.
But we are on Israpundit and the problems are here
Sebastien knows only anarchists and Stalinists ..who precisely would help
WSWS are reactionary
The key issue is defence of Russia from Fascists like Jamie Glazov and Trevor Loudain
Defend Putin down the line
On Israel I have not one tiny speck of respect for any leader or mk there not one speck.
Not one. They disgrace Jews.
Defend Russia now from Fascism and Empire.
The editor is lost in his Trumpian world.
Only one thing matters. Openly defend Putin with everything you have on this site
Make every article do that.
If that’s not done speak up.
Sebastien
You have been unable to deal with what I said. And you sort through in your mind Oh I’ll take that phrase leave out that bit and so on. Don’t even want to discuss that stuff.
@Sebastien Zorn
I wasn’t talking about the US education, I was probably wrong to use the term “middle class”, and I should have gone back somewhat more than 100 years, however, this is not mathematics and I don’t have to be mathematically precise in my definitions.
I was talking about people who could be described as so-called Russian or European “intelligencia”.
I meant people who studied history, the classics, languages, etc. very thoroughly when they were school age.
This kind of people also should have certain personality types that are suitable for leadership (don’t ask me what they are – I don’t know, I just suspect they should exist).
When I say “leader”, I don’t mean “dictator”, although a dictator can be a leader.
“Proletarian” revolutions are not led by the proletariat.
Without proper leadership all you get is riots and failed protests, although Russia is kind of an exception because there if the population doesn’t like the decrees “from above”, the majority simply silently refuses to comply but this is a cultural thing.
@Reader Dean Virginia Gildersleeve told my great aunt Esta to her face that she wasn’t letting her in to Barnard because she was Jewish.
https://www.jns.org/the-evolution-of-anti-semitism-at-elite-universities/
She was a leading Progressive and she was Dean for most of the first half of the 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Gildersleeve
@Reader Far More students are getting an education than 100 years ago but the quality varies wildly from school to school, as I have observed myself.
Without getting into the current Woke madness. Authoritarian Progressivism was around but mainly in colleges, eg President Woodrow Wilson who went from academia to the White House.
https://stacker.com/stories/3315/what-american-education-was-100-years-ago
@Reader Pupil-to-teacher ratio in elementary and secondary schools
Student and teacher ratios decreased significantly since the 1920s when they were around 30 students per teacher. By the 1990s, there were 17 students per teacher. In 2015, there were 16 students per teacher in public schools compared to 12 students per teacher in private schools.
How are you defining “middle class?”
‘Percent of 5- to 19-year-olds enrolled in school by race
“From 1919 to 1920, approximately 60% of white children and 50% of black children and those of other races were enrolled in school. The most recent data from the NCES revealed that in 2015, the number of minority students surpassed the number of white students in public schools for the first time.
‘Median years of school completed by people aged 25 and older
People ages 25 and over in 1919-1920 completed a median of 8.2 years of school. Today, 92% of the U.S. population has attained a high school diploma by the time they reach that age, while 36% have at least a bachelor’s degree.
‘Median years of school completed by people aged 25 and older
People ages 25 and over in 1919-1920 completed a median of 8.2 years of school. Today, 92% of the U.S. population has attained a high school diploma by the time they reach that age, while 36% have at least a bachelor’s degree.
‘
‘Elementary school and secondary school enrollment
As the population has grown and priorities have shifted socially as a result of the Industrial Revolution and other advances in child labor laws, more students have begun to attend school regularly. In the late 1910s, 23.7 million students were attending elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. compared to 55.9 million students in 2019.
Average number of days per year attended by public school students
The students in the 1919-1920 school year only had to attend school 143 days a year; a decade later, though, the school year went up to 175 days. This is still the standard for the U.S. school year—anywhere between 175 and 186 days (or, in some cases, completing a certain number of instructional hours).
