C I T I Z E N
M.K.BHADRAKUMAR |
2 MARCH, 2022
The
world community is aghast over the acute tensions between the United
States and its NATO allies on one side and Russia on the other, which is
poised critically on the brink of a military confrontation, the likes
of which the world didn’t see in the entire Cold War era.
The
shocking part is that it has become a no-holds barred struggle that is
being fought tooth and claw, as hidden racial and religious prejudices
lying just below the surface have welled to the surface in the Western
world.
The amusing sight of western TV Channels openly
discussing why an open door policy toward refugees from Ukraine is
warranted in European countries underscores the subterranean cultural
cross currents beneath the thin veneer of modernity.
The
western journalists have argued passionately that these refugees are not
like those sub-humans from Muslim countries who knock on the doors of
Europe seeking asylum, but these Ukrainian refugees are Christians — and
that too, with blond hair and light eyes!
It is when traumatic
times come that the veneer of culture and modernity of the Europeans
peels away and true human nature surfaces in all its naked crudity. This
is not a matter of education or wealth.
We have seen that even
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres is a changed man nowadays. He
behaves more like a westerner from Portugal and a Roman Catholic than as
the Secretary-General of the United Nations. After Dag Hammarskjöld,
Guterres is the first secretary-general of the UN who has clashed with a
permanent member of the Security Council — or, more precisely,
identified totally with one of the UNSC members against another.
Hammarskjöld’s clash with the US was not personal, but on principles
and ideology. Whereas, Guterres’ motives are dubious. (Is it a
coincidence that his special representatives in the trouble spots in the
world wherever western interests are at stake — be it Myanmar, Somalia,
Sudan, Afghanistan or Venezuela — happen to be nominees from the
Western countries?)
Of course, Guterres won’t meet with the
tragic fate of Hammarskjöld (whom the CIA eliminated) because Russia
doesn’t do such ghastly things. But Guterres demeans his own
organisation where the big majority of countries are from the
non-western world.
Not a single Muslim country has voiced
support for Washington in its confrontation with Russia. Although they
are stakeholders in a Third World War, they prefer not to think about
it. The heart of the matter is that they think this is another crusade
of the Christian countries — cloaked as values and ‘rules-based order’ —
which they’ve experienced so often. They see that the Western countries
are back to their bestial wars endemic to European history through
centuries.
If reports are to be believed, Saudi Arabia point
blank refused to pay heed to the Biden Administration’s entreaties to
break up its energy alliance with Russia known as OPEC+ which fine tunes
the supply position in the world oil market. Saudi Arabia’s rival Iran
and Syria have openly supported Russia.Turkey offered mediation between
Russia and Ukraine and indeed had a hand in arranging the talks in
Belarus.
However, it is Israel that made the most memorable
overture to Russia of a historical nature suffused with great poignancy.
Israel prevented the US from transferring to Ukraine its Dome missile
defence system which would have been a game changer in the present
conflict on the plea that it did not want to act against Russia!
Both Washington and Tel Aviv hushed up this spat until its disclosure
recently by the media. Then came the request from the Biden
Administration seeking support from Israel to co-sponsor its resolution
in the Security Council regarding Ukraine. Israel refused! The US made
its displeasure known.
Following that, in a conversation at the
Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, the Israeli ambassador was
apparently asked by the Russian side whether his country wasn’t aware of
what’s going on in Ukraine — where the calculus of power lies in the
hands of Neo-Nazi groups acting with the support of the western
countries.
To be sure, Israel must be well aware of the
situation. Ukraine is not like any other country for Israel. It was the
country where the horrific massacres took place in late September 1941
when the invading Nazi army, SS and German police units and their
auxiliaries perpetrated one of the largest massacres of World War II.
It took place at a ravine called Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) just outside the
Ukrainian capital city of Kiev. According to the Holocaust
Encyclopaedia, “Germans continued to perpetrate mass murders at this
killing site until just before the Soviets re-took control of Kyiv in
1943. During this period, Germans shot Jews, as well as Roma, Ukrainian
civilians and Soviet POWs. In the decades after the war, Babyn Yar
symbolized the struggle over the memory of World War II and the
Holocaust in the Soviet Union.”
We will never know the Israeli
ambassador’s reaction to the Russian demarche, but Moscow had a pleasant
surprise when Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Russian
President Vladimir Putin on Sunday offering mediation on Ukraine. The
Russian readout said briefly, “In his turn, Naftali Bennett offered
Israel’s mediation services in order to stop military actions.” Putin of
course briefed Bennett on the special military operation to defend
Donbass and explained that Moscow “is ready for talks with Kiev’s
representatives, who have shown an inconsistent approach so far and have
not yet used this opportunity.”
Israel finds itself in a
delicate situation. The US is Israel’s close ally and Bennett has been
treading a careful line not to let differences with the Biden
administration become disputes — unlike his abrasive, acerbic
predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu.
On the other hand, Israel has a
very special relationship with Russia in terms of the fact that it also
had suffered greatly at the hands of the marauding Nazi invaders. After
all, over 20 million Soviet citizens perished during World War II.
Equally, Israel is acutely conscious that Russia is deeply committed to
the campaign against fascism at a time when the western world has
turned its back on it and has decided to not only move on but also
acquiesce with the recrudescence of Nazi ideology in the European
societies lately.
Surely, German involvement with the Neo-Nazis
in Ukraine must be known to the Israeli intelligence. But what can
Israel do on its own? It is a deeply painful reality for both Israel and
Russia that in the western political ecosystem, Nazi ideology is no
longer reprehensible.
Isn’t it amazing that two of the three
Abrahamic religions are in a quandary over the war cries in the
Christian world? The crisis over Ukraine indeed makes strange bed
fellows. The UAE, a staunch ally of the US in the West Asian region,
abstained twice in the recent days over the US-sponsored resolutions
condemning Russia at the UN Security Council.
Guterres has
taken personal charge of marshalling support for the US at the special
session of the UNGA today regarding Ukraine. American diplomats are
pulling all stops. If a big chunk of UN members still choose to abstain,
it will be a big blow for Guterres personally. Will he quit if that
happens? Of course, that is too much to expect. Americans simply won’t
let him, having retained him for a second term.
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