Common Grounds

Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

March 01, 2024

Why Die for a Dying Idea? Israel’s Radical Ultra-Nationalism
– Theocracy and Ethnocracy – Cannot Survive.

The Hague, The Netherlands 01 March 2024 | If you know of any story that is decisive, tell the world. We're still searching.

‘I WILL NO LONGER BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE’: U.S. SOLDIER DIES OF SELF-IMMOLATION IN PROTEST OF WAR ON GAZA

US Airforce Martyr Aaron Bushnell shouted “Free Palestine” before burning to death

Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old soldier in the United States Air Force, died on Sunday after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC in protest of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. (screenshot from Twitch via Talia Jane on twitter/x.)

By Michael Arria
Mondoweiss.net
26 February 2024

An active-duty member U.S. airman is dead after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. The self-immolation was a protest against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has been occurring since October.

Aaron Bushnell was a 25-year-old soldier in the United States Air Force. Before the action, he uploaded a video to Twitch explaining his motivation. A censored version of the stream was uploaded to Twitter by journalist Talia Jane.

“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” says Bushnell in the video. “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

In the clip, Bushnell, who is wearing his fatigues, douses himself in gasoline and lights himself on fire while yelling, “Free Palestine!” Secret Service members eventually put out the flames. Bushnell succumbed to his injuries at a DC hospital later that night.

“He is one of the most principled comrades I’ve ever known,” said one. “He’s always trying to think about how we can achieve liberation for all with a smile on his face,” offered another.

Bushnell also made a Facebook post the morning before he set himself on fire. “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is you’re doing it. Right now,” it read.

Since October, thousands of Americans have protested Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and the United States government’s support for the bombing. In December, a protester was critically injured after lighting themself on fire outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta. A Palestinian flag was found at the scene.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking cabinet approval for an invasion of Rafah even though a temporary ceasefire is currently being negotiated. “It has to be done,” said Netanyahu recently. “Because total victory is our goal, and total victory is within reach.”

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed so far; more than half of the deaths have been women and children.

Michael Arria is the U.S. correspondent for Mondoweiss. His work has appeared in In These Times, The Appeal, and Truthout. He is the author of Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC.

Follow him on Twitter at @michaelarria.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

THIRTY YEARS AFTER BARUCH GOLDSTEIN’S MASSACRE, HIS FOLLOWERS ARE NOW CARRYING OUT A GENOCIDE

It has been thirty years since Baruch Goldstein carried out his massacre of Palestinian worshippers in Hebron. His legacy of bloodshed continues in Gaza and the West Bank as his followers are now in power.

Itamar Ben-Ovei during the swearing-in of the 37th Israeli government, 29 Dec 2022. (Photo: Israel government press office)

By Elias Feroz
Mondoweis.net
26 February 2024

Thirty years ago, on February 25, 1994, the Zionist terrorist Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian worshippers and injured another 125 inside the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city of Hebron. Today, Israel’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other admirers of the mass murderer continue his legacy by calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank.

Baruch Goldstein. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Last year, Ben-Gvir praised the terrorist Goldstein in a speech on the memorial day of Israeli Independence at a yeshiva (a Jewish religious educational institution), which was founded by another extremist called Meir Kahane. Kahane and Goldstein (both originally from the United States) dreamed of a Jewish theocracy that would extend far beyond the borders of Palestine. Their idea of “Greater Israel” included parts of today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt as a place exclusively for Jews. To politically implement the expulsion of Arab Palestinians, Kahane founded the right-wing extremist Jewish Orthodox party, “Kach,” in 1971, which was declared a terrorist organization and banned by the Israeli government in 1994 after Goldstein’s terror attack.

Today, however, Zionist hatred towards Palestinians lives on and is stronger than ever. After all, Ben-Gvir himself was part of the right-wing Kach organization, and his speeches advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, whether in Gaza or other Palestinian territories, demonstrate that he continues to remain loyal to the racist ideologies of his two idols. His party, Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), is the ideological successor to the right-wing Kach organization.

