“Once again, U.S. and Western officials are falling into the trap of failing to understand the enemy and his objectives”

DAILY MAIL
Putin is not crazy and the Russian invasion is not failing. The West’s delusions about this war – and its failure to understand the enemy – will prevent it from saving Ukraine
by Bill Rogio
March 2, 2022

Wishful thinking has the upper hand in the battle to shape Western perceptions of the war in Ukraine. Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind. A more sober analysis shows that Russia may have sought a knockout blow, but always had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient. The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed now that the war is underway. Yet even the professionals at the Pentagon are letting sympathy cloud their judgement. READ MORE

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EVENT Rally Against Putin’s War: Chicago, Sunday March 6

UKRAINIAN CONGRESS COMMITTEE OF AMERICA
Sunday, March 6, 2:00 pm at Daley Plaza
PROTEST AGAINST RUSSIA’S INVASION of UKRAINE

UCCA invites all Ukrainians and friends to attend 3 events to support Ukraine

Many of you are watching the horrific war in Ukraine, where Putin is now intentionally bombing large apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals in crowded cities and you may be wondering what you can do to help. Besides your donations and prayers, the most important thing you can do is to help keep this horrific war in the news cycle – to maximize the pressure on the US government to increase sanctions against Putin and to help with the increasing humanitarian crisis. There are already over 1 million refugees and soon there will be millions more. They are mostly women and children who are traveling for over 50 hours in crowded trains with no food, water, or bathrooms, and then waiting for hours or days, in freezing temperatures, to be let into neighboring countries. I know such people personally. Though the numbers are staggering, it is important to remember that each one is a human life.

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PM Bennett: ‘Our hearts’ are with Ukrainians, pledges to offer humanitarian aid but doesn’t voice support for Kyiv, hours after Lapid blasts Moscow

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Bennett refrains from condemning Russia in first remarks since invasion of Ukraine
by Lazar Berman
February 24, 2022

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday avoided condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine — or even mentioning Russia by name — in his first remarks since the incursion began. “The world order as we know it is changing,” he said, speaking at an IDF officer graduation ceremony in southern Israel. “The world is much less stable, and our region too is changing every day…He again urged Israelis in Ukraine to leave the country. “Leave now. Protect your lives. Our people are waiting to receive you at the border crossings in the western part of the country. READ MORE

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Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has urged UK community to keep those under bombardment in their prayers

JEWISH CHRONICLE
Terror among Ukrainian Jews as Russia launches full-scale invasion
by Rosa Doherty
February 24, 2022

Ukraine’s Jews are braced for conflict as Russia’s troops invaded the country last night and Vladimir Putin pledged to “de-nazify” the country…The Israeli foreign ministry has also said it’s standing by to assist the Ukrainian Jewish population but has not received a call for assistance yet. The world Jewish relief charity has launched a crisis appeal saying they are: “Shocked and devastated by the news this morning that Russian forces have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”..Other groups are also urgently seeking donations to support Ukraine’s 100,000 Jews. Humanitarian aid charity Hatzalah Ukraine is hoping to raise £200,000 towards the costs of evacuations, transport, emergency medicine, police escorts and food and water. READ MORE

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The invasion of Ukraine and the rise of America’s isolationists.

COMMON SENSE WITH BARI WEISS
America Is Afraid of War. Putin Knows It.
by Zoe Strimpel
February 24, 2022

…The Kremlin views this conflict as part of a much bigger showdown between Russia and the West. If that sounds like the Cold War, that’s because in the eyes of the former KGB agent in charge of Russia, the Soviet collapse was a catastrophe, and this is part of righting that wrong. It is a relitigation of a titanic struggle we thought was over. There is only one country that can bring this relitigation to an immediate end and restore order not only to Ukraine but the whole of Europe. To do that, the United States would have to convince Putin that it is willing to go to war to protect Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. But no one believes it is. READ MORE

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Key moments of Jewish history have occurred in Ukraine

