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Thursday, March 10, 2022

03/10 Links Pt1: The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Legal and Political Implications; This Is Why Putin Thinks He Can Wait Out the West; Turkey Walks a Tightrope on Ukraine

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Legal and Political Implications
The bitter hostilities between Russia and Ukraine are accompanied by widely reported instances of indiscriminate targeting by the Russian military forces of civilians and civilian centers as well as nuclear power plants, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and the use of weapons outlawed by international law.

In a statement issued on February 28, 2022, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, acknowledged that “there is a reasonable basis to proceed with opening an investigation by the Court.”

On March 1, 2022, the Prosecutor informed the Court of his intention to open an investigation. He subsequently announced on March 2, 2022, that the Court had received referrals by no less than 39 state parties to the ICC Statute calling upon the Court to open such an investigation against the Russian political and military leadership.

Palestinian spokespeople are expressing considerable concern and indignation that the international community, including those same international judicial bodies in which they actively engage, are immersed in the legal proceedings regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, rather than pursuing Israel.

Such Palestinian lamentations are misplaced, misleading, and manipulative. Compared to the massive, urgent, and severe humanitarian issues arising in the context of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, as formally stressed by the ICC Prosecutor in his official statements, the Palestinian issue deserves no comparison.

On the contrary, it is widely acknowledged that the Palestinian referrals to the Court do not stem from any genuine or substantive concern for human rights. They are part of the Palestinian political struggle to manipulate the international judicial organs within the international community to target and delegitimize Israel.
Noah Rothman: This Is Why Putin Thinks He Can Wait Out the West
The Biden White House is facing down the most dangerous geopolitical crisis in decades. In response to Moscow’s aggression, the West has imposed a commercial blockade on Russia. Whether Joe Biden believes this is an act of war or not is immaterial; the Kremlin apparently does. The president will now have to sustain that campaign and preserve public support for it. That’s no easy task, and Biden has not shown the capacity or willingness to absorb the political costs associated with securing American interests abroad. Vladimir Putin has every reason to believe that Biden’s resolve will break first.

For now, the balance of economic forces arrayed against Russia is overwhelming. The Russian economy is headed for default. The Ruble is fast approaching valuelessness, and access to hard currency as a hedge against skyrocketing Russian inflation has been curtailed. It is now a struggle to process a transaction in Russia, much less invest in its economy. More than 100 multinational firms have fled Russia. Iconic businesses such as McDonald’s and Pepsi—companies that famously helped open the Soviet economy to Western interests—have pulled the plug. Russia doesn’t just find itself back in the USSR. It has stumbled its way back into the Brezhnev era.

Though attacks on the Russian financial system will limit Moscow’s options, these measures generally transfer the pain of war onto the Russian public with the hope of degrading the citizenry’s tolerance for Vladimir Putin’s adventurism. But there are few indications that the Russian regime is sensitive to public-pressure campaigns. The Biden administration has, therefore, laudably refused to stop there. On Tuesday, the White House announced a ban on the U.S. import of Russian oil and petroleum products (the U.K. has done the same). That’s a crucial and largely unforeseen contribution to the global campaign aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to project power beyond its borders. But the cracks are already starting to show in the West’s resolve to sustain this crusade. Already, the demands of partisan politics are beginning to find their way into how the White House talks about its actions against Moscow.

When asked how he expects fuel prices will respond to curbs on Russian imports, Biden replied curtly, “they’re gonna go up.” He continued: “Can’t do much right now. Russia’s responsible.” Indeed, the Biden White House has trotted out an alliterative slogan for the present oil shock: “Putin’s price hike.” But Russia isn’t the only malign force conspiring to steal your wages. According to Biden, fossil-fuel producers are also to blame.
Alan M. Dershowitz: The Nobel Committee Should Give Zelensky the Peace Price Now
The prize is awarded only to living recipients. The question is, will Zelensky be alive in the fall? He himself has acknowledge that he is Russian's "number one target," and we know from tragic experience how Putin deals with his targets. They are poisoned, thrown out of windows and killed in other brutal and sometimes subtle ways.

Accordingly, the Nobel Committee should break with tradition, meet now and award Zelensky the prize.

This may not save his life, or the lives of heroic people of Ukraine, but it may make it just a little bit harder for Putin to incur the wrath of the entire world by murdering the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Committee likes to say that its nomination is designed not only to award past actions, but also to influence the present and the future of peacemaking activities. No award could meet those criteria as effectively as the Peace Prize for Zelensky.