Meir Kahane (Photo: Library of Congress)

Ben-Gvir lives with his family in an illegal settlement in the West Bank called Kiryat Arba, where Goldstein also resided and where he is buried. Apart from the fact that Ben-Gvir is not just anyone but a leading politician in the current Israeli government, he cannot be regarded as an exception. Even before October 7, other members of the Israeli government, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, used genocidal language. In March of last year, he called for the eradication of the Palestinian town of Huwwara.

This does not prevent the United States and Germany from continuing to support Israel’s most right-wing government in history unconditionally. A few days ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded at the Munich Security Conference to the question of what evidence he relies on when claiming that Israel is abiding by international law in Gaza by stating: “We are asking that they [i.e., Israel] do so, and we are constantly discussing this question…”

One wonders with whom the German government is engaging in these discussions. Netanyahu, who rejects a two-state solution? Ben-Gvir, who calls for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank? Or Bezalel Smotrich, who also threatened to wipe out Palestinian cities?

Meanwhile, the subsequent escalation is already looming as Ben-Gvir does not cease to provoke. The Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is just around the corner, and he stated just recently that residents of the West Bank should be denied entrance to the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is the third most important mosque in Islam. In a speech last month at a conference in Jerusalem, he spoke about “encouraging” Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — a euphemism for ethnic cleansing and a continuation of the Nakba that began in 1948.

Furthermore, Netanyahu threatened to attack Rafah during Ramadan, where 1.5 million refugees are located. In the meantime, food prices continue to skyrocket. Since the beginning of the war, around 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza. In the West Bank, the number of deaths due to violent settlers is also rising. At least 400 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, and more than 7,000 have been detained. After a shooting by Palestinian gunmen at a checkpoint in Jerusalem, in which an Israeli also died, Ben-Gvir once again advocated for the distribution of weapons to Israeli civilians and settlers.

In Israel and Palestine, the tragedy of war and occupation often resembles an Orwellian novel: a Minister of National Security distributing weapons and advocating for ethnic cleansing. Yet, irony also permeates Goldstein’s biography. Despite studying medicine in the United States, he, instead of saving lives, ruthlessly killed and injured innocent worshippers — also during the month of Ramadan. His legacy of bloodshed persists even 30 years after his death. However, in contrast to the past, his beliefs now find greater acceptance within Israeli society, extending to the highest echelons of the government.

Elias Feroz is a PhD student at the University of Innsbruck in Austria whose research area is the history of Israel and Palestine, as well as cultures of remembrance and their role within national identity constructions. Feroz studied in Jerusalem and Cairo as part of exchange programs to delve deeper into the modern history of the Middle East and to study Arabic and Hebrew.

ANALYSIS | WHY ISRAEL ISN'T SORRY IT NEVER STOOD BY UKRAINE AGAINST RUSSIA

Although Russia has joined the Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis directed against Israel, the chances of Israel agreeing to send military aid to Ukraine are even smaller than before

Ukraine sympathizers carry placards and fly a Ukrainian flag outside the U.S. Capitol building as the Senate works through the weekend on a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill with assistance for Ukraine and Israel on February 11, 2024, in Washington, DC. Credit: ROBERTO SCHMIDT - Getty Images via AFP

By Yossi Melman
HAARETZ Israel
27 February 2024

Two years have passed since the start of the war in Ukraine, which changed the United States and the European Union's attitude toward Russian President Vladimir Putin's dictatorship and whose shock waves are affecting the Middle East in general and Israel in particular.

Last week, before marking this sad anniversary, a former leading Ukrainian government official who is very familiar with Israel's defense establishment visited Israel. He met for a discussion with a small group of academics, researchers, and diplomats. He thought the Ukrainian government's tone toward Israel was moderate and more considerate this time. That's an understandable result of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Israel did less than the minimum expected of a Jewish state that was established in the wake of the Holocaust.

