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Fifteen months into Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine—and just eight months away from what increasingly looks like a second Biden–Trump election showdown—partisans on both sides are trying fix the blame for the largest, bloodiest, costliest war to scar Europe since 1939. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but the central cause of this war is hiding in plain sight.
Biden
President Joe Biden could have done more to deter Vladimir Putin and less to tempt him. The chaotic way Biden pulled U.S. forces out of Afghanistan in late 2021 sent a terrible signal to Putin. Just as bad, the pullout undermined the unity of the NATO alliance. NATO allies were not consulted so much they were notified that Biden was moving forward with President Donald Trump’s pullout plans. Too many Americans forget or are unaware that as Afghan operations came to a close—20 years after al-Qaeda’s attacks on America’s largest city and America’s military headquarters—74 percent of the foreign troops deployed in the country that spawned 9/11 were not American.
This explains why some openly worried that the U.S. withdrawal would do serious damage to NATO’s unity and credibility. “It is the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding,” said a senior German official.
Still, the Biden administration did many things right on the eve of Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine, including: sharing intelligence about the invasion with Kiev in December 2021 and then publicizing it in early 2022; rushing antitank missiles and other defensive weapons to Ukraine before February 24; and shoring up NATO’s eastern flank by dusting off the old playbook of deterrence and deploying defensive assets to Poland, the Baltics, Romania and the Mediterranean.
Trump and Obama
Deterrence—what President Ronald Reagan called “peace through strength”—is more prudent, more effective, less costly in blood and treasure, more just, and more morally sound than the alternatives: peace through hope and crossed fingers, peace through scorched-earth violence, peace through submission. While the Biden administration’s policies have deterred Putin from extending his war into Eastern Europe, they weren’t able to deter Putin’s assault on Ukraine. One major reason why is that deterrence doesn’t happen with the flick of a switch or the inauguration of a president. Credible deterrence requires credible policies and credible words backed by credible force. By word and deed, the Trump-Obama years badly eroded each of those elements of deterrence vis-à-vis Putin’s Russia.
Trump often touts his relationship with Putin and his ability to keep Putin at bay. But it’s hard to credit Trump for preventing war in Ukraine given that Trump undermined the one thing Putin respects: the military deterrent embodied by NATO. Recall that Trump dismissed NATO as “obsolete” and suggested he would come to the defense of NATO members under attack—an ironclad requirement of the North Atlantic Treaty—only if they had “fulfilled their obligations to us.” Worse, he deleted language from his 2017 NATO speech reaffirming America’s commitment to NATO’s all-for-one defense clause. Doubly worse, he privately and publicly threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO. In 2020, he ordered the withdrawal of 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany.
Just as Trump eroded the credibility of America’s commitment to NATO, his predecessor whittled away many of the tools representing that commitment.
It was President Barack Obama who ordered the Pentagon to cut $487 billion from its spending plans, and it was the Obama administration that proposed $1 trillion in cuts—divided between defense and certain domestic programs—known as sequestration. As Gen. James Mattis put it, sequestration was “a mechanism meant to be so injurious to the military it would never go into effect.” But a special congressional committee charged with deficit reduction couldn’t agree on spending cuts, and sequestration came down like a guillotine on America’s military. Sequestration would lop off $500 billion in planned defense spending—in addition to the initial $487 billion in cuts.
“No enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of our military than sequestration,” Mattis concluded. The Air Force stood down 31 squadrons. In 2011, the Army’s active-duty end strength was 566,000; after sequestration, it was 476,000. Sequestration grounded half of the Marines’ fixed-wing fighters. The situation was so dire that, incredibly, Marine aviation units were reduced to salvaging aircraft parts from museums to keep planes flying. Sequestration left 53 percent of Navy aircraft unable to fly—double the historic average—and left America with just 277 active deployable ships. By way of context, then-CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert reported in 2014: “For us to meet what combatant commanders request, we need a Navy of 450 ships.”
