Last week, some 100 demonstrators gathered in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, waving placards bearing anti-Semitic slogans and expressing their opposition to the Ukrainian government. Vladislav Davidzon argues that there was more to this protest than meets the eye:
The incident is the latest attempt to weaponize accusations of anti-Semitism in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Proving that the government in Kiev and the population of western Ukraine is infested with neo-Nazis has since the very beginning of the conflict been the core strategy of the propaganda coming out of Russian media organs. . . . This rhetoric directly echoes the Soviet Union’s labeling of any actor that opposed its geopolitical interests as “counterrevolutionary.” [The goal is to] delegitimize Ukraine by . . . fatally associating it with fascism. . . .
Ukrainian media reported that members of the demonstration had been seen (and filmed) collecting 50- and 100-Hryvnia bills for their participation. . . . When the assembled journalists demanded that the protesters explain their demands, some barked out feeble and enraged generalities. Other protesters could be seen hiding their faces behind their hands in front of the camera and behind the banners in shame. Some . . . had the tell-tale pink and puffy faces of chronic alcoholics, which might suggest that political activism was not their primary concern.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/192433/in-lviv-a-dubious-anti-semitic-demonstration