Until October 7, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government didn't conceal its anger at the governments of Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, and Benjamin Netanyahu, which refused to join the Western countries and help it in the war against Russian aggression. The Israeli refusal was morally shameful.

Bennett was one of the only world leaders who traveled to Moscow after the outbreak of the war to ingratiate himself with Putin and appease him. Had he understood anything about international politics, he would have known that he became a tool in a cynical game by playing up to Putin.

Embarrassingly, Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz abased themselves even further when they refused to sell flak jackets and helmets to Ukrainian medical rescue teams at the start of the war. Only about a month later, under pressure from Lapid, the foreign minister at the time, did Israel agree to supply the flak jackets and helmets, as well as additional humanitarian assistance, and to set up a field hospital on the Polish-Ukrainian border. In the first weeks of the war, Israel also refused to absorb Ukrainian refugees unless they were Jewish. This decision was later changed under pressure from the Israeli public and a world outcry.

To sum up, Israel did less than the minimum expected of a Jewish state that was established in the wake of the Holocaust and that, through all the years of its existence, has been complaining that it's a victim of aggression and aspiring for world sympathy.

The requests by U.S. President Joe Biden, who called on Israel to at least provide Ukraine with defensive weapons, were of no avail. Ukraine begged Israel for an Iron Dome system to protect its citizens from Russian air force bombings and the missiles Russia launched at the capital city of Kyiv and others, which killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of civilians. An Iron Dome "could have provided good and effective protection to the cities near the border and to the frontline areas," Oleksii Reznikov told me in October 2022, when he was Ukraine's defense minister, in the first and only interview he granted to an Israeli media outlet.

A woman in Donetsk, Ukraine, walking in front of bombed buildings, 2022.Credit: LIBKOS/AP

But it was in vain. Israel persisted in its refusal, continued to sit on the fence, and was terrified of Putin's anger, although his garrison in Syria had been significantly reduced. When Netanyahu turned to Zelenskyy and asked for his help in guaranteeing the safety of the Israelis – disciples of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav – who go on a pilgrimage to the rabbi's grave in the Ukrainian city of Uman, the Ukrainian president replied to him angrily: "And what about the Iron Dome that we're requesting from you?"

Even when it turned out that Russia had become a strategic ally of Iran, Israel didn't change its attitude. The Ukrainian ambassador recently said that his country sent Israel three Iranian Shahed drones, thousands of which were supplied to Russia by Tehran. If this is true, then this helped the Israel Defense Forces and Military Intelligence to learn about and better understand Iran's technological capabilities and allowed them to derive conclusions about the areas near Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria, from which Hezbollah launches similar weapons.

Zelenskyy and Reznikov hoped that Israel would reciprocate with its gesture, but Israel, at least publicly, adhered to its position – although there was a slight change behind the scenes. As I wrote in these pages eight months ago, Israel began to share intelligence information that had been collected by Mossad (Mossad chief David Barnea embraced Zelenskyy publicly and affectionately at an international forum) about the war in Ukraine and Iran's capabilities. But too little and late.

A 2019 election banner for Likud featuring Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin. Credit: Nir Elias/Reuters

"The politicians in Israel will be sorry in the future because they didn't stand at our side," Reznikov told me during that interview in 2022. But the bitter truth is that in official Israel – the government and the defense establishment – they aren't sorry, and it's doubtful that they ever will be. About half a year ago, Zelenskyy dismissed Reznikov, maintaining that the time has come to refresh the ranks of his defense establishment, but also due to suspicions of corruption in the procurement of equipment by Defense Ministry officials.

Life after the war in Ukraine

Meanwhile, on the backdrop of the upheavals in the Middle East, Ukraine has realized that it shouldn't expect a change in Israel's policy. The war in Gaza and the fear of its expansion against Hezbollah highlight Israel's need to produce additional Iron Dome, David's Sling, and Arrow aerial defense systems. It cannot allow itself to be generous and supply them to other countries.

