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From the front line…

PUTIN versus PURIM

BY JACQUELINE CURZON

Where do you start when there is so much in the news that isn’t really exciting, and in fact is immensely depressing. We are about to celebrate Purim, and we remember not just the famous Esther and Mordechai, but one of our community’s most notorious historical rashas, Haman, whilst simultaneously we could be looking at the prelude to the start of World War III, with a deep foreboding that no-one knows what is going to happen whilst Putin is continuing to push the boundaries, and our buttons !!. He is trying very hard to instigate a conflict with the NATO countries by bombing very close to the Polish border and by targeting foreign journalists. Much of this is encouraging dissention at home, but if the world expects the little people to take over, forget it. This man is a tyrant of the first order and is brutal in his repression of his own countrymen and women. Mothers are having to sift through bodies, identity and may be mourning their young sons in the streets as they lie on foreign fields (where have we heard that before), but it will not sway him one jot. He will soon be emulating Stalin and removing his Generals - those who have not been shot by the Ukrainians - and sending them to the Gulags for a well-earned break. The only positive that is coming out of this is the acceptance of Israeli Nathan Bennett as the negotiator / intermediary / peace monger between the two antagonists. This does elevate him to a statesman somewhat in the mould of Menachem Begin, but whether he can pull it off, is another matter.

This is rather like the famous episode from ‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ when Jim Hacker is discussing with Sir Humphrey as to when he (Jim) is going to press the nuclear button or whatever political ‘colour’ the button is. This is in the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall . So, Sir Humphrey asks, ‘when will you press the button? Will it be when the tanks are rolling into East Germany? and Jim waves and says, ‘well not really…… you know it’s not really close enough, blah blah blah.’ And the conversation progresses until ‘what if they keep going into West Germany?’ He keeps on humming and haa-ing and Sir Humphrey asks Jim, ‘If the Russians are now at Calais - will you press the nuclear button?’ And, of course, the answer is - he still can’t make a decision! The same applies today: at what point in time will the Americans say, enough is enough and actually engage with the Russians, it’s very frightening.

I am intrigued by the reporting that is going on in the newspapers, most especially to do with the way that many of these Oligarchs are being portrayed, or if not portrayed, then by association being linked to Israel, whether it is because they have houses there {or here} or their boats are moored there. It would appear that Roman Abramovich has now got a Portuguese passport to go along with his Russian and Israeli ones and it would appear that he got it through a special deal that allowed Sephardic Jews going back as much as 400 years that are entitled to Portuguese citizenship because they were expelled from the country. Now, Abramovich is not a particularly Sephardi name and is unlikely that he or any of his ancestors were ever in Portugal people have assumed dubious means allowed him to acquire a passport and now the Portuguese rabbi has been arrested after he was trying to leave the country. There is a lot of speculation that there has been some kind of exchange of funds.

Squatters broke into the central London home of industrialist Oleg Deripaska, declaring ‘it belongs to Ukrainian refugees.’ It took many hours to remove the squatters from the balcony. The home - estimated to be worth £50 million - belongs to Deripaska, a close associate of Putin, and whose personal portfolio includes the Belgrade house amongst his £2.3 million personal wealth.

Now, should you feel moved to want to welcome a Ukrainian family to your home, there is a scheme in place to facilitate this.

Here is what you need to know;

• The individual or family must have been resident in Ukraine when war broke out. • You must know the name of your family, they will be required to register at homesforukraine.campaign. gov.uk • Your commitment is for a minimum of at least 6 months. They will be issued with a 3 year permit subject to Home Office checks. • You will receive £350 per month for one year, irrespective of how many people you accommodate, this is linked to food and energy bills.

And now for one of my favourite topics, Nicola Sturgeon, aka: she who must be obeyed. Well, that’s possibly what she likes to think anyway. She is advocating a no-fly zone over Ukraine, as we all know this is the step too far for the Americans and the Western alliance, except that Nicola Sturgeon thinks it’s a good idea to warm up WWIII. The UK Secretary of State for Scotland called her utterly irresponsible. And to add icing on the hamantaschen she wants to scrap Trident, our nuclear deterrent. So Putin might possibly break the no-fly zone and call our bluff, which would therefore force the hand of the NATO countries. Something like Austria, Czechoslovakia and then Poland, I remember those countries from my history books.

I know we don’t yet have a three day week, power cuts, or rubbish accumulating in Leicester Square but Nicola is fundamentally against more drilling in the North Sea (cynically waiting for Independence maybe) when we should be absolutely be trying to reduce the UKs dependence on Russian oil and gas. Although I do draw the line at opening up coal mines. Will she continue to stoop so low? Or is it that she just does not get it?

And now to finish on a cause dear to my heart:- the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has cancelled a Tchaikovsky programme as it would be inappropriate in the light of recent events. Now this is about the Cardiff Phil thinking it will look good by sticking its tongue out at Putin. Will he care, will he notice, will his first ICBM hit the Arms Park? Nyet!

Now, sit back and let your Purim songs, spielen and seudah run riot. All in the name of good deeds, of course.

Jacqueline Curzon PHOTO: LARA MINSKY PHOTOGRAPHY Immigration & International Lawyer

Commercial Barrister - Problem-Solver

ANDREW M. ROSEMARINE MA (Law, Oxford) 1981, English Bar 1989 BCL (Oxford's Prestigious Higher Law Degree)

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