December 24, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "The Saker" - The recent murder of Samir Kuntar by Israel has, yet again, inflamed the discussion about Putin’s relation to Israel.  This is an immensely complicated topic and those who like simple, canned, “explanations” should stop reading right now.  The truth is, the relationship between Russia and Israel and, even before that, between Jews and Russians would deserve an entire book.  In fact, Alexander Solzhenitsyn has written exactly such a book, it is entitled “200 years together”, but due to the iron grip of the Zionists on the Anglo media, it has still not been translated into English. That should already tell you something right there – an author acclaimed worldwide who got the Nobel Prize for literature cannot get his book translated into English because its contents might undermine the official narrative about Russian-Jewish relations in general and about the role Jews played in Russian 20th century politics in particular!  What other proof of the reality of the subordination of the former British Empire to Zionists interest does one need?

I have already written about this topic in the past and, at the very least, I will ask you to read the following two background articles before continuing to read:

• AngloZionist: Short primer for the newcomers
• How a medieval concept of ethnicity makes NATO commit yet another a dangerous blunder

Before looking into some of the idiosyncrasies of the Russian-Israeli relationship I want to stress one very important thing: you should not simply assume that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in Russia is similar to what it is in the West.  This is not the case.  Without going through a detailed discussion of the emancipation of Jews in the West and their long track from their rabbi-run shtetls to the boardrooms of the biggest western corporations, I will just say that for Russian Jews this process of emancipation happened in a much more violent and catastrophic way.  The second big difference between western Jews and Russian Jews is that roughly between 1917 and 1939 a specific subset of Jews (Bolshevik Jews) were in quasi total control of Russia.  During that period the Bolshevik Jews persecuted Russians and, especially, Orthodox Christians with a truly genocidal hate.  This is a fact of history which most Russians are very much aware of, even if this is still considered crimethink in most western circles.  It is also important to stress here that the Bolshevik Jews persecuted not only Orthodox Christians, but all religious groups, including, by the way, Judaics.  Putin is very much aware of all these facts which he addressed when speaking to a group of Judaics in Moscow:

In the 2nd article mentioned above I discussed these issues and all I want to do know is to show you that Putin is very much aware of this past and that he has the courage and intellectual honesty to remind Russian Jews of it.

The other absolutely crucial fact about the relationship between Russia and Israel is the immigration of Russian Jews to Israel.  Here I will just submit to you a bullet-point list of why this is a crucial factor:

1. Regardless of whether they ended up in Israel, Austria, Germany, the USA or Israel, the immigration of Russian Jews to Israel made it possible for those Jews who did not want to stay in Russia to leave.  Conversely, those who did not leave stayed by choice.  This means that the vast majority, if not all, of the rabid russophobes and Christianity-hating Jews have left Russia.  Those who stayed in Russia did so because they decided that it was their home.
2. A large number (some estimates go as high has 20%) of so-called “Jews” who left Russia are not Jewish at all, including some of those who settled in Israel.  The truth is that the economic and social hardships which faced the Soviet society under Brezhnev & Co and Russia under Eltsin made a lot of non-Jewish Russian invent themselves some (non-existing) Jewish origins just to emigrate.  Thus there are many real Russians, as opposed to Russian Jews, in Israel.
3. As a result of this big immigration there are innumerable personal ties between individuals and families living in Israel and Russia.  This means that when, say, Iraq or Hezbollah rain rockets in Israel there are folks in Russia who are personally concerned about their friends in Israel even if they don’t necessarily approve of Israeli politics.
4. The so-called “Russian Mafia” is, in reality, mostly a Mafia of Russian Jews.  This is particularly true in the West.  In Russia there are Jewish mobsters, but not really a Jewish mob as such.  Russian and Jewish mobsters get along famously and that also creates, shall we say, strong “business” ties between “Russian” oligarchs and Israel.
5. Eltsin the country was de-facto ruled by what was called the semibankirshchina,  the “rule of the Seven Bankers”.  These were the seven top bankers of Russia who owned about 50% of the entire Russian economy.  All of them except one (Potanin) were Jews.
6. During the Eltisin years, the vast majority of the members of government and, especially, their advisors were Jews.  Jews also were in control of almost all of the mainstream media.  To give you an idea of how prevalent this trend was in the 1990s, here is a (machine translated) list of top-level Jews in Eltsin’s Russia I have found on the Internet: (source: https://goo.gl/jZlazH)

The lists of Jews in the Soviet government from 1917-1939 look exactly similar.  You can find them on the Internet yourselves.