And yet, there are additional essential lessons that Israel should learn from the war between Russia and Ukraine and from the geopolitical changes that it's causing in the world.

Russia is tightening its cooperation with Iran, which is providing it not only with drones but also with ballistic missiles, as well as training its army to use them. In effect, a broader axis of evil has developed, consisting of Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Shi'ite militias in Syria, and this axis is directed against Israel.

An Iron Dome battery. Credit: Reuters

This axis not only supplies weapons to Israel's enemies, but it's also increasing its efforts in the fields of cyberwarfare and psyops and in disseminating disinformation and fake news. The fingerprints of Russia and Iran will only increase in their attempts to influence democratic countries to split, divide, and destabilize them politically, and this will harm Israel, too. In that sense, Israel and Ukraine are on the same side of the barricades.

This year, 120 election campaigns will occur worldwide; Russian and Iranian hackers will try to disrupt them. If an election is held in Israel – as one hopes will happen, as is needed after the failures and screw-ups of the Netanyahu government – these efforts will also reach here.

The war in Gaza is indeed harming Ukraine in the sense that it's diverting attention from it. But Ukraine is drawing encouragement from the support of the Biden administration, most of the EU countries (except Hungary and Slovakia), and NATO, which continues to help it and to provide it with weapons and ammunition. After receiving tanks, Ukraine will soon also be getting F-16 fighter aircraft.

Israel needs to understand that Western support for Ukraine originates not only in strategic interests in protecting Europe from the danger that Putin will continue with his aggression against the Baltic states and Poland. It's also motivated by feelings of solidarity and shared values.

This is the most crucial lesson that Israel should learn from the war in Ukraine: A country that fights for its freedom, conducts a just war, and operates according to democratic and ethical values, a country that is willing to compromise and listen to others when necessary, and that is also considerate of its neighbors and isn't only acting self-righteously and claiming to be a victim, will gain empathy and assistance from the United States and Western democracies.

BIG BROTHER: WAR IS GOOD

"Ukraine will win," we're told, over and over again, as narrative continually reasserts itself over reality.

By Matt Orfalea and Matt Taibbi

Substack.com
22 February 2024

The war in Ukraine is making history, not just on the battlefield but in the annals of propaganda. It is the first global news event in which audiences have been told outright that narrative must be preserved as a strategic imperative — in this case, “Ukraine Will Win” — no matter what contrasting truths pop up. This process is documented above in Racket video wizard Matt Orfalea’s brutal “Ukraine Will Win” compilation, which shows how audiences have been told, ordered almost, to accept ideas they learned over time to be untrue.

A prime example is Andrea Kendall-Taylor, former senior intelligence official (and co-author of the Trump-Russia Intelligence Community Assessment written about here last week, drawing on a 2020 RealClearInvestigations story by Paul Sperry. Kendall-Taylor told PBS recently that although it’s accurate battle lines haven’t “meaningfully changed” in Ukraine in months, the “narrative of a stalemate is wrong and unproductive.” True but wrong, or accurate but unhelpful, is the definition of misinformation, previously confined to social media posts about vaccine injuries. With Ukraine, the entire direction of a war, including the public’s attitude toward supporting it, is being suppressed in favor of a political mantra.

In a country where public opinion mattered, it would be counterintuitive for White House and Pentagon officials to advertise plans to increase the likelihood of broader war before aid is passed. However, this is what’s been happening lately. Like wrinkles in a dress shirt, intrusions of reality can and have been ironed out of public view. Orfalea shows how the White House/Pentagon dictates continually reassert themselves each time reality tries to inch its way into the mainstream. Just the broad-strokes chronology is incredible:

Take the new NBC headline this week: “Biden administration is leaning toward supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles.” Though the Senate last Tuesday passed a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, the bill is not likely to pass the House. No matter: Joe Biden’s White House was cheered enough for “two U.S. officials” to leak plans for stepped-up attacks, assuming enough GOP House members can be bullied into yes votes. We want to send so-called ATACMS missiles:

The Biden administration has resisted sending the long-range missiles… because officials worried Ukraine would use them to strike inside Crimea or Russia and cause Russian President Vladimir Putin to escalate... Pentagon officials have expressed similar concerns about other weapons systems but have decided to provide them to Ukraine.

