Monday, April 18, 2022

Israeli forces raid al-Aqsa Mosque for third time since start of Ramadan

Officers attempt to clear courtyards to allow Israeli settlers to enter the occupied East Jerusalem holy site


A man in seen praying at al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday (AFP)

By MEE staff
Published date: 18 April 2022 

Israeli forces stormed al-Aqsa Mosque for the third time since the beginning of Ramadan early on Monday, attempting to clear worshippers from courtyards to allow Israeli settlers to enter the occupied East Jerusalem holy site.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa said large numbers of officers had entered the area and snipers had been positioned on the roofs of the mosque and adjacent buildings.

People under the age of 25 were also prevented from entering the mosque.

Far-right Israeli activists and settler groups had announced plans to storm al-Aqsa this week in large numbers starting from Sunday to mark the Jewish Passover holiday.

The Islamic Waqf, a joint Jordanian-Palestinian trust that administrates the affairs of al-Aqsa, recorded more than 500 settlers who entered during this period.

Israeli forces first raided al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday. During a second raid on Sunday, hundreds of Israelis, protected by heavily armed forces, continuously stormed the courtyard of the mosque in different groups.

Several Palestinians were injured on Sunday and other detained by Israeli security forces.

Israeli troops wound 2 Palestinians in West Bank raid


FILE - Israeli army soldiers guard a section of Israel's separation barrier, in the West Bank village of Nilin, west of Ramallah, Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. Two Palestinian men were critically injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest incident in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, File)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops shot and wounded two Palestinians on Monday during clashes that broke out during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military said it arrested 11 Palestinians in operations across the territory overnight. In a raid in the village of Yamun, near the city of Jenin, the army said dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks and explosives at troops.


Soldiers “responded with live ammunition” toward “suspects who hurled explosive devices,” the military said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men were hospitalized after being critically wounded.

Israel has carried out a wave of arrest raids and other operations in recent weeks that it says are aimed at preventing further attacks after Palestinian assailants killed at least 14 people inside Israel. Two of the attackers came from in and around Jenin, which has long been a bastion of armed struggle against Israeli rule.


At least 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press count. Many had carried out attacks or were involved in clashes, but an unarmed woman and a lawyer who appears to have been a bystander were also among those killed.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state.

Tensions have run high in recent days, during the confluence of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover.

Palestinian protesters and Israeli police have clashed at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Jordan and Egypt, which made peace with Israel decades ago and coordinate with it on security matters, have condemned its actions at the holy site. Jordan — which serves as custodian of the site — summoned Israel’s charge d’affaires in protest on Monday.

An Arab party that made history last year by joining Israel’s governing coalition on Sunday suspended its participation — a largely symbolic act that nevertheless reflected the sensitivity of the holy site, which is at the emotional heart of the century-old conflict.

Israel says security forces were forced to enter the compound after Palestinians stockpiled stones and other objects and hurled rocks in the direction of an adjacent Jewish holy site. The Palestinians and Arab states accused the police of storming the site in violation of longstanding arrangements known as the status quo.

Protests and clashes in and around the shrine last year helped fuel the 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza.

Al-Aqsa Mosque: Israeli raids and incursions explained

Middle East Eye looks at the history of Israeli incursions at the mosque and how Palestinian rights are continually violated


Israeli settlers and former lawmaker Yehuda Glick during a raid on al-Aqsa Mosque (Reuters/File photo)

By Huthifa Fayya
Published date: 15 April 2022 

Israeli settlers and far-right activists, nearly always protected by the police, enter al-Aqsa Mosque on an almost daily basis, showing complete disregard to the site's Palestinian Muslim administration and the thousands of worshippers who are usually at the site.

The controversial incursions have long been a cause of tensions and violence against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and beyond.

To Palestinians, they are viewed as part of a decades-old strategy by the Israeli state and right-wing groups to "Judaise" the city and rid it of its native Islamic and Christian Palestinian heritage.