Between 2011 and 2013, the Obama administration withdrew all of America’s heavy armor from Europe (marking the first time since 1944 Europe was left unprotected by American tanks), deactivated the Navy’s North Atlantic-focused 2nd Fleet and shuttered the Army’s Germany-based V Corps. And in 2014, after Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea, the Obama administration sent Kiev non-lethal aid. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s damning response: “One cannot win the war with blankets.”
George W. Bush
During their first meeting in 2001, Putin told President George W. Bush a story about a religious medallion his mother kept to protect her family. Afterwards, at the post-summit press conference, Bush said of Putin, affirmingly, “I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
In reality, Putin, the KGB operative, was exploiting and leveraging Bush 43’s religious beliefs. Just as Putin would later play on Trump’s ego, the Russian dictator had studied his target and played on Bush 43’s faith. This serves as a reminder that in dealing with a world that wishes us harm, Christ directs His followers to be as shrewd, as cunning, as ready vipers.
In an indication that he had learned what Putin really was, Bush 43 in the final year of his presidency urged NATO to accept the membership applications of Ukraine and Georgia—an effort blocked by Germany and France. Four months later, Putin invaded Georgia. He was deprived of his objective—toppling Georgia’s pro-Western government and taking Tbilisi—because Bush ordered the U.S. Air Force to transport thousands of Georgian troops from Iraq to Georgia.
Clinton
In June 1999, Putin was director of the Russian Security Council; he would replace Boris Yeltsin as president by the end of the year. But before then, in the middle of NATO’s efforts to protect Kosovo from Slobodan Milosevic’s war of ethnic cleansing, Putin nearly triggered a NATO-Russia conflict. Putin hatched a surprise deployment of Russian troops into an area where NATO peacekeepers were headed. Putin’s stunt offered a glimpse of what was to come, exposed fissures within NATO, and went largely unanswered by Washington.
Turning back to Ukraine, President Bill Clinton recently expressed remorse for pressuring Kiev to transfer its nuclear arsenal to Russia in 1994, in exchange for signing an agreement that committed all signatories—the U.S., Britain, Russia—“to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine” in the event of an attack. Of course, as a permanent UNSC member, Russia could always block such “action.”
“I feel a personal stake because I got them to agree to give up their nuclear weapons,” Clinton said. “They were afraid to give them up because they thought that’s the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia.”
The Ukrainians were right. The U.S.-U.K. failure to help Ukraine in 2014 set the stage for 2022. It also made the cause of nuclear non-proliferation harder. From allies such as South Korea and Japan, to enemies such as Iran and North Korea, Ukraine serves as an object lesson of the deterrent power of nuclear weapons—and the danger of not having them.
George H.W. Bush
On August 1, 1991, President George H.W. Bush traveled to Kiev and warned Ukrainian leaders against “suicidal nationalism.” Focused on stability, Gorbachev and U.S.-Soviet relations, he added that “freedom is not the same as independence.”
That speech didn’t age well. In fact, just 17 days after Bush 41’s visit to Kiev, Soviet hardliners would launch a coup aimed at salvaging Lenin’s artificial union. But the only thing their bungled coup did was accelerate the disintegration of the USSR—and the liberation of Ukraine and other captive nations. Before the end of August 1991, Ukraine would declare independence. That December, the Ukrainian people overwhelmingly ratified that declaration.
Doubtless, Bush 41’s words would reverberate in Moscow and Kiev.
Putin
Every president who served between 1991 and 2021 could have done or said something differently in relation to Ukraine and/or Putin. Yet blaming Bush 41’s words of caution, or Clinton’s desire to consolidate the USSR’s far-flung nuclear arsenal, or Bush 43’s misreading of Putin’s soul, or Obama’s defense cuts, or Trump’s diminution of NATO, or Biden’s debacle in Kabul, seems akin to blaming the police for not doing enough to prevent a crime, while absolving the criminal who actually commits the crime.
