While Ukraine can use aid, their president is no "Jewish hero"

While Russia's assault on Ukraine is offensive in the extreme, Josh Hammer and Jonathan Bronitsky explain why Volodomyr Zelensky, the latter country's president, is not the "Jewish hero" he may want everybody to think he is:

Volodymyr Zelensky is a lot of things — including, to be sure, a “hero” to many. But to anyone who takes Jewish identity, Jewish tradition, and, especially, Jewish survival at least somewhat seriously, he certainly should not be considered a “Jewish hero.”

Zelensky was born to Jewish parents. Like that of most Jews from behind the Iron Curtain, his upbringing was markedly secular. As Beckerman rightly points out, “Jewish identity didn’t exist in the Soviet Union, because it couldn’t.” That said, there were Soviet Jews who found their way to some form of Jewish identity after the breakup of the communist empire. Indeed, more than a million immigrated to Israel in a wave that started in earnest at the beginning of the 1990s.

But Zelensky did no such thing. “Zelensky and his family,” Beckerman concedes, “were part of the few hundred thousand Jews who stayed, content to assimilate in a post-Soviet world.” Zelensky has never even shied away from making light of this reality. For instance, in a 2019 interview with the French newspaper Le Point, Zelensky quipped, “The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults.”

Not Jewish

Zelensky married a non-Jewish woman who was baptized, and he and his wife baptized their two children in the Greek Orthodox tradition, according to press reports. Boleslav Kapulkin, the spokesman for Chabad Lubavitch in Odessa, Ukraine, was even under the impression that Zelensky himself had converted to Christianity. Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, went further. He attested that Zelensky is “a Ukrainian with Jewish ancestry; he’s not a member of the Jewish community, he’s not religious, doesn’t keep Jewish traditions and never speaks of himself as a Jew.”

There’s a long-running and complex debate over what constitutes Jewish identity. But there’s no question that Zelensky’s life choices have been inimical to the survival of the Jewish people and the Jewish faith.

It may be disappointing enough Zelensky's the gazillionth person of ethnic Israeli/Jewish descent who won't promote the Judaist faith as one worthy of following/converting to. But as the following makes clear, it's even worse than you think:

Recently, Zelensky has started to make a habit of referring to his Jewishness in conjunction with pleas for international backing of Ukraine. He blasted Henry Kissinger for calling for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine War, likening the plea of the former secretary of state and national security adviser to Neville Chamberlain’s infamous appeasement of Hitler in Munich in 1938. He also slammed, of all nations, lo and behold, Israel for refusing to arm Ukraine. (Israel hasn’t armed Russia either.) Now there is reporting that Zelensky is pushing the White House to pressure Israel.

Worse still, Ukraine, under Zelensky, has been rather hostile to Israel at the United Nations, the international forum where the Jewish state has been under sustained assault for decades. According to UN Watch, in a total of 122 resolutions involving Israel, Ukraine has voted against Israel in 95 and abstained in 27. That means it did not vote in favor of Israel once. Yet Zelensky continues to make demands of the Jewish state, which must deal with a Russian presence in neighboring Syria, where Israel conducts counterterrorism operations against Islamic extremists.

Now that's a very valid reason for concern. Ukraine's government, even under Zelensky, acts hostile to Israel at the worst global forum that's no freedom-lover's paradise, and so far, hasn't made any genuine efforts to clean up this act. Of course that's reprehensible. Certainly, it would do some good to provide aid to the country for defense against a country that's still severely influenced by communism, but that doesn't excuse Zelensky's hypocrisy. And why couldn't he show the courage to practice the Judaist religion in any way, and encourage the Ukrainian public to try it as well? This is all something the new Netanyahu government should make a point of, why, if Israel is to aid Ukraine, they must prove they can repay the deed by ceasing all hostility at the UN, in example.

It's a terrible shame how Jews living in foreign countries would rather be part of an establishment mindset than promote certain aspects and customs as worthy of emulation for outsiders. Zelensky's regrettably one of those.

China, Fearing Regime Change by the U.S, Bulks Up Its Nuclear Deterrence Capabilities

An eye opening report. 

My first thought, "Well that's just great (*Eye-roll*)."

At the Wall Street Journal, "China Is Accelerating Its Nuclear Buildup Over Rising Fears of U.S. Conflict":

China has accelerated an expansion of its nuclear arsenal because of a change in its assessment of the threat posed by the U.S., people with knowledge of the Chinese leadership’s thinking say, shedding new light on a buildup that is raising tension between the two countries.

The Chinese nuclear effort long predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the U.S.’s wariness about getting directly involved in the war there has likely reinforced Beijing’s decision to put greater emphasis on developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent, some of these people say. Chinese leaders see a stronger nuclear arsenal as a way to deter the U.S. from getting directly involved in a potential conflict over Taiwan.

Among recent developments, work has accelerated this year on more than 100 suspected missile silos in China’s remote western region that could be used to house nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S., according to analysts that study satellite images of the area.

