The White House has compared a chilling event recently occurring at a Moscow airport to the sordid anti-Jewish pogroms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
On the night of July 15, Kremlin-sponsored paramilitary troops stormed Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow and violently arrested anti-corruption and opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The brutality of the incursion has shocked the international community, particularly coming in the wake of a ratcheting of tensions between the US and Russia.
In a statement following the incident, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany lambasted the Russian government and compared the episode to anti-Jewish pogroms.
This latest incident is just another reminder of the danger posed by the Russian government’s disregard for the rule of law and the suppression of its own people. On this dark night, it is tragically reminiscent of the pogroms that Jews in nineteenth and twentieth-century Russia experienced in such cities as Kishinev and Kiev, McEnany declared.
These references to the pogroms serve to resonate with the international community and are a vivid reminder of the discrimination and violence that Russian Jews and other minority groups have faced throughout their long history. Through such a comparison, McEnany hopes to remind those living in the States and abroad of the dangers of unchecked government power.
Overall, the comparison made by the White House brings into sharp focus Sima Kadmon’s haunting words: It seems that the victims of pogroms are not forgotten. This statement emphasizes the power of the story of the Russian Jews as well as McEnany’s message that such episodes should never again be allowed to take place.