Christian Zionists, Neo-Nazis, & Jewish Banderas: A Ukrainian Mazel Tov?

From the blog Fig Trees & Vineyards, edited by Richard Edmonson
THIS IS A REPOST DUE TO RELEVANCY OF TOPIC
As Washington continues its intrigues, the Ukraine can become again a dangerous flashpoint for superpower confrontation any moment now
First published 27 April 2014

Three blind mice, or only two? L to R: Oleksandr Turchinov, Oleh Tyahnybok, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk

What do you get when you mix a Jew, a Christian Zionist, and a neo-Nazi together? The West-backed coup government in Kiev apparently.

Most people I think by now are aware that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Victoria-Nuland-appointed prime minister of Ukraine, is Jewish, and of course we’ve all heard about the neo-Nazi leanings of certain elements within the Ukrainian nationalist movement, such as Oleh Tyahnybok, for instance, a member of the Rada, or parliament, and head of the nationalist Svoboda Party.

But recently Christopher Bollyn published an analysis of the Ukraine putsch that included some information about Coup-President Oleksandr Turchynov, or more specifically about his church, the Word of Life Church in Kiev, I was not aware of:

On February 25, Turchynov assumed the duties of the supreme commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While some American Baptists are reporting that Turchynov is a pastor or an elder at his church, the Word of Life Center in Kiev, they are missing the point. The Word of Life is a Zionist organization posing as a church. It was established by a Swedish Jew named Ulf Ekman, who created a church called “Livets Ord”, which established evangelical churches throughout the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s with the express purpose of finding and funding Jewish emigration to Israel. – See more at: http://www.bollyn.com/#article_14573
On February 25, Turchynov assumed the duties of the supreme commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While some American Baptists are reporting that Turchynov is a pastor or an elder at his church, the Word of Life Center in Kiev, they are missing the point. The Word of Life is a Zionist organization posing as a church. It was established by a Swedish Jew named Ulf Ekman, who created a church called “Livets Ord”, which established evangelical churches throughout the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s with the express purpose of finding and funding Jewish emigration to Israel. – See more at: http://www.bollyn.com/#article_14573
On February 25, Turchynov assumed the duties of the supreme commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While some American Baptists are reporting that Turchynov is a pastor or an elder at his church, the Word of Life Center in Kiev, they are missing the point. The Word of Life is a Zionist organization posing as a church. It was established by a Swedish Jew named Ulf Ekman, who created a church called “Livets Ord”, which established evangelical churches throughout the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s with the express purpose of finding and funding Jewish emigration to Israel.

As the Wikipedia article about “Livets Ord” says: In conjunction with Christian Zionists in the United States, Livets Ord operates a fund to supply money to Russian Jews who want to move to Israel. The fund, named “Operation Jabotinsky”, is named after Russian Vladimir Jabotinsky.

Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky (1880–1940), was a radical (i.e. revisionist) Zionist leader who established a number of Jewish terrorist organizations such as Beitar, Hatzohar, and the Irgun. The Irgun is the terrorist group, headed by Menachem Begin, that bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Begin founded the Likud party from the former members of these Zionist terrorist groups in the 1970s. The fact that “Livets Ord” runs “Operation Jabotinsky” to find Jews in the former Soviet Union to send to Israel indicates that it is working closely with the Mossad, the branch of Israeli intelligence that was originally created to facilitate Jewish emigration to Palestine.

Bollyn goes on to add:

What is most disturbing about the regime change that brought Yatsenyuk to power is that he seems to have been put in that position through the actions of Victoria Nuland, an official of the U.S. State Department who is married to Robert Kagan. The Kagan family, Lithuanian Jews of Khazar ancestry, seems to have a permanent fiefdom at the State Department. [Kagan and Kahn are Khazar names that derive from a title of imperial rank in the Mongolian and Turkic languages equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate.]

You would think that the Kagans would be concerned about the prominence in the new government of people like Tyahnybok. In 2005 the Svoboda leader co-signed an open letter to then-President Yuschenko calling for a parliamentary investigation into the “criminal activities of organized Jewry in Ukraine.” He also asserted at one time that Ukraine is run by a “Moscow-Jewish mafia,” and complained that “Germans, kikes, and other scum” were undermining the country. Equally he has expressed solidarity with Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian insurgents who took up arms in World War II to fight “Muscovites, Germans, Jewry and other filth,” as he put it.

But Tyahnybok seems capable of reverting to “political correctness” when it suits him, and he has made some rather nice, diplomatic comments about the Jewish state.

“I respect the position of [Israel], which defends the interests of its citizens,” he said. “I would like to ask Israelis to also respect our patriotic feelings. Probably each party in the [Israeli parliament] Knesset is nationalist. With God’s help, let it be this way for us too.”

Maybe the fact that Jews, Christian Zionists, and neo-Nazis have made common cause shouldn’t really be regarded as all that strange. The Kagans certainly don’t seem to perturbed about it, at any rate. Nor do a number of other Ukrainian Jews (see article below). And perhaps if you put all three together in one room, they would discover they have much to agree upon–as long, that is, as the neo-Nazis understand who’s really in charge (who’s in charge, of course, being already innately understood by the Christian Zionists.)