Since October, when attacks in Israel and Gaza seized global attention, American attitudes toward the “other” war moved toward exhaustion. The public long ago began to tire of being lied to about topics related to Russia and Ukraine, from the Nord Stream pipeline blasts to overenthusiastic reports about last year’s counteroffensive to promises that each new entry in a succession of “savior weapons” will turn the tide (the ATACMS story belongs to this genre).

This exhaustion was expressed late last year when Republican voters told House reps not to approve new aid, and surveys showed a distinct public preference for a negotiated resolution (see recent Harris/Quincy poll), coupled with a reluctance to send blank checks into an arena with heightened risk levels (see a Pew Center survey).

Initially, after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, mass weapons shipments had the strong support of the American public. When Ukraine didn’t fall in days as some predicted, millions around the world rallied behind the tale of its “stiff resistance,” and as February turned to March, a flood of stories came out suggesting catastrophic surprise losses for Russians said to be stunned by the “scale and ferocity” of Ukraine’s fighting spirit. Just as quickly, those stories faded as viral events began to be retold with more ambiguous footnotes. The “Go Eff Yourself” Ukrainian border guards who stared down death to send the Russian warship Moskva off “on three letters,” as Slavs say, were commemorated and then un-commemorated in two postage stamp editions within the space of a month. Even before that, media consensus told us that the Russia-Ukraine military battle was locked in a “stalemate by the end of one month of combat.”

Matt documents that “stalemate” was replaced with “Ukraine will win.” Military victory was so sure that we began to be told that the only important question was when. The date was coming soon, in “weeks” or a “very short period,” and reporters did standups against whipping winds, telling us everyone agreed.

It wasn’t everyone. Commentators on RT, of course, disagreed but were banned. Tucker Carlson got pushed out of Fox, Russell Brand and the Grayzone ran into distribution issues, and “Pentagon leaker” Jack Teixeira, who exposed the public to gloomy classified assessments showing our government predicting a “protracted war beyond 2023,” was arrested with the help of the New York Times, the Washington Post and Bellingcat.

With all these naysayers out of the way, “Ukraine Will Win” was once again a near-unanimous chorus. Even actor Sean Penn, in an extraordinary life-imitates-art callback to the “Film Actors Guild” (make your acronym there) scenes from Team America World Police, declared “Ukraine will win… There’s no question in my mind.”

This situation could have gone on forever, as voices in virtually all significant media by late summer last year spoke as if in one voice. The only interruptions came through synapse-misfires by the likes of Joe Biden, who noted Vladimir Putin is “clearly losing in Iraq,” a hint that in Beltway minds, one interventionist quagmire is very like another.

Despite the media's near-blackout, the American public somehow began to conclude before it was told that Ukraine was not winning. If you ban alternate points of view and have official after official use the exact phrases while reading from a government script, the public can read between the lines if you make even a slight shift. For instance, if “Ukraine will win… in weeks” is suddenly replaced by less cheerful headlines about how we’re in a “war of incremental gains” or that Ukrainian troops have made “limited progress,” people will notice that you’ve been lying, that “limited progress” means “losing.” The truth is worse than what’s admitted.

The public seeing through “Ukraine will win” led to calls to the House GOP caucus to stop blank-checking military aid, which in turn led to a stalled vote and an unprecedented propaganda tantrum about the unwisdom of the livestock-like general public in its failure to follow dictates demanding support of an open-ended war. In December, I wrote about a remarkable Washington Post story blaming Teixeira for this public disobedience. However, Teixeira wasn’t villainous enough for the propaganda job. We’ve since been treated to various features showing how a string of traitorous serpents tempted the public to bite from the forbidden fruit of inquiry on Ukraine.