To far-right Israeli groups, they are the first step to lay the foundation for the destruction of al-Aqsa and replace it with a Third Temple, which they believe will be built atop the mosque.

Here, Middle East Eye looks at the history of the Israeli incursions at al-Aqsa, and why they are controversial for Palestinians and Muslims.
What are Israeli incursions in al-Aqsa?

Palestinians refer to the unsanctioned entry of any Israeli into al-Aqsa Mosque complex as a settler incursion.

As part of an understanding between Jordan – the custodian of Islamic and Christian sites in Jerusalem – and Israel, non-Muslims are allowed to visit al-Aqsa under the supervision of the Waqf, a joint Jordanian-Palestinian Islamic trust that manages the affairs of the mosque.


For years, my life was al-Aqsa. Israel took that from meRead More »

The agreement stipulates that only Muslims are allowed to pray in it while Jews can perform prayer by the Western Wall. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities retain security control over the mosque.

However, Israel has long ignored this delicate arrangement, often referred to as the "status quo" and bypassed the Waqf.

In recent years, Israelis forces, settlers and high-profile politicians have repeatedly raided the mosque without Palestinian permission.

The incursions have at times led to large confrontations and subsequent Israeli crackdowns on Palestinians.

Before 2000, the Waqf controlled the visits of non-Muslims to the site through a booking system. This was rescinded by Israel after the Second Intifada, or uprising, which ended in 2005. Now, dozens of Israeli settlers and far-right activists tour the courtyard of the mosque almost on a daily basis, flanked by Israeli forces.
What do the Israeli far-right groups want?

There are several far-right groups, mostly religious-Zionists, that organise incursions at al-Aqsa Mosque.

They are sometimes referred to as the "Temple groups" and include organisations such as The Temple Institute and the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement.

Israelis refer to the incursions as the "ascension to the Temple Mount", with some demanding Israel assert full Jewish sovereignty over the site, allowing Jewish worship and ritual sacrifice to take place.

Israelis shout at Palestinian worshippers in al-Aqsa Mosque (Reuters/file)

Some also advocate for the destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque, where they believe two ancient Jewish temples once stood, to make way for a third temple.

Followers of other religious sects, mainly ultra-Orthodox Jews, prohibit such visits due to the holiness of the site in Jewish tradition.
What happens during the incursions?

The incursions are planned every day except Fridays and Saturday. In the past, settlers avoided entering the mosque during Muslim holidays, but this has changed in recent years.

Protected by heavily-armed police, the settlers enter the courtyards of the mosque in two different shifts to recite prayers, perform rituals and hold presentations to tour members.

The first tour is normally between 7:30am and 10:30am local time and the second is between 1pm and 2pm. There are no Muslim prayers at those times, and the mosque is normally nearly empty of worshippers.

Each tour lasts from 30 minutes to an hour, starting from the Moroccan Gate (Bab Al-Magharba) on the southwestern end of the complex.



Settlers then head towards the southeastern section, passing across the Qibli prayer hall with the silver dome, the main building on the site and from where congregational prayer is led. They then walk to the northeastern and western sections, before circling back to where they started and exit from Chain Gate (Bab al-Silsela).

In the past, tours used to last 10-15 minutes and start at Moroccan Gate and end at Chain Gate a few metres away. The tours have grown steadily over the years despite repeated objections from Palestinians.

To avoid tensions in the past, Israeli police have tried to stop Jewish visitors from praying at al-Aqsa, as non-Muslim prayer is a highly sensitive issue.

However, with no Israeli laws explicitly preventing Jews from doing so, this policy seems to have changed recently.

The Waqf has documented instances where prayers and rituals were carried out during the raids. In August 2021, the New York Times reported that the Israeli government had "quietly" been allowing Jewish prayer without publicising it.
When did the incursions start?

Raids on al-Aqsa Mosque started immediately after Israel occupied the eastern section of the city in 1967, along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Soldiers who captured the city entered the mosque courtyards on 7 June 1967 while raising the Israeli flag and banned Muslim prayer for a week.

