ГУЛаг Палестины - Лев Гунин

pogrom-prone, and Christian (to the question "What kind of Christian?" we almost expect Mr.

Safer to ask "You mean Ukraine has more than one kind?"). And so when Mr. Safer speaks, he does

not report what he has recently observed in Ukraine, but rather reads off from his internal

image. He goes to Ukraine not to study it, not to report on its reality, but merely to provide

a backdrop for the proclamation of his own preconceptions, of his own prejudices so deeply

rooted that confirmation scarcely seems necessary, of his own stereotypes so apparently

unchallengeable that the anticipation that they might be in error does not enter consciousness.

(13) Peasants with nuclear weapons. Mr. Safer states: "Uneducated peasants, deeply

superstitious, in possession of this bizarre anomaly: nuclear weapons capable of mass

destruction thousands of miles away!"

This is one piece of information that I did find both newsworthy and disquieting. Although it

requires us to lay aside data indicating that American education is inferior to Ukrainian, we

cannot but be persuaded that the farmers shown in the broadcast were indeed both uneducated and

deeply superstitious - one look at their weatherbeaten faces and deep wrinkles and I was

convinced.

The information is so alarming and the threat to world stability so great that I expect Mr.

Safer must have immediately telegraphed President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine to inform him that

the uneducated and deeply superstitious peasants had seized control of Ukraine's nuclear

weapons, and to urge him to recapture the weapons and place them back under the control of the

educated and less-deeply-superstitious peasants.

Who can argue with Mr. Safer's syllogism here? - Old and wrinkled people are uneducated and

deeply superstitious. Here is an old and wrinkled person who may or may not be Ukrainian.

Therefore, it is dangerous for Ukraine to have nuclear weapons. Out of respect for Mr. Safer's

personal vulnerability, I will refrain from demonstrating the retargetability of this syllogism.

But to be fair to Mr. Safer, he did not really say that the peasants were in possession of the

nuclear weapons - what he actually said was that they were in possession of an anomaly. This is

an unfamiliar concept, and I cannot get my mind around it - what does it mean to say that

someone is in possession of an anomaly? Perhaps what it means in this case is simply this

that Mr. Safer sensed that even the uncritical 60 Minutes viewer at whom he was aiming his story

wasn't going to believe that the Ukrainian peasants had gotten control of the nuclear weapons,

and so the thing to do was to speak gobbledygook - to suggest that they did but without actually

saying it.

(14) Why leave Ukraine? Mr. Safer suggests that the explanation of Jewish emigration from

Ukraine is anti-Semitism: "The [anti-Semitic] message is clear to Lvov's Jews. They're leaving

as quickly as they can get exit permits."

I can think of an alternative interpretation. It is that given the catastrophic and

deteriorating economic situation in Ukraine, practically everybody in the country wants to

leave, but it is disproportionately Jews who can afford to and who are allowed to. Anybody who

is emigrating from Ukraine today is, in comparison to the average Ukrainian, both wealthy and

influential. Iosef Zissels, co-president of the Association of Jewish Organizations and

Communities of Ukraine as well as co-president of Va'ad (Confederation of Jewish Communities of

the Former Soviet Union) has stated that: "Many Jews are emigrating from Ukraine, not because of

anti-Semitism, but because of the unstable situation in Ukraine. They see instability in

Ukraine, as well as in all the former republics of the Soviet Union, as lasting a long time"

(Ukrainian Weekly, January 26, 1992).

(15) Symon Petliura. Mr. Safer tells us that "Street names have been changed. There is now a

Petliura Street. To Ukrainians, Symon Petliura was a great General, but to Jews, he's the man

who slaughtered 60,000 Jews in 1919."

But that is not what happened and it is irresponsible to broadcast such an accusation.

