Vladimir Putin is appeasing jihadists - opinion

• Published date: 29 March 2024
• Author: AMOTZ ASA-EL
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Moscow had ample reconnaissance of Germany's troop movement in the spring of 1941 as Hitler's grand attack approached and also warnings from foreigners such as Tokyo-based German journalist Richard Sorge and British ambassador to Moscow Stafford Cripps

Even so, Stalin refused to accept Germany's enmity, clinging instead to the spirit of collaboration inspired by his multiple deals with Hitler following their joint dismemberment of Poland in the autumn of '39.

Now that same pattern is repeated by Vladimir Putin as he waltzes with jihadism the way Stalin tangoed with Nazism.

Putin's axiom is simple: the West is the enemy and the West's enemies are friends.

And as axioms go, when the facts deny them the facts must be denied. That is what Stalin did when he was shown aerial photos of the German offensive formation, and that is what Putin did after the whole world last Saturday saw Islamist gunmen slay 140 concert-goers in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk.

Refusing to admit that his citizens were massacred by his Islamist bedmates, Putin tried to blame their attack on Ukraine.

We Israelis now know all about the psychology of such denialism. Our denial before the October 7 massacre was different – we understood the enemy's enmity but misjudged its abilities, whereas Putin understands the enemy's abilities but misjudges the enmity. The self-deceit, however, is the same.

That is why we are now in a position to tell Putin that he is repeating Stalin's mistake, in both its parts: The war he has picked is with an enemy that is not an enemy, and the war he is escaping is with an enemy that is indeed an enemy – as last week's massacre so close to the Kremlin has made plain.

Russians argue that the Red Army led Nazism's defeat. This column has actually backed this claim ("Who defeated the Nazis?" 15 May 2020). However, Russians must also ask what would have happened if their leaders had realized from the outset that Germany was their enemy and Poland was not.

The answer to this "What if?" is as simple as it scathing: Hitler would have been defeated early on, and the lives of the millions he killed – most of them Soviet citizens – would have been spared.

Had Stalin faced his situation rationally, he would have allied with Poland against Germany, not the other way round. Having failed to do so, he ended up begging his capitalist archenemies in London and Washington to save him from Nazism's fury.

The same goes for Putin's alliance with Islamism and confrontation with the...