Peter Myers Digest: April 30

(1) Rick Allen (Rep, Ga) to Shafik: Do you want Columbia University to be cursed by the God of the Bible?
(2) Trump turns against Netanyahu, suggests cutting aid to Israel to force end to Gaza war
(3) US Congress threatens ICC over Netanyahu arrest warrant; threaten retaliation
(4) Netanyahu says IDF will attack Rafah ‘with or without a deal’
(5) Netanyahu says ICC warrants would be an ‘antisemitic hate crime’, would fan antisemitism
(6) Japan and North Korea: Time to talk?
(7) Ukraine’’s draft dodgers are living in fear – The Economist. Hint: send the bankers instead, they are the ones pushing for the war
(8) Poland & Lithuania to send Ukranian draft-dodgers back to Ukraine

(1) Rick Allen (Rep, Ga) to Shafik: Do you want Columbia University to be cursed by the God of the Bible?

BUT the God of the Old Testament is genocidal; the God of Christianity is not. Evangelicals deny the difference; as Werner Sombart said, They are Jews who Eat Pork – Peter M.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/opinion/columbia-antisemitism-hearing.html Republicans Wanted a Crackdown on Israel’s Critics. Columbia Obliged.

April 18, 2024

By Michelle Goldberg

Opinion Columnist

This article has been updated to include new information about the number of arrests at Columbia University on Thursday.

Columbia’s exceptionally poised president, Nemat Shafik, clearly has no intention of going down like the former heads of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, both driven from their jobs after disastrous appearances before a congressional committee investigating campus antisemitism.

Testifying before the same panel on Wednesday, she readily agreed with Republicans’ premise that pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia is shot through with anti-Jewish bigotry, and explained how, under her leadership, Columbia is cracking down. Fifteen students, she said, had been suspended, and six more were on disciplinary probation. The visiting scholar Mohamed Abdou, who expressed support for Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, “will never work at Columbia again,” she said, and several other members of the faculty are under investigation. If it had been up to her, she said, the stridently anti-Zionist professor Joseph Massad would never have gotten tenure. There was some confusion at the hearing about whether Massad was still chairman of an academic review committee, but if he was, Shafik pledged that he would be removed. (Columbia later confirmed that his chairmanship was scheduled to end after this semester.)

By bending over backward to be agreeable, Shafik emerged from the four-hour grilling largely unscathed. All that’s been damaged is Columbia’s guarantee of academic freedom.

Shafik appeared with two chairs of Columbia’s board of trustees, Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, and with David Schizer, a former dean of Columbia’s law school who is one of the chairs of the school’s antisemitism task force. The university, said Shipman, was taking steps to restrict student protests: “One of the excellent recommendations of our antisemitism task force is that they have said that if you are going to chant, it should only be in a certain place, so that people who don’t want to hear it are protected from having to hear it.”

But protests are by their nature intrusive; it’s hard to see the point of a demonstration that’s audible only to those who opt in. “Has there been any disciplinary action taken against students who have chanted, ‘From the river to the sea’?” the New York Republican Elise Stefanik, who scored a major political victory with the previous hearings, asked, citing a common anti-Zionist slogan. Shafik responded, “We have some disciplinary cases ongoing around that language.”

You don’t have to like anti-Israel language or activism to be worried about congressional demands to suppress it. These hearings are highly unusual; it’s hard to think of a time since the anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee when Congress has made such an effort to investigate disfavored ideologies in academe.

There is no question that in recent months there have been incidents of blatant, unacceptable antisemitism at Columbia: a swastika was drawn in a campus bathroom, and an Israeli student hanging up posters of hostages was assaulted. And as at many other schools, some at Columbia have celebrated terrorism; in an ugly Oct. 8 essay repeatedly cited at the hearings, Massad, the anti-Zionist professor, wrote of “jubilation and awe” occasioned by the “innovative Palestinian resistance” of Oct. 7. But just as the existence of Communists in America didn’t justify McCarthyism, the rhetorical grotesqueries on the part of some members of the campus left don’t make it OK for Congress to demand that universities curtail denunciations of Israel while it wages a brutal war on Gaza.