Of course here as elsewhere, the 60 Minutes numbers may be somewhat inflated - Orest Subtelny

gives us a more moderate range of 35,000 to 50,000 Jewish fatalities (Ukraine: A History, 1994,

p. 363), though even the lower bound of 35,000 is still a horrendous number. The main point,

though, is that in 1919, Ukraine was in a state of civil war. Two Russian armies - the

Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-Bolshevik White army - were rampaging through the country, and

both were killing Jews. The White Army, in particular, had an official policy of killing Jews,

proceeded to do so in an organized and methodical manner, and can be credited with the majority

of the victims:

The Ukrainian pogroms differed from those of the Whites in two ways: in

contrast to the premeditated, systematic undertakings of the Russians, they

were spontaneous outbursts of demoralized and often drunken irregulars, and

they were committed against the express orders of the high command. Unlike the

White Russian generals such as Anton Denikin, the Ukrainian socialists,

especially the Social Democratic party to which Petliura belonged, had a long

tradition of friendly relations with Jewish political activists. Therefore,

the Directory renewed Jewish personal-cultural autonomy, attracted prominent

Jews such as Arnold Margolin and Solomon Goldelman into its government,

appropriated large amounts of money for pogrom victims, and even negotiated

with the famous Zionist leader Vladimir Zhabotinsky about the inclusion of

Jewish police units into its army.

But while Petliura's attitudes towards the Jews might have been

well-intentioned, he was unable to control the otamany (the court-martial and

subsequent execution of Semesenko and other partisan leaders did not improve

the situation), and their dreadful deeds were associated with his government.

And because many Jews considered themselves to be Russians, they found it

easier to lay all the blame for the pogroms on Petliura and the Ukrainians

rather than on Denikin and his Russian generals. (Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A

History, 1994, pp. 363-364).

The Jewish accusation against Petliura is that maybe he could have done more to prevent the

pogroms. Well, maybe and maybe not. In any case, it is not fair for 60 Minutes to describe a

man who implemented vigorous measures to protect Jewish interests and to stop the pogroms - but

maybe could have done more - as "the man who slaughtered 60,000 Jews." Further insight into

Symon Petliura's attitudes may be gleaned from the Petliura page on the Ukrainian Archive.

(16) Blessing the SS. Mr. Safer informs us that "for this reunion [of Galicia Division veterans

in Lviv recently], Cardinal Lubachivsky, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, gave his

blessing, just as a predecessor did to the SS more than 50 years ago." The blessing of this predecessor was likely the blessing of Bishop Kotsylovskyi and was a blessing of the Galicia

Division, which as we have seen above was not quite the same thing as the German SS.

(17) The immaturity of blaming others. Mr. Safer tells us that "Western Ukraine also has a

long, dark history of blaming its poverty, its troubles, on others." Of course, no evidence of

any unusual tendency to blame others is provided - but then the sharing of hatred such as Mr.

Safer's is not an evidentiary matter, but is rather the warm feeling you get when you pass along

a stereotype and your partners in hatred accept the stereotype without asking for evidence.

But we may ask Mr. Safer just what it was that he might have had in mind. Perhaps it was the

Ukrainian Holocaust that Ukraine should accept as its own fault and stop blaming others for?

Perhaps it was the devastation wrought during the Second World War that Ukraine should start

accepting as its own fault? Or maybe it was the eight decades of Moscow's strangulation of

Ukraine's economy that Ukraine has really no one to blame for but itself? Ukraine has so many

such calamities to choose from that it is impossible to guess - perhaps Mr. Safer would be kind

enough to simply tell us precisely which of them he thinks it is that Ukraine should be mature

enough to accept responsibility for having brought upon itself.

(18) Dividing Ukraine. 60 Minutes gave the impression that its story focussed solely on Western

Ukraine, when in fact a portion of it came from Central Ukraine. Rabbi Bleich's full title, for

example, is not "Chief Rabbi for the Ukraine," but rather "Rabbi of Kiev and Ukraine," (where

Kiev is in central Ukraine) and although 60 Minutes gave the impression that he was interviewed

in Lviv, he was in reality interviewed in Kiev. Similarly, while Mr. Safer was in the middle of

interviewing representatives of the Ukrainian Catholic church in Lviv and was saying "The

Cardinal's deputy, Monsignor Dacko, denies traditional anti-Semitism in the Ukraine....", the

viewer was being shown St. Volodymyr's cathedral which unlike Monsignor Dacko was in Kiev and

which unlike Monsignor Dacko is Orthodox rather than Catholic. I suppose that 60 Minutes

committed itself to the scene-setting introduction "... and the West, where we go tonight ...",

and then suppressed the Kiev origin of some of its material so as to give the story the

appearance of having a consistent locale; and perhaps as well 60 Minutes wished to restrict its

smearing to Western Ukrainians so as to promote divisions within the country.

