Newsweek quotes Putin out of context to make him appear anti-semitic

Tom Porter
Newsweek
Sat, 10 Mar 2018 14:21 UTC

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Jews may be behind alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

In an interview broadcast late Friday, Putin was asked by NBC's Megyn Kelly whether he condoned the electoral interference by 13 Russians named in an indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Comment: The original title of this article reads: "Putin Says That Jews 'With Russian Citizenship' May be Behind U.S. Election Meddling". Now let's see what he actually said:

"Maybe they are not even Russians but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews, but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked; maybe they have dual citizenship of a green card; maybe the U.S. paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know either," he said.

Comment: Not quite the same thing, is it?

He said he was indifferent to the indictment.

"It's all the same to me. To me it absolutely makes no difference because they do not represent the government," Putin answered, according to the Russian-language interview transcript posted Saturday by the Kremlin.

Speaking to Israeli daily Haaretz, lawmaker Ksenia Svetlova called on the Israeli government to condemn the comments.

"Maybe the Jews meddled in the U.S. elections. Maybe the Jews rule the world, maybe the Jews slaughtered Jews in Poland - all of these claims have one root cause - a hatred of Jews," Svetlova said.

Comment: It's the "everybody hates Jews" conspiracy theory, now conveniently used against Putin.

Ronald Klein, a chief of staff of vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, called for Jewish supporters of Donald Trump to pressurise the White House for a reaction to the remark.

"Every Jewish supporter of Donald Trump should be pressing the WH to see if the President agrees with his friend Putin on this statement. And every Jewish person resisting Trump just got another reason to fight even harder," he tweeted Saturday.

Comment: And just to make the most out of this nonsense, Trump is suddenly a "friend" of "Putin-the-anti-semite". Pathetic.

In the interview, Putin went on to say that Russia had neither the tools nor the will to meddle in elections.

"First, we have principles whereby we do not allow others to interfere in our domestic affairs and do not get into the affairs of others....Secondly, we don't have this quantity of tools," he said.

In a June 2017 interview with the network, Putin had compared accusations that Russia interfered in the election to anti-Semitism.

"It's like anti-Semitism," he said, comparing Russia's critics to people who would say things like "the Jews are to blame."

Comment: Newsweek sneaks in this line to make us think Putin is being duplicitous, when in fact it is Newsweek that's being duplicitous.

Comment: Taking Putin's remarks completely out of context in order to make him appear anti-semitic is very cheap on Newsweek's part. Happily, we have access to the full transcript of the interview, where we read:

Megyn Kelly: [Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the company accused of 'meddling' on the US election] is your friend. He has been indicted.

Vladimir Putin: Did you hear what I just said? He is not my friend. I know him, but he is not a friend of mine. Was I not clear? There are many people like that. There are 146 million people in Russia. That is less than in the US, but it is still a lot.

Megyn Kelly: He is a prominent businessman.

Vladimir Putin: A prominent businessman? So what? There are many prominent people in Russia. He is not a state official, he does not work for the government; he is an individual, a businessman.

Megyn Kelly: Some people say his real job is to do your dirty work.

Vladimir Putin: Who are those people? And what dirty work? I do not do any dirty work. Everything I do is in plain view. This is your prerogative; some people in your country enjoy doing dirty work. You think we do the same. That is not true.

Megyn Kelly: It is a) the fact that you know him, you admit that. He is a prominent Russian businessman. And he is specifically accused of running this operation; b) this is the same man who has been accused of sending Russian mercenaries into Syria and they attacked a compound held by American-backed militia. This guy gets around.

Vladimir Putin: You know, this man could have a wide range of interests, including, for example, an interest in the Syrian fuel and energy complex. But we do not support him in any way. We do not get in his way but we do not support him either. It is his own personal initiative.

Megyn Kelly: You did not know about it?

Vladimir Putin: Well, I know that there are several companies, several Russian companies there, maybe his among others, but this has nothing to do with our policy in Syria. If he does anything there, he does not coordinate it with us; he probably coordinates it with the Syrian authorities or the Syrian businesses he works with. We do not interfere in this. Does your government interfere in every step your businesses take, especially small businesses? It is essentially a medium-sized business. So, does your president interfere in the affairs of every medium-sized US business? That is just nonsense, isn't it?

Megyn Kelly: If the 13 Russian nationals plus three Russian companies did in fact interfere in our elections, is that okay with you?

Vladimir Putin: I do not care. I do not care at all because they do not represent the government.

Megyn Kelly: You do not care?

Vladimir Putin: Not at all. They do not represent state interests. If you are worried about anything, state it officially, send us documents proving it and explain what exactly those people are accused of. We will see if they have violated Russian laws...

Megyn Kelly: I did that.

Vladimir Putin: No, this is not true. If they violated Russian law, we will prosecute them. If they did not, there is nothing to prosecute them for in Russia. But after all, you must understand that people in Russia do not live under US law but under Russian law. This is how it is. If you want to reach an agreement with us, let us negotiate, choose the subject, make an agreement and sign it. But you refuse to do this. I am telling you for the third time: we have proposed working together on cyberspace issues. But the US refuses to work like this and instead throws 13 Russians to the media. Maybe they are not even Russians, but Ukrainians, Tatars or Jews, but with Russian citizenship, which should also be checked: maybe they have dual citizenship or a Green Card; maybe, the US paid them for this. How can you know that? I do not know either.

Obviously, Putin was desperately trying to get the point across to Megyn Kelly that the Russian 'trolls' were not part of the Russian government and in no way represent it, and that they were working on their own initiative or for third party interests. As an example, he mentioned Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews and even Americans. But he was clearly not trying to push forward a 'Jewish conspiracy theory' as Newsweek suggests. Nobody is taking Putin's comments to mean that he is anti-Ukrainian, anti-Tatar or anti-American. So why should we think they were anti-semitic?

Why did Putin choose these groups of people as examples? Simply because those are people who may have loyalties to other countries while holding a Russian nationality - and once again, this was said to stress the point that they did not represent the Russian government. In the case of the Jews, it is a fact that many around the world are loyal to Israel while holding a different nationality. Is it anti-semitic to make a passing reference to this fact?

It is surprising that something so obvious even requires an explanation, but that is the sad state of affairs when we encounter malicious mainstream media headlines and articles such as this one.