To be sure, it’s troubling that somewhere along the way, Americans began electing presidents who ignored the lessons of Munich, who abandoned peace through strength, who believed America could “lead from behind,” who viewed standing up for freedom and standing against thuggery as “a tremendous disservice…to humanity,” who sold soothing bromides about “nation building here at home,” who said it was prudent “to focus on ourselves.” But the blame for this war lies with Putin—not Biden or Trump, not Obama or Bush 43, not Clinton or Bush 41, not NATO or the EU, and certainly not Ukraine.
In his major statements about Ukraine, his up-is-down view of post-Cold War history, his gun-to-the-head December diktat, his labeling Ukraine Novorossyia, Putin made clear that he was focused on reconstituting the Russian Empire and that he rejected Ukraine as a sovereign nation-state. Put another way: As long as Ukraine was outside the protective shield of NATO, it was in Putin’s crosshairs (hence Bush 43’s efforts in 2008). As Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley observes, “Short of the commitment of U.S. military forces into Ukraine proper, I’m not sure he was deterrable.” Indeed, anything less than American-crewed armor on Ukrainian soil—an impossible sell in the Washington of 2009-21—wasn’t going to stop Putin from attempting his latter-day Anschluss.
Putin—not Washington—is to blame for this war. Because of his brutal means and awful ends, America has a moral duty and a strategic interest in helping the Ukrainian people secure what they define as victory.
The post Ukraine’s Blame Game appeared first on Providence.
Hamas calls for mass gathering on Temple Mount during Jerusalem Day, prompting fears the terrorist group could attack Israel during anniversary of city’s reunification.
By Pesach Benson, TPS
The Israeli security establishment is preparing for Jerusalem Day celebrations on Thursday amid Palestinian threats to disrupt an annual flag parade.
The flag march is an annual highlight of Jerusalem Day festivities, which celebrate the anniversary of the Israeli capital’s reunification during the Six-Day War of 1967. Every year, thousands of youths carrying Israeli flags march from downtown Jerusalem to the Old City.
Palestinians regularly accuse Israel of using the march to “Judaize” the city.
The parade passes through Damascus Gate and proceeds through the Old City to the Western Wall. Marchers do not go up to the adjacent Temple Mount.
Israel reportedly warned Hamas that it would retaliate powerfully to any rocket fire during Jerusalem Day.
More than 2,000 police officers have been assigned to secure the march while another 1,000 will be deployed at other celebrations in the capital.
Jerusalem District Police Commander Doron Turgeman said that police have contingency plans for all kinds of scenarios, including terrorist rocket fire.
On Tuesday, Hamas called on Arabs in eastern Jerusalem to gather at the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in large numbers for morning prayers.
The parade comes less than one week after Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad agreed on a ceasefire to end five days of conflict. During that time, Palestinian terror groups fired some 1,500 rockets at Israel. The parade and the Palestinian response to it will test the ceasefire.
Israeli political officials emphasize that Israel did not commit at any point to altering the route of the flag parade as part of its ceasefire. Palestinian sources told the Tazpit Press Service in recent days that Hamas does not want to bring Gaza into another conflict with Israel, but would instead consider responses within eastern Jerusalem.
Gaza terrorist groups reportedly have vowed to oppose any violation of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire reached in May 2021 following that month’s war.
Before Jerusalem Day in 2021, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to change the route so that marchers would not pass through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, but Hamas fired rockets, sparking an 11-day military operation in Gaza. During that time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired 4,400 rockets, killing 13 people inside Israel.
That war was initiated by Hamas firing two rockets at Jerusalem as that year’s flag march was about to begin.
The post Israeli security establishment gears up for Jerusalem Day amid Hamas threats appeared first on World Israel News.
“Joseph chose unity with his brothers in spite of everything, and we should learn from the righteous Joseph,” said Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Thousands of Jews, including two government ministers, visited Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus (Shechem) Tuesday night while the IDF protected them from a Palestinian riot.
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar of the Likud, who does not regularly sport a kippah, said he came to the holy site because Joseph was a unifier.