(19) Freedom from slavery is too much freedom (for Ukrainians, anyway). The title of the 60

Minutes broadcast, "The Ugly Face of Freedom" is puzzling. The freedom being referred to must

be the freedom from Russian rule, and so the title suggests that Ukraine would be better off

back within the Russian empire.

But Morley Safer's suggestion is inappropriate for three reasons. First, anti-Semitism is

strong in Russia and weak in Ukraine (Ukraine has no counterpart of either Pamyat or

Zhirinovksy), and so it is unclear how falling back under Russian rule would assist Ukraine in

avoiding anti-Semitism. Second, Ukraine's current problems are more rationally seen as being

the result not of too much freedom, but of too little - specifically, Ukraine's problems are the

result of continuing to be ruled by the old Communist nomenklatura that had originally been

appointed from Moscow and that presently is robbing the country blind while obstructing economic

reform. A weak economy, in turn, affects Ukrainian-Jewish relations by inviting scapegoating

from each group against the other and by promoting Jewish emigration out of Ukraine. Thus, it

is not too much freedom, but rather the absence of freedom from rule by Moscow's appointees that

most stands in the way of good Ukrainian-Jewish relations. Third, it is surprising to hear an

American objecting to freedom from slavery. Some 60 Minutes viewers will notice that Mr. Safer

objects to it on behalf of other people and not on behalf of Americans. I expect that if anyone

were to argue that American anti-Semitism or America's low quality of education or America's

high crime rate is the result of America having broken away from England, Mr. Safer would not

agree. I expect also that if England had been guilty of the horrific crimes against America

that Russia has been guilty of against Ukraine, Mr. Safer would find the suggestion odious. In

fact, Mr. Safer's suggestion is as odious to Ukrainians as would be the suggestion that Israel

would be better off under German rule would be odious to Jews. No, Mr. Safer's suggestion is

more odious - this because Berlin today is not ruled by former Nazis, whereas Moscow today is

ruled by people who just a few years ago were ardent Communists and who today continue to be

ardent imperialists.

CONTENTS:

Preface

The Galicia Division

Quality of Translation

Ukrainian Homogeneity

Were Ukrainians Nazis?

Simon Wiesenthal

What Happened in Lviv?

Nazi Propaganda Film

Collective Guilt

Paralysis of the Comparative

Function

60 Minutes' Cheap Shots

Ukrainian Anti-Semitism

Jewish Ukrainophobia

Mailbag

A Sense of Responsibility

What 60 Minutes Should Do

PostScript

Ukrainian Anti-Semitism

Is there any? Of course there is. Anti-Semitism is universal. Ukraine has some, just as does

the United States or Canada or Israel. But is there more anti-Semitism in Ukraine than

elsewhere? 60 Minutes said so - as much as said that Ukraine leads the world in anti-Semitism

but failed to provide any evidence of this, and in fact does not seem to be aware of how to go

about obtaining such evidence.

The American Jewish Committee did a better job - it sponsored a survey in 1992 about attitudes

toward Jews in the republics of the former Soviet Union, and its findings do not support 60

Minutes' allegations:

Based on the total of anti-Jewish responses to items appearing in the

questionnaire, the rank order of the states from most hostile to least hostile

toward Jews in 1992 is as follows: Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Lithuania,

Azerbaijan, Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova and Estonia. (Ukrainian Weekly,

June 21, 1992, p. 6)

Worthy of note, too, is that between 1990 and 1992, attitudes toward Jews became more negative

in all of the above republics, with the exception of Ukraine and Moldova, in which two republics

the attitudes became more positive. The failure of Ukraine to rank high on anti-Jewish

responses in this survey should have been noted by 60 Minutes, as should the improvement in

attitudes from 1990 to 1992. Instead of applauding the reality of favorable Ukrainian attitudes

toward Jews, and the reality that they are getting even better, 60 Minutes seemed bent on

encouraging their deterioration.

And, if 60 Minutes had wanted personal testimony concerning Ukrainian attitudes toward Jews to

bolster the dry facts coming from the opinion poll, then it could have consulted any number of