Israel Boosting “Azeri” Mythology

Israel Boosting “Azeri” Mythology

Abulfazl Elçibey: “Israel could help Azerbaijan in Karabakh problem by convincing the Americans to stop the Armenians”

Right from the downfall of the Soviet Union, Israel’s interest in the Turkic states of the former USSR, especially Azerbaijan, led to ever growing relations between the two in fields as diverse as economic, diplomatic, intelligence and military.

Of course, Caspian oil, especially its transport bypassing regional powers non-desirable to Israel, namely Iran and Russia was a major factor in the calculations but the traditional Judeo-Turkish friendship since the Ottoman days, the need to find allies in the hostile Islamic world and the similarity of the two states in a struggle for asserting their nationhood given their short history, also play essential roles in the rapprochement.

Right away it should be explained that exactly the same way the “Azeris” keep the balance not to annoy the bear in their courtship of the West unlike the head-on confrontation of the Georgians, Turkish conniving diplomacy regarding Israel has at the same time drawn criticism from the latter of the cautious engagement of “Azerbaijan” in its relations, the most obvious being the nonexistence of an “Azeri” embassy in Israel. Definitely, the friendship of the two is viewed with distrust and angers the Muslim states especially Saudi Arabia and Iran. In parentheses, let it be told once again that on one hand “Azerbaijan” plays the dirty religion card to revile Armenia in Islamic conferences, on the other hand establishes close relations with the states most deprecated by the Islamic world.

It seems the doubt expressed in the Stratfor article above to the profitability of the BTC pipeline dissipates and the motive for the initial hype created around Azerbaijan's oil reserves is justified when the Israel-“Azeri” alliance is considered in this context.

The online exposé “Israel and Azerbaijan's Furtive Embrace” by Ilya Bourtman appeared on Middle East Quarterly’s summer 2006 edition. All in all the article shows it’s about more than oil, revealing even more the reasons for sexing up the importance of the phony state and weaving fables around the infinitude of “Azeri” oil reserves to justify the construction of BTC. Bourtman surprisingly confesses that “Israel aimed to exploit the region's energy resources by lobbying for the development of gas and oil pipelines that would help its allies and circumvent its foes”. The chief reason for the bogus state’s courtship of Israel according to the author: “Desperate for outside assistance, Baku turned to Israel to provide leverage against a much stronger Iran and a militarily superior Armenia”.

Exaggerating for the nth time the weight of the Armenian lobby when its only power is the truth, Bourtman admits that Israel’s myth manufacturing machine which truly influences US policy always comes in handy for the coward, genocidal Turks: “Israel's foreign ministry vowed to lend its lobby's weight in Washington to improve Azeri-American relations, providing a counterweight to the influential Armenian lobby. According to Azerbaijan's first president, Abulfas Elçibey, “Israel could help Azerbaijan in [the] Karabakh problem by convincing the Americans to stop the Armenians.” …On several occasions, Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan's president between 1993 and 2003, personally requested military assistance from Israeli prime ministers”.

A representative of a country whose creation is justified by its people’s suffering, Bourtman apparently does not experience pangs of conscience by Israel’s assistance to the killing machine of the pioneers of genocide, “Following its loss in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku reached out to Israel for help in rebuilding its military. Israeli defense firms obliged, selling Azerbaijan advanced aviation, antitank, artillery, and anti-infantry weapon systems”. Nothing can stand in the way of love. There are rumors that “undisclosed Israeli weapons system was being sent to Turkey where it would be assembled and then delivered to Azerbaijan” according to the author.

Obviously, the bad news is the article keeps up and amplifies the “Azeri” disinformation about “20 percent of Azerbaijani territory …occupied by an Armenian army”, the fairy tale claiming an ancient “Azeri” nation cut in two when he asks the rhetorical question, “how can Azerbaijan be “the Azeri state” when close to 20 million Azeris¬ almost twice its population¬ live in neighboring Iran?” and the claptrap of the sort.

