While still feel that the the government transition in the Ukraine will likely lead to an upsurge in anti-semitism.

The Ukraine has a long and inglorious tradition of virulent Jew hatred, and periods of social unrest lead to an upsurge in bigotry of all kinds.

That being said, Mark Ames, former editor in chief of the eXile, a former Moscow based English language tabloid, knows a LOT more about the former Soviet Union than I do.

One of the things that he knew was that Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, whom I quoted as advising that Jews leave Kiev, is a Chabad rabbi, and Chabad is really tight with the Kremlin.

So, I have to question the reliability of Reb Azman’s pronouncements.

Ames’ thesis is basically that the sh%$ is f%$#ed up and sh%$, and that teasing out alliances and philosophies is simply not a productivity, or as he sums up, “Everything you know about Ukraine is wrong“:

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Everyone looking for a proxy side to support or oppose in the Ukraine political dynamic will be disappointed. Ukraine politics go by their own rules. Today’s neoliberal ultranationalist could be tomorrow’s Kremlin ally, and visa-versa. Just look at what happened to the Orange Revolution—nothing. To wit:

a) One Orange Revolution leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, wound up turning against her partner Viktor Yushchenko and allying with Yanukovych to strip Yushchenko of presidential powers; later, Tymoshenko allied with the Kremlin against Yushchenko; now she’s free from jail and the presumptive leader of the anti-Yanukovych forces.

b) The other Orange leader—the pro-EU, anti-Kremlin Viktor Yushchenko—wound up allying with pro-Kremlin Yanukovych to jail Yulia Tymoshenko.

c) John McCain has been the big driving force for regime change against Yanukovych, but McCain’s 2008 campaign chief’s lobby firm, Davis Manafort, managed Yanukovych’s political campaigns and his lobbying efforts in the US.

d) Anthony Podesta, brother of President Obama’s senior advisor John Podesta, is another Yanukovych lobbyist; John Podesta was the chief of Obama’s 2008 transition team.
4. Yanukovych was not fighting neoliberalism, the World Bank, or oligarchy — nor was he merely a tool of the Kremlin.

There’s another false meme going around that because the World Bank and IMF are moving in to “reform” Ukraine’s economy — for the umpteenth time — that somehow this means that this was a fight between pro-neoliberal and anti-neoliberal forces. It wasn’t.

Yanukovych enthusiastically cooperated with the IMF and pledged to adhere to their demands. Six months after Yanukovych was elected president, the headline read “International Monetary Fund approves $15 billion loan to Ukraine”. ………

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The point is this: Ukraine is not Venezuela. This is not a profoundly political or class fight, as it is in Venezuela. Yanukovych represents one faction of oligarchs; the opposition, unwittingly or otherwise, ultimately fronts for other factions. Many of those oligarchs have close business ties with Russia, but assets and bank accounts—and mansions—in Europe. Both forces are happy to work with the neoliberal global institutions.

In Ukraine, there is no populist left politics, even though the country’s deepest problem is inequality and oligarchy. Memories of the Soviet Union play a big role in turning people off to populist-left politics there, for understandable reasons.

So Mark Ames thesis is that the political culture of the Ukraine is largely one of corrupt politicians and oligarchs grasping for advantage.

This does not mean that Jews in the Ukraine are not likely to see harassment, because (as Ames notes) the ultra-nationalist parties were at the lead of the most recent protests, and because the history of that part of the world.