http://sarahhonig.com/2014/03/05/worthless-guarantees/
Ultra-popular in cyberspace these days is a cartoon showing Vladimir Putin as a shrewd strategist executing moves on a chessboard, while a laid-back Barack Obama incongruously plays a single checkers piece and yells “Bingo!”
We may agree or disagree with this depiction but such is the widespread perception of the Ukrainian crisis and the invasion of Crimea. The Russian leader is regarded as having handily outmaneuvered the American president and with him the entire West.
For Israelis, though, this is no laughing matter. We aren’t mere spectators on the sidelines. This sad spectacle couldn’t be more relevant to Israel. The implications to our own predicaments are compelling and quite inescapable.
From our vantage point there are no saints in this scenario. Our sympathies aren’t clear-cut. Ukrainians are recalled in Jewish history as the second-greatest-ever mass-murderers of Jews – directly after the Germans (with whom many Ukrainians avidly collaborated during the darkest days of the Holocaust).
And yet there’s a key element in the current Ukrainian travails that is particularly pertinent to the complexities and pressures which Israel faces.