In truth, folks who compile such lists are rarely motivated by purely scientific purposes and they often don’t feel constrained by strict rules of evidence.  So it is quite possible that a certain percentage of “Jews” listed above are not Jews at all.  But even with a wide margin of error – you get the picture.  Just as between 1917 and 1939, between 1991 and 1999 the reigns of power in Russia were firmly in Jewish hands, and in both cases, with truly catastrophic consequences.  The big difference is that if in the early 20th century the Jews in power were ideological opponents of the Anglo Empire, in the late 20th century the Jews in Russia were practically an extension of the AngloZionist Empire.

Speaking of extensions of the AngloZionist Empire.

I have already explained many times in the past that the candidature of Putin to succeed Eltsin was a compromise reached between the Russian security services and Russian “big money” who pushed Medvedev as a counter-weight to Putin.  I usually refer to the forces backing Putin as “Eurasian Sovereignists” and the forces backing Medvedev as “Atlantic Integrationists”.  The goal of the former is to fully sovereignize Russia and make her a key element in a multi-polar but unified Eurasian continent while the goal of the latter is to be accepted by the AngloZionist Empire as an equal partner and to integrate Russia into the western power structures.  Next is something so important that I will single it out on a separate parapgraph:

The Atlantic Integrationists are still in full control of the Russian financial and banking sector, of all the key economic ministries and government positions, they control the Russian Central Bank and they are, by far, the single biggest threat to the rule of Putin and those supporting him.  Considering that roughly 90% of Russians now support Putin, that means that these Atlantic Integrationists are the single biggest threat to the Russian people and Russia as a whole.

How is that all linked to Israel?  Simple!

Putin inherited a system created by and for the AngloZionist Empire.  He was a compromise candidate between two radically opposed parties and it took him years to first get rid of most of the the Russian (Jewish) oligarchs and then, very gradually, begin cleanup process in which slowly, step by step, the Zionists were booted out of their positions of power.  According to Mikhail Khazin, the balance between these two groups has only recently reached a 50/50 point of (unstable) equilibrium.  That also means that the “Putin people” need to watch their back every day the Good Lord makes because they know that their so-called “colleagues” are willing to stab them in a blink of an eye as soon as they get an opportunity.

I happen to think that the rumors of a coup in Russia are greatly exaggerated.  Not only because Putin does enjoy the support of the “power ministries” (Defense, State Security, Internal Affairs, etc.) but, much more importantly, because of the 90% support he has with the Russian people.  To overthrow a man with such a cult-like following, a man truly loved by the vast majority of people, would be too dangerous.  But that does not mean that the 5th column is not willing to sabotage every effort of Putin and his supporters.

The truth is that Putin has been forced to compromise many, many times.  Here are just a few examples:

The oligarchs: when Putin ridded Russia of the semibankirshchina he did not really crack down on all the oligarchs as such.  He only only got rid of those oligarchs who, like Khodorkovsky, had tried to basically stage a coup against Putin by buying the entire Duma.  The oligarchs were told “stay out of politics and I will leave you alone”.  The deal is still on today.

The economy: even in his last speech Putin had to declare that he fully supports the Central Bank and the economic Ministers of the Medvedev government.  Considering that literally ALL Putin allies openly and vocally are screaming bloody murder about the way the Russian economy is mismanaged, this is clearly a coerced statement and not something he believes in.  By the way, I am observing a systematic vilification campaign on the central Russian TV channels against the Central Bank and the economic Ministers and this cannot be a coincidence.  I predict that Putin is preparing a purge of these circles, but that he needs to line up all his ducks in a row before taking action, especially by inflaming the public opinion against them.  Right now the Russian economy is still run by IMF-stooges, by “Washington consensus” types, hence their crazy policy on interest rates, on buying US obligations, on keeping inflation low, etc. etc. etc.  Putin, by conviction, is not what I would call a “socialist” but he is most definitely a proponent of “social markets” and somebody who is trying hard to decouple Russia from the western financial system, and not play by the rules of the Empire.

Foreign policy: right up until Putin’s latest re-election when finally Russia began to have a fairly consistent foreign policy, the policy of Russia has been one of zigs followed by zags.  This was especially true during the times when Medvedev was in charge of the Presidency and when Iran and Libya were betrayed by Russia at the UNSC  (something Putin openly called “stupid”).

Personalities: remember the hyper-corrupt Minister of Defense Serdiukov?  Guess what? He has still not been formally charged with anything.  Even the woman he did most of his dirty dealing with still lives in her luxurious apparent in Moscow.  What does this tell us?  That even when Putin got the hard proof of Serdiukov’s malfeasance he had enough power to replace him by Shoigu, but not enough to power to stick such high-profile “Atlantic Integrationists” into jail.

Nazi occupied Ukraine: Putin had enough control over the government to provide the vital Voentorg and to even send some special forces and artillery strikes across the border to help the Novorussians, but he could not force the economic Ministries to use the Russian economic might to strangle the Ukrainian economy.  This resulted in Russia sending artillery shells across the border in Saur Mogila and (basically free) energy across the border to Kiev.

