One could undoubtedly hypothesize that the military and political pressure put on the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh during the autumn of 2023, forcing their cleansing from this region, was the prelude to the fate of Palestinians in Gaza a few weeks later. There was little international outcry after 130,000 Armenians were forced to leave their ancient homeland as Azerbaijan completed its conquest of this region. It is quite possible Israel, at least to a certain extent, took its cue from Azerbaijan’s politically successful forced ethnic cleansing of these Armenians. It may be equally likely that Azerbaijan learned from the Israelis, over the previous decades, how to pressure Armenians to leave, considering they were shot at, shelled, bombed, and their borders shut, creating near-starvation conditions, no medicine, and being subject to psychological pressures. Ironically, Gaza’s HAMAS congratulated Azerbaijan on the fall 2020 conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh and outlying regions.
Israel’s contribution to Azerbaijan’s conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh is well known. Azerbaijan has and continues to purchase billions of dollars of Israeli high-technology weaponry used directly on Armenians, as Azerbaijan supplies Israel crude oil, transported through Turkey. This hydrocarbon supply fuels Israel’s conquest of Gaza. Hypocrisy, irony, and anarchy defining the international arena is nothing new. Interests define relations between states. It was in both Israel’s and Azerbaijan’s interest for a successful depopulation of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s national ethos is based on a hatred of Armenians. Aliev’s regime in Azerbaijan puts tremendous pressure on the media, jailing any dissident reporters. However, there is no restriction on lambasting anything Armenian. Israel’s national interest is the emasculation of Iran. A prelude to this requires spy operations as close to the borders of Iran as possible. Israel has bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, bordering much of northwest Iran. Israel’s embassy in Turkmenistan is a mere 40km from Iran’s border. Israel’s Mossad has held joint ‘operations’ with Afghanistan’s Taliban. With Armenians cleared out from border areas with Iran, such geography became ripe for clandestine Israeli operations against Iran.
In 2012, it was widely reported that Israel had access to an airbase in Azerbaijan. However, the cleansing of the Armenians and the elimination of their sovereignty over the border regions on the Iranian border immediately south of Nagorno-Karabakh would be signal an intelligence goldmind for Israel. This cleansing of the Armenians and the opportunity provided Israel did not miss the eyes of some in the Israeli press.
Within months of Azerbaijan’s conquering these southern regions on the Iran border, Israel purportedly set up a ‘smart city’ in the Zangilan region. But there is more to this story. The Azerbaijani press reported that Israel has set up a ‘dairy farm’ in the village of Agali that works with an Italian firm that makes mozzarella. Further, Israeli reporters have visited this so-called smart city and a newly constructed airport in the town of Fizuli, both of which are no man’s land. While this Israeli-Italian effort could be considered entrepreneurial or even magnanimous, one is forced to wonder about its intent. “Israel’s Ambassador [to Azerbaijan] George Deek has announced the start of the Azerbaijan-Israel-Italy cooperation project to turn liberated Zangilan region into a smart city.” As a result of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Italy has secured about 20% of its gas from Azerbaijan, given sanctions against Russian gas. There is no direct evidence of secret Israeli intelligence gathering on the Iranian-Azerbaijani border. It would not be a secret if there were, but otherwise, there is a strong inference. In addition, David Phillips claimed, earlier this year, there are Now 73 Israeli Bases in Azerbaijan Aimed at Iran. Philips provides no hard evidence for his public claim; however, he may be in a position to have better intelligence than what is available from open sources.
Figure 1 See Zangilan ‘Smart City’ and Fizuli ‘International Airport’
During the October 25, 2024, Israeli strike on Iran, four UAVs (drones) or more likely cruise missiles targeted a rocket fuel mixing center associated with the Shahroud Space Center, 370 km east-northeast of Tehran. Iranian reports claim the attack was from the Caspian Sea direction, with two missiles shot down. Alastair Crooke makes the same claim, but from an eyewitness to the attack. Crooke suggests the missiles were fired by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK). Azerbaijani President Aliev may be an oppressive dictator, but not suicidal; the chances of such weapons being allowed to be fired in any way detectable from Azerbaijan are extremely low. However, if they were fired by the MEK north near the Caspian, from where did such large rockets get into their hands?
