So What if Hitler Had Jewish Blood?

It was inevitable that the Russian-Israeli ‘tango’ would finally fizzle out. But no one expected it would come crashing down this way. The man at the center of the controversy is Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s long-time foreign minister, putting his foot in it this time - intentionally it might be added - when he said Adolf Hitler had Jewish roots!

The world took a while to comprehend this with Israelis suddenly in a state of flux: What, when, where, never! While such news was uttered over the previous decades and debunked by different historians about Hitler’s past and the ongoings of his paternal grandmother Maria Anna Schicklgruber  allegedly having a fling in an Austrian town and producing the father of the Nazi leader from a Jewish father; such a piece of information was dropped like a bombshell over a very large area of the world.

Lavrov was speaking to an Italian TV channel and he uttered such piece of knowledge by-the-by as it were contextualized within the understated Moscow's military operation in Ukraine according to Russia. He was replying to a question of how can Russia claim it wants to ‘denazify’ Ukraine especially since the country has a Jewish president and isn’t this a contradiction in terms?

So what he said, answering the fact that Volodymyr Zelensky is a Jew.  "I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood. [That Zelensky is Jewish] means absolutely nothing. Wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews."

 That got the wind up of many Israelis and their government. Lavrov, a man who liked to indulge in ‘theatrics’ as close witnesses say  created an overnight row. He used to like saying controversial things, having served as the Russia representative to the United Nations between 1994 and 2004 before he become the country's Foreign Minister.

 
The linkage drove the Israeli government to quickly condemn. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was scathing calling the Lavrov remarks ‘scandalous’, ‘unforgivable’ and ‘horrible’. The Israeli Foreign Ministry called on the Russian Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov to explain the views of his boss. 

Off course the Lavrov remarks about Hitler got many many in the media talking, writing extensive articles about Hitler and his supposed Jewish ancestry and how that may have come about.  All of the international media as can be expected picked up on the story including Israeli daily newspapers and started to decipher. Haaretz, a prominent daily also surveyed what it claimed as the conspiracy theories surrounding the birth of Hitler and of his Jewish heritage. 

However, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also condemned the remarks. Although he was more subdued in his approach than Lapid, he did accuse Lavrov of "spreading lies". This is because of the so-called strategic interests of the Jewish state in the region and its military action foremost of which are the Israeli strikes in Syria which seems to be coordinated with the knowledge of the Russians.

And as further proof of this is the fact that Israel has been very careful in criticizing Russian action in Ukraine. Both Bennett and Lapid were critical, yet the response has so been measured and likely to remain so despite the fact that Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities are now in their third month.

Israel continues to reach for a negotiated peace settlement between Moscow and Kiev but with no success so far and bloody mayhem continuing on-the-ground. 

This is something that brings us back to Lavrov and his comments show two things, that the Kremlin may not care and indeed, seems to be supporting the Foreign Minister. Although the Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently sought to patch things up, he is on record for "apologizing" to Israeli Prime Minister Bennett in a private phone call as stated by an Israeli government statement. 

However, the Russian version of the communications between Putin and Bennett doesn't mentioned anything about the apology supposedly made by Putin although Moscow officials stress the fact that a terrible deed had been done by Hitler and that Russian Jews suffered greatly at his hands.

  
With that said Israel-Russian relations seem to be going back to normal with maybe, just a touch of cynicism and anger because of the big picture that must be considered and played!