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A Satirical Neologism Becomes a Weapon in the Fight Over Ukrainian Jewry

Ihor Kolomoysky, governor of the Dniepropetrovsk Oblast and a Jewish multibillionaire,
photoshopped into a “Zhidobanderovets” T-shirt. (Dmitriy Chekalkin/Evreiskiy.Kiev.UA)

JTA

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t first glance, the red menorah symbol adorning the black T-shirt worn by Igor Kolomoysky doesn’t seem too strange for a casually dressed Ukrainian Jewish billionaire who has poured millions into Jewish causes and also happens to be a newly appointed regional governor in eastern Ukraine.

However, a closer inspection of the menorah reveals that it’s actually a Jew-ified variant of Ukrainian nationalist symbols accompanied by the enigmatic inscription “Zhidbanderovets,” which translated means “Yid-Banderite.”

The photo, which became something of a Facebook hit, turned out to be a fake. “It’s a photoshock,” the image’s creator, Kiev-based satirist and Putin critic Dmitriy Chekalkin, told the Ukrainian Jewish website Evreiskiy.Kiev.UA, describing a photoshopped image meant to shock.

The image has garnered thousands of likes and shares from Russian-speaking Facebook users , drawing a mix of online approval and outrage amid tensions over the Ukraine crisis and the stance of the country’s Jews.

So what on earth is a “Yid-Banderite”?

A “Banderite” refers to admirers of the late Ukrainian nationalist figure Stepan Bandera, who fought alongside — and later against — the Nazis in the 1940s and whose troops massacred Ukrainian Jews.

The term “Zhidbanderovets” has been popping up recently to describe Jewish supporters of the Ukrainian revolution.

“This neologism describes Jews who are allied with Ukrainian nationalists. For the most part, these same Jews use the term,” the Evreisky.Kiev.UA article explained.

These Jews are using the term to mock those who accuse the new Ukrainian government of anti-Semitism. After all, if the new government is so anti-Semitic, would so many Ukrainian Jews like Kolomoysky be supporting it?

According to Evreisky.Kiev.UA, a new Odessan joke has emerged that sounds a similar note:

OLEG: You’re a fascist and a Banderite!

SHMUEL: I know. Everyone’s saying it. Our whole synagogue is like that!

The Kagans—Neocons impervious to rabid antisemitism in their proteges, a curious if not outrageous stance that Israeli officials themselves observe. Career and power uber alles!

The appearance of the term “Zhidbanderovets” speaks to how Ukraine’s Jews and historic anti-Semitism have become heated points of contention in the fight over the country’s future.

Bandera does have his fans among contemporary Ukrainian revolutionaries. The iconic red-and-black flag of Bandera’s UPA, Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was a frequent sight in Independence Square, the epicenter of Ukraine’s winter revolution. The city of Lviv, a stronghold of Ukrainian nationalism, even has a street named after Bandera.

For some Ukrainians, especially in western Ukraine, Bandera represents a heroic tradition of fighting for self-determination — against the Soviet Union, and eventually against the Nazis.

But for many Russians and Jews, Bandera is a dark symbol of Ukrainian ultranationalism and its excesses. An article on the website of Yad Vashemstates that ”Bandera and his people considered the Soviets and the Jews their main enemies.”

Bandera initially collaborated with the Nazis against the Soviet Union, briefly establishing an independent Ukrainian republic in 1940 under German protection. In addition, Bandera’s followers were responsible for bloody pogroms, as well as the ethnic cleansing of Poles from what is today western Ukraine.

“Banderite” is one of the many terms — along with “fascist” and “neo-Nazi” — that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies have used to describe Ukraine’s current government, which came to power after the violent ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Natan Khazin, a former Israeli commando who led a street-fighting team in Kiev during the recent Ukrainian revolution, seems unconcerned about being labeled a “Banderite.”

“As soon as I heard it, I said that I’d rather be called a ‘Zhido-Banderist’ than a ‘Zhido-Muscovite,’” Khazin said in an interview with an online Ukrainian media outlet (translated by the Forward).

In addition to the photoshopped Kolomoysky picture, Chekalkin — who identified himself on Facebook as a Hebrew speaker — has created several satirical “Zhidbanderovets” images. He gave Bandera’s UPA flag a Jewish makeover, cleverly illustrating the term “Zhidbanderovets” with a menorah, a Star of David and even peyot juxtaposed with UPA colors and the Ukrainian national symbol, a trident.

JTA contacted Kolomoysky’s representatives in Dniepropetrovsk, where he has been appointed to serve as governor, to ask about the doctored image and the term that comes along with it.

“Yes, the Dnepropetrovsk residents have called the governor a ‘Zhidobanderovets’ for some time,” Kolomoysky representative Marina Kozinetz said. “But this joking term has neither an anti-Semitic nor an anti-Ukrainian subtext.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Edmondson in his own words: "I am a novelist, poet, journalist, and peace activist. My latest book is The Memoirs of Saint John: When the Sandstone Crumbles, part two in the Memoirs of St. John series. The book provides a fictional account of the life of John the disciple in the years after the crucifixion of Christ. Click here for more information. In this blog much of my focus is on the Middle East, particularly the occupation of Palestine and events as they are now playing out in Syria. While I am a Christian, I am not a Christian Zionist. The founding of Israel in 1948 was not the fulfillment of God’s prophecy Christian Zionists believe it to be (apartheid and endless occupation are not part of the divine plan), but if you read the second chapter of II Thessalonians you will notice Saint Paul foretelling the coming of a “powerful delusion”–and certainly Israel and its supporters in the mainstream media, to the extent that Paul’s prediction applies here, have practiced the art of deception to a rather stunning degree."