To be sure there have been other massacres and even genocides, but the invasion of an entirely peaceful nation cannot go unrecognized by a committee whose agenda includes rewarding the past and influencing the future.

So, the question is not whether Zelensky deserves the Prize. He does. The only question is when he should get it.

As the great Rabbi Hillel once said: "If not now, when?"


Vivian Bercovici: What’s Bennett’s Play in Ukraine?
Western leaders, understandably, are desperate to avoid a full-on confrontation with Russia, which may, as Putin has hinted, trigger the nuclear option. However, the West has also demonstrated–in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere–a lack of resolve to identify and articulate “red lines” and enforce them.

Putin is not a Western leader. He is a Russian leader; one who has a messianic devotion to Mother Russia, an abiding belief that Ukraine is rightfully Hers, and no notion that these are separate people.

Ukraine is today’s Sudetenland.

Dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and, yes, Putin do not understand the concept of compromise. To them, there is one truth, and they embody it. Religious or not, they are devoted to the sanctity of their mission, which always involves ridding society of a malign influence and restoring dignity, decency, and a rightful Order.

Like many traditional Russian nationalists, Putin has never accepted the legitimacy of an independent Ukraine. He never will.

Hopefully, before bombing any more maternity hospitals and civilian areas indiscriminately, some crazy combination of Bennett’s sessions and Western resolve (yet to be found) can prevent an unthinkable escalation in Ukraine.

What is unclear is whether Putin even cares to “settle” and risk being seen to be weak. Or would he prefer to do what he has done in Syria, Chechnya, and elsewhere? Because, really, at the end of the day, if the West won’t stiffen its spine and undertake meaningful intervention on the ground and in the skies now, today, will it ever?

This, in the end, is the Bennett dilemma. He has no leverage with Putin. He needs Russia to continue to allow Israel to operate reasonably freely in the Syrian skies, keeping Iran and Hezbollah at bay. And to do that, he needs Putin’s continued “co-operation.”

Israel has no margin for error, understanding well that no one will run to its aid should Iran or Hizballah attack its civilians. And as the Russian bear rages, the Iranians are humiliating the West in the latest round of nuclear negotiations in Vienna.

Bennett has done his bit. This weekend, I suggest he stay at home, turn off his phone, and leave the heavy lifting to the superpowers.
Zelensky slated to address Knesset members in coming days, says speaker
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is slated to address the Israeli parliament via Zoom in the coming days, according to Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy.

Levy said on Thursday that he spoke with Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk to reiterate his invitation to Zelensky to address members of the Knesset.

Korniychuk and Levy have agreed to schedule a date for Zelensky’s address in the coming days, the statement said.

Zelensky had first asked to address the full Knesset plenum, but Levy responded that the Knesset would be going on recess after its closing session on Thursday, and the building was then scheduled for renovations, according to reports.

“The ambassador thanked Speaker Levy for his welcoming response to his letter and for publicly clarifying and refuting the false information published in the press, that allegedly argued that the speaker refused President Zelensky’s request to address members of the Knesset,” the statement said.

Zelensky has given similar speeches to officials and lawmakers in the United Kingdom, European Union, and Canada.
Zelensky Asks to Address Israel’s Holocaust Museum on Ukraine Crisis
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked to address Israel’s main Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, about Russia’s invasion of his country, during which both sides have invoked the Nazi genocide.

Yad Vashem said in a statement on Thursday it would discuss the proposal with Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel on Sunday. The Ukrainian embassy could not immediately be reached for comment.

Zelensky has sought to drum up support with video briefings of foreign audiences that have included the US Congress and the British parliament. Earlier this week, he asked to address Israel’s parliament but was told that it was about to go into recess, according to an assembly spokesman.

Russia has said it aims to “denazify” Ukraine, a claim rejected as nonsense by Kyiv and Western countries. Zelensky, who is Jewish, said Russian shelling close to Babi Yar, a Holocaust memorial in Kyiv, on March 3 suggested “history repeating (itself).”
Yad Vashem to break ties with Roman Abramovich over Putin connections
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, announced on Thursday that it was suspending its ties to Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Abramovich, 55, over his past connections with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier on Thursday, the UK officially sanctioned Abramovich, complicating his attempt to sell his football club.

On February 22, Yad Vashem announced a strategic partnership with Abramovitch, who was set to donate tens of millions of dollars.

Last week, Abramovich came under scrutiny for his close ties to Putin, leading him to announce the selling of the Chelsea Football Club. Abramovich has owned the club since 2003.

