Dear Vlad, Welcome to the Middle East

Where cruelty is met with cruelty

I know you understand cruelty better than most Europeans (or do you?) and you finally realized that to be a real Czar you need to be an anti-Semite so you host Hamas and Iran.  For Some reason, you didn’t hate Jews as much as your predecessors, but my guess is that Hamas’s cruelty and bloodthirstiness impressed you and make you realize which side you wanted to be on in the Middle East.  For a few years you respected the Israeli Air Force enough to let them take pot shots at your allies in Syria but after October 7 you finally realized that war by pinpoint bombings are not to your liking.   Why ally with a country that tries to destroy military equipment instead of concentrating on the people doing the actual fighting as Israel does in Syria and did in Gaza until this fall?  So, you took Hamas’s side and became one with your sainted Czars.

Rape, child killing, cold blooded murder, mutilation of bodies – impressive stuff for a would be Czar and one I guess you couldn’t resist.   We Jews understand.  We really do.   Even the most liberal Czars allowed a little rape and murder by the Cossacks and your new hero, Stalin, nearly pulled off a second Holocaust before they even had time to name the first one.  How could you resist allying yourselves with Hamas and Iran? 

But, you didn’t quite understand that bombing Aleppo to smithereens, sending your Wagner buddies to destroy ISIS (all with President Obama’s kind invitation) while allying yourself with the Shiite heretics would not end well for your people.  Of course, according to Gary Kasparov you were counting on ISIS cruelty in Moscow - or even helped them along – in order to find an excuse to draft more men.    A suggestion - this middle east venture and the Ukraine one (let alone Africa) is going to last a long time.   Maybe its time to reinstitute the Czar’s compulsory service of 25 years in the army – this may allow you to fill up the ranks for longer periods of time without the need to foment or wish for a terrorist attack in the heart of your capital.   Just a suggestion.

About religion in the middle-east, you are now in the midst of a full fledged Sunni-Shiite Islamic civil war.  You have chosen a side – Iran – in order to save your old friend Bashir Assad of Syria and in order to poke the US in the eye.  Understood. However, you forget that while the US is currently on the appeasement track in foreign policy, ISIS and the rest of the Moslem middle-east are not.  Civil wars are the bloodiest.  Religious civil wars and bloodier than that.   Religious civil-wars in the middle east are bloodiest of all.   And those that don’t mind their own business will, eventually, get it from both sides.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you Vlad. 

As for building an honest Russia, Vlad, you could do worse than to look to Israel and the success that so many immigrants from Russia have had over the years.   Of course, many are actually from Ukraine, but for you – there is no difference.   We have successful Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians and others who have made their way through their own hard work, creativity and intelligence – without the help of the kleptocracy that you have thrived on.  But looking to Israel for inspiration would mean building a country that you and your cronies have no desire to live in – an honest one.

In any event – welcome to the middle-east where cruelty is met with cruelty.  However, you know that already.  But Vlad, I don’t want to give you the impression that I don’t condemn the terrorist attack at the concert hall or that I don’t sympathize with the victims and their families – I do.   Do your fellow citizens know they signed up for this?   Dumb question – does it really matter?

Yours,

AD