Azerbaijan: Israeli Arms Sales, Greased Palms, Ethnic-Conflict

Latest: The New Arab has published my latest piece about the Bibi coast to coast road show and charm offensive. It involved shameless fawning over Elon Musk and a much-sought after meeting with Pres. Joe Biden.  Give it a read.

Over the past two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought several wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave of ethnic Armenians which Azerbaijan claims as it own.  There were ceasefires, there were agreements which restrained each side and permitted a status quo which preserved its autonomy.

Azerbaijan is ruled by a corrupt dictator, Ilham Aliyev, who has amassed enormous wealth from the country’s oil and other natural resources.  He’s stolen as much of it as he can to enrich himself and his interests. In 2013, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project declared him its Corrupt Person of the Year. His greed and territorial ambitions have only grown since then.

He’s also built up a close relationship with Israel’s weapons industry and purchased well over $10-billion of the country’s most advanced weapons systems.  Its largest purchase has been drones, which it has used to devastating effect against Armenian soldiers.  Armenia, on the other hand, has chosen its allies poorly.  Before it invaded Ukraine, Russia served as a guarantor of of Armenian territorial integrity, and as a mediator in the conflict between the two countries.

But Russia is now locked into a messy, prolonged war in Ukraine. It cannot offer Armenia anything.  Which has left Aliyev sitting in the catbird seat.  He has a massive cache of the most advanced weapons provided by Israel and Turkey.  Israel provided 70% of the country’s weaponry over the past five years.  He saw that with Russia preoccupied, and Armenia left out in the cold with few avenues to arm itself, now was the time to strike.

His forces unleashed a savage bombardment, killing 200 residents of the enclave. Azeri forces also drove out Armenian separatists and now have absolute control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a dream the dictator has cherished for years.  100,000 ethnic Armenians are fleeing their homes.  They refuse to live under an Azeri dictator.  Like Nakba apologists, Aliyev will claim they left voluntarily. Those who have fled know otherwise.  Nor has Azerbaijan exerted any effort to persuade them to stay. Nor did Israel in 1948, except in a few isolated local instances.  Aliyev will be only too happy to replace those leaving with his own citizens. Eventually, they will take over and transform Nagorno-Karabakh into an Azeri stronghold.

As Israel’s apartheid regime ethnically cleanses Palestinians at home and arms the same violent dispossession of others abroad, it’s never been more clear that the fight against colonial and repressive regimes is connected. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/yDTEZkbS7l

— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) October 4, 2023

Ottoman Turkey perpetrated the Armenian genocide of 1915. Now, Israel’s weapons industry has enabled a second such tragedy: an Armenian Nakba.  Nagorno-Karabakh is an empty shell.  Virtually all of the indigenous Armenian population of the enclave has fled in fear of what their fate would be under their new Azeri masters.

As Israel’s apartheid regime ethnically cleanses Palestinians at home and arms the same violent dispossession of others abroad, it’s never been more clear that the fight against colonial and repressive regimes is connected. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/yDTEZkbS7l

— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) October 4, 2023

Jews have suffered exile and expulsion for two millennia. In 1948, it returned the “favor,” inflicting the Nakba on 1-million indigenous Palestinians.  Now, Israel has done it once again.

Haaretz called out the CEOs of Israel’s major arms makers:

Do Michael Federman (Elbit Systems), Yuval Steinitz (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems) and Amir Peretz (Israel Aerospace Industries) see the ethnic cleansing and the horrific war crimes, or just the bottom line of the companies they head? Do they feel any empathy toward the victims or are they engaged only in calculating the dividends their investors will receive, the royalties paid to the government and the bonuses they’ll be paid? What passes through the head of Rachel Klein, the director of the Defense Exports Control Agency, who spearheaded a “reform” that loosened the regulation of such exports? Is she happy that all the forms were correctly filled, or does she feel a twinge in her heart?

The answer clearly is that there is no morality when it comes to the billions Israel reaps from such massive arms exports.  A sale is a sale.  A client is a client.  A billion is a billion. These weapons not only kill civilians, they destroy countries, they provoke civil wars, they wreak havoc throughout the world. This is Israel’s gift to humanity.

