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Photo from Ukrinform–UATV
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (MFA) rejects any insinuations and accusations of growing anti-Semitic manifestations in Ukraine.
“Ukraine consistently condemns any manifestation of intolerance or public anti-Semitic appeals, and law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute every perpetrator in such offenses. Similar shameful provocations are often inspired by the Kremlin regime, which with the help of hybrid aggression tools, tries to shake the political situation and once again throw an anti-Semitism shadow on Ukraine,” reads the statement by the MFA.
The MFA pointed out that according to the data of the Congress of Ethnic Communitites of Ukraine, no cases of violence on the basis of anti-Semitism were recorded in Ukraine during 2017. According to Pew Research Center, the level of anti-Semitism in Ukraine is the lowest in Central and Eastern Europe.
“Ukraine’s response to any provocation will always be clear and consistent: the inevitability of punishment for offenders and organizers,” MFA’s statement further added.
The Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs released a report on anti-Semitism around the world in January of this year, a few days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It said that the number of anti-Semitic incidents had doubled in 2017 in Ukraine, but the MFA vehemently denies this.
Post the Euromaidan revolution in Kyiv, the Ukrainain government has claimed that Russia tries to paint the post-Maidan government as “a rampage of reactionary, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces.” However, the Ukrainian government continues to insist that these claims are not based on facts, and that they are Russian propaganda.
In 2014, the Jewish community in Odesa was forced to release a statement after Kremlin declared that far-right groups declared war on Jews in the region. ” None of the things claimed in these statements happened in the community, there were no meetings; no attacks; and we have not written any appeals or statements and do not intend to write them. Just the phrase alone that Odesa residents are planning to write to New York and ask the World Jewish Congress to ban a Ukrainian political organization should be enough to get a correct idea of these statements.”
Also, more than 50 U.S. Congressmen wrote a letter expressing concern over the growth of anti-Semitism, especially in Poland and Ukraine. A leader of Ukrainian Jews suggested that the recent criticism of his country was part of an orchestrated campaign, possibly paid for by Russia.
“It is quite obvious who needs to discredit Ukraine in the United States and why,” Josef Zissels, chairman of the Vaad Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, said to Ukrinform. “I know of several [lobbying] firms that are accredited at Congress, and can promote anything for money there. So to collect the necessary number of signatures for them is not a problem,” he said.
