In the days before the Geneva "de-escalation" conference (and coincidentally, days after the secret visit of CIA director Brennan to Kiev [3]), the top story across western media was the "undisputed" proof that east-Ukraine, populated by "terrorist separatists", is preparing to unleash a neo-nazi wave against local jews, when a leaflet was unveiled, beckoning the Jewish population to register and declare their assets.
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The USA Today promptly reported [5] (joined by CBS and CNN): "Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news agency."
Consequences for non-compliance will result in citizenship being revoked "and you will be forced outside the country with a confiscation of property," it said. A registration fee of $50 would be required, it said.
Odd because as the same USA Today further reported, "Olga Reznikova, 32, a Jewish resident of Donetsk, told Ynet she never experienced anti-Semitism in the city until she saw this leaflet."
Perversely, even the local Jewish community issued a statement saying the leaflet distribution "smells like a provocation." The chief rabbi of nearby Dnipropetrovsk, Shmuel Kaminezki said, "Everything must be done to catch them."
So the bottom line, namely that this was merely a provocation designed to generate a kneejerk emotional response from the west and paint the pro-Russia militia as neo-nazis and generally, as fascists (even though it was the ultra nationalist Right Sector that was instrumental in the overthrow of the Yanukovich government) was clear to most - even the population that was seemingly being targeted.
But not to John Kerry. "Secretary of State John Kerry said the language of the leaflets "is beyond unacceptable" and condemned whomever is responsible."
"In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable — it's grotesque," he said. "And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities — from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of — there is no place for that."
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt called the leaflets "the real deal." But the man whose name appears on the leaflets, Denis Pushilin, identified as chairman of "Donetsk's temporary government," said he was not responsible.
"The real deal"... with the small exception that they were forged, in everything from the photoshopped stamp, to the fact that the person who allegedly signed the leaflets, Denis Pushilin - the Chair of the recently created Donetsk republic - explicitly stated he had nothing to do with this attempt to rile up anti-semitic sentiment in Donetsk.
Of course, with the CIA operating freely in Kiev, and having been rather instrumental in the establishment of the current political regime (as it did in the US-foreign policy "success stories" of Libya and Egypt), one can be sure that the provocations will only gets more grotesque, surreal and most likely, violent from this point onward.
More details on the forgery in the clip below: