Ukraine’s Jews caught in a propaganda war based on the ‘political manipulation of anti-Semitism’ [View all]

[Behind the Aegis]

When masked men distributed leaflets last week in the eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk advising Jews they needed to register with authorities or face deportation, shivers were felt well beyond Ukraine’s borders.

“In the year 2014, after all the miles travelled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable — it’s grotesque,” John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, said in Geneva.

The origin of the tract remains murky and the group whose name was attached, the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, has denied any involvement. Jewish leaders in the city have said they see the incident as a provocation, rather than a real threat to their community of about 17,000 people.

But regardless of whether the leaflets were a dirty trick aimed at smearing pro-Russian separatists or the hateful handiwork of local fascists, they illustrate how the plight of Jews has become fuel for propaganda in a region with a long, bloody history of anti-Semitism.

“From our perspective, the real issue is, whatever the motivation, whoever the source, this was an incident of anti-Semitism that echoes the treatment of Jews in Germany by the Nazis in the 1930s, a message of intimidation,” said Michael Salberg, director of international affairs for the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.

‘Putin is just using anti-Semitism as a kind of tool to discredit the Euromaidan process. He doesn’t care about anti-Semitism’
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more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/25/ukraines-jews-caught-in-a-propaganda-war-that-uses-the-political-manipulation-of-anti-semitism/

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Putin ain't the only one!