With state interests at play, Israel sold billions of dollars in military equipment to Azerbaijan. In the years leading up to the 2020 Karabakh war, Israel was the source of 60% of Azerbaijan’s average annual arms purchases. Israel traditionally purchased about 40% of its crude oil from Azerbaijan, with 65% coming from Azerbaijan in 2021. Azerbaijani President Aliev claimed the relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan “as being like an iceberg, nine-tenths of it is below the surface,” seen in a previously secret document, now on Wikileaks, entitled, Azerbaijan’s Discreet Symbiosis with Israel. As late as 2015, Israeli government members championed Azerbaijani claims over Nagorno-Karabakh while working against any recognition of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians; Israeli and Jewish writers have encouraged not only union of Iranian Azerbaijani provinces with the Azerbaijani Republic but have advocated the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, being historically Azerbaijani. Israeli ‘reporters’ have visited construction projects on land conquered by Azerbaijan – at the Iranian border. One can only speculate about the remaining covert nature of the Israeli-Azerbaijani relationship. Quoting Haaretz, in 2012,
“U.S. officials told Foreign Policy that they believe Israel has been granted access to these air bases through a “series of quiet political and military understandings. I doubt that there’s actually anything in writing,” said a former U.S. diplomat who spent his career in the region. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt – if Israeli jets want to land in Azerbaijan after an attack, they’d probably be allowed to do so. Israel is deeply embedded in Azerbaijan, and has been for the last two decades.”
As reported in the Israeli media, Israel has access to at least one former Soviet airbase in Azerbaijan. The English-language version of this Israeli-media report is slightly different from the original Hebrew and refers to several Azerbaijani bases made available to Israel. In Figure 2, the pink balloon A is a former Soviet airbase in Sitalchay, Azerbaijan. Figure 3 is a satellite image with a caption claiming Sitalchay could be an Israeli base. Of course, publicly available documents confirming this don’t exist.
Figure 2 המרחק בין בסיס סיטאלקיי לאיראן (צילום: Google)
Figure 3 בסיס סיטאלקיי באזרבייג’ן. עשוי לשמש את ישרא (צילום: Google Earth, GeoEye)
None of this means that Israel ‘has it out for Armenians.’ Israel does not care who lived on lands conquered and ethnically cleared by Azerbaijan, subsequently made available for Israeli intelligence operations against Iran. This is the second time in just over a century that Zionist adventures contributed to a collateral catastrophe for Armenians.
In 1896, the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, stated, “Under no circumstances are the Armenians to learn that we want to use them in order to erect a Jewish state.” This quote has often been taken out of context, yet it is bad enough even in its proper context. Political Zionism, in the late nineteenth century, sought to establish a Jewish state in one of several places but eventually settled in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. To, at a minimum, allow Jewish immigration into Ottoman-controlled Palestine, Zionist organizations would have to curry favor with Turkish Sultan Hamid II. At the maximum, Zionists would do what they could to wrestle free Palestine from Turkish rule. During the mid-1890s, Zionists, in particular, Herzl, with his financial and publishing contacts, sought to trade such agency for increased Jewish immigration into Palestine. These capabilities included creating pro-Turkish propaganda in the European press since this period was the height of pro-Armenian sentiment due to the empire-wide pogroms, known as the Hamidian massacres, of nearly 300,000 Armenians from 1894 to 1896. In addition, Zionists offered to pay part of the Ottoman financial debt owed to European powers. Zionists took advantage of the massive oppression of the Armenians by providing these services to Sultan Hamid in exchange for Jewish immigration to Palestine – a prerequisite for a Jewish state.
Zionist Max Nordau wanted nothing to do with Herzl’s dealings. Bernard Lazare, a French Jew, quit the 1899 Zionist Congress with the statement, “How can those who purport to represent the ancient people whose history is written in blood extend a welcoming hand to murderers, and no delegate to the Zionist Congress rises up in protest?” He protested the Herzl Zionist faction’s public honoring of Sultan Hamid II. The best that can be ascertained is that none of these proposals were actually implemented.