The chilling effect of these investigations is already clear nationwide. Just this week, the University of Southern California canceled the graduation speech of its valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, a Muslim criticized by some Jewish groups for her pro-Palestinian social media activity. The decision, the school’s provost said in a statement, is “consistent with the fundamental legal obligation — including the expectations of federal regulators — that universities act to protect students and keep our campus community safe,” making it clear administrators are feeling government pressure.

Such pressure is the point: Republicans want to silence Israel’s opponents. In one of the hearing’s most farcical moments, Rick Allen, a Republican from Georgia, asked Shafik whether she knew Genesis 12:3. She didn’t recall the biblical passage offhand, so he explained it to her. “It was the covenant that God made with Abraham, and that covenant was real clear: ‘If you bless Israel I will bless you, if you curse Israel I will curse you,’” he said, explaining how this compact was confirmed in the New Testament.

“Do you consider that a serious issue?” Allen asked heatedly. “Do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God?” Shafik responded, “Definitely not.” Allen continued, “Young people are being indoctrinated by these professors to believe this stuff, and they have no idea that they’re going to be cursed by God, the God of the Bible and the God over our flag.”

This wasn’t an exchange, I’d venture, intended to ensure that Jews feel at home in American institutions. Another Republican, Brandon Williams, compared D.E.I. statements to Nazi loyalty oaths. Naturally, no one pushed back.

Just before the hearing began, a group of students from Columbia and its sister school, Barnard, organized a “Gaza solidarity encampment” on Columbia’s main lawn. On Thursday, Shafik took the extraordinary step of calling the police in to dismantle it, and over 100 people were arrested. The last time the school’s administration brought in the N.Y.P.D. to disperse demonstrations was in 1996, and many on campus were in shock.

“I never imagined I’d ever see my university acting like this,” said the legal scholar Katherine Franke, who was coordinating legal defense for the arrested students. “It breaks my heart.” (During the congressional hearings, she’d been called out for remarks she’d made about student veterans of the Israeli military.) Among those suspended for participating in the protest was Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who sits on the committee overseeing the antisemitism inquiry.

At the hearing Wednesday, the Texas Republican Nathaniel Moran crowed that Columbia’s leadership had clearly “learned at least some of the lessons from the magnificent failures of Harvard, M.I.T. and UPenn when they appeared here several months back.” They certainly have.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: <mailto:letters@nytimes.com>letters@nytimes.com.

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A correction was made on April 19, 2024: An earlier version of this article misstated the most recent previous year that Columbia University administrators called in police officers to disperse demonstrations on campus. It is 1996, not 1968.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women’s rights, and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment.

A version of this article appears in print on April 21, 2024, Section SR, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Columbia Cracks Down.

(2) Trump turns against Netanyahu, suggests cutting aid to Israel to force end to Gaza war

Suddenly Trump looks better than RFKjr. – Peter M.

https://www.rt.com/news/596824-trump-israel-aid-netanyahu/

30 Apr, 2024 21:14

Trump doesn’t rule out cutting aid to Israel

The ex-president has grown more critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since leaving office

Former US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out withholding military aid to Israel to force an end to the war in Gaza. Once a stalwart defender of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump now argues that the Israeli leader and his military have bungled the war with Hamas.

In an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday, Trump stood by his insistence last month that Israel should “finish up [its] war” before it loses any more international support.

“I think that Israel has done one thing very badly: public relations,” Trump told the outlet, adding that he thinks the Israeli military shouldn’t “be sending out pictures every night of buildings falling down and being bombed.”

Asked whether he would rule out withholding or applying conditions to US military aid to Israel in order to bring the war to a conclusion, Trump replied “no,” before launching into a scathing critique of Netanyahu.

“I had a bad experience with Bibi,” he said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. Trump recalled how Netanyahu allegedly promised to take part in the US airstrike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, before pulling out at the last minute.