Thomas Edsall of the New York Times decried the “rapid increase in isolationism,” saying it was a sole by-product of the “Trump touch,” claiming the Orange One lured once-dependably pro-interventionist GOP voters from the faith. Even Voice of America trampled on its mandate to steer clear of domestic propaganda to write “Trump Becoming Biggest Obstacle to Border Deal to Fund Ukraine, Israel.” Voters are assumed not to have any agency in this issue, and little has reached American ears about foreign populations opposing the conflict for whatever reason, like, for instance, the protests by Polish farmers who’ve blockaded their border to keep out cheap Ukrainian grain and have a “tractor march” on Warsaw planned for next week.

The most recent and transparently desperate gambit involved the public being told of a nonspecific Russian “nuclear threat” by Republican speaker Mike Johnson. Despite the “threat” proving to be something still in development and nowhere near immediate, Rachel Maddow gushed that having “senior leaders” from the GOP praising the Biden administration on a Russian national security issue gave her the “tiniest of teeny, teeny tiny silver linings of hope.” It should tell audiences something: Seeing political leaders unite in opposition to voter sentiment and rally behind ever-more-absurd Russian natsec ghost stories gives Rachel hope.

Ukraine has become a messaging paradox. We’re all allowed to say, “Ukraine will win.” Still, if anyone begins to suspect it won’t, that person’s point of view becomes instantly illegitimate and vanishes, leaving just the original message. From Lloyd Austin threatening that “we’ll send your uncles, cousins, and sons to fight” to Chuck Schumer saying on MSNBC that Americans might find themselves fighting in Eastern Europe if we don’t pay now (don’t we have a say in this?), it’s clear that voters interrupting Executive Branch plans for Ukraine is unacceptable. If “Ukraine will win” is felt so strongly that it’s become a must, what will they think about the results of the next presidential election?

_________________________

Editor’s Note | Look at the Globe! The Nuclear Fence Surrounding Russia Started in 1949.

Today, thirty-one NATO Member States point their shared Nuclear Arsenal at the Russian Federation. Immediately after World War II, the EU-US/NATO Defense Alliance cordoned Russia from the West. Never mind that Russia was once an ally that sacrificed more than 25 million Russian lives to liberate Western Europe from NAZI domination. The West then and now persists in branding Russia as the Alpha Male in geopolitics.

Take note! Immediately after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Russia released its Eastern European Satellites from Russian rule. If you believe the Russian Federation intends to rule the world, think again! Russia has only one interest. Russia wants to buy and sell products and services primarily from its European neighbors. War disrupts and destroys international trade. The NATO Defense Shield, then and now, won’t allow Russia to expand its trade and territory into Western Europe. Again, look at the map.

Why would Russia want to expand its territory? It’s the largest country in Europe. It’s also the largest country on earth. Consider Russia’s immense size. It almost touches the US at the tip of Alaska. The former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, is known to have said, “I can see Russia from my bedroom window.”

Why does the West constantly refer to NATO’s conflict with Russia as Putin’s War when eighty-two percent of the Russians support Russia against the EU-US/NATO Defense Alliance? Look at the map! Would Russians, including all of President Putin’s opposition, support NATO? No! Russians, including just about all of Mr. Putin’s opposition, support Russia. How does the rest of humanity feel about the NATO-Russian Conflict? Most everyone, including most Europeans and Americans, wants the clowns in Brussels and their stooges in Washington, DC, to stop their charade.

Are there Russians who want to set Mr. Putin out to pasture? Yes! In the US, many prefer Mr. Biden to retire in a home for the elderly. Just as many want Mr. Biden to defeat Mr. Trump in this year’s US elections. All world leaders grapple with opposing political parties. Examine how the ruling party in the US tries to dispose of its opposition! The Democrats indict the opposition with 1) insurrection, 2) fraud, 3) election interference, etc., with no less than 91 alleged felony counts. The ruling Democrats want their opposition jailed. Despite the witchhunt, Mr. Trump has a fighting chance to regain the White House from Mr. Biden.

