Hi, I also do not like Putin and his policies, in particular with Ukraine, although the situation there is not so simple and there are faults of Ukrainian side too.
It is interesting that you are interested in Ukraine so passionately, I think people in the US mostly do not care much about Eastern Europe.
Actually the conflict in the Ukraine is in many respects similar to the conflict in Israel:
There is big oil-rich Russia and smaller Ukraine with sizeble ethnic-russian minority. Autocratic russian regime sends and supports militants which fight in the Eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian government launched a "counter-terrorism" operation which went brutal sometime and killed more than 3,000 people, mostly civilians. "Human Rights Watch" criticized Ukrainian government for widespread use of Cluster Munitions and other violations of laws of war.
There are big oil-rich arab and other muslim countries and smaller Israel with sizeble muslim-arab minority. Autocratic arab regimes and Iran send and support militants which fight against Israel. Israeli government launched a "counter-terrorism" operation this summer which killed about 2,000 people. Israel is criticized by many Human Rights organizations for some violations.
We can see, the two cases are quite similar.
Do you support Israel in the arab-israeli conflict ?
I don't really think the situations are that comparable. For one thing, Russian minority or not, Russia has no right to "send and support troops" there. Ukraine is an independent nation, and you're forgetting to mention that the reason this conflict started was because Ukraine dared to overthrow Putin's puppet Yanukovych. He was happy with Yanukovych robbing the nation blind and joining the Eurasian Union, but when the people revolted against what is clearly not in the best interest for Ukraine, then Putin got involved. This was an internal issue to begin with and Putin should not have been buying politicians or having anything to do with it. Putin is just afraid of losing his sphere of influence. Once Russia invaded, what was Ukraine supposed to do, simply let a large chunk of the eastern population (who are by no means unilaterally supportive of Putin) be absorbed into the Russian Federation? Do you think that Russia was wrong in suppressing the situation in Chechnya?
Israel and Palestine is complicated in a different way. Israel does have a legitimate reason to protect itself but it has also engaged in many acts of oppression against the whole of Palestine in order to suppress the minority of terrorists, not caring that in oppressing the whole of the people they are giving the terrorists fodder to justify their actions. Legitimate injustice is taking place (e.g. continued building of settlements in the west bank), but terrorist action isn't warranted.
It sounds like you're comparing Israel to Ukraine, but I don't think that's accurate. If anything, Israel is more like Russia in that it is trying to "reclaim historic lands" and is doing that at the expense of the Palestinian people, who have just as much right to be there. The difference is that Ukraine is defending itself by military means against a military population that is using their civilian lands for guerrilla warfare. They're not really comparable because Russia is acting both as the neighbor aggressor taking land and also as the terrorists occupying eastern Ukraine using civilians as shields. This clearly puts Russia on the 'bully aggressor' side of this rather than the 'defending one's self' side like Israel.
For the record, I support both Israel and Palestine in reaching a peace agreement. I think there are a lot of historic and religious tensions that have made the situation hot for many years. I do think the onus is on Israel as the more powerful nation to make the first moves toward peace and to compromise its rather severe stance to let the Palestinians breathe.
Also my husband is Ukrainian, so that's why the interest. It's a pretty personal topic for us, given his family is still there.
The situations are quite comparable, as we will see:
> Russian minority or not, Russia has no right to "send and support troops" there.
Right. So the arab regimes and Iran has no right to support Hamas terrorists who fire rockets at Israeli civilians and whose officially-declared goal is the destruction of Israel and its jewish inhabitants.
> Ukraine is an independent nation,
So is the Israel
> this conflict started because Ukraine dared to overthrow Putin's puppet Yanukovych. He was happy with Yanukovych robbing the nation blind and joining the Eurasian Union, but when the people revolted against what is clearly not in the best interest for Ukraine, then Putin got involved. This was an internal issue to begin with and Putin should not have been anything to do with it. Putin is just afraid of losing his sphere of influence.
You are basically right. I add couple remarks:
Another important Putin's motivation is he very afraids russians will overthrow him the same way like ukrainians did with Yanukovych.
The term "puppet" is not so accurate: Yanukovych was elected president by ukrainians in 2010 in a free elections. He was rather Putin's ally.
> Once Russia invaded,
Russia has not invaded directly (except Crimea). It used some proxies - the same ways arab regimes have used terrorist proxies against Israel after the last direct arab agression against Israel in 1973.
> what was Ukraine supposed to do, simply let a large chunk of the eastern population
After that already happened, Ukraine had to fight militarily - the same way Israel had to fight militarily with Hamas this summer.
> Do you think that Russia was wrong in suppressing the situation in Chechnya?
If Russia was not wrong in suppressing the Chechen militants, then Israel definitely was right suppressing the Hamas militants this summer. Number of victims in the Israeli Gaza operation was much less than in Chechnya.
