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Biden administration accuses Russia of anti-Semitism and exploitation of Jewish suffering
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In hard-hitting language, the Biden administration is poised to accuse the Russian government of anti-Semitism and exploit Jewish suffering by claiming its war on Ukraine is a “denazification” operation. .
“To serve its predatory ends, the Kremlin exploits the suffering and sacrifice of all who lived through World War II and survived the Holocaust,” the US State Department says in a filing to appear on its website. today. “In the process, the Kremlin is hijacking critically important global efforts to combat anti-Semitism and instead propagating one of the most insidious forms of anti-Semitism, Holocaust distortion.”
The dossier, previously obtained by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, will appear on a dedicated page, “Disarming Disinformation,” dedicated to exposing Russian disinformation in its war against Ukraine.
It is scheduled this afternoon ahead of an informal session of the United Nations Security Council that Russia has convened to bolster its denazification claim. Tass, the Russian news agency, quoted Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy envoy to the United Nations, as saying on Friday that the session will be “our response to Western colleagues, who are expressing doubts about one of the main of our special military operation in Ukraine, namely denazification, and claim that we are exaggerating the problem.
The State Department filing cites historians and Holocaust memorial institutions, including Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, who denounce the denazification claims as false.
The three-page document points out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and lost his family to the Holocaust. It includes a photo of Zelensky in a yarmulke, surrounded by Orthodox Jews, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem during a 2020 visit.
A US State Department dossier on Russian disinformation will contain this photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, January 23, 2020. (Ukrainian President’s Office)
“The Kremlin falsely claims that the worst Nazis were in fact Jews and seeks to downplay the role of anti-Semitism in Nazi ideology,” the filing said.
The document refers to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s widely discredited May claim that Jews claim that “the biggest anti-Semites are themselves Jews.” He quotes Israeli officials condemning Lavrov’s statement.
The document concludes by saying that Russia harms the fight against anti-Semitism. “With anti-Semitism on the rise around the world, it is imperative that everyone speak out against this particularly pernicious type of Russian misinformation,” he says.