Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

fifty years ago as liberators," making this seem like another symptom of a Ukrainian addiction

to Naziism.

Of course we understand that it was not the square which greeted Hitler's troops at all, but

rather people in the square, and it was smart on Mr. Safer's part not to draw attention to the

people, because there might follow the natural question of "What people?" and the honest answer

would have to be "All people - Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews." Jews welcomed Hitler's troops?

Yes, so it would appear:

The prevailing conviction [was] that bad things came from Russia and good

things from Germany. The Jews were historically oriented away from Russia and

toward Germany; not Russia but Germany had been their traditional place of

refuge. During October and November, 1939, that conviction, among other

things, drove thousands of Jews from Russian-occupied Poland to German-occupied

Poland. The stream was not stopped until the Germans closed the border.

Similarly, one year later, at the time of Soviet mass deportations in the newly

occupied territories, [there was] widespread unrest among Ukrainians, Poles,

and Jews alike. Almost everyone was waiting for the arrival of the German

army. When the army finally arrived, in the summer of 1941, old Jews in

particular remembered that in the First World War the Germans had come as

quasi-liberators. These Jews did not expect that now the Germans would come as

persecutors and killers. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,

1961, p. 206)

Upon experiencing the impulse to blame Ukrainians for welcoming the Germans, the impartial

journalist might recognize that all groups had been traumatized by their exposure to Communism,

and all hoped for relief from the Germans.

(8) Chief Rabbi of Ukraine. Although Rabbi Bleich is introduced by 60 Minutes as the "Chief

Rabbi for the Ukraine," he is in fact an American from Brooklyn, New York, perhaps unqualified

to hold such an exulted title for several reasons: (1) Rabbi Bleich is a Hasidic Jew, and so

perhaps not authorized to speak for other Jewish sects. (2) Rabbi Bleich is newly-arrived in

Ukraine carrying his full load of American-engendered prejudices, and seemingly unaware of the

history of Ukraine, or even of the contemporary situation of Jews in Ukraine. (3) Rabbi Bleich,

as of the date of the 60 Minutes broadcast, spoke some Russian, but negligible Ukrainian. Some

Ukrainians might think that one prerequisite for the post of "Chief Rabbi of Ukraine" would be

fluency in Ukrainian.

The title of "Chief Rabbi of Ukraine," then, may be viewed as being self-proclaimed and

presumptuous, and as carrying no standing within Ukraine or anywhere else. In crediting the

title, Morley Safer was just blowing up Rabbi Bleich's credentials to give his words more

weight.

(9) An observation or a hypothetical case? Rabbi Bleich is shown saying, "Obviously, if someone

- you know? - screams 'Let's drown the Russians in Jewish blood!' there isn't too much love lost

there."

Yes, if anyone did scream such a thing, we might safely infer that the screamer was motivated by

a hatred of both Russians and Jews (even though we wouldn't be able to conclude much about

anybody other than the screamer). But in fact Rabbi Bleich does not claim that anybody ever did

scream such a thing. The 60 Minutes viewer is left with the impression that Rabbi Bleich was

reporting something that he witnessed, but his wording commits him to nothing more than

contemplating a hypothetical case.

(10) Lenin's Jewish ancestors. After interviewing the editor of Lviv's daily For a Free

Ukraine, 60 Minutes cuts to Rabbi Bleich saying "There's an article that came out just two weeks

ago where they tried to prove that Lenin was really Jewish...." The impression created is that

this article was published in For a Free Ukraine, and that For a Free Ukraine is a major

newspaper in Western Ukraine's major city.

In fact, however, "there's an article that came out" does not precisely inform us where the

article was published. Perhaps it was published in Ukraine's equivalent of a supermarket

tabloid. Perhaps it wasn't published at all, but only circulated in pamphlets. Perhaps it's

just a rumor and nobody can produce such an article. But even if published in For a Free

Ukraine - so what?

A higher standard of journalism than that exhibited by 60 Minutes would have reported who was

the author of this article, what position he holds in Ukrainian society, how good were his data

and his arguments, where was the article published, about how many people may have read it, does

anyone believe it, does it alter anybody's attitudes toward contemporary Jews even if they do

believe it? - But of course such questions weren't answered, and we are left able to conclude no

more than that Rabbi Bleich wishes us to believe in the existence of a virulent Ukrainian

anti-Semitism.

The Bleich statement is representative of a large number of statements in which events are

referred to obliquely, indirectly, vaguely - and on this basis, the viewer is invited to jump to

some strong conclusion. "I get the impression from people...." says Mr. Safer. Now there's a

lazy substitute for investigative reporting! What people? Why can't we see these people for

ourselves? Perhaps they are just a couple of cronies of Mr. Safer's whose company he prizes

because they are as bigoted as himself. And what do we care what one or two of Mr. Safer's

friends think? 60 Minutes should show its viewers the data on which these people are basing

their conclusions and let the viewers draw their own conclusions. But this is not what 60

Minutes did - its broadcast was short on data and long on instructions on how to feel.

(11) Morley Safer, genetic theorist. Mr. Safer tells us that "The Church and Government of

Ukraine have tried to ease people's fears, suggesting that ... Ukrainians, despite the

allegations, are not genetically anti-Semitic."

Here we see a new escalation in the level of irrationality with Mr. Safer now divulging to us

the existence of the allegation that Ukrainians are genetically anti-Semitic. For an

anti-Semitism which Mr. Safer failed to document, he now suggests a cause from the fairyland of

pseudoscience, and suggests furthermore that the Church and Government of Ukraine have dignified

this charge by denying it. That Ukrainians are pronouncedly anti-Semitic, Mr. Safer takes as a

given requiring no corroborative evidence, and so he shifts attention to speculating as to how

they could have gotten that way.

Perhaps Morley Safer will appreciate how bizarre and inflammatory his statement is when its

direction is reversed: "The World Jewish Congress has tried to ease the growth of

anti-Semitism, suggesting that Jews, despite the allegations, are not genetically predisposed to

usury." Now if Mr. Safer had heard that on Ukrainian television, he could have brought it back

as very good evidence not only of Ukrainian anti-Semitism, but of Ukrainian irrationality as

well - but he didn't hear any such thing during his visit to Ukraine, and he brought back

nothing. To encounter that degree of hatred and that level of irrationality, you have to leave

Ukraine for the United States and tune in to 60 Minutes.

(12) Church of Ukraine. But even while rebutting Mr. Safer's main point, I have been carelessly

adopting his slovenly terminology. "Church of Ukraine"? What "Church of Ukraine"? There is no

"Church of Ukraine" any more than there is a "Church of Canada" or a "Church of the United

States." Ukraine has more than one variety of Orthodox church, more than one variety of

Catholic church, more than one variety of Protestant church; and Ukraine has as well a full

slate of non-Christian religions. It even has agnostics and atheists just like a real

country.

Thus it is not only in his big lies, but also in his small misstatements that Mr. Safer reveals

to us that his perception of Ukraine is uninformed, indeed wholly stereotypical. To him,

perhaps all Ukrainians conform to some archetypal image - wielding a saber, hard-drinking,

pogrom-prone, and Christian (to the question "What kind of Christian?" we almost expect Mr.

Safer to ask "You mean Ukraine has more than one kind?"). And so when Mr. Safer speaks, he does

not report what he has recently observed in Ukraine, but rather reads off from his internal

image. He goes to Ukraine not to study it, not to report on its reality, but merely to provide

a backdrop for the proclamation of his own preconceptions, of his own prejudices so deeply

rooted that confirmation scarcely seems necessary, of his own stereotypes so apparently

unchallengeable that the anticipation that they might be in error does not enter consciousness.

(13) Peasants with nuclear weapons. Mr. Safer states: "Uneducated peasants, deeply

superstitious, in possession of this bizarre anomaly: nuclear weapons capable of mass

destruction thousands of miles away!"

This is one piece of information that I did find both newsworthy and disquieting. Although it

requires us to lay aside data indicating that American education is inferior to Ukrainian, we

cannot but be persuaded that the farmers shown in the broadcast were indeed both uneducated and

deeply superstitious - one look at their weatherbeaten faces and deep wrinkles and I was

convinced.

The information is so alarming and the threat to world stability so great that I expect Mr.

Safer must have immediately telegraphed President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine to inform him that

the uneducated and deeply superstitious peasants had seized control of Ukraine's nuclear

weapons, and to urge him to recapture the weapons and place them back under the control of the

educated and less-deeply-superstitious peasants.

Who can argue with Mr. Safer's syllogism here? - Old and wrinkled people are uneducated and

deeply superstitious. Here is an old and wrinkled person who may or may not be Ukrainian.

Therefore, it is dangerous for Ukraine to have nuclear weapons. Out of respect for Mr. Safer's

personal vulnerability, I will refrain from demonstrating the retargetability of this syllogism.

But to be fair to Mr. Safer, he did not really say that the peasants were in possession of the

nuclear weapons - what he actually said was that they were in possession of an anomaly. This is

an unfamiliar concept, and I cannot get my mind around it - what does it mean to say that

someone is in possession of an anomaly? Perhaps what it means in this case is simply this

that Mr. Safer sensed that even the uncritical 60 Minutes viewer at whom he was aiming his story

wasn't going to believe that the Ukrainian peasants had gotten control of the nuclear weapons,

and so the thing to do was to speak gobbledygook - to suggest that they did but without actually

saying it.

(14) Why leave Ukraine? Mr. Safer suggests that the explanation of Jewish emigration from

Ukraine is anti-Semitism: "The [anti-Semitic] message is clear to Lvov's Jews. They're leaving

as quickly as they can get exit permits."

I can think of an alternative interpretation. It is that given the catastrophic and

deteriorating economic situation in Ukraine, practically everybody in the country wants to

leave, but it is disproportionately Jews who can afford to and who are allowed to. Anybody who