The move came as part of a wave of Western sanction packages slammed against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Foreign Ministry says nearly 11,000 Israelis fled Ukraine, some 1,500 remain
The Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that nearly 11,000 Israelis have fled Ukraine in the past four weeks.

Some 1,500 still remain in the country amid Russia’s invasion. According to the ministry, most of them are not interested in leaving at the moment or are not allowed to due to current military conscription laws.

All Ukrainian men aged 18-60 have been ordered to remain in the country to serve as a potential fighting force.

The ministry noted that there is still heavy traffic towards the border and recommended that Israelis still wishing to leave Ukraine do so through the Zahony border crossing with Hungary and the Palanca border crossing with Moldova.

Last week, the Foreign Ministry warned Israelis currently in Belarus not to approach the country’s southern border with Ukraine, due to the ongoing Russian invasion and continued deployment of military forces in the area.

The ministry also asked Israelis remaining in the Russia-aligned dictatorship — officially a republic — to register with the embassy in Minsk as a precaution.
Turkey Walks a Tightrope on Ukraine
The Montreux Convention also provides special provisions for countries bordering the Black Sea that will make the Erdoğan government’s move even more agreeable to Moscow. According to Article 19, all Black Sea nations can still have their warships transit through the straits so long as these vessels are returning to their Black Sea bases of origin. This allows Russia, Ukraine, and NATO members Bulgaria and Romania to continue to use the straits to bring their warships into the Black Sea as they go back to their bases. The inability of any other NATO member state to send ships through the straits to the Black Sea until the end of hostilities in Ukraine is a win for Putin.

The Turkish president’s reported decision to prevent four Russian warships from passing through the straits to the Black Sea even before his decision to implement the Montreux Convention also appears to be another blessing in disguise for Putin. As the Turkish foreign minister stated, three of the four ships Russia wanted to send to the Black Sea were not registered to bases in the Black Sea. Had they transited to the Black Sea ahead of Erdoğan’s decision to start implementing the Montreux Convention, those three ships would have been stuck in the Black Sea until the end of the hostilities.

Russia will, nevertheless, suffer from Montreux’s restrictions if its invasion of Ukraine turns into a prolonged war. Russian warships that return to their Black Sea ports do not have the right to exit to the Mediterranean through the straits until the war ends. This will prevent Putin from bringing supplies to the Assad regime in Syria by using ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Kremlin can continue such supply missions by using ships from its Baltic, Northern, and Pacific fleets, but as Nicholas J. Myers argued, “this would require considerably longer supply lines and likely shorter on-station times.”

Erdoğan appears to have become more cognizant of the threat posed by the increasing irredentism and belligerence of his long-time friend Putin. Yet the Turkish president has little room to take concrete action against Russia, given how much leverage Putin has built against Turkey during Erdoğan’s 20-year rule. As the Montreux Convention example also shows, he feels the need to pursue a balancing act between NATO and Russia. Meanwhile, Erdoğan hopes that unsuspecting observers in the West will fall for the spin that the purported blows to Russia represent the wayward country’s return to the NATO fold.
Biden's foreign policy makes Putin a pariah — sometimes
President Joe Biden is touting his tough economic sanctions against Russia, but on Iran nuclear talks and other thorny issues, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not as isolated as advertised.

The Russia-Ukraine war exposes "the fallacy" that Putin is isolated, according to Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior adviser Rich Goldberg.

"It reveals all the ways this administration has been cozying up to Russia until this conflict emerged," he told the Washington Examiner.

The U.S.-Russia relationship was reset without using that word during Biden's first month as president, when the administration extended the countries' nuclear arms reduction treaty, Goldberg said. And since then, Biden's posture toward Putin has created difficulties for him as he seeks to impose devastating sanctions on the autocrat for his deadly war with Ukraine.

Goldberg, a Vandenberg Coalition advisory board member, also cited Biden waiving sanctions on the Russia-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which facilitated Europe's continued Russian energy dependence, and the president's siding with Putin to negotiate a new Iran nuclear deal as his aides implore the Iranian, Saudi Arabian, and Venezuelan regimes to ease record-high gas prices by flooding the market with more oil.