In 1982, American-Israeli Alan Goodman, who had links to the violent pro-settler Kach movement, entered the compound with an automatic rifle and fired indiscriminately inside the Dome of the Rock, killing two Palestinians and wounding nine others.

In 1990, an Israeli group known as the "Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement" attempted to place a cornerstone for the Third Temple in the compound. Israeli forces responded with live fire to quell confrontations and protests by Palestinians, killing more than 20 and wounding at least 150.

Later on, the Israeli government authorised the opening of a tunnel to the Western Wall, under the foundations of the al-Aqsa complex, and continues to sponsor archaeological digs in the vicinity of the mosque operated by settler groups.

In September 2000, then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon stormed al-Aqsa Mosque, backed by hundreds of heavily armed officers. His visit, seen by Palestinians as highly provocative and insensitive to the sanctity of the mosque, sparked the five-year Second Intifada.

Citing security reasons, Israel revoked the Waqf's administration of visits by non-Muslims in the aftermath of the Intifada.

This opened the way to more organised tours by Israeli settlers and far-right activists, protected by police. From around 2017 onwards, the incursions became organised in the daily tour format they exist in today.


Dozens of people join each tour, with the number rising to hundreds on Jewish holidays, such as Passover, Purim, Jerusalem Day and others. For example, on Jerusalem Day in 2018, more than 1,600 settlers raided the mosque.

The number of visitors has grown steadily over the years. In 2009, 5,658 settlers entered the mosque in such tours. In 2019, just before the Covid pandemic, the number rose to 30,000, according to some estimates.
How do Palestinians view the incursions?

Palestinians say the incursions are an attempt by ultra-nationalists to claim religious ownership of the holy site and remove Palestinian culture and religion from al-Aqsa. The mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, is revered by Muslims globally and has become a symbol of Palestinian culture and existence.

Praying at the site is believed to bring greater reward, according to Islamic traditions, and Muslims usually save up for several years to visit the holy site. To many Palestinians, protecting it is both a religious and a national duty.

By allocating specific times for Israeli entries, and allowing them to pray there, Palestinians fear the groundwork is being layed to divide the mosque between Muslims and Jews, similar to how the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron was divided in the 1990s.

Israel's control of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, violates several principles under international law, which stipulates that an occupying power has no sovereignty in the territory it occupies and cannot make any permanent changes there.
A man waves the Palestinian flag in al-Aqsa Mosque. (Reuters/file)

To stop the incursions, Palestinians have long organised what is known as Ribat, a social and religious sit-in activity in which worshippers gather in the mosque for extended hours and even days.

The purpose of the Ribat is to populate the premises of the mosque at all times to prevent Israeli settlers from entering it, especially during Muslim holidays.

Israelis police have on multiple occasions raided al-Aqsa to clear it of worshippers participating in Ribat, particularly ahead of Jewish holidays.

The most recent raids were in May 2021, when Israeli forces used teargas, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets inside the courtyards of the mosque during Ramadan, injuring hundreds.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.
TURKEY'S WAR ON KURDISTAN
Turkey says its warplanes hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq
N. IRAQ,S. TURKEY ARE KURDISTAN
The military action was part of a long-running Turkish campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party.  
PKK/YPG

By REUTERS
Published: APRIL 18, 2022

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference following a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Turkey, December 14, 2020
(photo credit: PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

Turkish warplanes, helicopters and drones hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq in an air and land operation that targeted facilities ranging from camps to ammunition stores, Turkey's defense ministry said on Monday.

The military action was part of a long-running Turkish campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, both regarded as terrorist groups by Ankara.


The operation focused on the Iraqi regions of Metina, Zap, and Avasin-Basyan, the ministry said in a statement. Alongside the air operation, commandos and special forces also participated, both by land and air.

"Our operation is continuing successfully as planned," the state-owned Anadolu news agency quoted Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying. "The targets identified in the first phase have been captured."

No information on casualties was given.