The Young Turk movement, officially the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), aka Young Turks, had roots stretching back years before it overthrew the Ottoman Sultan in 1908. The CUP promised equality among the Empire’s diverse ethnic groups. However, a more hardline faction within the CUP, influenced by Social Darwinist and ultra-nationalist ideologies, began to gain strength after 1908. These ideas were heavily shaped by pseudo-scientific racial theories propagated by contemporary thinkers, including Arminius Vambéry, a Hungarian Jewish scholar and “The man most responsible for popularizing the concepts of Turan and pan-Turkism…”. “Herzl enlisted Vámbéry to consult on diplomatic work in Turkey. Another influential figure in the rise of Turkish nationalism was Tekin Alp, born Moiz Cohen, a writer and philosopher whose seminal 1912 work, Turan, became foundational to the Pan-Turkic movement. Along with other ideologues, such as Ziya Gökalp, who is often considered the CUP’s chief intellectual, helped shape a mythic narrative of Turkish unity, one that promoted the creation of a homogeneous Turkish state.
The CUP’s ranks included the aforementioned and other numerous high-ranking officials and lesser-known figures who were dönme—Jews who had secretly converted to Islam. These individuals, many of whom had connections to Masonic lodges and other secret societies in Salonika (now Thessaloniki, Greece), played a significant role in the CUP’s rise. An Italian Jew, Emanual Carrasso founded the Macedonian Masonic Lodge and spearheaded the Young Turk movement. Many leaders of the Young Turks movement were from the Salonika region. In his book, The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks, Marc Baer states on page 96, “Dönme played a significant role in the turn-of-the-century Ottoman politics and an important founding and supporting role.” Talaat Pasha, considered the architect of the Armenian genocide, was a member of the Salonika organization, as was the dönme, Dr. Nazim. Nazim, a chief ideologue in the CUP, was vehemently anti-Armenian and championed the Greeks’ expulsion from Anatolia. Dönme Mehmed Cavid was the Ottoman Turkish Minister of Finance until 1914 but remained a financial adviser until 1917.
Baer continues on page 97, “Dönme journalists played an important role in the events of July 1908.” “Fazlı Necip, a member of the Véritas lodge, became a leading CUP activist and publicist and, during the revolution, was put in charge of organizing and coordinating all the movement’s propaganda activities in Salonika.” “Ahmet Emin Yalman “…would become the news editor of the CUP’s Tanin (a title roughly meaning “Echo”) in 1914.” The significance of this date is that it was a year after the 1913 radical nationalist coup within the Young Turks, which brought Talat, Enver, and Jemal Pashas to power.
Zionist interests, aligned with European imperial powers, saw value in fostering a sense of Turkish nationalism, particularly in a population that had mainly been Islamic in identity. The rise of Turkish nationalism and the CUP’s radical policies dovetailed with European imperial goals to weaken and ultimately dismember the Ottoman Empire. This effort brought about the Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioning the Ottoman Empire, ushering in the 1917 Balfour Declaration calling for a Jewish state in Ottoman Palestine. The creation of a “Turkey for the Turks” brought with it the Turkish extermination of three-quarters of the Armenians in Anatolia and extended into Persia and the Russian Caucasus. A million and a half Armenians were exterminated along with their twenty-five hundred-year culture.
The Ottoman Empire was dismembered, ushered in with not only the addition of a strong yet crude nationalist element created within the existing Islamic culture of the Turks but included the efforts of those such as T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), fomenting nationalist movements among the empire’s Arab subjects. The Armenians, Anatolian Greeks, and Assyrians became collateral damage.
Twice in just over a century, the creation of nationalist and expansionist movements from the mythical pan-Turkism to Greater Azerbaijan was used as a tool at the intersection of classic imperialist interest and Herzlian Zionism to today’s globalism and Zionism, respectively. In both cases, the existence of Armenians was used as the basis for Republican Turkey and today’s Azerbaijani national ethos.
Yerevan, Armenia
Author: David Davidian – Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. He has spent over a decade in technical intelligence analysis at major high technology firms. He resides in Yerevan, Armenia
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