On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arguably made a strategic misstep in his address to the Israeli Knesset. Zelensky, a man who has every right to be desperate given the threat to his country, revised Ukraine’s WWII-era history as being pro-Jewish in an attempt to pressure Israel into stronger actions against Russia. Israeli lawmakers did not respond well to the comments for obvious reasons.
As I noted, during the Holocaust, Ukraine was a place of widespread collaboration with Nazi Germany, which is why the attempt to suggest otherwise struck a nerve (comparing the current war, as horrible as it is, to the Final Solution was also a stretch). Israelis take any hint of Holocaust denial very seriously, and you can’t fault them for that. That doesn’t mean all Ukrainians during WWII were nazis because they weren’t. It also doesn’t mean you can’t understand why some chose that path given the brutality of Joseph Stalin in the east.
Of course, nothing about Ukraine’s past (nor any modern-day nazi remnants like the Azov Batallion) justifies Vladimir Putin’s current invasion. Still, history is history, and I’m of the opinion that Zelensky should be smart about how he states things in his attempts to secure support, especially when dealing with a nation like Israel.
But while there can be disagreement on exactly how Zelensky should have framed his comments to the Knesset, Rep. Adam Kinzinger decided to just smear himself in honey and run through the woods naked.
You can always leave it to Kinzinger to take a position held by almost no one. It’s one thing to believe Israel should do more. Personally, I understand the rock and a hard place they are stuck between with Russia controlling Syria and the continuation of anti-terror operations being paramount. Still, it’s not out of bounds to suggest that Israel should enact sanctions or speak up more strongly against Putin’s invasion.
Kinzinger’s response is just asinine, though. One, he does not have the power to proclaim future aid to Israel will be based on whether the Jewish nation chooses to take further action against Russia or arm Ukraine. Kinzinger isn’t even going to be in Congress next year because his Democrat pals redistricted him out of his seat in Illinois. Someone should really take his Twitter account away before he does real damage to international relations.
Two, we should not be conditioning aid to Israel (or any other nation) based on Ukraine. The entire point of aid is not moral but practical, though many try to make it the former. Does our aid to Israel serve a purpose in bolstering US national security? If it does, then it should continue. If it doesn’t, then it should cease. Either way, Ukraine is not part of that equation.
It would be one thing if Kinzinger was just anti-foreign aid like Rep. Thomas Massie. He’s not, though, and is instead trying to set up a quid pro quo with Israeli aid to fit his policy wants. I was assured that was an impeachable offense at one point in time, but I digress.
The point is this: It is dangerous to get tunnel-vision when dealing with foreign policy. I believe the United States has an imperative to help Ukraine in whatever way it can, but I also believe that in that pursuit, we shouldn’t cause issues where none currently exist when there is no payoff. Israel going after Russia more harshly is not going to deter Putin, but it could turn the Middle East into more of a disaster area than it already is. Kinzinger’s approach, with his calls for no-fly-zones and his rampant, singularly focused war-mongering, is idiotic and should be dismissed.