A RUSSOPHILE

Answering Biden On Russia-Ukraine And Israel-Palestine – OpEd

US President Joe Biden. Photo Credit: The White House

October 22, 2023 
By Michael Averko

US President Joe Biden’s October 19 rant on prime-time national television brings to mind several related thoughts which rebuke the neocon-neolib foreign policy slant.

News Nation host Dan Abrams blasted MSNBC hosts Mehdi Hasan and Ali Velshi for emphasizing a two sides approach to understanding the recent upsurge in Israel-Palestine violence. Hasan and Velshi are hypocrites when it comes to not having this stance towards Russia.

On that particular, Abrams shares their piously inaccurate spin against that nation. This predicament relates to the hypocritical use of terms like human shields, proportionate response and collateral damage.

Israel’s current dilemma reminds one of the situation in Grozny at the end of the second Chechen war of the post-Soviet era. In an effort to eliminate the terror surge, Grozny was levelled. It has since been rebuilt with noticeable effort. Considerable Russian government funding has gone to Chechnya. The much maligned (in Western mass media and body politic) Russian President Vladimir Putin formally denounced the Soviet era deportation of Chechens. Russians and Chechens had differences in the pre-Soviet era. Russian-Chechen relations have noticeably stabilized, thanks in good part to Putin.

At present, there’s calculated talk of a massive Israeli ground assault, along with the aerial bombardments over Gaza. Living conditions in Gaza prior to the recent upsurge weren’t good. They’ve since dramatically worsened.

One doesn’t have to be a Marxist to understand the need for the population in Gaza to have dramatically improved living conditions and for the two sides (Israeli and Palestinian) to actively engage each other in a constructive manner. The heightened differences between them have led to the responsible diplomatic intervention of some other nations.

Chechnya and the rest of Russia are far from perfect. This is also certainly true of the Western establishment government and mass media spinsters. There’s something to be learned from the Russian-Chechen experience. Rather than doing that, the neocons spin the today Israel, tomorrow America scenario, in support of the Jewish state. Their hypocritical irony is duly noted.

Circa 1980s Afghanistan, with neocon approval, the US government funded individuals with extreme views. The blowback was 9/11. When post-Soviet Russia’s population endured terrorism, neocons were apt to say it was a result of Russian policy. Then came the bothers Tsarnaev to Boston.

With Machiavellian intent, the US government has used extremists in Syria against the internationally recognized Syrian government. For its part, Israel has had a fluctuating relationship with Hamas, which involved the Bismarckian purpose of weakening the more secular Palestinian POV.

US President Joe Biden has tried to impress the American public with the need to militarily support Israel and the Kiev regime. In both instances, smart diplomacy is the better route for ensuring long term peace.

Can Hamas be thoroughly crushed and if so, is that act alone going to bring a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians? A grave geopolitical miscalculation was made with the assumption that Arab-Israeli relations were going to improve without addressing Palestinian concerns.

Over the last few years, Israel has made diplomatic advances among nations that have been critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. There’s a clear willingness to accept the Jewish state up to a certain point.

Some Biden administration folks use the “walk and chew gum” term to support the faulty notion of US military support for Israel and the Kiev regime, when there’s evidence that this approach is (put mildly) quite problematical. On the other hand, NATO/EU member Hungary is critically chastised (within NATO and by Estonia’s hypocritical prime minister) for pursuing dialogue with Russia. The neocon/neolib preference is to isolate Russia (something that hasn’t worked so well) and the promotion of negative inaccuracies against that nation (which has led to much ignorance about that country for those heavily reliant on Western mainstream media).

On the matter of walking and chewing gum at the same time, one should be able to condemn the Hamas hostage taking and murder of Israeli civilians, while noting that the fatal Israeli on Palestinian action (before and after the October 7 Hamas attack) is considerably greater than vice versa.

