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to hope to god this isn't true - Jews made to register

190 replies

softlysoftly · 17/04/2014 19:19

www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4510688,00.html

OP posts:
YouTheCat · 18/04/2014 15:42

The initial foray into the Crimea (before the referendum) Putin blamed on Russian sympathising groups in unmarked uniforms he said they had bought. But he's since admitted they were Russian soldiers not in Russian uniform. Underhand tactics.

I know the distribution of the leaflets hasn't been pinned on any group as yet but I wouldn't rule out Putin's forces either. He is using lies and misinformation and what he is doing in the Ukraine is terrible.

PigletJohn · 18/04/2014 20:23

It might have been a hoax, or it might have been published and distributed by some of the Russian Nationalists who will by now have been warned not to do it again.

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism among Russians is not uncommon enough, or frowned upon enough, to make the latter unbelievable.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26786213

"Evelina Zakamskaya, a presenter on state-owned news channel Rossiya 24, also got into a Holocaust controversy over a remark she made in an interview with Aleksandr Prokhanov, editor of the nationalist newspaper Zavtra.

Speaking about Jews who supported the "fascist" opponents of Mr Yanukovych in Ukraine, Prokhanov said: "Don't they realise that with their own hands they are hastening a second Holocaust?"

To which Zakamskaya replied: "They also hastened the first one."

This little exchange went largely unnoticed when it was first broadcast on 23 February. It was only when Zavtra quoted Zakamskaya on Twitter a month later that it got wider attention.

One of those who spotted the Zavtra tweet was a top Russian blogger and Israeli citizen, Anton Nosik, who delivered the following damning verdict: "The descent of state propaganda into total, undisguised Nazism is a logical and predictable process. But the pace at which the brown plague is currently creeping around the byways of state TV and radio is impressive."

"...Kanner also took issue with the article's description of the marchers as "traitors" and "people without a motherland". The latter, he said, was a coded phrase for Jews.

This is not the first time that Komsomolskaya Pravda has faced accusations of anti-Semitism. Last May, another of its columnists, Ulyana Skoybeda, wrote on its website: "Sometimes you are sorry that the Nazis did not make lampshades out of today's liberals - there would be fewer problems."

The sentence was quickly removed and Skoybeda reprimanded. But editor Vladimir Sungorkin refused to sack her."

mimishimmi · 18/04/2014 21:23

It could also possibly be an attempt to scare the few remaining Jews there into moving to Israel. A collaboration of sorts between people with a vested interest in seeing this happen and anti-semitic elements(which are strong in Ukraine) is not unheard of. In fact, it has happened before with a disturbing frequency. Whatever the reason, or degree of official collusion, it is always scary for those who experience it.

yegodsandlittlefishes · 18/04/2014 22:25

'Putin...hates things non Russian not just the Jews.'

Ok, please say 'jews' not 'the jews'.
Jews were there long before Putin and are more Russian than he is!

Here are a few thoughtful comparisons between Putin in recent years and Hitler (c 1930s):

Putin has combined a mixture of communist and nationalist rhetoric. (Like Hitler, although Hitler's was far rightwing, Putin's is far left, some would argue both extremes look very similar from a moderate standpoint.)

After a period of openness, democracy, and chaos (Weimar/Yeltsin) a leader comes in offering a return to previous greatness and order from the chaos. This comes with less freedom and appealing to popular nationalist values (e.g. anti gay, anti Jewish, and general authoritarianism.)

How they dealt with elected assemblies. Both had democratic parliaments to manage. Both found ways to appoint/insert their own choice of candidate directly to parliament and both found ways to disbarr or silence dissenting voices in parliament including arresting opposition leaders on trumped up charges.

Both stopped debates that weren't going to go their way once in power. E.g. power cuts and fire drills in the early days worked for Putin. He didn't need to burn down the equivalent of the Reichstag.

Both quickly established control over the main media outlets and clamped down on dessenting journalists. (It will be interesting to see how long this thread lasts now.) There are more unexplained murders of independent journalists in Moscow than any other city in the world.

Both actively embraced the mass/new media of their time (Nazi: newsreels and films vs. FSB: engagement with Tumblr in terms of posting unsubtle propaganda).

Both encourage suspician of the outside world.

Both talk about national/ratial purity. When people have talked about allowances for diversity for other languages and cultures Putin is clearly on record for saying Russia is for Russians and it is up to anyone who is different to adapt to his Russia and Russian. You can't get any time off to pray if you are Muslim, and show me any Muslims in high up goverment jobs.

Both have gone through systematically replacing senior figures in all walks of life with his sympatisers. Only their friends get promotions and so on. Want to build a train track in Russia? Pay or befriend Putin. Sochi olympics was a way for him to funnel money to his buddies, and was his vanity project.

Hitler claimed some representation for all German speakers wherever they were in the world. Putin claims responsibility for all Russian speakers in the world, lumping them all together.

