Because it wasn’t a triumph in Israel for Zelensky
What happened between Zelensky and Israel after the Ukrainian president's speech to the Knesset
After the Knesset, Montecitorio in joint session of the House and Senate. And after Israel, on Sunday, the Italian passage on Tuesday is already expected as one of the most contested for Volodymyr Zelensky 's world tour via Zoom.
The seventeen parliamentarians of the former 5Stelle di Alternativa There will desert the session. Andrea Colletti , former grillino, now animator of the Alternativa group, explains the reasons to CorSera : “We have decided that we will not participate in the statements by Draghi and Zelensky. Getting the two of them to talk leads nowhere. If anything, it would make sense to organize a peace conference ”. There is also discontent among the strictly observant Cinquestelle and various leaguers. Among the senators of the Movement, about thirty out of seventy-three guaranteed the presence.
Someone has made it official. There will not be the grillina Enrica Segnari , nor Matteo Dall'Osso, elected with the M5s and then moved to Forza Italia: “I'm oriented not to be there, only a part is given visibility. Also Vladimir Putin in the Chamber? Those who ask do well! ”. Neither did the senator of the League, Simone Pillon . For Pillon "we should be among the privileged few who dialogue with both parties, while thus we limit ourselves".
I distinguish, requests for mediation. And by virtue of this, I refuse to listen. As happened on Sunday in Israel. There the denial to the Ukrainian president came from the Communists. Boycott announced and implemented by the Joint List, a coalition formed by the parties representing the Arab-Israelis. The formation is led by the Hadash Party, the current form of the Israeli Communist Party.
The only Jewish member of the coalition, Ofer Kassif , explained his position on Saturday evening: “Unlike the claims we hear in the Western media, and even here day and night, that this war is like the war of the Children of Light against the Children of the Dark … but it is not. For years there have been crimes against the Russian minority in Ukraine ”.
The president of Ukraine has already received comparisons with Churchill thanks to his speeches to parliaments – UK, EU, USA, Germany – but it is precisely in Israel's Knesset that he seems to have made a fatal mistake. He has repeatedly called for the Holocaust and criticized Israel for failing to arm his country to defend itself against a Russian "final solution" of its people. And he added: Ukraine and Israel face the same threat as their respective enemies, "the total destruction of our people, our state, our culture, even the name, Ukraine, Israel".
Zelensky , as we know, is the only Jewish head of state in the world outside of Israel. He lost close relatives, victims of the Holocaust. He knows how much the comparison between a war and the Shoah is inadmissible for a Jew. It has indeed attracted criticism.
"I appreciate the President of Ukraine and support the Ukrainian people in heart and deeds, but it is impossible to rewrite the terrible history of the Holocaust," tweeted Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel . “The genocide was also committed on Ukrainian soil. The war is terrible, but the confrontation with the horrors of the Holocaust and the final solution is scandalous ”.
Former government minister, Yuval Steinitz , now a Likud MP, went so far as to say: “If Zelensky's speech had been delivered in normal, non-war times, we would have said it bordered on Holocaust denial… Any confrontation between a regular war, however difficult it may be, and the extermination of millions of Jews in the gas chambers as part of the Final Solution, is a total distortion of history ”.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett this morning (Monday) in an interview with Ynet, admitted: “Your country and your people are under a very difficult war. Many hundreds of dead, millions of refugees. I can't imagine what it means to be in his shoes ”. However, he clarified: "I personally believe that the Holocaust should not be compared."
With respect to the arms and sanctions chapter, Bennett recalled that “at this stage Israel is more interested in practical actions that can help Ukrainian citizens. Since the beginning we have sent airplanes with tons of medical equipment and medicines ”. "We help in many ways – he added – even in mediation efforts, so the citizens of Israel should absolutely be proud".
Bennett met Vladimir Putin directly after the invasion. Its mediation action is viewed with skepticism. But it remains. In a delicate balancing act with a Moscow essential for Israel. Especially now with the Iranian nuclear match. He continues to listen to Zelensky , despite his requests which for Jerusalem are impossible to satisfy. Despite a stinging comparison between war and the Holocaust for an observant Jewish Bennett .
But listen. An exercise that in other fora, some parliamentarians seem to refuse in advance.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/israele-zelensky-olocausto/ on Mon, 21 Mar 2022 15:29:09 +0000.