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Ukraine at War: A Ceasefire Might Be Necessary, But There Won’t Be ‘Peace’

A Russian drone struck the Chabad-run Perlina school in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 30, 2024. Photo: Jewish community JCC in Kyiv, Kyiv municipality, and Yan Dobronosov

In the first decade of independence, Ukraine was quite distinctly divided into a number of regions, which differed greatly from each other in terms of ethno-identification and linguistic composition:

1. Western Ukraine: oblasts that were part of Austria-Hungary before World War I (Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattya, and Chernivtsi) and Volyn and Rivne oblasts that were part of Poland in the interwar period. This region of Ukraine was the least Russified and Sovietized. The legacy of the Ukrainian national movement was strong here, including the fresh memory of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (abbreviated UPA) armed struggle against Soviet rule (especially in the first three oblasts, where Greek Catholics rather than Orthodox Christians predominate among the believers);

2. Central Ukraine. This region more or less fits within the boundaries of The Cossack Hetmanate, or Hetmanshchyna, a semi-independent Ukrainian state entity that existed in the 17th-18th centuries (Chernihiv, Poltava, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad oblasts). It was characterized by the stable preservation of the Ukrainian language in villages and small towns, with the prevalence of “surzhik” (mixed Ukrainian-Russian idiom) and the local variant of the Russian language in larger cities. The level of national self-consciousness of the local Ukrainian population was quite high, but, unlike in Western Ukraine, the tradition of the Ukrainian national movement was significantly disrupted by the long process of Sovietization and Russification;

3. Southern and Eastern Ukraine: oblasts that were once part of Sloboda Ukraine (Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts) and Novorossiya Governorate (Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts). This region was characterized by a significant presence of ethnically Russian population, total dominance of the Russian language in cities and in some (ethnically predominantly non-Ukrainian) villages, mass transition of the local Ukrainian population to surzhik (in villages) and to the Russian language (in urban areas). The ethnic self-consciousness of a significant part of the local Ukrainian population was severely eroded.

Kyiv, like other large cities in Central Ukraine, was predominantly Russian-speaking. However, a significant part of its population had a high level of political and national consciousness, which brought the capital closer to Western Ukraine and — in combination with significant migration from western oblasts as well as from villages — paved the way for linguistic Ukrainianization.

Crimea was the most Russified region of Ukraine. The Russian language (its status as an official language along with Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar was legally recognized in the region) unambiguously dominated in all spheres, there was no Ukrainian-language education system, and there was only one district of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea — Krasnoperekopsky district — where ethnic Ukrainians were a relative majority.

Outside of Western Ukraine, addressing strangers in Ukrainian by default in both official and everyday communication was not the norm — despite the fact that Ukrainian was proclaimed the only state language. Demands to recognize Russian as a second state language were articulated openly by politicians in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.

Russian aggression in 2014 led to a gradual change of this situation. After the full-scale invasion began in 2022, it changed dramatically. I got to visit Ukraine many times after the Russian aggression began in 2014 — I traveled to Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Kremenchug, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Uzhgorod, Khust, Mukachevo, as well as Mariupol (occupied by the Russians in 2022) and Bakhmut (now completely destroyed), which are practically on the line of contact. On behalf of the Jewish Agency, I also visited occupied Crimea twice (in Simferopol, Bakhchysarai and Yevpatoria). Shortly after the full-scale invasion began, I traveled to Ukraine and visited the country only a few times thereafter. I also had many conversations with refugees from Ukraine in Moldova, Poland and Hungary. This empirical experience, as well as information from the Ukrainian media, allows me to form my own preliminary impression of the social, ethno-identification and linguistic processes developing in Ukraine itself and among Ukrainian refugees outside of it.

The first thing that immediately catches the eye is the almost universal complete exclusion of the Russian language from all official and semi-official spheres of use. A very significant part of the population has switched or is switching to Ukrainian in informal communication. At the same time, under stress or in situations of trustful communication, people accustomed to conversing in Russian often involuntarily resort to the Russian language. Undoubtedly, Ukrainian society as a whole is strategically aimed at maximizing its distance from Russia and Russians, including both in language and culture, as well as at the complete switching of the younger generations to the Ukrainian language, which is facilitated by the elimination of Russian-language schools and classes.

The rapid growth of settlements in Western Ukraine due to the arrival of numerous migrants from the east, from areas occupied by the Russians or in close proximity to the zone of active hostilities, is noteworthy. Some of these predominantly Russian-speaking migrants, having found themselves in places with total predominance of the Ukrainian language, feel insecure about their Ukrainian language competence, fearing that their Ukrainian speech will be perceived by the locals as a ridiculous and uneducated surzhik. In this regard, I have seen announcements in some stores and cafes in Lviv that read something like “Russian speakers, you are not ridiculous. You are encouraged to speak Ukrainian.” Migrants from the East settle not only in large urban centers, but also in villages.

I happened to visit many villages in Transcarpathia and in the Hungarian villages adjacent to the border. It is striking that while in the villages on the Hungarian side of the border there are abandoned houses (because young people often leave the villages and move to the cities), there is nothing like that on the Ukrainian side of the border. The locals explain this by the fact that migrants from the east buy or rent almost all available housing in the west of Ukraine. It goes without saying that the closer to the border with EU countries, the safer it is, as there is little chance of Russian missile attacks.