A convoy of Kurdish peshmerga fighters drive through Arbil after leaving a base in northern Iraq, on their way to the Syrian town of Kobani, October 28, 2014. 
(credit: REUTERS/AZAD LASHKARI)

The action, called "Operation Claw Lock," aimed to "prevent terror attacks" and ensure border security following an assessment that the PKK was planning a large-scale attack, the ministry added.

Artillery also fired on militant targets in the military action, it said.

Turkey regularly launches air strikes into northern Iraq, a region into which it has repeatedly sent commandos, to support its offensives.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which in the past was mainly focused in southeast Turkey.

Turkish officials privately say they believe Baghdad is firmly on their side in fighting the PKK, which the European Union and United States have also designated a terrorist group.
DNA Explainer: What is Neptune Cruise Missile that destroyed Russia's largest warship

dnawebdesk@gmail.com (DNA Web Desk) 

In another big blow to Russia, after the detention of Viktor Medvedchuk, longtime confidant to President Vladimir Putin, Russia's largest warship has been destroyed in the Black Sea. The Russian Defence Ministry has confirmed the destruction of the warship. The Russian Defence Ministry said that all the crew members stationed on the warship have been evacuated safely.
© Provided by DNA
Usually, there are around 500 crew members on board for a Slava-class cruiser like the Moskva. There have been no updates on injuries or fatalities.

Russia's flagship Black Sea fleet named 'Moskva', a guided-missile cruiser, sunk after what a Ukrainian official claimed was a cruise missile attack off the coast of Odesa. Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the vessel with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard the Moskva but no attack.

Governor of Ukraine's Odessa Oblast, declared that the cruiser had been struck by two Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles that had been indigenously developed in Ukraine. The current status of the cruiser remains unclear as to how much damage it has sustained.

What are Neptune missiles?



The Neptune cruise missile is a Ukrainian-manufactured anti-ship missile, fired from shore to ship.

The Neptune cruise missile that hit the Russian fleet was developed by Ukraine and entered service in August 2020.

RK-360MT Neptune are mobile anti-ship cruise missile capable of destroying targets within a range of 300 km.

Weighing 870 kg and carrying a 150kg warhead, Neptune missiles are capable of destroying targets of up to 5,000 tons.

Neptune has a range of around 300 kilometres (186 miles) and can carry warheads of up 150 kilograms (over 330 pounds).

Neptune's design, which is based on the Soviet Kh-35 anti-ship missile, is designed to defeat surface warships.

Ukraine's indigenously made Neptune cruise missile also transports vessels with a displacement of up to 5,000 tons.



The Neptune cruise missile uses a radar-homing guidance to home in on enemy ships.

The 16-ft long engine-powered missiles can travel at speeds of up to 900 km/h, at heights of between 9 and 30ft above surface.

The weapons, which are able to be mounted on ships, by land and by air launchers, were formally adopted in August, 2020.

One Neptune division normally has six USPU-360 launchers capable of firing a salvo of the 24 anti-ship missiles.

The Neptune cruise missile was first revealed in the 'Weapons and Security 2015' exhibition in Kyiv.

About Moskva


Moskva (Moscow), originally known as Slava (glory), is the lead ship of the Slava-class guided missile cruisers, also known as Project 1164 Atlant.

Moskva missile cruiser was built indigenously by the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and still in service with the Russian Navy.

Slava was laid down at a shipyard in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, a major shipbuilding centre on the Black Sea, known as Nikolaev in Russian in 1976.

The cruiser was commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1983. Decommissioned in 1990, it was reinstated as Moskva by the Russian Navy in 2000.

Moskva missile cruiser is reportedly armed with 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles, which have a range of at least 700 kilometres.

It is also said to carry anti-torpedo and mine-torpedo weapons. The cruiser is also equipped with a long-range S-300 surface-to-air missile air defence system.

PAKISTAN
The conspiracy concoction

Fahd Husain
Published April 16, 2022



THE military has said unequivocally there was no conspiracy by the United States to bring about a regime change in Pakistan. The statement by the DG ISPR Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar has undercut the very foundation of the narrative that former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been peddling since the last few weeks to explain his ouster from power.

