{"id":116310,"date":"2018-08-13T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=116310"},"modified":"2018-08-10T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T09:15:07","slug":"israel-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/08\/israel-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Is Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Azov Battalion uses the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol as its logo. Its founder Andriy Biletsky (center) has moved to ban \u201crace mixing\u201d in the Ukranian parliament. (Azov\/Twitter)<\/p><\/div>\n

4 Jul 2018 – <\/em>Israeli arms are being sent to a heavily armed neo-Nazi militia in Ukraine, The Electronic Intifada has learned.<\/p>\n

Azov Battalion online propaganda shows Israeli-licensed Tavor rifles in the fascist group\u2019s hands, while Israeli human rights activists have protested arms sales to Ukraine on the basis that weapons might end up with anti-Semitic militias.<\/p>\n

In a letter \u201cabout licenses for Ukraine\u201d obtained by The Electronic Intifada, the Israeli defense ministry\u2019s arms export agency says they are \u201ccareful to grant licenses\u201d to arms exporters \u201cin full coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government entities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 26 June letter was sent in reply to Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack<\/a> who had written a detailed request demanding Israel end all military aid to the country.<\/p>\n

Azov\u2019s official status in the Ukrainian armed forces means it cannot be verified that \u201cIsraeli weapons and training\u201d are not being used \u201cby anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi soldiers,\u201d Mack and 35 other human rights activists wrote.<\/p>\n

They had written that Ukrainian armed forces use rifles made in Israel \u201cand are trained by Israelis,\u201d according to reports in the country.<\/p>\n

The head of the Israeli arms export agency declined to deny the reports, or to even discuss cancellation of the weapons licenses, citing \u201csecurity\u201d concerns.<\/p>\n

But Racheli Chen, the head of the agency, confirmed to Mack she had \u201ccarefully read your letter,\u201d which detailed the fascist nature of Azov and the reports of Israeli arms and training.<\/p>\n

Both the defense ministry letter and Mack\u2019s original request can be read in the original Hebrew below.<\/p>\n

Israeli rifles in Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fact that Israeli arms are going to Ukrainian neo-Nazis is supported by Azov\u2019s own online propaganda.<\/p>\n

On its YouTube channel, Azov posted a video \u201creview\u201d of locally produced copies of two Israeli Tavor rifles<\/a> \u2013 seen in this video:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QopTJkI3_Fs<\/p>\n

A photo on Azov\u2019s website<\/a> also shows a Tavor in the hands of one of the militia\u2019s officers.<\/p>\n

The rifles<\/a> are produced under<\/a> licence<\/a> from Israel Weapon Industries, and as such would have been authorized by the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

IWI markets the Tavor<\/a> as the \u201cprimary weapon\u201d of the Israeli special forces.<\/p>\n

It has been used in recent massacres<\/a> of unarmed Palestinians taking part in Great March of Return protests in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Fort, the Ukrainian state-owned arms company that produces the rifles under license, has a page about the Tavor<\/a> on its website.<\/p>\n

The Israel Weapon Industries logo also appears on its website, including on the \u201cOur Partners\u201d page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Starting as a gang of fascist street thugs<\/a>, the Azov Battalion is one of several far-right militias that have now been integrated as units of Ukraine\u2019s National Guard.<\/p>\n

Staunchly anti-Russian, Azov fought riot police during the 2013 US<\/a> and EU-supported<\/a> \u201cEuromaidan\u201d protests in the capital Kiev.<\/p>\n

The protests and riots laid the ground for the 2014 coup<\/a> which removed<\/a> the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.<\/p>\n

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This photo from Azov\u2019s website shows an officer of the neo-Nazi militia armed with a version of Israel\u2019s Tavor rifle. The Tavor is made under license from Israel by Ukraine\u2019s national arms maker Fort.<\/p><\/div>\n

When the civil war began in eastern Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists, the new western-backed government began to arm Azov. The militia soon fell under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian interior ministry, and saw some of the most intense frontline combat against the separatists.<\/p>\n

The group stands accused in United Nations<\/a> and Human Rights Watch<\/a> reports of committing war crimes against pro-Russian separatists during the ongoing civil war in the eastern Donbass region, including torture, sexual violence<\/a> and targeting of civilian homes.<\/p>\n

Today, Azov is run by Arsen Avakov, Ukraine\u2019s interior minister. According to the BBC, he pays its fighters, and has appointed one of its military commanders, Vadym Troyan, as his deputy \u2013 with control over the police.<\/p>\n

Avakov last year met<\/a> with<\/a> the Israeli interior minister Aryeh Deri to discuss \u201cfruitful cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azov\u2019s young founder and first military commander Andriy Biletsky is today a lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament.<\/p>\n

As journalist Max Blumenthal<\/a> explained on The Real News<\/em> in February<\/a>, Biletsky has \u201cpledged to restore the honor of the white race\u201d and has advanced laws forbidding \u201crace mixing.\u201d<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=x5Uf7aooxvE<\/p>\n

According to The Telegraph<\/em><\/a>, Biletsky in 2014 wrote that \u201cthe historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led untermenschen.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a military training camp for children last year, The Guardian<\/em> noticed that several Azov instructors<\/a> had Nazi and other racist tattoos, including a swastika, the SS skull symbol and one that read \u201cWhite Pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Azov soldier explained to<\/a> The Guardian<\/em> that he fights Russia because \u201cPutin\u2019s a Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Telegraph<\/em>, another praised Adolf Hitler, said homosexuality is a \u201cmental illness\u201d and that the scale of the Holocaust \u201cis a big question.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Azov drill sergeant once told USA Today<\/em><\/a> \u201cwith a laugh\u201d that \u201cno more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Azov spokesperson played that down, claiming that \u201conly 10-20 percent\u201d of the group\u2019s members were Nazis.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the sergeant \u201cvowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital, Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Azov\u2019s founder Andriy Biletsky entered parliament, he threatened to dissolve it<\/a>. \u201cTake my word for it,\u201d he said, \u201cwe have gathered here to begin the fight for power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those promises were made in 2014, but there are early signs of them being fulfilled today.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=444&v=hE6b4ao8gAQ<\/p>\n

This year the battalion has founded a new \u201cNational Militia\u201d to bring the war home.<\/p>\n

This well-organized gang is at the forefront of a growing wave of racist<\/a> and anti-Semitic violence in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Led by its military veterans, it specializes in pogroms and thuggish enforcement of its political agenda.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, clad in balaclavas and wielding axes and baseball bats, members of the group destroyed a Romany camp<\/a> in Kiev. In a YouTube video, apparently shot by the Azov thugs themselves, police turn up towards the end of the camp\u2019s destruction.<\/p>\n

They look on doing nothing, while the thugs cry, \u201cGlory to the nation! Death to enemies!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman (left) met with the Ukranian prime minister last year to discuss deeper military ties. (Ukranian Government Portal)<\/p><\/div>\n

Israel\u2019s military aid to Ukraine and its neo-Nazis emulates similar programs by the United States and other NATO countries including the UK<\/a> and Canada.<\/p>\n

So obsessed are they with defeating a perceived threat from Russia that they seem happy to aid even openly Nazi militias \u2013 as long as they fight on their side.<\/p>\n

This is also a throwback to the early Cold War, when the CIA supported fascists and Hitlerites<\/a> to infiltrate from Austria into Hungary in 1956, where they began slaughtering Hungarian communist Jews and Hungarian Jews as \u201ccommunists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent postings<\/a> on Azov websites<\/a> document a June meeting with the Canadian military attach\u00e9<\/a>, Colonel Brian Irwin.<\/p>\n

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— Azov Brigade (@azov_media) June 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n