“That was something I never forgot,” Trump told Time, adding that the incident “showed me something.”

Netanayhu, he said, “rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7,” referring to Hamas’ attack on Israel. “And I think it’s had a profound impact on him, despite everything. Because people said that shouldn’t have happened.

Israel has “the most sophisticated equipment,” he continued. “Everything was there to stop that. And a lot of people knew about it, you know, thousands and thousands of people knew about it, but Israel didn’t know about it, and I think he’s being blamed for that very strongly.”

Trump is not the first person to allege that the Israeli military and government failed to respond to warnings of an impending attack by Hamas. According to Israeli media reports, multiple military and intelligence personnel tried to warn their superiors that an attack was in the works, while Egyptian officials told the Associated Press that they passed on <https://www.rt.com/news/584407-egypt-warned-israel-hamas/>warnings to their Israeli counterparts in the weeks leading up to October 7.

Trump was a close ally of Netanyahu during his term in the White House, and described himself as “history’s most pro-Israel US president.” He imposed sanctions on Iran at Netanyahu’s request, moved the US embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem, and brokered the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan.

Asked whether he could work better with Netanyahu’s main political rival, Benny Gantz, if he were to return to the White House after the November presidential election, Trump did not give a straight answer. However, he remarked that “Gantz is good,” and that there are “some very good people I’ve gotten to know in Israel that could do a good job.”

(3) US Congress threatens ICC over Netanyahu arrest warrant; threaten retaliation

What kind of retaliation? USA did not even sign up to ICC. – Peter M.

https://www.rt.com/news/596820-us-lawmakers-threaten-icc-israel-arrest/

30 Apr, 2024 18:19

US Congress threatens ICC over Israel arrest warrants

Lawmakers have warned of retaliation if the Hague-based court pursues war crimes charges

Republican and Democrat US lawmakers alike have called for retaliating against the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it issues arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over their roles in alleged war crimes against the Palestinians.

Responding to <https://www.rt.com/news/596780-netanyahu-icc-arrest-warrant/>media reports this week that the Hague-based tribunal will soon post warrants for the arrests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, members of Congress have issued statements warning of consequences for any such step. US Representative <https://twitter.com/BradSherman/status/1784733219767628048>Brad Sherman (D-California) is among those insisting that Washington would retaliate for any attempt to arrest Israeli leaders during their ongoing war with Hamas.

“The ICC apparently considers warrants on Israeli leaders for legitimate self-defense,” the 14-term congressman said. Sherman argued that such a move would turn the tribunal into a “kangaroo court,” adding, “President [Joe Biden] must condemn this, and I know Congress will ensure consequences for such an absurd decision.”

The potential arrest warrants are connected to the ICC’s investigation of alleged atrocities by the Israeli military and Palestinian militant groups dating back to 2014. Axios reported on Monday that Netanyahu had <https://www.rt.com/news/596801-axios-report-israel-netanyahu-biden-icc-warrant/>asked Biden to stop the ICC from trying to prosecute him or other officials in his government
(4) Netanyahu says IDF will attack Rafah ‘with or without a deal’

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/30/netanyahu-says-israel-will-invade-rafah-as-gaza-ceasefire-talks-continue

Netanyahu says Israel will invade Rafah as Gaza ceasefire talks continue

Israeli PM Netanyahu says Israeli forces will enter the southern Gaza city ‘with or without a deal’.

Published On 30 Apr 202430 Apr 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has renewed his promise that Israel will launch a ground assault on Rafah in southern Gaza amid shaky ongoing truce talks to reach a ceasefire deal.

Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/4/30/israels-war-on-gaza-live-34-killed-in-gaza-amid-ceasefire-negotiations>will destroy Hamas’ battalions there “with or without a deal” to achieve “total victory” in the nearly seven-month war.

Israel and Hamas are negotiating a potential ceasefire agreement and an exchange of hostages held by Palestinian groups in Gaza for prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question. We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate Hamas’ battalions there – with or without a deal, to achieve the total victory,” the prime minister said in a meeting with families of hostages held by armed groups in Gaza.

Hamas has repeatedly said it will not accept a deal that does not include a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza – which have been major sticking points in negotiations.

Play Video
Video Duration 10 minutes 42 seconds10:42

Netanyahu has for months repeatedly pledged to go ahead with an <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/11/israel-working-on-rafah-invasion-in-gaza-despite-international-alarm>invasion of Rafah, despite public pushback from Israel’s main ally the US.

Aid agencies have <https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/2/24/palestinians-cling-to-life-in-rafah-as-israel-threatens-gazas-last-refuge>warned that an assault of Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, would be catastrophic.

(5) Netanyahu says ICC warrants would be an ‘antisemitic hate crime’, would fan antisemitism

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-799239

Netanyahu: ICC warrants will pour jet fuel on flames of antisemitism
US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters “we don’t believe the ICC has any jurisdiction here. We don’t support” its investigation into the actions of Israeli leaders.”

By TOVAH LAZAROFF

APRIL 30, 2024

It would be an “unprecedented antisemitic hate crime” for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against top Israeli political and military leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

“Branding Israel’s leaders and soldiers as war criminals will pour jet fuel on the fires of antisemitism,” Netanyahu said in an English language video: “those fires that are already raging on the campuses of America and across capitals around the world.”

In Hebrew, he stated, “The purpose of this step, if it is carried out, is to threaten [Israeli] leaders and soldiers, essentially to paralyze Israel’s ability to defend itself. The Israeli government and Israeli citizens reject this outright.”

Israel is braced for the ICC to issue such warrants for war crimes, including in Gaza, against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi.

Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Israel Katz have issued statements on the matter in recent days, even though the court has not taken any formal action.

Such a step would come as Israel is in the middle of battling to destroy Hamas in Gaza, in a war that many in the international community oppose, with some charging that it is akin to genocide.

At issue is the high fatality count of over 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza due to the war. Israel has said that at least 13,000 of those deaths were combatants.

Israel has insisted that it must destroy Hamas in the aftermath of the terror group’s invasion of its southern border on October 7, in which over 1,200 people were killed and 253 seized as hostages.

Netanyahu called on world leaders to halt this “scandalous” step of the court, which he said constitutes “moral and historical bankruptcy” and is “a distortion of justice and history.”

These warrants, if issued, would mark “the first time that a democratic country, which is fighting for its life according to all the rules of international law, is accused of war crimes,” he said.

“If this thing does happen, it will be an indelible stain on all of humanity. It would be an unprecedented antisemitic hate crime, a crime that would add fuel to the antisemitic incitement that is already raging in the world,” Netanyahu said.

Katz has already instructed Israeli embassies around the world to brace for an antisemitic backlash should the ICC issue such warrants.

President Isaac Herzog wrote on X, “I unequivocally object to any attempt to abuse international legal institutions – including the ICC – to deny the State of Israel its basic rights. We have an independent and robust judicial system that knows how to investigate as needed.

“Such actions will only serve to tie the hands of all free and democratic nations in the fight against terror, and must be strongly opposed,” he stated.

There are those in Jerusalem who believe that US President Joe Biden and his administration have the power to thwart such actions.

US Senator John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) called on Biden to “intervene as part of the administration’s ongoing commitment to Israel.”

US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters, “we don’t believe the ICC has any jurisdiction here. We don’t support” its investigation into the actions of Israeli leaders.”

The Biden administration is opposed to the intimidation of its judges: “That’s, that’s beyond the pale,” Kirby stated.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said that, “We work closely with the ICC in a number of key areas and we think it does important work.”

(6) Japan and North Korea: Time to talk?

Japan and North Korea: Time to talk?

By Gavan McCormack

Apr 30, 2024

In Northeast Asia a system of confronting military alliances – US/Japan/South Korea/Philippines vs China/Russia/North Korea – gradually takes shape, calling to mind nothing so much as the alliance system constructed in Europe in the decade leading up to 1914. The one today is no more likely to lead to peace and regional cooperation than was the other 110 years ago.

The confrontation between Japan and North Korea is rooted in the contradictions of Japanese colonialism in the first half of the 20th century and the Cold War East-West bloc contradictions of the second half. Relations between Japan and all its neighbours, rooted in one or both of these eras, were normalised, mostly long ago. Only between Japan and its nearest neighbour, North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK), has there been no normalisation. Negotiations that began in 1990, as the Cold War was being wound up elsewhere, and resumed sporadically over 34 years since then, remain without resolution.

The perception of North Korea a “threat” serves to justify the paradox of Japan as economic superpower but political client state, dependent on the US. But the abnormality of the present confrontation cannot last forever.

In 2002, to widespread astonishment on all sides Japan’s Koizumi Junichiro and North Korea’s Kim Jong-il apologised to each other, the one for fifty years of colonial rule and post-colonial hostility, the other for the abduction of thirteen Japanese citizens carried out at the very nadir of their relationship in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, despite mutual pledges to work towards normalising and stabilising their relationship, “normalisation” did not follow.

Gregory Clark recently drew attention on this site to the manipulation of the abduction issue by Japanese rightists determined to block the 2002 agreement (“Japan’s abduction myths have kept a nation in poverty for decades,” April 12), and to the key role in this process played by Abe Shinzo, deputy cabinet secretary in 2002 and subsequently Prime Minister over several terms (2006-7, 2012-20). Abe, who visited Pyongyang in Prime Minister Koizumi’s 2002 delegation, no sooner returned to Japan than he began to organise to oppose the Pyongyang Declaration and subvert the reconciliation process.

When North Korea implemented what it understood to be its commitment under the 2002 agreement by returning five abductees, insisting eight others on Japan’s lists of the missing had died, Japan under Abe countered by insisting the eight, and possibly many more besides, must be still alive and must be returned. There can be little prospect of agreement between parties when one insists eight people have died and the other says “return them all at once, alive.”

Under Abe, a government-directed Abduction Special Measures Headquarters was set up, a national and even global campaign to expose North Korea’s abuses of human rights was launched, and, in due course following North Korean missile and nuclear tests, trade was halted, north Korean shipping banned from Japanese ports, North Korean-affiliated residents and organisations in Japan subjected to various forms of discrimination, and North Korean schools in Japan exempted from otherwise comprehensive free text provision. Confrontation between a rapidly re-militarising Japan and a nuclear-armed North Korea intensified.

Japanese policy under Abe Shinzo rested on three principles:

1. the abduction problem is the biggest problem Japan faces,

2. without resolution of the abduction problem there can be no normalisation of relations with North Korea,

3. all the abductees (of whom here are an indeterminate number possibly in the hundreds) are still alive and must be returned.

At Stockholm in 2014, North Korea presented an interim report into the missing abductees (including the problematic eight), but the Abe Shinzo government rejected it. The re-investigation stalled, relations lapsing into deep freeze.

With Abe himself rudely removed from the scene by an assassin’s bullet in 2022, his successors, including present Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, continued to declare their commitment on the one hand to his three-principles but on the other to eventual normalisation. The three Abe principles confront the Koizumi principles of the Pyongyang Declaration. From beyond the grave, Abe’s ghost wielded its considerable influence to block resolution.

A fuller explication of this complex but crucial process is accessible through the translated (by this author) analyses by Tokyo University emeritus professor (and prolific author) Wada Haruki. See most recently Wada’s “Normalisation of relations between Japan and North Korea,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 24 November 2013.

Wada insists that, even as war clouds develop around the East and South China Seas, the die is not yet cast and war can still be avoided provided, however, a peace and cooperation diplomacy prevails. Nothing is more important, he insists, than the opening of diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea. He proposes eight steps towards normalisation. Of the eight, first is the most difficult: that Japan announce that it no longer adheres to the Abe Principles.