So what happens now?

The diplomatic cable issue has been officially demystified. It was a routine cable written by the then ambassador to the US Asad Majeed detailing a meeting with an American official. There was nothing extraordinary about it except perhaps for the tough language used by the official. The normal response for Pakistan was to issue a démarche, which it did. Yet someone convinced Imran Khan the cable could be used (and abused) to stitch together a Bhutto-esque nationalist narrative to explain the government’s imminent ouster. It was as bad an advice as Khan could get. What was worse was the fact that he accepted it.


Who gave Khan this advice? We do not know this for certain, yet. What we do know is: (a) The only person in the PTI cabinet who had access to the cable was the foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi (b) Whoever among Khan’s closest advisers peddled this dangerous and false narrative had to have done this after reading the cable. He or she could not have read the cable — would not have had access to it — unless the foreign minister permitted this access (c) The FM, in turn, would have had to be convinced of the conspiracy aspect in order to agree for the cable to be used for a political narrative. But could he, really? Qureshi is far too experienced in these matters to not figure out there was nothing extraordinary about the cable (d) Yet, Qureshi not only went along with this cooked-up theory, he peddled it vociferously while all the time knowing (how could he not?) that not only was he fanning a concoction, but was doing so at the risk of great damage to Pakistan’s diplomacy and national interest (e) Why would he do such a thing? Why did he not counter this outrageous advice to Khan? Why did he not stop Khan from pursuing this untruth?


Imran Khan and his party are now stumped. The entire edifice of the conspiracy narrative — which led them to commit the grave sin of even violating the Constitution — has been demolished by the presentation of facts by the military spokesman. This has consequences: (a) The military was forced to come clean because of the dangerous level to which Khan and his party were inflaming the political environment through this concoction, and encouraging (if not actively promoting) a campaign on social media against the military leadership (b) Khan may now have to-rethink the conspiracy concoction and go back to the drawing board to conjure up something afresh that does not force to him to go head-on with the military. This would mean swallowing his pride (c) Or he could just double down on the conspiracy concoction regardless of the consequences (d) This would mean he will have to now basically say that the military is wrong, and he is right. He has no middle options. This would amount to taking a huge gamble because the government can very easily now prove — through a judicial commission or otherwise — the cable contains no conspiracy (e) Khan’s gamble would also entail choosing a collision course with the military because he will now have to proclaim that the military is not telling the truth.


Has Khan painted himself into a corner? He may not have any other option but to keep barrelling ahead with this dangerous and faulty narrative regardless of the facts. He has made his entire politics hostage to this one concoction and left himself very little space to pivot onto some other strategy. (a) This would bring into question something very crucial: what do you do with a populist leader who refuses to accept facts as presented by the state itself, and who prefers to build his politics on an illusion that is deeply damaging to the country and its vital interests? (b) In response, the state will then be forced to counter the PTI conspiracy concoction narrative with all the resources at its disposal in order to bury the falsehood under the weight of overwhelming facts (c) This would be disadvantageous to PTI’s politics as it would mean the party — in order to defend itself — will be forced to push the falsehood even more aggressively, thereby digging itself further into a hole. At some point, the diminishing returns from such a strategy will start to extract a cost. If you have the entire weight of the government, and state, and facts, arrayed against you and the only weapon you have is a false, concocted and discredited theory, you better be ready for the cost.


The new government could not have asked for a better gift from the PTI. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has many options: (a) Order an inquiry or constitute a commission and take all steps necessary to unveil the truth about the cable and further discredit the conspiracy concoction (b) Order various irregularities done in the PTI government to be brought into the public domain (the Toshakhana scandal is already out) and bring charges wherever needed. This would severely damage the PTI’s ‘honesty and anti-corruption’ narrative and force the party on the defensive (c) Re-align the relationship with the establishment while Khan continues to damage his ties with them.

Illusions and delusions, if not punctured in time, lead to great debacles.