American leaders have said the thinking behind China’s nuclear advance is unclear. Independent security analysts who study nuclear proliferation say they are also in the dark about what is driving Beijing after exchanges between Chinese officials and analysts mostly dried up in the past few years.

The people close to the Chinese leadership said China’s increased focus on nuclear weapons is also driven by fears Washington might seek to topple Beijing’s Communist government following a more hawkish turn in U.S. policy toward China under the Trump and Biden administrations.

American military officials and security analysts are concerned China’s nuclear acceleration could mean it would be willing to make a surprise nuclear strike. The people close to the Chinese leadership said Beijing is committed to not using nuclear weapons first.

China plans to maintain an arsenal no larger than necessary to ensure China’s security interests, they said, adding that the Chinese military believes its nuclear weapons are too outdated to present an effective deterrent against a potential U.S. nuclear strike.

“China’s inferior nuclear capability could only lead to growing U.S. pressure on China,” one person close to the leadership said.

Nervous international reaction to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s call for his nuclear forces to be put on alert following his invasion of Ukraine has offered Chinese officials a real-world lesson about the strategic value of nuclear weapons. So did Ukraine’s decision in 1994 to turn over the nuclear weapons left in the country after the breakup of the Soviet Union in return for security assurances from the U.S. and Russia.

“Ukraine lost its nuclear deterrence in the past and that’s why it got into a situation like this,” said a retired Chinese military officer with ties to the country’s nuclear program.

The people familiar with the Chinese leadership’s thinking said Beijing hasn’t conveyed any adjustments to the country’s nuclear policy as a result of developments in Ukraine. China’s Ministry of Defense didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The people have knowledge of Beijing’s thinking about nuclear policy through their work with various agencies involved in security issues. None are directly involved in the setting of nuclear policy. They didn’t preclude that future developments might change Beijing’s approach and said other factors may also be influencing the leadership’s approach to nuclear weapons.

Their observations nevertheless bring greater clarity to a shift in Beijing’s thinking that has far-reaching consequences globally. Rising tension between the U.S. and China over nuclear weapons could throw the world back into a Cold War-style nuclear standoff similar to that seen in the decades following World War II between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

The risk of miscalculations this time could be higher, however, because while the U.S. and Soviet Union communicated about their nuclear weapons during arms control talks from the late 1980s, the Chinese program and Beijing’s thinking on the role of nuclear weapons has been shrouded in secrecy. China has declined to engage in nuclear arms control talks with the U.S., saying Washington should first reduce its nuclear inventory.

U.S. government and private sector estimates put China’s nuclear arsenal in the low hundreds of warheads, far below the roughly 4,000 warheads held by both Russia and the U.S. The Pentagon says it now expects China to have 1,000 warheads by the end of this decade.

Satellite images taken during January show the last 45 of the temporary covers over each of 120 suspected missile silos near the city of Yumen have been removed, suggesting the most sensitive work at all of the silos has been completed, said Matt Korda, a senior research associate for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. At two other smaller silo fields in western China, work is at earlier stages.

The silos at each of the sites are large enough for a new long-range Chinese missile known as the DF-41 that was put into service in 2020 and is capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, analysts say. Tests of missiles that are launched from aircraft and can carry nuclear warheads also give Beijing a stronger chance of being able to retaliate if it is hit first in a nuclear attack.

In public, China has played down its nuclear pursuits.

“On the assertions made by U.S. officials that China is expanding dramatically its nuclear capabilities, first, let me say that this is untrue,” Fu Cong, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control department, said earlier this year. He said that China is working to ensure its nuclear deterrent meets the minimum level necessary for national defense.

Chinese leaders had seen nuclear weapons as being of limited value because they don’t offer realistic options for fighting most wars. A major shift occurred in early 2020, according to the people familiar with the leadership’s thinking, as the U.S. government hardened its stance toward Beijing in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Strong criticism of the Communist Party from senior Trump administration officials spurred a consensus among Chinese leaders that Washington was willing to take greater risks to stop China’s rise, some of the people said.

A May 2020 speech in Mandarin by former Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger was particularly alarming, they said. Speaking on the anniversary of a pivotal 1919 student protest in China, Mr. Pottinger said: “Wasn’t the goal to achieve citizen-centric government in China, and not replace one regime-centric model with another one? The world will wait for the Chinese people to furnish the answers.”

“The speech was obviously calling the Chinese to topple the Communist Party,” one person familiar with the Chinese leadership’s thinking said.

In response to a request for comment, Mr. Pottinger said that such an interpretation was “a profound admission that the Communist Party knows it has failed to deliver citizen-centric governance, and it confirms what everyone already suspected: What Beijing fears above all is its own people.”

At the same time, increased support from the U.S. for Taiwan, a democratically self-ruled island that Beijing views as a part of China and has vowed to put under its control, prompted Chinese leaders to debate the prospect that the U.S. might be willing to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over the island, according to the people close to the leadership...