Among the various items on the domestic and foreign policy agendas for Israel's new government, one less-discussed issue is the Jewish state's approach to the South Caucasus region. Yet due to several key parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Eurasia represents an important and instructive test case for Israeli policymakers.
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One parallel is the two conflicts' seemingly endless nature. Following May's hostilities between Israel and Hamas, although the onslaught of rockets fired from Gaza has stopped for the time being, last month's ceasefire is merely a Band-Aid rather than a long-term solution to the conflict.
In the South Caucasus, Armenia's formal surrender to Azerbaijan in their 2020 war and Armenian forces' subsequent pullout from occupied territories in Nagorno-Karabakh raised hopes for an enduring peace. Yet more recently, renewed border tensions have proven that genuine peace remains elusive. In early June, two Azerbaijani journalists and a local official were killed by a landmine explosion in an area that Armenian forces had vacated in November, with Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry accusing Armenia of violating the Geneva Conventions by deliberately planting landmines in the formerly occupied territories. Further, amid the recent tension, Armenia and Azerbaijan have halted negotiations over reopening their borders and creating new transportation routes.
A second parallel is that these conflicts are associated with antisemitism – well beyond the regions where the conflicts are actually taking place.
Following the wave of antisemitic assaults stemming from the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, European-style antisemitism suddenly does not feel so far-fetched on US soil. Even before the latest Gaza flare-up, more than half (53%) of American Jews said they feel less safe in the US than they did five years ago, the Pew Research Center revealed in a survey released last month.
A lesser-known form of antisemitism comes from Armenian commentators and activists. Alex Galitsky, communications director for the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) lobby's Western Region, tweeted during last month's hostilities that "self-defense' can't justify the systematic vilification & dehumanization that has led the world to see the assault on Palestine as permissible. We too felt that deafening silence when Azerbaijan - armed by Israel - forced Armenians from their land." He followed up with another comparison of the Israeli and Azerbaijani governments, linking the Simon Wiesenthal Center's criticism of Palestinian terrorism with the organization's praise for Azerbaijani society's multicultural tolerance, in a tweet that lambasted how Azerbaijan's "genocidal government institutionalized the dehumanization of the Armenian people."
Anyone who dismisses such rhetoric as legitimate criticism of the Israeli and Azerbaijani governments should check the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism – which encompasses the delegitimization, demonization, and application of double standards towards Israel, and also represents the US State Department's official definition of antisemitism. Tweets containing the words "Israel" and "genocide" appeared as often as thousands of times per hour during May's war, and the same "genocide" accusations are frequently leveled at Azerbaijan in attempts to delegitimize and demonize that country.
The pro-Armenian lobby, meanwhile, has a chronic antisemitism problem that is exposed through its social media activity. In tweets promoting the theme of "Christian Artsakh" during March 2020, the ANCA described Nagorno-Karabakh as "an ancient #Christian land, modern democratic republic, and home to 1st Century holy sites – under attack by #Azerbaijan's oil-rich #Aliyev dictatorship." The ANCA repeatedly used the same language to target supporters of Azerbaijan such as Jewish lawmaker Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). In addition to weaponizing Christianity for political purposes, the ANCA promoted anti-Semitic tropes – including by tweeting a painting of the arrest of Jesus, invoking the myth that Jews killed Jesus, and a photo of silver coins, conjuring the antisemitic conspiracy theory of Jewish control over financial markets and governments.
This activity is not surprising when considering that, according to an Anti-Defamation League study, Armenians believe a variety of antisemitic stereotypes are "probably true" – and that they agree with those tropes at an even higher rate (58%) than Iranians (56%).
Armenian antisemitism is also apparent in the country's history of glorifying Nazi collaborators such as Garegin Nzhdeh, commander of the Armenian Legion, a unit that rounded up Jews and resistance fighters and marched them to concentration camps. Nzhdeh is honored through statues, streets, or memorials in nearly 20 Armenian municipalities.
A third parallel between the Israeli-Palestinian and Armenia-Azerbaijan conflicts pertains to the violent nature of protests taking place abroad. Much like Jews were physically attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters in major US cities last month, Armenian protesters attacked a group of two-dozen Azerbaijanis in Los Angeles in July 2020, causing injuries that required urgent medical care and prompting a hate-crime investigation into the incident.
For Israel, which maintains deep ties with Azerbaijan but at times projects a neutral or silent stance toward the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, the takeaway for the new government should be clear: stand with Azerbaijan, a crucial Muslim-majority ally, and stand against Armenian antisemitism. US Jews should arrive at the same conclusion, understanding that antisemitism coming from pro-Palestinian activists and pro-Armenian activists are branches of the same tree.
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