> Israel does have a legitimate reason to protect itself but it has also engaged in many acts of oppression against the whole of Palestine in order to suppress the minority of terrorists,
So the Ukrainian government is now engaged in many acts of oppression against the whole of Donbass in order to suppress the minority of terrorists.
Also ukrainian governments have oppressed the ethnic-russian minority by enforcing ukrainian language even in the russian-speaking areas and cities where people do not speak ukrainian. Russian-speaking minority is as big as tens of % of the total population, but ukrainian governments have not made the russian language a second official (like it is in Belorussia, Kazahstan and Kirgyzstan, and BTW in Israel the arab minority language is one of the official).
Ukrainian governments also oppressed the Crimea: annulled the Crimean constitution of 1992 (which was accepted by the Crimean people on referendum) and forcibly reduced the Crimean autonomy.
> Israel is more like Russia
Certainly not Israel is a tiny country with only 8 million population, while the arab and other muslim regimes which do not recognize the (legitimate) Israel's right to exist and bully Israel by sending terrorists, economic boycott and so on - have total population of hundreds of millions and many times bigger wealth, armed forces and territories.
This clearly puts arab/muslim regimes on the 'bully aggressor' side of this, while Israel is the defending side.
> They're not really comparable because Russia is acting both as the neighbor aggressor taking land
So many arab countries, Iran and Hamas want to take from Israel its entire territory.
> The difference is that Ukraine is defending itself by military means against a military population that is using their civilian lands for guerrilla warfare. and also as the terrorists occupying eastern Ukraine using civilians as shields.
It is not a "difference" between Ukraine and Israel, it is similarity.
> Israel as the more powerful nation
Certainly not. Israel is much less powerful nation than its arab and other muslim enemies combined.
If you want to compare Israel with just "palestinians" than you should compare Ukraine just against Donbass rebels - then the Ukraine will look "more powerful".
- For several last years Ukraine was ruled by the prorussian president with prorussian majority in parliament. Its unimaginable that israel was ruled by an arab prime minister with arab majority in the parliament.
- Unlike in Israel, no significant violations of russian populations rights was recorded, and not from the lack of trying on the side of russian propaganda machine.
- Again despite what russian propaganda claims, conflict in Donbas is not along ethnic or language lines. A large part of pro ukrainian forces, especially the volunteer batalions, have russion as their primary or only language. In Israel the the conflict falls along ethnic lines.
You have been polite so far, but your failure to consider those differences yourself to me signals that you are either not informed or biased. I personally have little interest in any further argument, and post this here mainly as a message to any accidental uninformed reader who may stop by.
I think Poslushnik summed it up well, but the main problem here is that my post made it very clear that this is not a forum for discussion. My stance is that Russia is acting as an enemy invader and their position (and yours, it seems) is indefensible. This is not a debate that is welcome here because there is nothing to discuss; I am simply letting people who stop by my journal know where I stand, not inviting further discussion.
I also do not like Putin and his policies, in particular with Ukraine, although the situation there is not so simple and there are faults of Ukrainian side too.
It is interesting that you are interested in Ukraine so passionately, I think people in the US mostly do not care much about Eastern Europe.
Actually the conflict in the Ukraine is in many respects similar to the conflict in Israel:
There is big oil-rich Russia and smaller Ukraine with sizeble ethnic-russian minority.
Autocratic russian regime sends and supports militants which fight in the Eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian government launched a "counter-terrorism" operation which went brutal sometime and killed more than 3,000 people, mostly civilians.
"Human Rights Watch" criticized Ukrainian government for widespread use of Cluster Munitions and other violations of laws of war.
There are big oil-rich arab and other muslim countries and smaller Israel with sizeble muslim-arab minority.
Autocratic arab regimes and Iran send and support militants which fight against Israel.
Israeli government launched a "counter-terrorism" operation this summer which killed about 2,000 people.
Israel is criticized by many Human Rights organizations for some violations.
We can see, the two cases are quite similar.
Do you support Israel in the arab-israeli conflict ?
Reply
Israel and Palestine is complicated in a different way. Israel does have a legitimate reason to protect itself but it has also engaged in many acts of oppression against the whole of Palestine in order to suppress the minority of terrorists, not caring that in oppressing the whole of the people they are giving the terrorists fodder to justify their actions. Legitimate injustice is taking place (e.g. continued building of settlements in the west bank), but terrorist action isn't warranted.
It sounds like you're comparing Israel to Ukraine, but I don't think that's accurate. If anything, Israel is more like Russia in that it is trying to "reclaim historic lands" and is doing that at the expense of the Palestinian people, who have just as much right to be there. The difference is that Ukraine is defending itself by military means against a military population that is using their civilian lands for guerrilla warfare. They're not really comparable because Russia is acting both as the neighbor aggressor taking land and also as the terrorists occupying eastern Ukraine using civilians as shields. This clearly puts Russia on the 'bully aggressor' side of this rather than the 'defending one's self' side like Israel.
For the record, I support both Israel and Palestine in reaching a peace agreement. I think there are a lot of historic and religious tensions that have made the situation hot for many years. I do think the onus is on Israel as the more powerful nation to make the first moves toward peace and to compromise its rather severe stance to let the Palestinians breathe.
Also my husband is Ukrainian, so that's why the interest. It's a pretty personal topic for us, given his family is still there.
Reply
> Russian minority or not, Russia has no right to "send and support troops" there.
Right. So the arab regimes and Iran has no right to support Hamas terrorists who fire rockets at Israeli civilians and whose officially-declared goal is the destruction of Israel and its jewish inhabitants.
> Ukraine is an independent nation,
So is the Israel
> this conflict started because Ukraine dared to overthrow Putin's puppet Yanukovych. He was happy with Yanukovych robbing the nation blind and joining the Eurasian Union, but when the people revolted against what is clearly not in the best interest for Ukraine, then Putin got involved. This was an internal issue to begin with and Putin should not have been anything to do with it. Putin is just afraid of losing his sphere of influence.
You are basically right. I add couple remarks:
Another important Putin's motivation is he very afraids russians will overthrow him the same way like ukrainians did with Yanukovych.
The term "puppet" is not so accurate: Yanukovych was elected president by ukrainians in 2010 in a free elections. He was rather Putin's ally.
> Once Russia invaded,
Russia has not invaded directly (except Crimea). It used some proxies - the same ways arab regimes have used terrorist proxies against Israel after the last direct arab agression against Israel in 1973.
> what was Ukraine supposed to do, simply let a large chunk of the eastern population
After that already happened, Ukraine had to fight militarily - the same way Israel had to fight militarily with Hamas this summer.
> Do you think that Russia was wrong in suppressing the situation in Chechnya?
If Russia was not wrong in suppressing the Chechen militants, then Israel definitely was right suppressing the Hamas militants this summer. Number of victims in the Israeli Gaza operation was much less than in Chechnya.
> Israel does have a legitimate reason to protect itself but it has also engaged in many acts of oppression against the whole of Palestine in order to suppress the minority of terrorists,
So the Ukrainian government is now engaged in many acts of oppression against the whole of Donbass in order to suppress the minority of terrorists.
Also ukrainian governments have oppressed the ethnic-russian minority by enforcing ukrainian language even in the russian-speaking areas and cities where people do not speak ukrainian. Russian-speaking minority is as big as tens of % of the total population, but ukrainian governments have not made the russian language a second official (like it is in Belorussia, Kazahstan and Kirgyzstan, and BTW in Israel the arab minority language is one of the official).
Ukrainian governments also oppressed the Crimea: annulled the Crimean constitution of 1992 (which was accepted by the Crimean people on referendum) and forcibly reduced the Crimean autonomy.
> Israel is more like Russia
Certainly not
Israel is a tiny country with only 8 million population, while the arab and other muslim regimes which do not recognize the (legitimate) Israel's right to exist and bully Israel by sending terrorists, economic boycott and so on - have total population of hundreds of millions and many times bigger wealth, armed forces and territories.
This clearly puts arab/muslim regimes on the 'bully aggressor' side of this, while Israel is the defending side.
> They're not really comparable because Russia is acting both as the neighbor aggressor taking land
So many arab countries, Iran and Hamas want to take from Israel its entire territory.
> The difference is that Ukraine is defending itself by military means against a military population that is using their civilian lands for guerrilla warfare.
and also as the terrorists occupying eastern Ukraine using civilians as shields.
It is not a "difference" between Ukraine and Israel, it is similarity.
> Israel as the more powerful nation
Certainly not. Israel is much less powerful nation than its arab and other muslim enemies combined.
If you want to compare Israel with just "palestinians" than you should compare Ukraine just against Donbass rebels - then the Ukraine will look "more powerful".
Reply
- For several last years Ukraine was ruled by the prorussian president with prorussian majority in parliament. Its unimaginable that israel was ruled by an arab prime minister with arab majority in the parliament.
- Unlike in Israel, no significant violations of russian populations rights was recorded, and not from the lack of trying on the side of russian propaganda machine.
- Again despite what russian propaganda claims, conflict in Donbas is not along ethnic or language lines. A large part of pro ukrainian forces, especially the volunteer batalions, have russion as their primary or only language. In Israel the the conflict falls along ethnic lines.
You have been polite so far, but your failure to consider those differences yourself to me signals that you are either not informed or biased. I personally have little interest in any further argument, and post this here mainly as a message to any accidental uninformed reader who may stop by.
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