Zelensky's rallying cry for Jews: His last shot in a losing war

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After being left to face Russia militarily alone by the US, NATO and other alleged supporters, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, himself Jewish, attempts to mobilize Jews around the world to fight in his war.

“I am now addressing all the Jews of the world. Don’t you see what is happening? That is why it is very important that millions of Jews around the world not remain silent right now,” he said on Wednesday. “Nazism is born in silence. So shout about killings of civilians. Shout about the murders of Ukrainians.”

Taking an alarmist approach towards the conflict, Zelensky accused Putin and the Russian army of genocide. “They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all,” he said. 

The elephant in the room

While Zelensky compares the Russian operation to Nazism, an openly neo-Nazi Azov battalion looms in the background, away from the media spotlight. 

The Azov battalion is a part of the Ukrainian National Guard - a wing of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, an authorized, legitimate part of the Ukrainian security apparatus - and, openly Nazi. 

The battalion flaunts its Nazism very openly, and is even notoriously known for a video in which they crucified a soldier, tortured him, and burnt him alive. 

The Ukrainian National Guard has recently published a video on its official Twitter page, boasting about Azov fighters greasing their bullets with pig fat to be used against Muslim Chechens on the Russian side. These fighters are a target of Putin's denazification campaign in Ukraine. 

The video comes as a direct threat to Muslims who hold the Islamic beliefs that lard is an impure substance prohibited for their consumption. 

The United States and Canada over the years have aided the neo-Nazi units with weapons and training, strengthening their presence in Ukraine, while NATO does not raise the alarming issue of Nazism in Ukraine, which Zelensky has lost control of. 

Instigation for support

Nevertheless, assuming that Putin's military campaign is against Ukrainian Jews, the religious demographics in Ukraine largely belong to Orthodox Christians by 67% - Judaism in Ukraine lands at approximately 0.4% of the population. With Putin's zero mention of Ukrainian Jews (or any religious rhetoric for that matter), where are reports of the Russian army cherry-picking 0.4% of the population while targeting military infrastructure throughout?

Obviously, war bears humanitarian crises around the world, regardless of the players - but, in Zelensky's eyes, if the war in Ukraine wears the cloak of a humanitarian crisis, why is the Ukrainian president using rhetoric contradictory to the supposed Ukrainian secular values, using an ethnocentric, sectarian dimension to argue his point of view?

Using a religious sentiment as a weapon to mobilize support is nothing new to reactionary regimes, pertaining to their usage to justify military action, upholding a fascist system or even colonization. In other words, it has been used to mask reality: One could take a look at "Israel's" use of anti-Semitism to justify the ongoing genocide and uprooting of Palestinians. 

Read more: “Israel’s” weapon of choice: Anti-Semitism

 

Zelensky's call for Jewish support is not mutually exclusive from his invitation for Israelis to fight in Ukraine. The Embassy of Ukraine in "Israel" said on Facebook that Israelis who wished to travel to Ukraine to fight against Russia could do so, providing them with contact information.

In December, Yevgen Korniychuk, Ukraine’s Ambassador to "Israel", said that Ukraine could recognize Al-Quds in Palestine as "Israel’s" “one and only capital” soon, and hopes to open a branch of its embassy in the city in the coming year, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The timing of the announcement raised some big questions, notably as the tensions between Ukraine and Russia were rising high. 

Kiev was counting on military and defensive support from "Israel" in exchange for supplying it with a dose of political reconnaissance of its - illegitimate - sovereignty over Al-Quds. 

With accusations of harboring western-sent militants in the guise of professors as well as the $200 million military aid deal it struck with the US, Ukraine is adamant about bolstering its military capacities by any means necessary.

The last shot

Zelensky has for long been counting on NATO's military efforts and support for a war against Russia - but, Ukraine isn't NATO, and the Ukrainian president cried that his struggles were abandoned.

“I am asking them, ‘Are you with us?’ They say they are with us, but they are not ready to accept us in NATO. All of them are afraid,” Zelensky said.

“The fate of the country depends on our army and our security forces," - and, apparently, some Israeli support, which may be his last shot in a losing war.