Leaders to inaugurate Babyn Yar site today
Herzog welcomed in Ukraine on first state visit
KYIV – President Isaac Herzog was welcomed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an auspicious ceremony at the presidential palace in Kyiv on Tuesday.
His first state visit since taking office is centered around Wednesday’s inauguration of a project to turn the Babyn Yar ravine where Nazi forces massacred tens of thousands of Jews, which is now a verdant public park, into a commemorative site 80 years after the atrocity.
Herzog received a gun salute and inspected an honor guard at the rococo-style Mariinsky Palace after a military band played the national anthems.
Israel’s head of state was due to address the parliament, but an internal political row forced it to be canceled.
The Ukrainian parliament speaker was facing a vote to remove him from his post, and local politicians considered it inappropriate for a speech by a visiting leader to take place, a senior official traveling with Herzog told
The Jerusalem Post.
“It’s all because of internal political matters, and we are not involved in the decision,” the official said. “It has nothing to do with us.”
Ukraine was planning to present a resolution to the United Nations by the end of the year over Russia’s occupation of Crimea and the Donbas region in the east of the country, Zelensky said in a statement to the media following his meeting with Herzog. The conflict is raging hundreds of kilometers to the east and does not noticeably affect daily life in Kyiv and other regions of the country of some 44 million people, but it has touched a sensitive nerve among proud Ukrainians who are incensed by Russia’s actions.
Israel and Ukraine are important friends and partners in many fields, but Jerusalem has been careful to maintain a neutral stance on the issue, not wanting to upset either adversary.
In his statement to the media, Herzog told Zelensky: “Concerning the conflict between you and Russia, we always say, consistently, that we believe that a diplomatic solution is the correct solution. We shall support it and all efforts to reach a solution.”
Herzog spoke about issues of mutual interest to both countries and said he had invited Zelensky to visit Israel and that the invitation had been accepted.
“Our relations are centered on the past, the present and the future,” he said. “The Jewish people have a proud history in this country; some of the great personalities of the Jewish people and of Israel were born and grew up here.”
Zelensky said: “It is very symbolic that your first visit as president is to us, here in Ukraine. I see this as a great honor. Israel is a friend and partner of ours in everything
Ukrainians uncover hiding places of Jews in sewers during Holocaust, Page 7
Mossad. After all, he made his announcement in a contentious and raucous Knesset meeting, marking the opening of the legislature’s winter session, with a large media presence. Perhaps Bennett was trying to wrest the media narrative away from opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who, as expected, used his speech to sharply criticize the government.
That is still a compelling explanation. But another answer may be found in another announcement made by the Prime Minister’s Office about four hours earlier.
The attempt on Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi’s life in Cyprus was an Iranian terrorist attack and not a crime committed by business rivals, as some had reported, Bennett’s spokesman Matan Sidi emphatically said in the name of security sources.
In fact, the attack was not specifically targeting Sagi, Sidi said; rather, the Iranian-hired hit man arrested in Cyprus was trying to attack Israeli businessmen, generally.
When Sidi sent out his message, it seemed unusual, but it was easily chalked up to the shadow war between Israel and Iran, as well as the importance in highlighting to the world that Iran is a bad actor seeking to annihilate Israel.
Various outlets reported that the attempted murder of Sagi and others was an Iranian revenge mission; some tied it to the Mossad killing Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the leader of Iran’s nuclear program, late last year.
But new details emerging about the Arad-related operation could mean that the two matters are related.
Bennett and his office have been reticent to reveal more about the operation to garner details about Arad, other than to insist it was not a failure, though defense sources say no information was actually found.
But London-based Arabic newspaper Rai al-Youm reported the following day that the Mossad kidnapped an Iranian general based in Syria, took him to an African state and interrogated him, before letting him go. Iran reportedly found out that the Mossad was responsible for the capture.
The Iranian operation in Cyprus was retaliation for the kidnapping of the general, Rai al-Youm speculated, although Iran has never needed a reason to attack Israelis.
As such, Bennett may have
been broadcasting a message not only to the general public but to Iran.
The subtext of Bennett’s remarks in the Knesset may have been that the general’s kidnapping is not part of a general escalation or a new strategy in the shadow war with Iran, so there is no need to target Israelis abroad as a deterrence.
The mysterious announcement also could have been a way to get ahead of the news cycle of details of the Mossad operation that could have been revealed by local or foreign press following the trail of the attempt to kill Sagi.
Netanyahu is not the only one from whom Bennett may have been trying to wrest a narrative; the prime minister may have wanted to make sure Iran was not the first to tell the story of the general’s capture, presenting it as an act of aggression.
But with Bennett and the Prime Minister’s Office still hiding more than they are revealing, Iran may end up filling in the blanks in this story. had real substance to share with the world.
The impression Bennett has given to date through his vague announcement and his just as vague pushback that the operation “achieved its goals,” is that he simply wanted to say the word Mossad out loud and look prime ministerial like his predecessor, Netanyahu.
Hopefully, this is not the case, and Bennett will have more to share. If he does, and does it soon, he can set the record straight.
However, if he does not, he will have violated one of his cardinal principles for the new government: returning governing to normal.
Normal by Mossad standards is being in the shadows. It means not using the spy agency as a political football.
Normal means achieving missions that no one finds out about until decades later, thereby preventing any damage and danger to sources and Mossad methods.
There is no telling what additional resources Israel’s enemies may now pour into discovering what Israel was doing and what they might discover – none of which might have happened if Bennett had kept quiet.
He will now have to prove that he did not violate his promise of depoliticizing governance by sharing what success he referred to and why it was necessary to make the Arad operation public in