For almost three years of full-scale war, Ukrainian society has adapted to quasi-normal functioning in the environment where mortal danger exists not only on the line of contact, but also in the rear. It is important to emphasize that quasi-normal life continues not only in the west of the country, but also in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Rih, which are dozens of kilometers away from the front line and are exposed almost daily to rocket fire and drone attacks. At the same time, the war fatigue and lack of prospects accumulated in society are becoming evident. There is a feeling that Western allies are not letting Ukraine win, combined with the realization that without their help it is impossible to continue active and quite successful resistance to Russian aggression. We should not forget that Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian military are suffering from a growing PTSD, which will inevitably manifest itself in the future, when the active phase of the conflict is over.

Apart from the horrors of war, a powerful factor traumatizing the public consciousness is the feeling of injustice regarding the distribution of the war burden within Ukrainian society itself. In this regard, Ukrainians often refer to the Russian saying meaning “war to some is boon to others.” While some Ukrainians have been fighting at the front for the third year already, others are quietly living abroad, evading conscription in Ukraine or doing their army service far from the front. The lack of proper rotation at the front, associated with the actual failure of mobilization efforts, is the direct cause of this situation. At the same time, the notorious TCCs (Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support) often simply detain men in public places and send them to the army, including the elderly and sick. I can confirm this by personal experience. TCC representatives stopped me twice and sought to verify whether I am really over 60 years old (because I apparently look too young) and whether I really do not have Ukrainian citizenship (apparently, I speak Ukrainian too well). Against this background, Ukrainian government officials of different levels, as well as other influential individuals and their family members have reservations from mobilization.

Moreover, many of them, according to a significant part of the population, earn money from the war through various corruption schemes. The impossibility of organizing anti-government protests (“Maidan”) and holding elections during the war reinforces the feeling of hopelessness. In this context, there is a sad joke that goes like this: “There is only one way to defeat corruption in Ukraine: shoot all the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, then shoot all those who will come to their funerals, and only then hold elections.”

As a result of the full-scale Russian invasion, millions of Ukrainians became refugees abroad, causing the largest migration crisis in Europe since World War II. It should be noted that at the first stage, the Ukrainian authorities themselves de facto called on those unfit for active service from the most threatened areas to temporarily leave the country in order to save their lives and reduce the burden on the Ukrainian economy. During the chaos of the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, a significant number of men of conscription age (up to 60 years old) also left Ukraine. Some of them were able to do so by taking advantage of the corruption in the Ukrainian border services. The presence of Ukrainian refugees in Poland is particularly noticeable.

It is not uncommon to see Ukrainian inscriptions in the Polish capital. For example, ATMs offer Ukrainian as one of the options along with Polish and English. Ukrainian, surzhik and Ukrainian variant of Russian can be heard in Warsaw and beyond very often. It is very obvious that a significant part of the technical staff in hotels, small stores, etc., are Ukrainians. Many of them, despite the patriotic feelings they demonstrate, do not intend to return to Ukraine in the foreseeable future — or ever.

At the same time, there is a kind of “shuttle migration” between Poland and Ukraine, when women living in Poland visit their husbands who remain in Ukraine, because they are in the army or simply cannot leave the country because they have not reached the age of 60. This situation, being indefinitely stretched in time, naturally creates a lot of problems for maintaining normal family relations. It is obvious that Ukraine’s irreversible demographic losses as a result of emigration due to the war will be even higher than those resulting from combat losses and civilian casualties caused by Russian shelling and bombing. This subject is widely discussed in Ukrainian society, and the authorities are making some, so far not very successful, efforts to return at least some of the refugees from abroad.

In this grim situation, many Ukrainians, primarily those who can be regarded as the intellectual elite and expert community, see the Jewish State as a successful model of survival and development in extreme conditions. They see Israel as a model of a small, dynamically developing state that has successfully resisted external aggression from an uncompromising enemy, many times superior in human and material resources, which denies the right of this state to exist and whose goal is to destroy it completely. There are strong sympathies for Israel among ordinary Ukrainian citizens as well, as I have witnessed more than once in the course of direct communication with them in various situations. This is facilitated, in particular, by Israel’s war against Iran, which is the closest ally of Russia. To Ukrainians, Jews are not some “exotic people” but “neighbors”. There are many natives of Ukraine in Israel, and natives of Ukraine played a decisive role in the establishment of the Jewish state. In addition, many Ukrainians are personally acquainted with Jews now living in Israel. All this allows them to perceive the Israeli model as partly “their own” and as fundamentally implementable in Ukrainian conditions.

To summarize, I can say that the majority of Ukrainian society and its elites have come to terms with the idea that the liberation of the Russian-occupied territories is impossible in the foreseeable future. In this regard, against the background of accumulated fatigue, it needs a respite, which can be provided by a ceasefire agreement along the existing lines of contact. At the same time, there is no question of an official renunciation of the territories seized by Russian troops or any normalization of relations between Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainian society is mostly convinced that Russia is an immanent enemy of Ukraine, so the resumption of active armed confrontation is inevitable.

The author is a contributor to the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, where a version of this article was originally published.

The post Ukraine at War: A Ceasefire Might Be Necessary, But There Won’t Be ‘Peace’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote

Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.

The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.

Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.

Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”

“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”

Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.

UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.

Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.

Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.

“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.

“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”

On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”

The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.

“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.

Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.

Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.

“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.

“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.

“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”

During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”

At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”

“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.

The post Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’

Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.

As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.

Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.

For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance. 

On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.

One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”

The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.

These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference. 

Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.

This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students. 

Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.

As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.

These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.

McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction. 

This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.

We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”

Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.

The post Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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