At play, is the non-acknowledgement of the concerns of the “other team” – the sports term Biden used when discussing the bombing of a Gaza hospital. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau highlights this obtuse mindset as shown by his initial applause for a Galician SS veteran and his follow-up apology, which (in a roundabout way) blames Russia. Trudeau apologized to Poles, Jews, Slovaks and LGBTQ but not Russians. Instead, he absurdly made reference to “Russian disinformation”, when it’s clearly his own arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy and dare I say bigotry which led to his gaffe.

Armed conflicts led to the post-WW II breakup of Yugoslavia, the creation of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh (among other countries) in their present form. The world at large accepts the idea of a two-state solution regarding Israelis and Palestinians. Likewise, the Russia-Kiev regime dispute reveals the viable option for territorial change and a changed security arrangement concerning Russia and the collective West.

The territory encompassing the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic brought together people with different historical, cultural, religious and linguistic preferences. In order for this dynamic to properly function as an independent state, a fine balance is required.

Russia and the pro-Russian element in Ukraine’s Soviet drawn boundary accepted an independent Ukraine within its Communist drawn boundary, as long as it at least remained neutral and on good terms with Russia, in conjunction with respecting the pro-Russian sentiment in that former Soviet republic. When anti-Russian elements in Ukraine gained control via coup like circumstances in 2014, the pro-Russian side rebelled with the support and sympathy of the Russophile community elsewhere.

Within its Communist drawn boundary, post-Soviet Ukraine had a lengthy period of time to develop into a nation which respected those having a pro-Russian orientation. Numerous instances reveal that the reverse occurred after 2014, with some disturbing trends evident beforehand.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the war in the former Ukrainian SSR began years before the start of Russia’s February 24, 2022 Special Military Operation – something that Donbass residents are especially aware of. Stoltenberg added that the Kiev regime was receiving arms and training from some NATO countries for several years prior to 2022.

Biden’s insistence on continuing a failed proxy war against Russia prolongs an agony which has been especially hurtful to Ukraine and the economy of Western nations. In comparison, the Russian economy has prevailed with Putin standing a good chance to hold high office after Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Olaf Scholz, Emanuel Macron, Rishi Sunak and Volodymyr Zelensky have been replaced.

Recall the efforts to remove Bashar Assad, Alexander Lukashenko and Nicholas Maduro. Of that grouping, Putin appears to be in a much stronger position.

Biden’s foreign policy adventurism takes away from substantively dealing with pressing socioeconomic issues in the US. Throughout America, elected officials stress the need for more funding to improve the well-being of a population facing greater challenges.

Michael Averko is a New York based independent foreign policy analyst and media critic. He has appeared as a guest commentator on the BBC, RT and WABC talk radio, in addition to having been a panelist at the World Russia Forum, Russia Forum New York and US-Russia.org Experts' Panel. Besides Averko's Eurasia Review column - Academia.edu, Counterpunch, Foreign Policy Journal, Global Research, History News Network, InoSMI.Ru, Johnson's Russia List, Journal of Turkish Weekly, Kyiv Post, Oriental Review, Penza News, Pravda.Ru, Pravoslavie.Ru, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russia Insider, Sputnik News, Strategic Culture Foundation, The Duran, The Huffington Post, Valdai Discussion Club, Yonkers Tribune and WikiLeaks, are among the numerous venues where his articles have either appeared or been referenced. The American Institute in Ukraine and the Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, have referenced some of Averko's articles, along with academic white papers prepared for NATO Watch, Ohio State University, Problems of Post-Communism and the Royal College of Defence Studies. He has been referenced in the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense One and The New York Times. Averko is source referenced in Richard Sakwa's book "Frontline Ukraine". His Eurasia Review article on Pavlo Skoropadsky, provides the first full online English language transcript of Skoropadsky's edict calling for an "All-Russian Federation", inclusive of Russia and Ukraine. Among other issues, that article explains the relationships among the major combatants in the Russian Civil War. He can be reached via michaelaverko@msn.com