While 20 million is not so far from three times the population of fake “Azerbaijan” with all its non-Turkish minorities taken into account, considering the Turkish speaking Iranians subjects of a “state” that was only counterfeited less than a century ago when their own land south of the Araxes was called after Atrpat (Atropat) more than 2300 years ago is absurd. Let us be reminded once more that the real Azarbaijanis lost their original Pahlavi Persian language some five centuries ago as a result of Turkic domination in the region, but their affinity is to their homeland Iran and not to the fabricated nonentity of the tent-dwelling Tatars of yesterday turned “Azeri” around mid 20th century AD.

To the good news: the article gathers a considerable amount of information regarding the relations between Israel and Azerbaijan. The “two countries formally established relations in April 1992, one year after Azerbaijan declared its independence”. These manifested themselves in close cooperation with Israeli intelligence granting “Israeli officials a defensive platform in …a country 93 percent Muslim”, and in big business such as Israeli brands: Strauss ice cream, Maccabee beer, Motorola Israel mobile phones, etc., inundating the “Azeri” market, the Bezeq telephone company becoming the highest shareholder in “Azeri” telephone company since 1994, installing phones all over the country. In addition, “Israeli firms built and guard the fence around Baku's international airport, monitor and help protect Azerbaijan's energy infrastructure, and even provide security for Azerbaijan's president on his foreign visits …Israeli intelligence maintains listening posts along the Azerbaijani border with Iran …dozens of Israeli companies operate in Azerbaijan, especially within the energy sector …Indeed, Israeli-Azerbaijani trade now outweighs the trade relations Israel has developed with the countries of Central Asia by at least a factor of five”.

As far as oil and gas are concerned it is confirmed that the whole BTC affair could comfortably be called the Baku–Israel pipeline, bearing in mind the input of “major Israeli entrepreneurs such as Shoul Eisenberg” and Yossi Maimon, the latter being “instrumental in brokering gas pipeline deals throughout Central Asia, such as the March 1999 $2.5 billion pipeline deal from Turkmenistan to Turkey. He boasted to The Wall Street Journal in 2001 that “…Controlling the transport route is controlling the product.”[31] Israeli strategic thinkers expected that establishing friendly ties to Azerbaijan would not only provide energy security but also allow Jerusalem to influence pipeline routes, a benefit both to Israeli political clout and a factor to strengthen Israel's allies at the expense of its adversaries”.

The whole truth: “The ultimate route of the $3.2 billion (went higher in the end H.) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, for example, circumvents Iran and Russia (mainly Armenia since they can hardly hurt the two cited powers. H.) and ties secular, pro-western Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey (it’s that you say they are secular… H.) together in a way that enhances Israel's strategic interests, an aspect acknowledged by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 1997[33] and recognized in Azerbaijan as well.[34] Rafael Abbasov, former director of economic and trade development at the Israeli embassy in Baku and now an economics officer at the Asian Development Bank in Azerbaijan, believes that …“In terms of oil, Israeli firms are a lot more involved than at first meets the eye …Often they register as U.S. or U.K. branches and thus enter the Azerbaijani energy market and participate in bidding for tender contracts.”[35]”

In spite of this rosy outlook Bourtman regrets that, “To date, Azerbaijan has not yet fulfilled its promise to open an embassy in Israel”. In politics at least it seems the Turks are even wilier than the masters of shrewdness. He whines, “After fifteen years of diplomatic relations, the two countries have not signed a single official treaty. As one senior Israeli diplomat laments, “There is no formalization of these relationships. Not even a cultural agreement, or tourism. Formal relations have not yet yielded one single agreement between the two states.”[39]”. Yet this section ends with the happy note: “Perhaps the only successful diplomatic initiatives have been in youth exchanges. …The Azerbaijan-Israel Youth Friendship Society works to promote youth relations through the teaching of each others' histories”. My, my I can’t help imagining the thick baloney made according to halal Islamic slaughter and kosher at the same time being fed the receptive Israeli youth about the millions of eons old ancient “Azerbaijan” empire.