Study the map! The map is simple to understand. The propaganda perpetrated by all sides makes things worse. Like many Americans and Europeans, the Russian people are proud of their heritage. Neither the Russians nor the Americans or Europeans are ‘better’ than the other. Most Russians will vote this month to keep President Putin in office. In the West, Mr. Putin is vilified as a dictator. In Russia, most Russians deride the American President as the dictator of the world.

Stop defaming and demonizing each other! It doesn’t help the cause of peace.

EDITORIAL | VLADIMIR AND VOLODYMYR … RULERS OF PEACE?

"I honestly believe both Vladimirs or Volodymyrs should get a crack at working toward peace. Forget NATO. They'll add fuel to the fire."

By: Abraham A. van Kempen
Source: The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/vladimir-and-volodymyr-rulers-of-peace/

Published March 18, 2022

Ohrid, Macedonia, 17 March 2022 | Earlier today, while gorging on Pizza (and the Pizza here tastes even better than in New York), my friend said, "Abraham, do you know that the name Vladimir in Russian is the same as Volodymyr in Ukrainian? And you know what 'Vladimir' means?“

"Tell me!"

"Ruler of Peace." (Google' meaning of Vladimir.')

My friend continues: "I honestly believe both Vladimirs or Volodymyrs should get a crack at working toward peace. Forget NATO. They'll add fuel to the fire."

And boy, if they're genuinely rulers of peace, they have their work cut out for them.

Vladimir or Volodymyr Putin is President of the Russian Federation, the largest country on earth, covering 6.6 million square miles spanning 6,000 miles in length with 11 time zones, and is populated by roughly 141.7 million, with over 100 ethnic groups. Volodymyr, or Vladimir Zelenski, is the President of Ukraine, a sovereign nation-state with less than 44 million inhabitants. Approximately 7.5 million identify themselves as Russian, its largest ethnic group. Though slightly more than half are born in Ukraine, most still speak and write Russian and feel equally at home in both cultures.

Every Macedonian I spoke to is pro-Ukrainian. They feel for every person in Ukraine, including the Russian Ukrainians. The Balkan region is unique. Here, East meets West. Last night at a friend's house, I saw the news from Russia (RT), the US (Fox, CNN, MSNBC), and Eurovision. It's also the first time in years that I've watched the news on any TV. The Free World has blocked RT throughout the West. We're to believe Russia's position on the war is propaganda, as though there is none elsewhere.

Western media depicts the war almost like an Olympian soccer match, with play-by-play accounts of something like the Cowboys (the good guys) on one team and the Indians (the bad guys) on the other. News is often so perfectly choreographed, with commercials strategically in between. Much that comes through the tube is more prepackaged noise than news.

The talk on the street here in Ohrid, Macedonia, reveals profound disappointment and disillusionment. I've been told that 70 percent of Macedonians reject their government's official position. Skopje has ingratiated itself with NATO to seemingly earn brownie points to become part of the European Union (EU). The people of Macedonia, historically and hysterically, despise NATO. Nonetheless, the EU has dragged Skopje into the party line of the Free World. "Treacherous," most say.

"Now, we can't sell our apples and cherries – the world's tastiest – to Russia."

"They stopped the non-stop flight to Moscow," blockading tourism, the primary income stream in Ohrid.

In exchange for anonymity, I got some juicy responses (in italics) to my questions here in Ohrid, Macedonia.

"Isn't there one leader in the EU or the US who can outsmart Putin to prevent what is happening now, atrocities and crimes against humanity … caused by both sides," they ask.

"How can the leaders of the Free World believe that supplying weapons of mass destruction to a tiny country with a pocket-sized military will save lives and win the war against a country with firepower that rivals that of the United States?