There is a “great rift” in the nation, he said, referring to the highly divisive controversy over the government’s plans for judicial reform. “The righteous Joseph was the one who healed the rift between all the tribes…. He saw peace in the nation as the most important thing.”
According to the bible, when Joseph was viceroy of Egypt, he forgave his brothers instead of punishing them for having sold him as a slave years earlier.
“The unity of the people,” Zohar continued, “is our strength as a nation, to be strong and to defeat the many enemies that the people of Israel unfortunately have.” It is incumbent on the nation to come together, he said, “because we don’t have another country, we have no substitute.”
The proof of Israel having enemies was right outside the doors to the complex, as it is located in an all-Arab city in Samaria that is currently a hotbed of Palestinian terrorism. Residents first burned tires and tried blocking the roads leading to the Tomb to prevent the worshipers from arriving.
After the buses rolled in, terrorists also shot live fire and threw explosives, Molotov cocktails and rocks at the army units who were guarding the visitors. The IDF forces used riot-dispersal means and fired back, reporting that several of the anarchists were hit, either with live rounds or rubber bullets. Arab media reported that a number of Palestinians were taken to local hospitals after the clash.
Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, several MKs and Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan also attended the evening of prayers and called for national harmony.
“Joseph chose unity with his brothers in spite of everything, and we should learn from the righteous Joseph,” said Dagan. “There are ideological differences, but let no person raise a hand against his brother.”
Both he and Zohar noted how “sad” it was that the pilgrimage had to take place in the way it did, with Dagan describing it as coming “like thieves in the night” to what is “one of the holiest places for the Jewish people.”
He reminded the participants that under the Oslo Accords, the tomb and the road leading to it were supposed to be under Israel’s complete control, but that this clause in the Israeli-Palestinian agreement has been ignored.
Palestinians have injured and even killed Jewish visitors to the site over the years, as well as vandalizing it repeatedly. They have set it on fire more than once, including last April, when the tomb itself was partially broken. It has been repaired each time out of the Israeli government’s coffers.
All civilian pilgrimages to the site must be authorized by the IDF, which accompanies the groups in large numbers to ensure their safety. Tuesday night’s trip was an annual occasion – unless security requirements dictate otherwise– as it is the date dedicated to the biblical Joseph during what is known as the Counting of the Omer, the seven-week period between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot.
The post Under tight security, thousands of Jews visit Joseph’s Tomb in PA-run Nablus appeared first on World Israel News.
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“We will rebel against Netanyahu and his government and prepare a guillotine for their supporters,” the man wrote in one post.
By JNS
Police detained a Jerusalem man for questioning on Tuesday on suspicion of inciting violence against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Lahav 433 unit tasked with investigating nationalistic crimes opened an investigation into the suspect in response to threatening comments that he posted on Monday to social media.
“We will rebel against Netanyahu and his government and prepare a guillotine for their supporters,” the man wrote in one post.
In another post, he wrote: “Rebel against Netanyahu who will meet his end under the guillotine.”
Netanyahu in February criticized what he said was a “growing wave” of threats directed at him and other officials, after a leader of the anti-government protests appeared to call for his assassination.
“It seemed that all boundaries had been crossed by threats against elected officials and myself, but this is not the case, because we have now heard and seen an explicit threat to murder the prime minister of Israel,” said Netanyahu in a statement.
He spoke after former Israel Air Force pilot Ze’ev Raz wrote on Facebook: “If a prime minister rises up and assumes dictatorial powers, he is a dead man, it’s that simple. … There’s an obligation to kill him.”
Alon Levavi, a senior research associate at the MirYam Institute and a former Israel Police deputy commissioner, told JNS in March that warning signs were mounting over the dangerous effects that the ever-coarsening political rhetoric in the country could have on society.
“Regarding incitement, I think the writing is on the wall. Attempts to harm public figures on either the left or right could just be a matter of time,” Levavi cautioned.
The post Jerusalem man detained for threatening Netanyahu on social media appeared first on World Israel News.