@Felix Substitute Trotsky (and his prophet, Putin)
“The Amazing Power of Jesus – Grace to You”
Although Jesus is sympathetic and deeply compassionate, He is also sovereign. In each case, He acted on His own volition, saying, “I will, be thou clean” (v. 3
Who else talks like that? The second bit was, of course a nod to Is;am
“In call with PA’s Abbas, Putin said to criticize Israeli policies at Al-Aqsa Mosque
Russian leader backs Palestinians amid violence in Jerusalem, PA news agency reports; also says Moscow will provide Ramallah with food and materials amid rising global prices”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-and-pas-abbas-discusses-jerusalem-tensions-war-in-ukraine/
Felix So we will be saved if we have Trotsky in our hearts?
I already knew that the definition of Zionism has always meant solidarity with Mother Russia, though. Thanks for reminding me.
@FelixQuigley
You are absolutely right about the need for leadership but where is the leadership supposed to come from when everyone is so completely brainwashed from the earliest childhood and, even more importantly, how is this leadership going to survive and develop even if it manages be born?
A 100 years ago it was still possible because the middle class still had excellent education while the PTB didn’t have the power of total censorship (due to the lack of the appropriate surveillance technology and the nonexistence of TV and smartphones which zombify the population).
I don’t see how it is possible to do these days.
I think this whole “Brave New World” affair is going to collapse because it is a Tower of Babel project and things are going to eventually go the way they are supposed to (unless the patients who are running the asylum blow up the asylum first).
When I was attacked here by the editor what he was attacking was the power of Trotskyism, or rather the potential power of Trotskyism. I read the piece by Dalgliesh and it is nothing but the dregs with no understanding of even basic history. He will not reply to me because he knows he cannot. That is Trotskyism. So the editor attacked me viciously because he also is bankrupt. And so everyone needs leadership including Jews and so were truly at a turning point. Holding people back is the editor and what Israpundit Needs is clarity and a major fight for principle. Anybody who slanders.Putin has no place in the Jewish movement. Those who do not see and act on basis that Putin is what stands in the way of barbarism of the worst most savage Empire ever.
The person calling himself Adam Dalgliesh writes:/
Howard Rotberg’s article is brilliant. He touches all the right bases in his denunciation both of Putin and his Western appeasers. /
Note immediate into hate campaign against Putin
Also, of course, Biden’s alliance with Iran, his massive corruption and that of his son, whom he shelters from prosecution, etc. /
Mentioning Iran get him some kudos
I disagree with him when he implies that all Ukrainians supported the Nazis during World War II. Actually most Ukrainian men served in the Red Army, just as courageously as the Russians, Byelorussians, Jews, ethnic mongols and Koreans etc. who also fought in the Red army. /
When? Is he ignorant of Hitler Stalin pact so when?
Most Ukrainians supported the Soviets and fought the Nazis, even though they had legitimate grievances against the Stalin regime. About one fourth of the Ukrainian Jews managed to survive the Nazi occupation—which could not have happened unless there were many Ukrainians who hid them from the Nazis, or helped them to flee behind Red Army lines. The Catholic Patriarch of Ukraine was recently awarded recognition by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” for his role in hiding 15,000 Jews from the Nazis. They all survived the war./
Again when and also sources for these claims
But these are minor disagreements. Howard’s article as a whole is both a brilliant analysis and reflective of his deeply held moral values-so rare in our time./
What moral values or is it a moral value to lump 1939 and 1941? To distort history?
Go do some learning. There’s a new generation which must not be allowed to be confused by you.
@Sebastien Zorn
Adam assumes a lot without being aware of the context.
You have to distinguish between the Soviet Ukraine before 1939/40 and the westernmost territories of it which were added to the USSR before the war.
You also have to distinguish between small towns and the large cities.
In the western territories (Ukraine and the Baltics) violence against the Jews started even before the German army showed up.
The Soviets had a huge program of evacuating whole factories, enterprises, scientific institutions, universities, etc. to the East together with their personnel and students.