"Why is the Free World so obsessed with Ukraine? Why does NATO need another satellite right at Russia's doorstep? Haven't they done a cost-benefit and risk analysis? If Putin were to drop a ‘Nagasaki’ or a ‘Hiroshima,’ even in a rural area in Ukraine, the Free World would drop Selenski like a hot potato."

Who entrapped whom? Has Putin or the Free World set the trap?

My friends in Ohrid unanimously speculate that NATO has dug a grave for Putin but fell into it themselves. Most people on this side of complexity are pro-Ukraine and anti-NATO. In their 4,000-year history and as recent as 2002, they've been off and on on the same boat the Ukrainians are now navigating through the storm.

"It's only a question of time before Biden and the EU leadership will have to broker peace with their tails in between their legs."

No one, not even the most powerful economies on earth, can beat an enemy with one nuclear bomb, let alone thousands.

And aren't we in a nuclear confrontation that might precipitate a nuclear war?

"For Putin, NATO is too close for comfort. He doesn't want NATO's nuclear arsenal located a stone's throw away from the Russian border. He wants Ukraine to serve as a buffer nation."

"Didn't Kennedy respond similarly to Khrushchev before he transplanted Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) near the shores of Florida in Cuba?"

"Would the United States allow Mexico or Canada, two neighboring countries, to sign a NATO-like pact with China, Russia, or both?"

"Have the Free World and Russia ever asked the Ukrainians if they want to serve as cannon fodder and human shields for either the Free World or Russia?"

So, I asked: "Who on earth wants to be a sitting duck in a nuclear war between East and West? I mean, where is this war leading us? Doesn't proxy directly embroil us? Will it escalate from a localized nuclear confrontation to global annihilation?

"A proxy war between East and West, using the Ukrainians as either human shields or cannon fodder, defeats itself."

"This strategy is ruthlessly brutal, cold-blooded, vicious, and inhumane.

"Who will win? Who will lose? What is the outcome?"

For many here in Ohrid, Macedonia, the answer is almost obvious. "NO ONE!"

So why war?

"As soon as the world realizes that we're all in this together, we're all potentially cannon fodder in a nuclear holocaust; the Free World will drop Ukraine like a hot potato."

"Is it again about money and might – oil and gas – masqueraded as 'democracy'?"

"Putin is invincible compared to the former Shah of Iran, Sadam, or Gaddafi."

The coronavirus pandemic is now being upstaged with a war between the Free World and Mother Russia, the former Soviet Empire. And Ukraine is smack at center stage.

"If all truly care about the Ukrainians – everyone says now they're our brothers and sisters – declare a ceasefire! The Free World and Russia must stop the bloodshed, carnage, and human suffering. Come to a solution!"

So what's the anticipated outcome discussed here in the many street cafes — there are two cafes on every street corner in the center of town.

"All sides will gain some and lose some at the expense of the 'collateral damage.' Ukrainians are now dying for nothing."

My local barber said it in three words when I asked him to compare Biden to Putin: "I want peace." He had no further comment on the subject.

When we met three years ago, a young man working in the Presidential Affairs Office on Red Square said, "President Putin has everything. He's been in power for 17 years. His only wish is that East and West meet and become one."

Are we witnessing a clash or a crash (misunderstanding) of civilizations? We are no longer in Stalin's Russia or Roosevelt's America. In relative terms, under Putin, Russia has become more democratic; the Free World, less. Will either ever become perfectly free? The world has changed whether we like it or want it.

An Appeal to Both Vladimirs

Rulers of Peace navigate us toward peace. It's in your hands. In war, it takes many to tango; in peace, less.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).".

BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GETTING TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen

Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're in search of the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge promotes understanding, dispels prejudice, and awakens the desire to learn more. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology places unprecedented possibilities for good at our disposal, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet its misuse can do untold harm, leading to misunderstanding, prejudice, and conflict.

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