The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a statement on February 25 calling for President Joe Biden to cease all diplomatic relations with Russia and recall the United States ambassador from Russia.
Wiesenthal Center Founder and Dean Rabbi Marvin Hier and Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda Rabbi Abraham Cooper said in a statement, “It is incomprehensible that while millions of innocent Ukrainians are cowering in bomb shelters and subways, when its government and institutions are being targeted for destruction, that the US State Department can still believe it can be diplomatic business as usual with Vladimir Putin’s regime. There can be no diplomatic niceties with Russia while its invading troops murder, maim, and displace, innocent Ukrainians.” They added that while the sanctions implemented by Biden are important, they’re being undermined by the Biden administration’s continued diplomatic ties with Russia.
“Were he alive today, our namesake Nazi Hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, who was born near Lviv, and who emerged after World War II as the conscience of the Holocaust, would be leading the demand for the world’s democracies, led by the United States, to act decisively against the unprovoked attack by a superpower against a peaceful neighbor,” Hier and Cooper said. “President Biden should shut down all diplomatic interchange with Moscow, except for one—the one that would lead to an immediate cessation of Russia’s invasion and occupation of its neighbor, Ukraine.”
Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is currently under attack from Russian forces, although there is a reported pause in the fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who lost family members in the Holocaust, has rebuffed the Biden administration’s offer to evacuate him from Kyiv. “This night will be very difficult,” Zelensky said in a video message, declaring the night would determine “the fate of Ukraine.”