Here it goes, a predator impersonating a lamb “Kanan Seyidov, the society's deputy chief of international relations, explained that the program works to explain “the real situation of Israeli people living under the everyday terror threat, and the impact of Armenian aggression (in form of civilized demonstrations replied by barbaric expression of Turkic customs in Sumgait in 1988. H.) and occupation on Azerbaijan (a counterfeit state that occupies 20% of historic Armenian territory H.).”[41]”.

A non-negligible part of the article also focuses on the Islamic terrorism which the author believes threatens both states, and the need to counter its infiltration in “Azerbaijan”. Given the fact that “Azerbaijan” used Al Qaeda, Afghan and Chechen terrorists against the Armenians as early as in 1992 and the US used them in the Balkans against Christian Serbia, the perpetuating of the already insipid story of “war on terror” to justify every misdeed by the West makes the examining of this section superfluous for our subject. Suffice mentioning this to be clear of quoting Bourtman out of context.

A whole section is devoted to the players of the Bogus Oil Adventures in “Azeriland” doing everything to outdo one another, what necessitated the promotion of Israel-“Azeri” cooperation. Between the lines Bourtman throws slime at the Armenians to undermine their victory. So, citing dubious sources in his introduction of the cast, Iran “has engaged in arms trafficking with Armenian separatists[43]”, or calling Turkish Daily News (Dec. 28, 1998) to the witness stand he “exposes” “Moscow's support for Armenian guerillas in Nagorno-Karabakh.[53]”. Further, “The Azerbaijan-Israel relationship has successfully shut out the influence of Persian Gulf states in the Caspian”. It seems these two are at war with half of the world yet Artsakh people do not have the right of self-determination in their tiny homeland, classic intolerance for the thorn in someone else's eye ignoring the log in their own rear.

Before we forget, there is still one “important” actor, “Among regional countries, Turkey has benefited most from the development of Azerbaijani-Israeli cooperation. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Turkish officials began wooing Azerbaijani politicians ¬stressing their shared ethnicity, language, and Armenian experiences.[61]”

And what Armenian experiences does Bourtman vaguely allude to? That both manifestations of the same disaster have exterminated the Armenians, squashing them under their paws wherever their hoofs have trampled upon or the Turkish myth of Armenians having committed genocide against the Turks killing 2.5 to 3 million (and growing) from each variant when millions of armed to their teeth Armenian women, children and elderly, every caravan of several hundreds of them watched by only a handful of “gendarmes” recruited from thugs newly freed from prisons, walked like sheep to roast in the desert and could not even kill their “guides”? Considering the dubious source, the “Turk” posing as Swede Svante E. Cornell, educated at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, holder of an honorary doctoral degree from the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences it seems Bourtman has the second “theory” in mind.

To demonstrate the support of this triumvirate of evil for one another, recounting a certain “Caspian Sea incident” in July 2001 he boasts: “the Iranian warship Geophysics 3 threatened an Azerbaijani oil exploration ship in the Caspian Sea. As emotions and militaries flared, Turkey issued a statement promising to defend Azerbaijan.[65] It was clear that Israel would also take part. As an Israeli defense minister who was in Turkey shortly thereafter insisted, Israel would have joined the triumvirate against “Iranian aggression.”[66]”.

Last but not least, “The U.S. government also remains a player. Baku cooperated with Jerusalem in the hope of improving ties with Washington.[68] …In 1992, the United States Congress passed the Freedom Support Act promising economic and humanitarian aid to all the former Soviet republics except Azerbaijan. Muscled through by the Armenian lobby (there we go again! Ilya Bourtman, haven’t you heard of the Grads being fired daily on Stepanakert? H.), Section 907 of the act legislated that Washington would not give aid to Azerbaijan until the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.[69]”

Showing whose lobby is the strongest Bourtman pats himself on the back, “As Hassan Hassanov, Azerbaijan's foreign minister, stated in 1997, “We don't conceal that we rely on the Israeli lobby in the U.S.”[71] This paid dividends when, in 2002, President Bush waived Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.[72] In a rare and understated public admission, an official at the Azerbaijani embassy in Washington acknowledged that, “Jewish organizations made a certain contribution in the Section 907 waving process.”[73]”.

Ending his exposé in the same tone of dissatisfaction from the “Azeri” cold feet: “One Israeli diplomatic likened the relationship to that between “a virgin and a gentlemen caller she wants it but is afraid.”[85]”. Or the horrendously old and ugly prostitute I mention elsewhere who’s selling her decomposing self at an exorbitant price.

The shrewd Israeli statesmen are confused: “Israeli politicians, while always calling for closer cooperation with Azerbaijan, have become frustrated with Azerbaijan's cold feet. Some high-level Israeli diplomats privately wonder whether state interests or personal interests such as business contacts with senior Iranians are driving Azerbaijani officials away.[86] They wonder whether Arab refusal to support pro-Azerbaijani U.N. resolutions regarding issues such as the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute may erode Azerbaijani resolve.[87]”.

If not all of these relations could be seen as direct animosity towards Armenians, the falsehoods spread all over western media in paper, waveform or digital formats have taken a life of their own, given the weight of Israelis and other Jewish personalities involved in journalism, TV and radio.

Regrettably, fairytales such as “Northern Azerbaijan/Southern Azerbaijan”; the total baloney about a nation cut in two when never in human history the Iranian people of real Azarbaijan (Atrpatakan) have ever been called Tatars nor the roaming leftovers of Oghuz invasions promoted to Tatars in the beginning of the 19th century, or any group or tribe for that matter, were ever referred to as “Azeri” before the 1930s; the revoltingly distasteful Khojaly hoax, especially its shameless juxtaposition to the Armenian Genocide and the trivializing of it; the mathematically impossible, ridiculous claim of 20% “occupied” “Azeri” land without mentioning the liberation of the 9% supposed “Azeri” territories being the direct consequence of the “Azeri” aggression beside the fact that historically and legally it has been Armenian land; and last but not least, the fable of one million “Azeri” refugees aiming at future usurpation of Artsakh by suffocating the Armenians by their constructed majority, do have a negative effect and greatly advance the “Azeri” smear and hate campaign against Armenia where the losers were unable to achieve their genocidal aims through war and extermination. The beast of pray has been portrayed as the victim of the Armenian aggression and the entire Artsakh liberation movement has been reduced to an ancient territorial dispute.

These falsehoods are greatly advanced by history prostitutes such as the Israeli intelligence agent, the author of “Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity” Brenda Shaffer with Harvard qualifications, the author of garbage such as “Russia and a Divided Azerbaijan”, “Russian Azerbaijan, 1905 (! H.)-1920” Tadeusz Swietochowski with Monmouth University credentials and followers of the king of “Azeri” fiction fabrication Ziya Bunyatov.

Astonishingly, not a word about the plight of the Armenians under “Azeri” tyranny nor the consideration of their right for self-determination, nor a remark about the genocidal acts all over fake “Azerbaijan” and the resulting 400,000 plus Armenian real refugees whose houses were appropriated by the murderous “Azeri” thugs where they could have housed even one million refugees in case these existed, nor an acknowledgement of the fact that no retaliatory acts in the customary Turkish behavior occurred anywhere on Armenian soil, nor an utterance about the diabolical destruction of the ancient Jugha cemetery in broad daylight has dripped the parsimonious pens of these diffuser of disinformation. As an analogy, just imagine the torrents of “Nazi, Hitler, anti-Semite” condemnations for at least 48 hours on international mass media in case a swastika were to be sprayed on a contemporary Jewish tombstone anywhere on the planet.