Armenia’s ambassador to Israel sought a shred of empathy:

“I don’t see why Israel should not be in the position to express at least some concern about the fate of people being expelled from their homeland,” he told AP.

Poor man. Seeking solace from a nation steeped in the blood of its victims.

During the Azeri attack, Israel’s leading arms supplier, Elbit, boasted of a $95-million deal to provide the SkyStriker “loitering munition” to an undisclosed “European” nation.  The media outlet reporting the story could not identity the buyer because military censor prohibited it.

Israeli source confirms that the “European country” buying this advanced weapons system is Azerbaijan. Azeri planes are landing daily at Ovdah IDF airbase and loading advanced Israeli weapons systems like this to fight its war against Armenia. 1/ https://t.co/eamtwXfEJb

— Tikun Olam (@richards1052) September 20, 2023

An Israeli source reported to me that the buyer was not “European,” but Azerbaijan. My tweet above broke this story, while it remains under Israel censorship.  The censor knew that announcing the sale during such an armed conflict would risk a charge that Israel was escalating it, which is exactly what it was doing.

In fact, such Israeli interventions have led to genocide perpetrated by bloodthirsty regimes engaged in civil war and ethnic conflict.  They include Rwanda, South Sudan, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and others. Israel, the 10th largest weapons exporter in the world, is a major global destabilizer. It does not care about right or wrong; ethics or morality. It could care less about politics or human rights.  All that matters is the sale, and whatever influence that offers to advance its state interests.

To illustrate how far Israel’s weapons industry was willing to go to get the sale, a drone manufacturer, Aeronautics, sent its engineers to Azerbaijan to sell its products to the military. During a meeting with Azeri officers the latter demanded that the Israelis demonstrate their product live, by attacking Armenian troops.  The engineers refused to do so.  They wanted no part in directly stoking the armed conflict.  But a senior executive accompanying them did so.  In so doing, Israel participated in a foreign ethnic conflict.  That’s why the Israeli military censor refused to identity the company or country where this happened.  An Israeli source did so and I reported it here.

Aliyev has more than returned the Israeli favor by offering it an Azeri airfield from which it can launch drone flights over neighboring Iran; or for an air assault on Iran.  Israel has also established a listening post in Azerbaijan which enables it to intercept Iranian communications.  It did so under the guise of building a “smart city.”  Azerbaijan has no need for city built on smart technology. It was a ruse to conceal the sophisticated surveillance infrastructure it planned to build there.  And of course, the Azeris became the first Muslim country in the past 45 years to post an ambassador in Israel: a feather in Bibi Netanyahu’s cap as he attempted to make inroads into the Muslim world. These efforts led to the Abraham Accords. Azerbaijan seems to have no interest in joining. But it doesn’t need to since it already gets all it wants from Israel.

The “beauty” of Israel’s arms sales to such dictators and genocidaires is that they will not stop with their initial goal,  whether it be genocide or conquest.  Armed superiority encourages them to behave even more aggressively, become more expansionist, more nationalist, more corrupt, more dictatorial.

Take Azerbaijan: will Aliyev be satisfied with swallowing Nagorno-Karabakh whole?  What about Iran?  Could it be next? There are millions of ethnic Azeris in northern Iran.  There is a insurgency seeking to secede from Iran.

Israel will encourage whatever territorial goals Azerbaijan may have regarding Iran.  It will incite Aliyev to take a more aggressive posture towards Iran.  To threaten it.  To attack it.  To subvert it. Iran on the other hand, will not take this lying down.  It is not Armenia. It has a powerful army and a vast supply of drones of its own.  It can inflict pain on Azerbaijan if it is attacked.

This scenario may never occur. There may be enough of a balance of forces that precludes either country from attacking the other.  But this region is like a tinder keg waiting for a match to spark an explosion.  It may not happen suddenly, all at once. Tension and hostility may build up gradually.  But eventually, the worst case scenario could happen.  And Israel will be right there to exploit it when it does.