Hitler sent German agents into Czechoslovakia to disrupt the country as a pretext for invasion. Putin has done/is doing this in Ukraine.

Both tested the liberal democracies with smaller invasions then worked their way up. Alsace, Danzig, Austra, Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia before Poland; for Putin consider Georgia, Abkhazia, Syria, Crimea and maybe Eastern Ukraine is his Poland. That is what the world is watching for.

Both of them used a populist nationalist appeal to unite the the core of their nation. In doing so both drove away their neighbours. A year ago, most Ukrainians East OR West wanted good relationships with Russia. Putin has driven the majority of Ukrainian's to hate Putin's Russia. Even Belarus is now worried about Putin...The More He Tightens His Grip, The More They Slip Through His Fingers...

Just as we can have sympathy for a German in 1938 fed only lies from the media and believing that they are the good guy, and in the right, similarly we can have sympathy for the average Russian today fed by propaganda and not realising it.

We've seen some of the lies broadcast about us in Russia. We full have access to Russian TV over here! The Russian sponsored demonstrators in Donetsk are telling the USA to 'get out of Ukraine! But it is Russia in Ukraine. USA isn't, why do that? Just one example of them trying to persuade people that black is white.

The lesson was, appeasing Hitler, allowing him to get away with it, just encouraged him to want more. We are as apprehensive of a war now as the liberal democracies were in the 1930s. BUT is Putin as keen on having a war as Hitler was?

YouTheCat · 18/04/2014 22:30

Yegod, brilliant post.

yegodsandlittlefishes · 19/04/2014 06:55

Waiting to see it sarinka returns to say I don't even have half a brain cell and I should be ashamed for mentioning Purin and Hitler in the same breath.

I love Russia, I love the world, and all people. I want peace. That doesn't mean I am stupid and will shut up when bullied.

YouTheCat · 19/04/2014 09:46

Exactly. Me too.

Putin has been so bad for Russia.

Latara · 19/04/2014 09:51

Mila Kunis is a Ukrainian Jew; her family left the Ukraine when it was part of Soviet Russia when she was a child because of the anti-Semitism around then.

Sadly this is nothing new.

yegodsandlittlefishes · 19/04/2014 09:58

Well my grandmother lived in a Jewish populated area of London and in WW2 helped evacuate a number of Jewish children with her own. (To the town I am currently staying in now, as it happens). My father and his brother went to school with them during the war. They hid that they were jews. There was a lot of anti semitism here too. After the war, these families all went to Israel. The London my father knew changed forever.

ZingHasAHotCrossBunInTheOven · 19/04/2014 15:36

yego

you and I have only a quarter of a brain cell each. but they are powerful!
Wink

yegodsandlittlefishes · 19/04/2014 16:29

It's amazing, isn't it. Imagine what we could do if we had as many brain cells as Putin...!

ElizabethJennings · 19/04/2014 16:34

What is William Hague doing about this? Why haven't David milka and a nick clegg spoken out against this?

yegodsandlittlefishes · 19/04/2014 16:48

What have they done about what, Elizabeth?

It looks as though the Pro-Russian/Russian militants rejected the international agreement and will not vacate the government buildings they have occupied since last weekend.

I'm sure Hague is doing what he can, diplomatically, within the remit of his job. As our foreign secretary, what do you expect him (or other British politicians) to do?

PigletJohn · 19/04/2014 17:21

RoW is reluctant to have a military confrontation.

There are some slight penalties being imposed on a limited number of influential Russians, perhaps it will be more difficult for them to send their children to Eton, buy palaces in London, and put their running-away-money in Western banks. RoW is still very disunited, and Putin depends on being able to do whatever he wants as long as nobody stands in his way.

Interestingly though, the Russian economy, which is very stagnant, is suffering because Russians are sending their savings abroad as fast as they can, and the instability caused by Putin's military adventures have caused inward investment to dry up, and foreign investors to take their money home.

In the first three months of this year, Reuters reports that $70Bn of capital has fled Russia. This is more than left in the whole of the previous year.

The Rouble has devalued by about 20% over the last year. today a Euro would buy 49.1 Roubles A year ago it was 41.5.

Russia's Finance Minister expects growth this year to be about zero and expresses concern about Putin's extra expenditure by doubling the pensions of Crimea's aging population.

Even without the EU and others applying significant sanctions, Russia is digging itself into a financial hole.

There are plenty of pro-Russian propagandists who will tell you that Russia has got plenty of money and doesn't need friends. However Russia's foreign earnings are massively dependent on the price of oil and gas, which is currently very high.

ReadyToBreak · 21/04/2014 23:49

Piglet, absolutely, Russia is losing money left, right and centre.

Investors don't like uncertainty and Putin has created, and continues to create, heaps of that. He's ruining that country.

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