ALEX GALITSKY – Israel should rethink its relationship with Azerbaijan – opinion
By ALEX GALITSKY JULY 21, 2020 – Jerusalem Post:
Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey and fellow denier of the Armenian Genocide, has actively sought the eradication of the region’s indigenous Armenian inhabitants and traces of their millennia-old civilization.
Azerbaijan’s burgeoning relationship with Israel has long been predicated on the false narrative that Azerbaijan is a “country of tolerance.” Azerbaijan has often paraded the existence of a small, but vibrant, Jewish community in the country as a testament to its commitment to diversity and tolerance.
However, Azerbaijan, a dictatorship based on petrodollars that has been ruled by the same family for over a half-century, is anything but that.
Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey and fellow denier of the Armenian Genocide, has actively sought the eradication of the region’s indigenous Armenian inhabitants and traces of their millennia-old civilization.
Throughout Soviet occupation, the Azerbaijani SSR denied cultural, political, linguistic and economic rights to the Armenians of Artsakh (also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh) and Nakhijevan, and in the late 80s and early 90s, Azerbaijani authorities started to engage in government-backed pogroms and massacres of Armenians in Azerbaijan to suppress calls for Artsakh’s independence.
These pogroms also targeted Jewish communities, which began to flee Baku en masse in response to the increasing incidents of harassment.
Azerbaijan’s assault on the region’s Armenians ultimately culminated in a full-scale war which ended with a ceasefire that effectively secured the establishment of an independent and democratic Artsakh.
For the last 30 years, the Azerbaijani government has frequently deployed rhetoric advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia itself – regularly referring to Armenians as enemies of the state – and denying the thousands of years of Armenian civilization in the region.
Throughout the early 2000s, some 28,000 Armenian cultural monuments in Nakhijevan were destroyed by Azerbaijan as part of an unprecedented cultural genocide.
Independent reports have also found that Armenophobi – or anti-Armenian sentiment – has become so entrenched in government, media, and state institutions that an entire generation of Azerbaijanis have grown up listening only to hate speech towards Armenians.
www.jpost.com/opinion/azerbaijan-is-not-a-true-friend-of-israel-635729