"As commander in chief, you cannot start pumping billions of dollars into the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and claim that will be beneficial to America's national security interest," Goldberg said of Iran, proposing that Biden introduce escrow accounts for Russian energy imports instead.
Odessa Jewish Community Leader Had Prepared for the Russian Invasion
While many others in Ukraine doubted the prospect of a Russian invasion, Rabbi Refael Kruskal, vice president of the Jewish community in Odessa, took his cues from Jewish history. "I had supplies on trucks. I had generators prepared....I had gas prepared for the buses on the way," he said. Kruskal oversees Tikva Odessa, a network of Jewish schools, orphanages, and community-care programs that encompasses 1,000 people.

When Russian bombs began to fall, Kruskal and his team decided it was time to leave and headed for prearranged shelter beyond the Carpathian Mountains with hundreds of orphans. "There were people in the Second World War who didn't believe, and they and their communities were wiped out," he said. "We prefer to be cautious and make sure that our communities are safe." While religious Jews like Kruskal normally do not travel on the Jewish sabbath, Jewish law permitted them to do so in order to preserve human life.

Odessa was once home to the third-largest Jewish population in the world. At its height, the city was half Jewish. But after the pogroms, the Holocaust, and Stalin's purges, that percentage dropped to just 6%.
An Israeli War Reporter's Notebook: Living under Siege in Kyiv
Kyiv has adopted a siege routine. Shelling was relentless most of the day in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Long lines of refugees waited to leave in small convoys of buses heading for the Polish border.

The most evident change was in the amount of fortifications erected by the Ukrainian forces, which would be a real obstacle even for the most advanced Russian armor.

The barricades would not only slow the tanks down, they may stop their progress altogether.


Hussain Abdul-Hussain: Imagining Discrimination
Perhaps Mehdi and Ayman, with Western passports all their lives, never experienced the challenges of traveling with a passport issued by failing states, like in the case of my Iraqi passport issued by the government of Saddam Hussein. Had they been aware of such experience, they would have known that at border crossings, nationality — not race — matters.

For the EU border to be practicing racism, it would have to refuse admission to non-white Ukrainian nationals, which has never been reported. By the same token, for the EU border to be racist, it would have to allow access to white non-Ukrainian nationals. Ignoring nationality of those crossing the EU border, then comparing them along racial lines, is like comparing apples to oranges.

The same sensational and non-sensical discussion over imagined racism at the EU border is now falsely accusing Israel of apartheid. Accusers define Israel as being a Jewish race dominating the Palestinian race. Such was the argument of late Palestinian-American literature professor Edward Said, who said that because Jews and Arabs now live in mixed areas, separating them has become impossible, and therefore the two-state scheme is not viable and should be replaced by a binational single state.

Even though neither Said nor his apartheid proponents ever spelled it out, it is an open secret that in a binational state, Arabs outnumber Jews and can transform Israel, in the ballot box, into Palestine.

Said argued that Israel’s refusal of his one state solution entrenched the status quo, which currently has the Palestinians living in separate enclaves that he likened to the bantustans of apartheid South Africa.

But the fundamental difference between Black South Africans then and Palestinians now is that while South Africans sought to assimilate in the white-only state and become citizens, the majority of Palestinians refuse to become Israeli citizens. Most Palestinians want a state of their own.

Why Palestinians have not yet gotten a state is a long story. Suffice it to say that Palestinians do not have an elected and representative government, and in the rare instances when they did elect their leaders, those either could not deliver on their part of the deal to get a Palestinian state or declared destroying Israel as their goal.

Unlike how the antisemitic reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and the Harvard submission depict them, the Israelis and Palestinians are not two races. They are two nationalities, like Americans and Canadians. If America invades Canada, the solution to the conflict is not for Canadians to become US citizens and vote for an American president, but to restore Canadian government. In the interim, while America rules Canadians, it will treat them differently from Americans. This is how Israel treats Palestinians differently, not as one race dominating another, but as one nation managing its non-citizens who have yet to show that they can manage themselves and stand their own state. (h/t Zvi)
NGO Monitor: It’s Always About Israel: NGOs Exploit Russo-Ukrainian War to Draw False Equivalencies with Israel
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, sparking a devastating humanitarian crisis. To date, millions of civilians have been displaced, amidst massive damage to homes and civilian infrastructure.

As with many other events that capture international attention, anti-Israel NGOs and activists appropriate the situation to further their own agendas and to promote demonization, in the form of BDS and other attacks on Israel. Many cited Western sanctions against Russian entities and individuals as a blueprint for targeting Israel, and lamented the lack of enthusiasm for such policies vis-a-vis Israel. Others sought to equate Ukrainian defense against invading forces with Palestinian “resistance,” i.e., terrorism.