>From at least May 2023, as Wada notes, Kishida declared that he was intent on “a comprehensive resolution of the abduction, missile and other matters” and a “normalising” of relations.

“I am personally committed to direct high-level negotiations to this effect and will neglect no opportunity to convey my resolve to Kim Jong-un and to realise a summit talk with him.”

Again, early in 2024, Kishida reiterated his readiness to negotiate without pre-conditions and referred to “various concrete efforts” his government was taking. A Prime Ministerial Pyongyang visit, perhaps in June, was reportedly under consideration. On 25 March, North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, sister and presumptive heir to current leader Kim Jong Un, spoke of the possibility of the two countries opening a new future, provided only that “Japan makes a political decision:”

“If Japan drops its bad habit of unreasonably pulling up the DPRK over its legitimate right to self-defence and does not lay such a stumbling block as the already settled abduction issue in the future way for mending the bilateral relations, there will be no reason for the two countries not to become close.”

She meant, of course, that Japan would have to set aside the Abe principles. For Kishida, despite his declaration of commitment to talks without pre-conditions, that might be a bridge too far.

In North Korea it can be taken for granted that the “normalcy” that was almost but not quite accomplished in 2002 is still very much to be desired, not only for the relief it could be expected to bring from sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and US-led military (including nuclear) intimidation but also, in due course, for the financial and economic cooperation package of compensation for the half century of colonialism that could be anticipated to follow.

But for Japan the situation is complex. Shadows of corruption and influence peddling swirl ever thicker around the Kishida government and the ruling LDP party. Polls show catastrophic collapse in their support level (to an almost unprecedented 14 per cent level in a Mainichi poll in February). To return to the realism of Koizumi Junichiro under whom the 2002 Pyongyang Declaration deal had been cut, the Three Abe principles will first have to be revoked. For the Kishida government to take such bold step, reversing 23 yeas of Abe-led intransigence, would call for political courage of higher order than he has so far evinced

The abduction of a dozen or so Japanese citizens by North Korea almost 50 years ago, to which North Korea admitted and for which it apologised twenty-two years ago, remains key to resolving the military confrontation and insecurity across today’s East Asia. It is surely time, after more than a century of colonialism, war, and hostile confrontation, for relations between Japan and its nearest neighbour to be normalised. If that could be accomplished, it would open the door towards Korean peninsular reconciliation and possible reunification and towards comprehensive revamping of Japan’s regional posture.

P.s. In retrospect, it is hard now, on 27 April 2024, to recall the atmosphere of 27 April 2018, just six years ago. On that day, the leaders of South and North Korea, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un, embraced each other smiling in the spring sun as they stepped insouciantly across the division line between their nominally hostile states. Months later, in September, South Korean president Moon addressed a mass rally of an estimated 150,000 people at May Day Stadium in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and was acclaimed for his reference to “a future of common prosperity.”

Much has changed since 2018 but the present confrontation too will not last forever. It is hard to imagine any Japanese Prime Minister ever being acclaimed by North Korean citizens as was South Korea’s President Moon in 2018, but some such day must one day come and the achievement of such a breakthrough will rank comparably high in historic significance.

(7) Ukraine’s draft dodgers are living in fear – The Economist. Hint: send the bankers instead, they are the ones pushing for the war

https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/04/28/dodging-the-draft-in-fearful-ukraine

Ukraine’s draft dodgers are living in fear
Ever more conscripts are needed against Russia’s offensive

Apr 28th 2024|Odessa

THE IDEA was madness, opening a bar in the throes of war. Russian warships dominated Odessa’s horizon and the streets were barricaded with tank traps. Normal people were preserving whatever they had. But for a group of former philosophy students, it was the moment dreams were made and they poured everything into the project. By early summer 2022 they had refashioned a beauty salon into a new cultural hotspot, selling erotic photography and moonshine vodka. They mused about becoming partisans to fight the Russians should they ever appear.

