{"id":7655,"date":"2022-03-21T07:54:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T05:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=7655"},"modified":"2023-05-28T15:12:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-28T13:12:36","slug":"u-s-sanctions-russia-for-its-invasion-of-ukraine-now-sanction-israel-for-its-occupation-of-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/u-s-sanctions-russia-for-its-invasion-of-ukraine-now-sanction-israel-for-its-occupation-of-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Sanctions Russia for its Invasion of Ukraine; Now Sanction Israel for its Occupation of Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Opinions published in The Markaz Review reflect the perspective of their authors and do not necessarily represent TMR.<\/p>\n

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Jeff Warner and Yossi Khen<\/h4>\n

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Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that Ukraine has no right of sovereignty, and used that to justify Russia\u2019s occupation of the Crimea and the Donbas regions, and uses it to justify Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth week. In his Feb. 21, 2022 \u201cUkraine is not even a state<\/a>\u201d speech, Putin said that \u201cUkraine was never a true nation\u201d and has no claim to independence. He claimed that, “the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction,\u201d and \u201cthe result of a historical error.\u201d Putin rejected Ukrainian peoplehood by asserting the Ukraine people are as an integral part of Russia with its \u201cpeople connected with us [Russia] by blood, family ties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel uses parallel logic when it claims that Palestine has no right of sovereignty, and Palestinians have no peoplehood, to justify its continued occupation of the West Bank and siege of the Gaza Strip. This claim was most famously stated by Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969 when she said, \u201cthere is no such thing as Palestinians,\u201d a fiction that has been repeated numerous times since by many Israeli officials.<\/p>\n

Despite the similarity in the two claims, President Biden, the mainstream corporate media, and almost the entire American foreign policy elite treat each quite differently. The Russian claim is rejected. But the Israeli claim is not only accepted but supported by an annual $4 billion gift in military aid, which Israel uses to enforce its claims.<\/p>\n

The Israeli claims underlie Israel\u2019s refusal to negotiate a two-state solution with Palestinians as foreseen in the 1993 Oslo Accords. Russia\u2019s claim is used to expand its illegal military occupation of parts of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and to justify its military invasion of all of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The Russian and Israeli claims go far beyond the assertion that neither Ukrainians nor Palestinians are a people with sovereignty in their land.<\/p>\n