Russophobic propaganda: when recently some third-rate sport journalist, Alexei Andronov, posted a viciously anti-Russian comment in Twitter he was criticized for that by Alexei Pushkov, a journalist who is also the head of the foreign-affairs committee in the State Duma on his own TV show “Postscriptum”.  The TV channel which airs the show, TV Tsentr, the censored the segment criticizing Andronov.  Then, the famous Russian movie director Nikita Mikhailkov recoded an entire show discussing this event, the TV channel running his show, TV Rossia, also censored the entire episode.  As for the director of the TV channel where Andronov works, Tina Kandelaki, she gave Andronov her full support.  Bottom line: while Putin did immensely improve the overall quality of the Russian media, the russophobes are still very influential and can spew their hateful venom in total impunity.

I could continue to list example after example, but I think you get the idea: Putin is a very good man in charge of a very bad system.

Now let’s really get back to Syria, Hezbollah and the murder of Samir Kuntar.

First, consider that the decision to militarily intervene in the Syrian war was already a controversial one.  Putin pulled this one off by doing two things: explaining to the Russian people that it was better to deal with the terrorists “there” (in Syria) rather than “here” (in Russia) and by promising that he would not send in ground forces.  When Daesh and the Turks fulfilled the promise made by Obama and Biden and blew a Russian airliner and, later, a SU-24 bomber out of the sky, the Russian public continued to support Putin, but most Russians, including myself, were acutely aware of the dangers of the situation.  At the end of the day, it is Putin’s personal “street cred” which allowed him to stay the course in spite of real fears.

Second, it is clear that Putin and Netanyahu struck a deal when the latter traveled to Moscow: the Israelis don’t interfere in Russian operations in support of the Syrians as long as the Russians don’t interfere in the combat operations between Israel and Hezbollah.  This made it possible for both sides to pursue their main interest even if it was at the cost of their secondary objectives.  You don’t like that deal and you question its morality?  Good!  So do I.  I am, in fact, intensely uncomfortable with it, but I expect no less from ruthless realpolitik practitioners like Putin and Bibi Netanyahu (good thing you and I are not in power!).

There is, by the way, another precedent which I am just as uncomfortable with: the Russian total backing for the Egyptian military’s bloody repression against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  I accept the argument that to support the Egyptian military made sense in the context of the war in Syria, but the ethnics of supporting such a regime intensely bother me.  This is why Putin is a ruthless but successful politician and I am a little quasi-irrelevant blogger: it takes a ruthless bear to fight ruthless wolves.

This being said, let’s not pretend like Hezbollah is any less cynical when needed. I remind you all that when Imad Mugniyeh was murdered in Damascus by the very same Israelis in an operation which could only have been executed with very high level accomplices in the Assad regime, Hezbollah promised “retaliation” but never peeped a single word against the regime.  Neither did Hezbollah have any objections when Assad was torturing Muslims on behalf of the US CIA for the infamous “rendition” program.

As for Putin, he simply has other priorities than to protect Hezbollah or fight Israel:

Surviving inside Russia and not being overthrown by the still very powerful Zionist Power Configuration (to use James Petras’ expression) in Russia being a top one. Another priority would be not to give his (internal and external) enemies the political argument that “Russia is attacking Israel”.  Not having a shooting match with Israel and not to have the small and isolated Russian contingent have to fight on two fronts would be crucial too.  Ditto not to be accused of having the Russians contingent turned into the de-facto “Hezbollah Air Force” like the US is the “Daesh Air Force”.  These are all obvious priorities for Putin.

And then this: while the Russian S-400s can easily shoot down any Israeli aircraft, the Russian AirSpace contingent does not have the materials means to fight Israel or, even less so, NATO and CENTCOM. As for Russia, she most definitely cannot pick a fight with Israel not due to the inherent power of this tiny Zionist Entity, but due to the fact that the US Empire has been thoroughly taken under Zionist control.  So those Americans who now complain that Putin “does not have the courage” to take on Israel should first ask themselves how it is that Israel seems to have transformed the USA and Europe in a voiceless Zionist protectorate and what they are doing to liberate themselves from that yoke!

Speaking of the West: one ought to compare the position of the AngloZionist Empire one one hand, and of many influential Russian Jews (in Russia and in Israel) about the war in the Ukraine.  While the West has been in total support of the Nazi regime in Kiev, many Russian Jews, especially the very famous ones like Vladimir Soloviev, have taken a categorically anti-Nazi position.  And while in Israel the popularity of Putin and Russia is still extremely low, most of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia is not formed of Jews.  Finally, the Russian general public is, sadly, extremely poorly informed of the horrors perpetrated by the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people while Israelis and dual-nationals (like Evgenii Satanovskii or Avigdor Eskin) are constantly peddling the notion that “we Russians and Israelis are the only ones standing up to Muslim terrorism” thereby capitalizing to the max by the current war between Russia and Daesh.  In other words, Putin would have one hell of a tough time selling the shooting down of an Israeli aircraft to the Russian general public.

