UKRAINE’S PRESIDENT YUSCHENKO PRESSURES ISRAEL ON GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
Vladimir Matveyev

Baltimore Jewish Times, MD

Nov 14 2007

Fresh from the controversy over shifting positions on the Armenia
genocide, the Jews could be caught up in another controversy over
genocide recognition. This time the subject is the Ukrainian famine of
1932-33, called Holodomor, which Ukrainian President Victor Yuschenko
wants Israel to recognize as genocide, orchestrated by Josef Stalin
against the Ukrainian people.

Yuschenko is expected to press the issue when he comes to Israel
Nov. 14-15 for his first official visit to the Jewish state.

Israeli and Jewish officials, on the other hand, are more concerned
with pressing Yuschenko to take a tougher line against the genocidal
ambitions of Iran and against Syria, a major trading partner with
Ukraine.

"We are waiting for Yuschenko to make a statement that Ukraine will
not sell weapons to the conflict region," said Josef Zissels, head of
the Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations in Ukraine,
or Vaad. Zissels is expected to accompany the president on his visit
to Israel.

In 2005, Yuschenko confirmed that nuclear-capable cruise missiles
were sold illegally to Iran under Ukraine’s previous government.

At least three times in three years, planned visits by Yuschenko
to Israel were postponed due to "scheduling conflicts." Some Jewish
leaders said the delays were the result of Ukrainian concerns over
upsetting Arab allies, notably Iran and Syria.

Syria is one of Ukraine’s major trading partners. Ukraine exported
some $602 million worth of goods to Syria in 2006, and some $234
million in the first four months of this year, according to the
Ukraine Finance Ministry.

Syria’s finance minister has said Ukraine is his country’s largest
trading partner in Eastern Europe. Yuschenko recently appointed a
Syrian millionaire to be his Middle East adviser.

On his trip next week, Yuschenko will meet with Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas.

In Israel, Yuschenko will meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and hold
discussions on business, tourism and agriculture. The two leaders are
expected to discuss easing visa requirements for tourists from each
other’s countries, and Yuschenko wants to push for greater Israeli
business investment in Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian immigrants live in Israel. Leonid
Kuchma was the last Ukrainian president to visit Israel, in 1996.

"Hopefully the visit will provide President Yuschenko with a deep
understanding of the Jewish state and Jewish people," said Mark Levin,
executive director of NCSJ, which advocates for Jews in former Soviet
republics. "It will also provide an opportunity for both governments
to discuss the ongoing problems of anti-Semitism in Ukraine."

Ukraine’s government faced strong criticism last month from Jewish
leaders for the lack of response by Ukraine authorities to a recent
spike in anti-Semitic attacks in the country.

After the president of the European Jewish Congress canceled a planned
trip to a ceremony in Ukraine to protest the government’s silence,
Yuschenko met with Jewish leaders to assuage their concerns and affirm
his government’s commitment to fighting anti-Semitism.

But Jewish leaders fear Yuschenko will link his government’s fight
against anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial to Israel’s
recognition of the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 as genocide.

Israel is unlikely to recognize the Holodomor as genocide because such
a declaration inevitably would harm Israel’s ties with the Kremlin,
which Ukraine accuses of having orchestrated the famine to destroy
Ukraine, the Soviet Union’s bread basket, as a viable political entity.

An estimated 3 to 4 million people died during the great famine,
which also struck parts of Russia and Kazakhstan and resulted from
Stalin’s policies of agricultural collectivization.

In Ukraine, Stalin’s campaign destroyed a significant part of the
Ukrainian peasantry, virtually eliminated Ukraine’s clergy and resulted
in the mass imprisonment and execution of Ukrainian intellectuals.

Yushchenko has pressed the genocide issue since taking office in
2005, and last year Ukraine’s parliament recognized the famine
as genocide. More than two dozen other countries have recognized
the Holodomor as genocide, but UNESCO has stopped short of that
definition. Russia calls it a "tragedy" but not genocide.

Aside from Zissels and Aleksandr Feldman, a parliament member and
president of the Jewish Foundation of Ukraine, most Ukrainian Jewish
leaders do not support recognizing the Holodomor as genocide.

Jewish leaders say it is unfair to link the Holodomor and the
Holocaust, which Yuschenko reportedly plans to do by introducing a
bill in the Ukrainian parliament that would recognize both the Jews’
suffering during the Holocaust and the suffering of the Ukrainian
nation in the Holodomor.

"We regret the tragedy of the Ukrainian people, but Yuschenko can’t
equate the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holodomor in Ukraine,"
said Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis.

Some Ukrainian nationalists have openly blamed Jews, among others,
for the famine and the "genocide of Ukrainians."

In their meetings with Yuschenko, Israeli officials are expected to
bring up the attacks against Jews in Ukraine, which have included
several rabbis being beaten up, including at least one Israeli,
the burning of a Chabad house and neo-Nazis rallies.

In recent days there has been some praise from Jewish leaders in
Ukraine for Yuschenko’s positive steps concerning the Jewish community
in his country.

Last week, Yuschenko signed an order to return to the Jews an estimated
1,000 Torah scrolls confiscated from Jewish communities in Ukraine
during the communist regime. Yuschenko also returned the historic
Chernovtzy synagogue to the Jewish community, which was shuttered
decades ago by the communists.

The president also has ordered the Ukrainian Security Service to
establish a special department to combat hate crimes and proposed
a bill to criminalize denial of the Holocaust – and denial of the
Holodomor famine.

"I express my blessing to you for your concrete activities against
manifestations of xenophobia and anti-Semitism," Rabbi Azriel Chaikin,
one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis wrote in an open letter to the president
several days ago.

Mikhail Frenkel, an expert on Ukraine-Israel relations, said the
visit is a positive step but there is no serious dynamic between the
two countries.

"Relations between Ukraine and Israel should be more concrete and
realistic," Frenkel said.