Foxman: Anti-Semitism card overplayed in Ukraine
Abraham H. Foxman, April 17,
2014
Even fake hate can fuel instability.
While Ukrainian Jewish leaders recognized the flier as a political dirty trick,
it caused widespread outrage here in the United States, where just about
everyone — from Jewish community leaders to the State Department — was
immediately struck by its echoes of the Nazi policies that led to the Holocaust
in Europe.
And yet unfortunately, this was just the latest escalation in a series of
political maneuvers in Ukraine where the anti-Semitism card has been repeatedly
overplayed.
Manufactured incidents of anti-Semitism have been cynically used to
discredit political opponents as anti-Semites, whether they are, or not. In
recent years, some Ukrainian political operatives have spread rumors that
opposing candidates are Jews, likewise whether they are, or not.
Last year, political operatives, presumably of deposed former President
Viktor Yanukovych, sent a dozen young men to an opposition rally with T-shirts
that read "Beat the Jews!" on one side, and "Svoboda," the
name of the ultra-nationalist opposition party, on the other.
Both classical political anti-Semitism and the manufactured, manipulative
version rely on a common assumption, that a significant number of Ukrainian
citizens do not consider their Jewish compatriots to truly be part of the
Ukrainian nation.
That attitude, unfortunately, continues to play a significant role in the
Ukrainian nationalist movement. The Svoboda party has a
history of anti-Semitism and
venerates Stepan Bandera, a leader of the Ukrainian
nationalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Bandera allied with the Nazis
during World War II when he thought it was in the interest of his movement and
was complicit in mass killings of Jews and Poles by Ukrainian
partisans.
When Jews are considered a natural part of the Ukrainian nation,
anti-Semitism in Ukraine should wane and the temptation to use anti-Semitism in
politics should follow.
And that will be a relief, because anti-Semitism is a big enough problem
without having anyone with a political ax to grind add to it
artificially.
A positive first step was taken in today's statement from the U.S., the
European Union, Russia and Ukraine, with the firm, clear and direct condemnation
of "all expressions of extremism … including anti-Semitism."
To change Ukraine's atmosphere of insecurity, political, civic and
religious leaders in Ukraine and Russia must continue to reinforce this
message.
Abraham H. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, is national director of the
Anti-Defamation League.
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