The Fate of Russia’s Jews

Since the 2014 invasion of Crimea by Russian forces, thousands of Russian Jews have fled the country; many of those who remain fear for their lives. Zvika Klein reports on their situation, which has long seemed not nearly so precarious as it really is:

“The Jewish community in Russia as we knew it at the beginning of 2022 will never be the same,” said a senior leader of the Russian Jewish community this week, in a secret apartment in the center of Israel.

This leader cannot speak publicly. He literally fears for his life, since he intends to return to Russia in the future and therefore cannot speak out against the war, which he thinks is one of the most horrible acts of the 21st century.

All of the heads of Jewish communities and organizations in Russia contacted in recent weeks agree that their country is slowly returning to the historic USSR. “It’s not a big deal to close the gates of the country,” one said. “There are no flights to the West and Europe anymore, so you just need to cancel a few flights and that’s it.”

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Russian Jewry, War in Ukraine

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF