Ukraine's Yushchenko Honors Anti-Semite

zmag: Remember all the frothy praise of Viktor Yuschenko and what a great democrat he was -- back when he was the leader of the so-called Orange Revolution that toppled the corrupt Ukrainian regime of President Leonid Kuchma -- from George Bush, the neocons, Freedom House, and the Western press in general? Well, this week a little-noticed dispatch from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the worldwide Jewish news service founded in 1917) related how now-President Yushchenko has just awarded Ukraine's highest honor -- the "Hero of Ukraine" medal -- to a notorious anti-Semite, Ivan Spodarenko. But not a word of this outrage has appeared in the major U.S. dailies.

"Spodarenko, a Socialist lawmaker, is the head of the editorial board and former longtime editor of Silski Visti. In 2004, the newspaper published an article asserting that 400,000 Jews served in Nazi SS forces during the German invasion of Ukraine in World War II," the JTA reported. "With its circulation of 500,000, Silski Visti is one of the most widely read Ukrainian newspapers, catering mainly to rural readers. In 2002 and 2004, the newspaper published a series of anti-Semitic articles that outraged the Jewish community. The paper was sued over anti-Semitic articles in 2004 but the case was closed in 2005 without a verdict. Last April, Spodarenko was among the signatories of an anti-Semitic letter calling 'to stop the criminal activities' of the organized Jewish community in Ukraine.'" Read more