Experts believe the stone tablet was a record of a financial transaction made in Second Temple-era Jerusalem.
By World Israel News Staff
Who was “Shimon,” whose name appears on a 2,000-year-old Hebrew inscription?
In excavations carried out on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority in the City of David, within the Jerusalem Walls National Park and funded by the City of David Foundation, a small fragment of a stone tablet was discovered, bearing an inscription that was produced for financial purposes.
The seven partially preserved lines of the inscription include fragmentary Hebrew names with letters and numbers written beside them. For example, one line includes the end of the name ‘Shimon’ followed by the Hebrew letter ‘mem,’ and in the other lines are symbols representing numbers.
Some of the numbers are preceded by their economic value, marked with the ‘mem,’ an abbreviation of ma’ot (Hebrew for ‘money’), or with the letter ‘resh,’ an abbreviation of reva’im (Hebrew for ‘quarters’).
In a recent article published in the archaeological journal ‘Atiqot by Nahshon Szanton, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, with epigraphist Prof. Esther Eshel of Bar Ilan University, it is noted that four other similar Hebrew inscriptions have been documented so far in Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh, all marking names and numbers carved on similar stone slabs and dating to the Early Roman period.
This, however, is the first inscription to be revealed to date within the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem at that time.
According to the researchers, the inscription was carved with a sharp tool onto a chalkstone (qirton) slab.
Apparently, the stone slab was originally used as an ossuary (burial chest), commonly used in Jerusalem and Judea during the Early Roman period (37 BCE to 70 CE).
Ossuaries are generally found in graves outside the city, but their presence has also been documented inside the city, perhaps as a commodity sold in a local artisan’s workshop or store.
The intriguing find was discovered in the lower city square, located along the Pilgrimage Road. This road, extending some 600 meters, connected the city gate and the area of the Siloam Pool in the south of the City of David to the gates of the Temple Mount and the Second Temple and essentially served as the main thoroughfare of Jerusalem at the time. This unique discovery joins similar findings uncovered in the area, attesting to the commercial nature of the area.
The stone tablet on which the inscription was engraved was retrieved from a tunnel of a previous excavation at the site, dug at the end of the 19th century by British archaeologists,Bliss and Dickie, who excavated tunnels and pits along the Stepped Street. Although the inscription was found out of its original archaeological context, it was possible to date it to the Early Roman period, at the end of the Second Temple period, based on the type of script, the type of stone slab and its similarity to other contemporary inscriptions.
According to the researchers, “the everyday life of the inhabitants of Jerusalem who resided here 2,000 years ago is expressed in this simple object.
“At first glance, the list of names and numbers may not seem exciting, but to think that, just like today, receipts were also used in the past for commercial purposes, and that such a receipt has reached us, is a rare and gratifying find that allows a glimpse into everyday life in the holy city of Jerusalem.”
According to Szanton and Prof. Eshel, “The combination of the architectural and tangible space of the huge paved stones of the square that were preserved at the site, and the discovery of small finds in this area, such as the measuring table and the new inscription, allow us to reconstruct parts of the incredibly unique archaeological puzzle in one of the vibrant centers that existed in ancient Jerusalem. Each piece of information, and certainly an ancient inscription, adds a new and fascinating dimension to the history of the city.”
The Minister of Heritage, Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu called the find a “remarkable discovery.”
It “uncovers another aspect of Jewish life in the city from 2,000 years ago. The unique excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority in the area position the City of David as a pivotal center in the Jewish people’s global historical narrative. The Ministry of Heritage will continue to work to strengthen and promote national heritage in all areas.”
Eli Escusido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, also commented on the discovery: “It is not a coincidence that the many discoveries which are being revealed in the excavation shed light on the centrality of this road even during the Second Temple period. With every discovery, our understanding of the area deepens, revealing this street’s pivotal role in the daily lives of Jerusalem’s inhabitants 2,000 years ago.”
The post Who was Shimon? 2,000-year-old stone tablet with Hebrew inscription uncovered appeared first on World Israel News.