AISH
Ukraine and the Jews
by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
January 30, 2022 |

With a huge build-up in Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders in recent weeks, many people are fearful that Russia will invade Ukraine. Ukraine is a complex and diverse nation with an incredibly rich Jewish history…The term “pogrom” was invented after riots in Ukraine. In 1881, Czar Alexander II was murdered by a left-wing terrorist. Soon, it was being (incorrectly) reported across Russia that the new Czar Alexander III had ordered Russian subjects to kill Jews. Pogroms broke out, with the greatest number taking place in Ukraine. READ MORE

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“This inability to denounce SJP’s incendiary post appears to be part of a pattern by the University of Chicago to deliberately avoid addressing antisemitism when such incidents occur on campus”

ALGEMEINER
UChicago Condemns ‘Anti-Palestinian Bias’ After SJP Urges Boycott of ‘Sh*tty Zionist Classes’
by Rachel O’Donoghue
February 17, 2022

If one needed any further evidence of the widespread antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility on college campuses in the United States, you would only have to look at the University of Chicago (UChicago)’s response to a recent Instagram post by the UChicago Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter. The January 27 multi-slide upload — witlessly titled, “Don’t take sh*tty Zionist classes” — is perhaps not the most ringing endorsement of the educational standards at a college where fees trend upwards of $50,000. The post warns the student body that said courses “serve as vehicles to spread Zionist propaganda.” READ MORE

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Dem Rep Torres in Israel: “BDS is a fringe movement that fails to represent the overwhelming majority of Americans. Our message is clear: the United States is and will always be a friend of Israel”

NEW YORK POST
House Democrats visit Israel after AOC claimed Jewish state ‘cages’ Palestinian kids
By Carl Campanile
February 21, 2022

Fourteen House Democrats visited Israel on Monday and expressed their love for the Jewish state — a week after socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested Israel cages Palestinian kids. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, representing Manhattan and the Bronx, tweeted a selfie at the Wailing Wall with Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, repping Brooklyn and Queens, and Peter Aguilar of California. “Today, I’m in Israel with @RepPeteAguilar and @RepJeffrie to reaffirm our support for a critical U.S. ally, and to continue learning about the opportunities and challenges facing Israel and the Middle East,” wrote Espaillat, co-chairman of the Latino-Jewish caucus. READ MORE

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Egypt is in the midst of adopting a new approach to Israel, striving to deepen economic ties

JNS
Egypt’s El-Sisi has taken a ‘strategic decision to deepen ties with Israel’
February 24, 2022

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has taken a “strategic decision to deepen ties with Israel,” a report in Globes has said in recent days…“This new approach can be attributed, among other things, to the major success of the Abraham Accords, which have helped promote economic deals signed between the Israel and Egypt themselves, and private companies from the two countries…Meanwhile, the energy sector has been over the past decade “one of the areas in which deals between Israel and Egypt have flourished,” said the report, stating that pipelines “have been laid and sales agreements signed and also implemented. Now, as part of the new approach that Al-Sisi has adopted, these deals have been expanded to include Jordan.” READ MORE

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Eighty years ago this week, 700 Jews drowned because no one in the world would take them in

ISRAEL FROM THE INSIDE
“Surplus Jews” no longer
by Daniel Gordis
February 21, 2022

Eighty years ago this week, on February 24, 1942, nineteen-year-old David Stoliar was alive, alone, floating on a piece of wood in the middle of the Black Sea, surrounded by corpses, yelling all night into the dark so that he would not fall asleep and freeze to death. He was in the Black Sea, surrounded by death, because he was a “surplus Jew,” as the British put it unabashedly. We’ll come back to David Stoliar. Last week, the Israeli government was cooperating with relief groups to prepare for the possible evacuation to Israel of some of the 100,000 Jews in Ukraine, should the anticipated war make that necessary. Officials apparently do not expect to need a massive airlift, but they’re preparing for all eventualities, some said. READ MORE

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