Such comparisons distort the history and nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict and erase decades of Palestinian terrorism directed at Israeli civilians. Moreover, the apparent deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure by Russian forces is contrasted with Israel’s extensive efforts to avoid civilian casualties while conducting defensive military operations, including through the “roof-knock” technique and dropping leaflets to encourage civilians to vacate areas where military targets are located.

The following are quotes from selected NGOs reacting to the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine by castigating Israel:

Al Haq
Main funders: European Union, Sweden, Denmark
In a March 6 interview, Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin stated that “the International Criminal Court’s rapid investigation into the Ukraine crisis reveals the selective use of international laws, as hundreds of files submitted from the State of Palestine have not been studied so far.”

Human Rights Watch
On March 6, Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir tweeted in response to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky’s announcement that his company would suspend operations in Russia and Belarus: “Sorry Brian, @Airbnb brokers rentals in illegal West Bank settlements on land stolen from a ppl under occupation who are barred from staying there. Principles tested in times of challenge/controversy—not comfort/convenience—as MLK said. You failed that one.”

Former director of HRW’s Middle East Division Sarah Leah Whitson was quoted in a March 7 Guardian article stating that there are “clear parallels” between alleged Russian and Israeli violations of international law: “We see that not just the US government but US companies are falling over themselves to sanction and boycott anything that has an association with the Russian government…Contrast that with the exact opposite when it comes to sanctioning Israel for its violations of international law to the point where American states are passing laws to punish Americans unless they promise never to boycott Israel. It’s very clear that the grounds for resisting sanctions on Israel, or even compliance with international law, is purely political.”
Anti-Israel voices push all the wrong lessons on Ukraine
Racism and Islamophobia help explain the Western world's horror and swift actions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, speakers agreed Thursday afternoon in a discussion organized and livestreamed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

There is "some inconsistency, to put it mildly, in the way the Western world has reacted to this crime" compared to others, said CAIR Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell. Muslims in China, Kashmir and the Palestinian territories are not seen as heroic when they resist oppressors.

"There are only two differences: White and religion – Muslim," he said later in the program.

No one making this argument considered why seeing Russia – one of the world's nuclear powers, led by a dictator bent on expanding his empire – launch an unprovoked war in Europe might trigger strong reactions in the West. The challenge to NATO allies was never mentioned.

The discussion was just the latest in a campaign by Islamists and their supporters to equate Russia's invasion of Ukraine with the Israel-Palestinian conflict and others.

There are key distinctions that the people pushing this message ignore.

Vladimir Putin's ambitions in Ukraine are much more consistent with anti-Israel forces than they care to recognize.

Putin does not believe Ukraine should exist as an independent, democratic country. He gave them two options: Surrender, or face annihilation.
Social media influencers link Ukraine plight and Palestinians

‘Unprecedented’ scale of sanctions, boycott took Russia by surprise, experts say
Nearly two weeks into the Russian military assault on Ukraine, Moscow has been facing an avalanche of coordinated sanctions by Western governments and boycotts by private companies and public multinationals the likes of which have never been seen before, economic experts say.

Governments have slapped far-reaching economic sanctions on Russia that have targeted its financial institutions, including the central bank, shipping and trade industry, tech and aviation sectors, and community of wealthy oligarchs and their circles, stopping short until Tuesday of aiming at the country’s oil and energy sector.

Energy exports have kept a steady stream of cash flowing to Russia despite otherwise severe restrictions on its financial sector. But the US is not a major importer of Russian oil, whereas Europe gets about 40% of its gas and 30% of its oil from Russia, and has no immediate or easy alternative if supplies are disrupted.

Dr. Tomer Fadlon, a research fellow in the Economics and National Security Program at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), estimated that Russia’s oil and gas sector accounts for some 55% of national exports and brings in about $1 billion a day.

For sanctions on the Russian energy sector to have an impact, “Europe will need to feel the pain, and since they don’t have another alternative at the moment, this is hard to do,” he told The Times of Israel in a phone interview Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a host of tech firms, major manufacturers and consumer brands have either suspended or halted their operations in Russia altogether or have restricted their services in a move meant to punish the Kremlin over the war.

McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks were the latest to join the corporate boycott which now includes over 300 companies, according to a team of researchers from Yale University. These include Visa, Apple, Facebook, Mastercard, Amazon, Google, Ford, Dell, DHL, Nike as well as luxury brands like Burberry, Hermes, Ferrari and Rolls Royce.




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