Obviously, this program was more applicable in the older territories, and those Jews who belonged to these institutions were taken East together with them to reestablish them away from the front, a few Jews were drafted, volunteered for the front, etc.
The regular civilians could leave also – not that the process wasn’t a mess but it was possible.
Often in the small towns, the local authorities would announce that everyone is to leave tomorrow morning, for example, but the Germans would show up the evening before.
Also, a few Jews in the new territories were saved (which they didn’t know at the time) from the Germans weeks before the war (06-22-41) started if they owned real estate and such – their property was taken from them and they were sent to labor camps in Siberia.
There were thousands of Jews who decided not to be evacuated because they “remembered the Germans from WWI” and thought that they were not really that dangerous (some Jews left because they were more afraid of what their neighbors might do when the Germans come than of the Germans themselves).
So the role of the local Ukrainians/Poles/Lithuanians, etc. in saving Jews was actually very small.
People.like this can talk forever more but what they cannot do is put nukes on the border of a great power like Russia. There’s one clear precedent Cuba 1962.
These two things are very simple to understand and this is also important. They at least CAN be understood.
@Adam
One fourth of the Jewish population of Ukraine doesn’t sound so good if you take into consideration:
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ukraine-holocaust
@Adam Dalgliesh
Please, give the sources for the above statements.
It’s a crazy rant.
@Adam
“During the Second World War, 4.5 million Ukrainians served in the Red Army. Except for the First Ukrainian Partisan Division (est 1943) under Col Petr Vershigora, there were no separate Ukrainian units in the Soviet armed forces. Because of national discrimination, non-Russians refused at first to fight the German invaders: of 3.6 million Soviet prisoners of war by March 1943, 2 million were non-Russian. The harsh treatment of the population and POWs by the Germans eventually persuaded non-Russians to fight. Approximately 1.7 million Ukrainians were decorated for bravery in the war. In 1943 the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Medal was introduced, and in 1944 a People’s Commissariat of Defense was established for Ukraine (with Gen Sydir Kovpak as the first commissar), but this was only a symbolic gesture.”
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CO%5CSovietArmy.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_collaboration_with_Nazi_Germany
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/seven-decades-nazi-collaboration-americas-dirty-little-ukraine-secret/
“However, the Ukrainian population of western Ukraine, had “little to no loyalty towards the Soviet Union”, whose Red Army had seized Ukraine during the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939. Nationalists in western Ukraine were among the most enthusiastic Nazi collaborators and hoped that their efforts would enable them to re-establish an independent state.
Howard Rotberg’s article is brilliant. He touches all the right bases in his denunciation both of Putin and his Western appeasers. Also, of course, Biden’s alliance with Iran, his massive corruption and that of his son, whom he shelters from prosecution, etc. I disagree with him when he implies that all Ukrainians supported the Nazis during World War II. Actually most Ukrainian men served in the Red Army, just as courageously as the Russians, Byelorussians, Jews, ethnic mongols and Koreans etc. who also fought in the Red army. Most Ukrainians supported the Soviets and fought the Nazis, even though they had legitimate grievances against the Stalin regime. About one fourth of the Ukrainian Jews managed to survive the Nazi occupation—which could not have happened unless there were many Ukrainians who hid them from the Nazis, or helped them to flee behind Red Army lines. The Catholic Patriarch of Ukraine was recently awarded recognition by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” for his role in hiding 15,000 Jews from the Nazis. They all survived the war.
But these are minor disagreements. Howard’s article as a whole is both a brilliant analysis and reflective of his deeply held moral values-so rare in our time.
Ha Ha. Not to worry, the insurance covers cosmetic surgery.
https://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/news/20220315/are-we-all-uncomfortably-numb
Umm, so sanctions against Russia make sanctions against Israel OK?
Not a word about the shelling of Donbass.
He makes many good points and then mixes them up with nonsense. Does he really believe romanticization of the war in Ukraine will change everything?
He thinks we elected Biden.