The writer is a journalist & political commentator.
Twitter: @fahdhusain

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2022
A new era of containment?

The security architecture of the past 50 years is in ruins. Robert Misik maps a policy for the new cold war.

ROBERT MISIK 
18th April 2022
SOCIAL EUROPE
In Milan, unlike in Moscow, one can protest against the war (VILTVART/shutterstock.com)

‘I erred.’ With these frank words—not exactly typical for a politician—the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, summed up his assessment of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and his adherence over the years to a policy of co-operation with him, including as a former social-democrat foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Inviting a debate, Steinmeier asked: ‘Were therefore the goals wrong?’ The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, gave his own implicit verdict when he excluded Steinmeier from joining a solidarity visit to Kyiv by Polish and Baltic-state leaders last Wednesday.

February 24th, the day of the invasion of Ukraine, darkened our entire existence. It has been blackened further by the war crimes and atrocities by an uninhibited army which have followed. These dramatic events present social democrats and the progressive left with the painful task of rethinking past policies and, quickly, developing future ones.
Putin’s people

In what way could a social-democratic policy towards the Putin regime have ‘erred’? After all, social democrats are not usually despisers of freedom, fans of dictators or trivialisers of totalitarianism.

In the circles of radical, post-communist leftists, true, it is not uncommon to portray the west as the actual aggressor over Ukraine and Putin’s despotic Russia as victim. This stems partly from a crazy ‘anti-imperialism’ (= anti-Americanism) and partly from a nostalgia for the Soviet Union which somehow still imagines the once KGB man in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik as a ‘communist’.

On the European far right, meanwhile, Putin has absolutely played the hero. His image is that of standing against the mainstream, against the (Jewish) philanthropist George Soros and the United States, advocating a hard conservative masculinity which rejects ‘gender ideology’, gay marriage and all that liberal, modernist stuff. The man out to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine is the spiritual godfather of all right-wing radicals and neo-Nazis in Europe.

Liberal way of life


Social democrats and left-liberal progressives, however, were not for these reasons temporarily blind to the danger of a neo-imperial reassertion by the strongman in the Kremlin. After all, social democrats not only uphold the institutions of democracy and the liberal way of life. They have historically been among the fiercest opponents of Stalinism and virtually all kinds of authoritarianism—it’s in their DNA.

It was people like Willy Brandt—mayor of west Berlin when the wall was erected—who carried the torch of freedom. Yet it was also the social democrats in Europe who, after the initial, ossifying years of the cold war, and the associated policy of ‘containment’, imposed a second approach. This was diplomacy, co-operation and a peace policy, which it was hoped would progressively outlaw the worst human-rights violations.

Known in Germany as the Entspannungspolitik (the politics of easing tensions), this doctrine oddly combined moral elements—‘dialogue’ and ‘human rights’—and a more coldly-calculating Realpolitik. The experience of détente was that co-operation could, in gradual steps, reduce the threat of (ultimately nuclear) war, reverse the calcification of regimes and initiate change for the better.

At least, that is the story that was told afterwards. Even at the time, though, it had its questionable aspects—such as that if one sat for so many hours with those unalterably in power one somehow forgot that opposition figures, dissidents and human-rights activists should be more natural interlocutors.

Pushing back democracy

In the 1990s, liberal, pluralist democracy seemed to have won everywhere in Europe. And in the Russia of Boris Yeltsin, who had advocated multi-party democracy and resigned from the Communist Party Politburo before becoming president, things were moving in the right direction—albeit amid chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A vibrant civil society emerged, with party pluralism, free speech and reasonably intact constitutional arrangements.

Putin and his gang of St Petersburg friends and KGB types, however, began to push back on democracy and freedom from the day he took over from Yeltsin—December 31st, 1999. Putin had a narrative for this: the Soviet implosion had been a disaster, the turmoil of the 1990s was the enemy, Russians were fed up with the chaos and they wanted a strong state, he declared.

