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Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-701850
Zelensky Strikes the Wrong Note to Bring Knesset to His Side
(Jerusalem Post) Lahav Harkov - When he addressed the Knesset on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dedicating the lion's share of his speech to comparisons to the Holocaust. Rather than stir Israel's legislators to solidarity, saying Moscow is planning a "final solution for the Ukrainian question" and that Israel should save Ukrainians like Ukrainian Righteous Among the Nations saved Jews drew criticism for its inappropriateness. Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel tweeted, "The war is terrible, but the comparison to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Final Solution is outrageous." Former cabinet minister Yuval Steinitz said, "Every comparison between a regular war, as difficult as it may be, and the extermination of millions of Jews in gas chambers in the framework of the Final Solution is a total distortion of history. The same is true for the claim that Ukrainians helped Jews in the Holocaust....The historic truth is that the Ukrainian people cannot be proud of its behavior in the Holocaust of the Jews. None of that changes the fact that...we must continue humanitarian aid to the citizens of Ukraine suffering from the war and pray for its end to come soon." Israelis know the history of the Holocaust very well. The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police rounded up Jews to be massacred in Babyn Yar, Lviv and Zhytomyr. About 80,000 Ukrainians volunteered for the SS, compared with 2,600 Ukrainians documented as having saved Jews. And before that, some of the worst pogroms in Jewish history were perpetrated in what is now Ukraine. Yet Israeli public opinion is strongly in favor of Ukraine in this war despite its bloody, violent history with Jews. But when it comes to actually sending weapons or defensive systems like the Iron Dome - which Zelensky asked for despite Israel not being able to send it for technical reasons, and it being unlikely to help Ukraine much, anyway - there is consensus in the cabinet that Israel should not get involved in that way, a cabinet minister said.