I understand that none of the above will have any traction with bona fide Jew-haters or with those who like simple, black and white, arguments.  For them Putin will forever remain a sellout, an eternal shabbos-goy or a puppet of the international financiers.  Frankly, I am not addressing this to them.  But there are those who are sincerely bewildered and confused about Russian policies which do appear to be confusing or even contradictory.  To them I will conclude by saying this:

Putin advances his cause one step a a time and he knows how to wait and let events take on their own dynamic.  He is also acutely aware that he is literally fighting with one hand tied behind his back and the other one busy defending against external and internal enemies (the latter being far more dangerous) at the same time.  I am sure that Putin fully realizes that,at least potentially, his policy of resistance, sovereignization and liberation can lead to an intercontinental nuclear war and that Russia is currently still weaker than the AngloZionist Empire.  Just as in the times of Stolypin, Russia desperately needs a few more years of peace to develop herself and fully stand up.  This is most definitely not the time for a frontal confrontation with the Empire.  Russia vitally needs *peace* and *time*: peace in the Ukraine, peace in Europe and, yes, peace in the Middle-East.  Alas, the latter is not an option and, when cornered, Putin did take the decision to go to war.  And I am absolutely and categorically certain that if the Empire attacks Russia (from Turkey or elsewhere), Russia will fight back.  Russia is willing to go to war if needed, but she will do her utmost to avoid it.  This is the price Russia pays for being the weaker side.  The good news is that Russia is getting stronger with every passing day, while the Empire is getting weaker.  And the power of the AngloZionists and their 5th column in Russia is also weakening with every passing day.  But this process will take time.

The big event to watch for is a crackdown on the Central Bank and the economy ministries of the government.  Everybody in Russia is waiting for this, Putin even got directly asked this question recently, but he is sill denying it all and saying that he fully supports these saboteurs.  Considering Putin’s track, it is plain stupid to say that he really supports them – this is clearly a delaying tactic until the time is right.

Make no mistake.  There is no big love between Russia and Israel.  But neither is there a lot of hostility, at least not on the Russian side.  Most Russian are aware of the ugly role Jews played already twice in Russian history, but this does not translate into the kind of hostility towards Jews which you would see, for example, in the Ukraine. At most Russians can be suspicious of Jewish *power* but rarely does this translate into hostility for Jews as regular people.  Some of the most adored Russian public figures, like the bard Vladimir Vysotskii, had Jewish blood.  Most Russians also make a distinction between “their” Jews (russophobic Jews in the West) and “our” Jews (Russian Jews who love Russia).  But since russophobia has also been widespread amongst Russian elites, before and after the Revolution, it can hardly be described as a Jewish phenomenon.  The Russian culture having always been multi-national and multi-ethnic does not really separate people by their ethnicity but judges them much more readily by their actions and ideas.  For all these reasons, the hatred of the “Yid” is much more a Ukrainian nationalist phenomenon than a Russian one.

And while most Russians would not want to have a return to power of a new version of the Bolshevik commissars or the “democratic” oligarchs inside Russia, there is a closeness and an anti-Nazi solidarity between Russians and Israelis which should not be dismissed.

Concerning Palestine, Russia will support all the relevant UN Resolutions and thus be the typical and rather unimaginative “two state solution” proponent.  At most, Russia will “deplore” or “regret” the abuses of Palestinians by Israelis, but Russia will never become a systematic defender of Palestinian rights like Iran or Hezbollah simply because the future of Palestine is not a Russian priority.

I hope that the above is helpful in understanding why Russia does not take any action to protect Hezbollah against the Israelis (and why she will not prevent Hezbollah from retaliating from Syria, should Hezbollah take that decision).  Simply put: there is no compelling internal or external reason for Russia to get directly involved in this while there are plenty of compelling internal and external reasons for Russia to stay out.  If in the past the USSR supported the PLO on both ideological and geostrategic reasons, modern Russia today will not follow the same paradigm.  Besides, it’s not like Fatah or Hamas are attractive, or even credible, partners for Russia, being in bed as they are with Daesh.  Ditto for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

As for Hezbollah, it is not like they need Russia’s protection.  Symbolic as they may be, the murders of Imad Mugniyeh or Samir Kuntar will in no way weaken the Resistance.  In fact, if the history of the murder of Abbas al-Musawi teaches us anything, it is that sometimes Israelis murder a Hezbollah leader only to find out that the next one is even a more formidable adversary.  God willing, this will also be the case this time.

The Saker

The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world