Russia Takes No Military Action Outside Its Border in 20 Years Unlike US

Russia Takes No Military Action Outside Its Border in 20 Years Unlike US
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Avigdor Eskin, Israeli publicist and political analyst, comments on the most signifacnt events of the passing week in an interview with Radio Sputnik.

Jay Johnson: Now, Avigdor, this week Israel is marking a day of remembrance of the Holocaust and heroism. Do you feel that another holocaust could be possible in our time?

Never Forget: Holocaust Remembrance Day - Sputnik International
Never Forget: Holocaust Remembrance Day
Avigdor Eskin: Well, frankly, I firmly believe that Israel will never allow anything like this to happen again. The attempts in different parts of the world to revive the spirit of Nazism are there, they are in Kiev, in Riga, and we even see them today in Western Europe, becoming more vulnerable to ultra-nationalism, racism, and other evils of the Nazi past. But Israel is strong enough to prevent any holocaust when we always add with God’s help off course. The fact is that some people, specially living in exile, in the Diasporas, feel unsafe.

This only strengthens our basic idea that when we are talking about preventing the holocaust, if there is any insurance here, about it so, only on the territory of the State of Israel off course. I mean, is already becoming more and more troubling and people are getting killed just because of them expressing their, sometimes absolutely innocent even democratic thoughts of the nation like, in the case of Oles Buzina, who was gunned down in Kiev a few hours ago.

He was one of the best writers in Ukraine today; he wrote in Ukrainian and despite the fact, he was killed. Because of his views, because he was a man of peace. It is terribly difficult to talk about him in the past. And here in Israel we of course want to express solidarity with Oles, with other people in Ukraine, peaceful people and the fascist people, those who want to build a future with us and other nations. 

Jay Johnson: Now, let’s focus on regional Middle Eastern Politics, in the Islamic Republic of Iran that has long decided to use the cartoon media as an instrument to deny the holocaust and to really promote anti-Semitism. Do you feel that anti-Semitism is rising inside the Middle East?

Avigdor Eskin: Well, this initiative of Iran is not new. We remember very well this type of abomination made by the former president Ahmadinejad. So yes, this is not something that is new. But it is very unfortunate that the Iranian authorities understand American concessions as an invitation for such enormous abomination. You see, we are talking of rewriting Second World War history. What is more rewriting and what is more falsification than this model, than this mockery on the Holocaust which Iranian authorities are initiating and sponsoring now. Together with some ultraliberal, anti-Russian in many cases, western cartoonists. I mean, this alliance of western ultraliberal, ultra pro-gay, ultra pro-everything which is ultra-left European cartoonists and Iranian ultra-conservative, supposedly Ayatollah, is something to be disgusted in length and probably not during the day of the holocaust because it’s just funny. The thing is funny itself. 

Jay Johnson: Interesting. Moving right along now there was an attack on civilians inside of Jerusalem. A car actually ran into a bus-stop inside of Jerusalem itself. One person, I believe, was injured and one person was killed. Now this is the first time that terrorist have chosen this method of attacking people, but literally driving over them… In your opinion, how can this be prevented?

Avigdor Eskin: Well, we can build another security fence and they will come to destroy the security fence. And we will build another fence around this security fence, and then it can continue like this forever! It’s always better to use offensive techniques when the enemy attacks your civilians, other than building another fence or defense of the fence.

If the government needs to protect the civil population of Jerusalem, there is no doubt about it, there is no question about it. And the enemy must know that there’ll be a very high price for each of such barbarian actions.

Now, the guy who was killed there, Shalom Sherki, is a son of a very good friend of mine, whom I’ve known for many years. And I remember him as a kid, extremely soft-spoken nice person, very God-fearing. His father is a rabbi, he wanted also to become a rabbi, but also was a person of music, of philosophy, you name it. He was just somebody who would make this world better by any moment of his presence. And he was taken away. It’s very painful to talk about, very painful to discuss it even. But this is how life is here. And it makes us think about our enemy. Because why was this Mister Sherki killed? For just one reason, because he was a Jew walking on the street.

