A Modest Proposal: Let’s blame it on the Jews

Mel Brooks’s “Springtime for Hitler” is more famous. So is Chaplin. But the Three Stooges were there first.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently requested Ukraine make concessions in its sovereignty to help Putin “save face.” Others have expressed a need to offer Putin a “face-saving” gesture so he can get out of Ukraine without having to nuke anyone.

It’s a real problem.

The invasion has proven to be a disaster for Russia beyond everyone’s imagination. What we expected to be a fast easy victory, failed. Worse, the unimaginable occurred. Russia lost. None of Russia’s war objectives were realized and Russia is worse off than before. Wow!

So, something needs to be done. But it would be a disaster — a snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory — to reward Putin’s invasion with even the slightest gain of territory. In fact exactly the opposite should transpire. If Putin needs a buffer zone to protect Russia from NATO aggression, let’s carve it from Russia itself. Let’s make a 50 mile wide international demilitarized neutral zone out of Russian borderland. That should provide some protection for Russia and a disincentive for any future offensive military action.

But the problem remains. How to save face? It shocks me that the obvious answer hasn’t already been effected. We need merely blame Putin’s defeat on backstabbing Jews. He was misinformed and betrayed by disloyal Zionists. So simple.

The merits are obvious. a) The strategy is time-tested and effective. It always works. b) It unites Russians against an weak internal enemy whom they can defeat to recover their national pride. c) No need to accept Russian incompetence or inferiority. d) Russia can blame not only its defeat on the Jews, but the invasion itself! “Hey, we didn’t want to go there! Why would we? They’re our brothers! It was the Jews who made us invade Ukraine to get rid of their — not our — Nazi enemies. We did it for them, and this is our reward! Despite WWII, we have nothing against Nazis. Some of our best friends are Nazis. No, really, this was all the work of the international Zionist conspiracy.”

e) It’s cheap. It costs the West nothing and Russia very little. Russia has few Jews left (~600,000) so no big impact. f) As a Jew myself, we actually get a bit more than usual out of this perennial solution: we get to have a new Jewish super-hero, Zelenskyy, as partial compensation. (Seriously, I’m a fan.) g) There’s a nice poetic twist here. Putin attempts to de-Nazify Ukraine, but ends up Nazifying Russia. (Isn’t there a second law of thermodynamics corollary: no matter what you do, the number of Nazis always increases?) h) Commercial tie-ins and opportunities. (Below.)

I just can’t find any downsides here.

Some people may feel it’s a mistake to offer this as a “solution.” But what the hey? It’s going to happen. Why not get ahead of the curve? Let’s embrace it. There are the “I betrayed Putin” T-shirts with the Stars of David adornments. And the rock group “Zelenskyy and the Backstabbers.” Lots of opportunities.