No one remembers exactly when the party stopped. It was a shock when the first young man from the group left the country. But then a second departed. Customers began vanishing, as the fear of being sent to the front lines grew. In late 2023 the bar’s owner escaped across the border with a medical exemption certificate that said he had diabetes. Ultimately only “Sasha”, the barman, remained.

Vladyslav, who is 24, also began the war as a committed patriot. In the early months, he watched the reports of Russian atrocities, and felt a strong urge to fight. Then the males in his life started to leave— they went east, to the front line. Friends, relatives, his father and step-father all became soldiers. And Vladyslav started receiving chilling updates about the reality of war with too little ammunition. Many of his friends died. A colleague was killed just three days after being sent to Bakhmut. Another was assumed dead after being captured in Mariupol, only to be later returned in a prisoner exchange, saying he had been tortured. Vladyslav’s family now urge him to stay clear of the conscription officers who prowl Odessa’s streets. He is heeding their advice and hiding. “It’s not that I’m scared to fight, but I’m scared because I know what’s happening out there.”

For a generation of young men in <https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/05/27/why-is-odessa-important-to-both-ukraine-and-russia>Odessa, life has been postponed indefinitely. Choices are not black and white. Of those not already fighting, more and more are hiding from Odessa’s conscription officers, who have a reputation for ruthlessness. Men in green uniforms conduct regular sweeps of the city’s buses, gyms and train stations, often dragging their targets off by force. That has tested allegiances in a city that has always worn its Ukrainian identity lightly.

The recent lowering of the minimum mobilisation age from 27 to 25 (soon to include Vladyslav) is a further challenge. Parliament took months to pass the new law, which comes into effect on May 1st. It was an urgent necessity for the military, which is struggling to hold the front lines. Perhaps its most significant provision is a requirement that all draft-eligible men register in a new online database, increasing their vulnerability to draft officers.

For men like Sasha, the barman, that presents an impossible dilemma. He feels stuck in the middle, he says, not wanting to leave his home but fearful the draft officers might knock on his door next. “You can leave, but it’s a one-way ticket. You can go to the front lines, but that may be a one-way ticket too. Or you can stay here and live in fear.” One estimate late last year suggested 650,000 men of fighting age had left Ukraine, the majority by illegal means. Getting papers to leave was once a matter of paying a few thousand dollars to a corrupt officer. Now it is nearly impossible. The need on the front lines is stronger than ever, and no one is volunteering to fight.

Vladyslav has witnessed several raids. He describes the draft officers as “fishermen” who “catch” their victims, to use the local lingo. “The officers lurk near bus stops and stop the buses as they depart, checking the documents of any guy that matches their profile.” Odessa is being singled out by leaders in Kyiv, he says. There, recruitment plans are far less aggressive. “Everyone says victory is near, but it feels quite far away if you are a 25-year-old in Odessa.” Only the bravest young men ride public transport.

The conscription officers are reluctant to talk. The Economist sent two requests for comment, only to be told to send a third. Two army officers requested anonymity just to say they were uncomfortable discussing the subject. Ruslan Horbenko, an mp who is deputy head of the parliamentary human rights committee, says draft officers have an unenviable task. Most of the forcible detentions they make concern not draft dodgers, he says, but deserters. In some brigades as many as 10% of the soldiers are believed to have fled. Along with western regions, Odessa is one of their prime destinations, he says. Soldiers who have stayed on the front lines feel “abandoned” by those who flee, and recruitment officers take it out on the deserters they catch.

Those who are still in Odessa are mostly hiding. A trip to the philosophers’ bar on a recent Thursday night found only one man present. Female patrons, seated between racy pictures of women aimed at a missing male audience, gossiped about mobilisation. The rumours were flying: draft officers purportedly got an 8,000 hryvnia ($202) bonus for each guy they “catch”; Volodymyr Zelensky was about to lower the draft age to 20. Russia was supposedly preparing a new operation to take Odessa. Each of the rumours had a source: an aunt, married to a security officer; a father who works in the general staff; a brother on the front lines. One woman, who was 23 but looked much older, said her boyfriend is also in hiding, and refuses to move about town except by taxi. A barwoman admitted business had gone downhill since the men started disappearing. The bar will soon close, she said.