And when you see that even here in the State of Israel you have a Jew getting killed just because he was waiting for a bus or walking on the street, well, we see that their ideology is not dead yet. And we must be careful and never again must be strong enough over and over again.

Jay Johnson: A top US expert has written an article in the Washington Times and has warned against out coming Russian aggression. In that article, what do you think he is basing his opinion on what is he talking about in general?

Avigdor Eskin: Well, one can say that it’s surprisingly low factice to accuse Russia of aggression and planned aggression. And this is exactly at the time when two people actually were killed in Ukraine because of their views, because of their beliefs, because of their faith in peace with Russia. And not only this, we have civilian population of Donetsk and Lugansk suffering from different ways of aggression. And we know on the other hand that Russia has fixed all the documents that we should sign in Minsk. So I mean, why should Russia be blamed for anything now from the side of American experts, if Russia is not blamed by the Ukrainian side?

Now we are talking about the situation and everything since is relatively quiet. Some violations by the Ukrainians are disgusted, taken care of. And even the situation is improving. And there is an American expert as if he wants to explain the next act of aggression against Russia. This is how it looks, because we are talking about aggressions, we are talking about planned military action: well, let’s talk facts!

Since the Soviet Union was dismantled, how many military actions took Russia outside of Russian borders? How many people were hurt, because of Russia took any provocative or preventive action outside the Russian borders? And if you compare it with what did the United States with its western NATO Allies during this last twenty years, well, the comparison will be such that this political analyst and other political analysts should first stick to the facts probably, and never open the mouth again!

I mean, it looks as a preparation for a new kind of provocative when one must be careful, because it’s so open and so uncovered by anything and not justified by any facts. On the other hand, we are talking about an important and quite influential chap who writes not just in his name but represents many others of this school of thinking. 

Jay Johnson: Would you perceive another wave of tensions being raised up between Washington and Moscow or the West and Russia? 

Avigdor Eskin: I don’t see now and I hope that the peace atmosphere of now will prevail. We really hope that enough was enough, for everybody. But with such an article together with some other dead finds on the American and British specialists we will be asking ourselves: are this people sure that they want to break any peace? Or are this people willing to live in the atmosphere of war, tensions and bloodshed? I mean, these are the questions we are encountering at the end of the day. 

Jay Johnson: Well definitely those are the questions, but what are the answers? I mean, are we looking at some type of internal-domestic politics inside of the United States itself here that is being projected on to the international arena? With that in mind, we have the out coming 2016 presidential elections there. Maybe this is just writer’s desire to be a domestic digests, sort of speaking, and we shouldn’t take it so seriously. Or should we take it a little bit more serious than some people are? 

Avigdor Eskin: As you know, any elections in the United States are not about foreign politics, as the foreign politics are something secondary. Is mostly about American economy, and American social problems, so not Israel, not Russia, not any hard issue will change in what is going to happen.

Jay Johnson: So, the idea here is that the internal American, that the problems that are happening internally inside of America itself. And the weakening of the state that many people are feeling due to the failing economy. The politicians are trying to make up by presenting Russia in an aggressive way to say: Hey look guys, we actually are tough, we are strong and that’s why we want to create an enemy so that people don’t look to what’s happening inside of the United States. 

Avigdor Eskin: Well, we don’t see that the candidates are doing it, we don’t see it. When it will come we will have to be very careful and to know how to respond, how to explain the situation. What we saw is only the attempt from the Israeli side to change the attitude. And in Russia unfortunately we see is very passive in the United States, in Europe, and elsewhere. Russian foreign policy is a very week passive and you don’t see any attempts from Moscow to change it, and to explain somehow to the American Public what Moscow really mean once… Maybe it was intentional with these elections, as you perceived, as you percept it, with more flavor into this actions.

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