The order comes amid growing tension between Israel and Russia over Jerusalemās stance regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine and its policy of standing with Kyiv and its embattled leader Volodymyr Zelensky. On Monday, Russiaās foreign ministry called strikes on Syria that have been blamed on Israel unacceptable, and demanded an unconditional cessation of the attacks.
An order forcing the Jewish Agency to stop work in Russia is dramatic and could directly undermine the ability of Russian Jews to make aliyah and immigrate to Israel. Thousands of them have finished their aliyah paperwork and have been waiting for flights to become available to Israel, but the sanctions on Russia have caused most international airlines to stop flying to the country and therefore, Israeli officials explained, future olim are āstuckā in Russia.
Senior sources in Russiaās Jewish community have told the Post that āpeople from the Jewish community have been feeling the Iron Curtain setting on them and they fear they wonāt be able to escape the country.ā According to one source, āa number of Jews have said that the Russian authorities are trying to arrest them and that they fear for their lives.ā
As noted a couple of months ago, Russia under Putin is not a good place to be Jewish.
This topic is about neither of you. Please end your bickering here or stay on-topic.
Of all things for you guys to worry about, Iād say America cutting its military budget any time soon is ā¦ not one of those things
Fireworks wrapper combines gun worship, right-wing Christianity, American flags, and patriotism | Boing Boing
It didnāt take long for Russia to once again live up to its reputation for consumer product quality.
Belarus makes a vaguely threatening statement
And 99% likely thatās the only thing they will do - make statements.
Lukashenko is a tyrannical shitbag, but heās far from stupid, despite his (deliberately cultivated) coarse public image. He wonāt do a thing to help Putin if a) he doesnāt benefit from it, or b) heās forced to do so.
He very definitely does not want to get involved in the fighting in Ukraine, let alone pick an actual fight with NATO, because he know it wouldnāt end well for Belarusian forces or himself. He needs the army to stay in power, and ordering it into the Ukrainian meatgrinder would seriously risk a mutiny - maybe just āHell no, weāre not doing thatā version, which would still be very bad for Lukashenkoās authority and thus abiity to remain in power, maybe an actual military coup.
You can rest assured that option b) is fully in effectā¦ Lukashenka is not stupid but he also knows that at this point heās not in any position to oppose Putin in any significant way, definitely not if he wants to keep his position. Even now he barely has any real power without Russiaās support, if the union with Russia proceeds further heāll become even more of a figurehead, and as such, more easily disposable.
A side note - not a lot of people remember now, but the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine were kicked off when the Ukrainian president, Yanukovich, suddenly backed out of signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement - suddenly as in āpretty much in the last momentā - in favor of developing a three-way agreement between the EU, Ukraine and Russia, to include protecting Russian interests. Now, Yanukovich was pro-Russian and he had done his best to stall and sabotage the agreement until then, but even with that in mind at that point this decision was unexpected and sudden, with very obviously bullshit reasoning offered. And I vividly remember how, when pressed by foreign diplomats, Yanukovich was very obviously distressed, and at one point even said something to the effect of āplease understand, I have no other choiceā saying that Ukrainiansā livelihood was in danger.
Russia, obviously, claimed they had nothing to do with this, it was a completely sovereign decision by Ukraine, there was no pressure on their side, none whatsoever, also whoever criticizes this very sovereign, completely autonomous decision of Ukraine should be ashamed of themselves for trying to push their own interests on a sovereign country. Later itās been revealed that they were threatening Ukraine with trade sanctions and raising the price of natural gas. Previously they had pressured Armenia to abandon a similar agreement with the EU by promising to give weapons to Azerbaijan and abandoning Russian protection of Karabah. (We see where that particular conflict point led to, eventuallyā¦)
Anyway, my point is that at that point in history Ukraine and Yanukovich personally, were still not as vulnerable to Russia as Belarus and Lukashenka are today.
(Which is also why my own Dear Leader OrbĆ”n Viktor is pushing Russian interests in the EU and even NATO, although he doesnāt dare to throw his weight around in NATO as much as in the EU. His and his croniesā financial, economical and political interests are in a huge part based on his dealings with Putin and Putinās oligarchs, losing that connection would mean not being able to maintain the illusion of āWeāre Doing Fine, Everything Bad Is All Brusselās Faultā for his voters any longer, not with the brutal inflation where food prices rise pretty much by the week, or how 1 EUR is now almost 410 HUF despite having been ~354 HUF a year ago, and ~385 just a month agoā¦)
(Edit and mostly off-topic, but: 1 EUR is 412 417 HUF! Itās amazing to watch your savings just kind of melt into nothing.)
I suspect that some of them are even sincere, and the rest motivated by the understandable human desire to see yourself as a decent sort of person doing decent, or at least necessary, sorts of things; but from an external perspective itās always very jarring to see Switzerland trying to interpret a policy of selling white-collar assistance to the highest bidder as some sort of ethically motivated affair; or being shocked, shocked, when that policy ends up being arguably non-neutral because the highest bidder is an interested and sometimes belligerent party(eg. the Crypto AG case, where the CIA and West German intelligence quietly bought the company out and proceeded to quietly alter the security of the products on offer depending on the customer).
As an American itās not like I can get on the Swiss for having uniquely garbage friends; since (at least on average, if not necessarily in this specific case) weāve probably actively subsidized scumbags that theyāve just acted as bagmen for; but talking like the fate of liberal democracy hangs on the ability of some oligarchs to keep what theyāve stolen is always a bit jarring.
Just to note, this isnāt to say that Switzerland is necessarily the worst offender when it comes to handling dirty money and offering shady places for shady people; there are plenty of contenders and I donāt have the relevant stats to compare them; itās just a response to how they talk about it; and (at least some of them) actually seem to feel about it. Normally handling dirty money or opaque corporate shell structures is something you do quietly; and defend by obscurity and obfuscation rather than idealistic moral appeals: and then Switzerland pops out and starts talking about how handling dodgy money for dodgier people is the bedrock of a free society.
Itās like encountering people who talk about banking the way Americans talk about guns.
That APC seems like a real innovation to me; a skip is no less bullet resistant than some of the stuff theyāve already been using; and itās purpose built to transport garbage.
