The lesson for Israel from Ukraine's current plight, according to ex-MK Aryeh Eldad, is that Western guarantees of Israel's security must never be trusted.
"The Russian parliament has given Putin approval to use the military in the Ukraine,” wrote Eldad on Facebook Sunday.
“The Jews have no special fondness for the Ukrainians,” noted Eldad, adding that this did not begin with Bohdan Khmelnitzky, the 17th century Cossak leader under whom tens of thousands of Jews were murdered – nor did it end with the SS guards who murdered Jews in the Nazi death camps.
And yet, he said, Israel should not be indifferent to the fact that Russia is gearing up to invade the Ukraine.
After the Soviet Union broke up, the world suddenly realized that the Ukraine had become a nuclear power, he explained. “Hundreds of nuclear warheads were stored on its territory, ready for use.”
"In a quick diplomatic move, the US and Britain signed an agreement with Ukraine for the disarming of all its nuclear weapons, in exchange for a signed contract that said that the two powers would guarantee Ukraine's intactness and and security, and are committed to intervening if and when its intactness is threatened.
"Today, Russia is threatening. It would seem that the US and Britain should send armies to the Ukraine, to prevent a Russian invasion or repulse it. It is clear that Britain and the US have no intention of doing so. Russia knows this well, and that is why it is clear that the western powers will ignore the security guarantees it gave Ukraine, and allow Russia to run the crumbling Ukrainian state from outside or from within.
"What do we care? You remember that 'security guarantees' will, of course, be an inseparable part of any 'peace agreement' that the US intends to force upon us and the Palestinians. These guarantees are not worth a cent, of course,” Eldad added.
"This is just meant to refresh the memory of all those who support the establishment of 'a demilitarized Palestinian state with US guarantees' or a retreat from the Jordan Valley, from the mountains of Judea and Samaria, from half of Jerusalem. This is the true worth of international guarantees,” he concluded.