He gradually fleshed out this narrative ideologically. An empire would be rebuilt under the guise of legtitimately reintegrating the former Soviet components of Russia’s ‘near abroad’. This was allied to ‘manly’ leadership and the values of Christian Orthodoxy—patriarchy supported by the patriarchate. To this Putin added a permanent state of legitimate offence, portraying himself as the avenger of a Russia betrayed by the very west it had rescued from Nazism in the Great Patriotic War—no more to be trusted than in Soviet times.

The ‘error’


So what exactly was the ‘error’ of which Steinmeier spoke? It was one shared, it should be said, by many in western politics. Some had developed some sympathy for elements of the Putin narrative—the portrayal of a disordered Russia (perceived as a fragmented nation full of conflicts) needing ‘strong rule’.

At the same time, his new, ‘great Russian’ state philosophy, associated with ‘traditional values’, orthodoxy, nationalist exceptionalism and so on, was taken for ideological claptrap, meaningless storytelling. In the era of political ‘spin doctors’, the west had become accustomed to thinking that talk should not be taken too seriously. So it overlooked how the Russian leadership was developing a fascist ideology in a process of self-radicalisation.

Moreover, many trusted that economic entanglement and globalisation would make war impossible: the price of a new bloc confrontation would be too high. And what alternatives were there? In the absence of evident alternatives, people tended to bury their heads in the sand. Even when Russia began to fund fifth columns of aggressive right-wing populists and other purveyors of misinformation and conspiracy theories, all over the west, this was ignored for a very long time.
Future policy

This question of the ‘error’ and its causes is very important. For the foundations of a future policy toward Russia are being laid now.

We do not know, of course, what the outcome of the war will be. Russia could win and annex Ukraine and, together with other satellites such as Belarus, establish a new imperial bloc bordering directly on the west. Or it could ‘lose’—which would still leave Russia occupying part of Ukraine in the east and south.

But one thing is very likely: Russia will remain under Putin’s control, a new ‘iron curtain’ will descend and an aggressive, imperial power will remain not only a source of military threat to its immediate neighbors but also an opponent of the democratic way of life. A return to the status quo ante, of co-operation or even a new kind of détente—we can probably rule all that out. There will be no warm welcome for a war criminal any time soon.

The new ‘containment’


Rather, we shall have to adjust to a new policy of ‘containment’—a policy that pushes Russia back, isolates and weakens it. Russia’s neighbours, in the west, in the south (such as Ukraine or Georgia) and even in central Asia (Kazakhstan and so on), will turn away in the face of the threat it represents, sooner rather than later.

The west, especially the European Union, has been presented by Putin in recent years as weak and exhausted—even degenerate. And this has been echoed within by some who would say with a shrug: ‘After all, we have enough conflicts and enemies of the democratic way of life to deal with at home.’

But democratic elections, deliberation rather than violence in politics, the rule of law, human rights, a state that respects individuality and a pluralism of values in which everyone can be happy according to his or her preference—these are not weaknesses but the mutually-reinforcing buttresses of a civilised society. The EU should not be afraid to stress with self-confidence the strength of this liberal outlook.

Who says that the soft power of a democratic Europe cannot radiate far beyond the Caucasus? Maybe this is the moment for an ambitious foreign policy on behalf of a ‘European world’—an alternative to Putin’s Russkyj Mir. In such a Weltanschauung Europe sees itself as a zone of social welfare and a bulwark of freedom, democracy and pluralism—in short, ‘social’ as well as ‘democratic’.

In any case, one should quickly come out of shock. Because if the ‘error’ so many made in the west was simply not thinking three moves ahead in the political chess game (and ignoring the associated worst-case scenario), then this should not be committed a second time—forcing a resignation.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal



ROBERT MISIK is a writer and essayist living in Vienna. His Das Große Beginnergefühl: Moderne, Zeitgeist, Revolution (Suhrkamp-Verlag) will appear in May. He publishes in many newspapers and magazines, including Die Zeit and Die Tageszeitung. Awards include the prize for economic journalism of the John Maynard Keynes Society.