Vladyslav faces financial struggles, too. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion he earned a reasonable living selling plumbing equipment. Since then he has been unemployed. Without military papers he cannot look for a job. His girlfriend of five years is expecting their first child. He dreams of a life as a new father in a peaceful Ukraine, but that is hard to imagine with Russian missiles raining in. For Sasha, the last of Odessa’s philosopher dreamers, hope dies last. “Every night we go to bed with hope,” he says. “Hope that we will wake up in the morning alive.”

The conscription officers are reluctant to talk. The Economist sent two requests for comment, only to be told to send a third. Two army officers requested anonymity just to say they were uncomfortable discussing the subject. Ruslan Horbenko, an mp who is deputy head of the parliamentary human rights committee, says draft officers have an unenviable task. Most of the forcible detentions they make concern not draft dodgers, he says, but deserters. In some brigades as many as 10% of the soldiers are believed to have fled. Along with western regions, Odessa is one of their prime destinations, he says. Soldiers who have stayed on the front lines feel “abandoned” by those who flee, and recruitment officers take it out on the deserters they catch.

Those who are still in Odessa are mostly hiding. A trip to the philosophers’ bar on a recent Thursday night found only one man present. Female patrons, seated between racy pictures of women aimed at a missing male audience, gossiped about mobilisation. The rumours were flying: draft officers purportedly got an 8,000 hryvnia ($202) bonus for each guy they “catch”; Volodymyr Zelensky was about to lower the draft age to 20. Russia was supposedly preparing a new operation to take Odessa. Each of the rumours had a source: an aunt, married to a security officer; a father who works in the general staff; a brother on the front lines. One woman, who was 23 but looked much older, said her boyfriend is also in hiding, and refuses to move about town except by taxi. A barwoman admitted business had gone downhill since the men started disappearing. The bar will soon close, she said.

Vladyslav faces financial struggles, too. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion he earned a reasonable living selling plumbing equipment. Since then he has been unemployed. Without military papers he cannot look for a job. His girlfriend of five years is expecting their first child. He dreams of a life as a new father in a peaceful Ukraine, but that is hard to imagine with Russian missiles raining in. For Sasha, the last of Odessa’s philosopher dreamers, hope dies last. “Every night we go to bed with hope,” he says. “Hope that we will wake up in the morning alive.”

(8) Poland & Lithuania to send Ukranian draft-dodgers back to Ukraine

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/25/poland-and-lithuania-pledge-to-help-kyiv-repatriate-ukrainians-subject-to-military-draft

Laurynas Kasc?iu¯nas, Lithuania’s foreign minister, said: ‘This is not fair to those citizens who are fighting for their country.’ Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Exactly how the new regulations will work may not be clear until the new law on mobilisation comes into force in mid-May. It is possible that men will be able to update their records in the military register using an app from outside the country, rather than returning home to do so.

“Of course, they want people to come back, but there is no legal instrument to force them,” said Lisin. However, he said the recent messaging had caused stress and fear among many in Poland’s Ukrainian community, partly because of the uncertainty over how it would work in practice. “The less people know, the more people fear,” he said.

Poland drew plaudits for the way it opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees in the first months of the war and the Polish government remains one of Ukraine’s most vocal backers in the EU. However, there has been evidence of increasing “Ukraine fatigue” in Polish society as the war drags on. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/05/ukrainian-lorry-drivers-facing-polish-blockades-medyka>Protests by Polish truckers over transit access for their Ukrainian counterparts blocked the border between the two countries for several weeks, while surveys show attitudes to Ukrainian refugees are becoming gradually less welcoming.

“I think many Poles are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in hotels and cafes, and they hear how much effort we have to make to help Ukraine,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz.