AUGUST 4 • 2022 | 9

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stepping up the pressure on 
the Kyiv government with 
military actions that are 
killing more civilians. Just 
as troubling, the economic 
sanctions slapped on Moscow 
have done more damage 
to the West with rising gas 
prices in the United States, 
as well as worries about the 
supply of food and the flow 
of natural gas in Europe, than 
they have on the Russians.
Still, in a war where the 
stakes are this high, the 
Putin regime is willing to 
play every card in its hand. 
And one of those involves 
pressuring Israel to avoid 
further involvement in a 
war, including the sending of 
weapons to Kyiv, to which it 
has already sent humanitarian 
supplies to Ukraine and 
accepted numerous refugees.
It may have been 
predictable that in wartime, 
Russia might revert to 

policies that discourage 
emigration. Still, Putin has 
to know that an attack on the 
Jewish Agency, whatever the 
pretext, will elicit a furious 
response from the Jewish 
world.
Fury at this echo of a 
sordid antisemitic past is 
justified. Yet it would be wise 
to avoid using this as a reason 
for simply writing off the 
progress that had been made 
with respect to Jewish rights 
and Russian-Israel relations.

USING DIPLOMACY
Should Putin actually allow 
the shutting down of the 
Jewish Agency, it will be clear 
that both Israel and the Jews 
will have no choice but to do 
everything in their power to 
help his enemies and to push 
for his complete isolation and 
ouster. 
Until that happens, the correct 
course of action is to allow 

diplomacy on the part of Israel 
and Jewish organizations to 
be given time to work. Israel 
need not cower before Russia 
or pay any kind of ransom 
to Putin. Instead, it must be 
made clear to him that it is 
in his interests to avoid being 
labeled an antisemite.
Nor should the natural 
sympathy for the Ukrainian 
victims in this war, as well as 
outrage at Russian aggression 
leading to inappropriate 
analogies to World War II 
or even the worst excesses 
of Stalinist antisemitism 
blind us to the truth about 
Ukraine.
Zelensky has done an 
excellent job embodying his 
country’s resistance; however, 
as a recent New York Times 
story about a shake-up in 
his government made clear, 
his government is not quite 
the Jeffersonian democracy 
that many of his country’s 

supporters like to portray. 
It is obsessed with “treason” 
among the population, which 
has so many Russian speakers 
and people with ties to both 
countries. It may also come as 
a surprise to Western readers 
to learn that even before 
this war, Ukraine had the 
largest security apparatus of 
any country in Europe with 
more than six times as many 
personnel as Britain’s vaunted 
MI5 agency.
That, coupled with its 
well-earned reputation for 
corruption and suppression of 
press freedom, is a reminder 
that in some respects (and 
despite Zelensky’s PR 
offensive), Ukraine has 
more in common with 
other troubled post-Soviet 
republics than most Western 
democracies.
No matter his Jewish 
origins, Zelensky’s spouting 
of Soviet-era propaganda 

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