Category: Harut Sassounian

Not a day passes without Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan making a new blunder.

This is what happens when a yellow journalist becomes the head of government. Most Armenians, blinded by their utter dislike of the former leaders, welcomed him initially with open arms.

Fortunately, Pashinyan’s popularity has plummeted from 80% five years ago to 13% last month. Over the years, various Armenian polls have indicated a steady decline in his ratings. Nevertheless, he remains in power and refuses to resign, especially after his calamitous mismanagement of the 2020 war, resulting in the loss of most of the Republic of Artsakh and the deaths and injury of thousands of Armenian soldiers.

Pashinyan has made so many mistakes that it is hard to mention them all. His biggest blunder was recognizing the Republic of Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, thus dishonoring the sacrifices of thousands of dead and wounded Armenian soldiers. He had no right ‘to gift’ Artsakh to Azerbaijan, since the territory of the Republic of Artsakh did not fall under the jurisdiction of Armenia.

Among Pashinyan’s many other blunders are: swinging a hammer in the air during the electoral campaign in 2021, threatening to bash the heads of his political rivals and lay them on the asphalt. He then disparaged Armenians’ long-held devotion to Mt. Ararat, and criticized two of Armenia’s most cherished state symbols: the coat of arms and national anthem.

More recently, Pashinyan complained about the 1990 Declaration of Armenia’s Independence, the initial document that paved the way for the establishment of the Republic of Armenia, after seven decades of Communist rule. He wrongly stated that the Declaration of Independence fomented conflicts with Azerbaijan and Turkey which is at odds with his ‘peace agenda.’

The Declaration of Independence had referred to the 1989 unification act adopted by the legislatures of Soviet Armenia and the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabagh. It had also declared that the Republic of Armenia supports the “international recognition of the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.” Subsequently, Armenia’s constitution referred to the Declaration of Independence.

Last week, on the occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Pashinyan stated: “A critical analysis of the text of the Declaration shows that we eventually chose a narrative and content based on the formula that made us part of the Soviet Union; namely, a confrontational narrative with the regional environment that was to keep us in constant conflicts with our neighbors.”

Pashinyan misinterpreted the Declaration of Independence from the Soviet Union as being “based on the formula that made us part of the Soviet Union.” His faulty explanation is the exact opposite of what the text actually stated.

Pashinyan went on to push forward his unrealistic and defeatist ‘peace agenda’ to normalize Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey. He does not seem to understand that begging for peace does not lead to peace. This is simply a formula for more humiliation and war. While blindly pushing for peace, he contradicted himself by stating that Azerbaijan is committing genocide against Artsakh Armenians. How can genocide and peace coexist?

Pashinyan’s many criticisms indicate that he is opposed to all symbols and values of the independent Republic of Armenia. His eventual goal is to appease Azerbaijan and Turkey by eliminating all references to Artsakh and giving up the pursuit of genocide claims from Turkey.

In the meantime, Pashinyan has completely forgotten the dozens of Armenian prisoners of war who have been detained and tortured in Baku since the 2020 war. Not only he has taken no action to liberate them, but has not even mentioned them. This is the result of his failure to have Armenia and Azerbaijan simultaneously exchange all their prisoners of war, as stated in their 2020 agreement. Instead, right after the war, Pashinyan released all Azeri prisoners in return for a small number of Armenian prisoners.

Furthermore, after occupying most of Artsakh, Azerbaijan has taken over parts of the territory of the Republic of Armenia. Pashinyan has made no effort to dislodge the enemy. Protecting Armenia’s borders is one of the key responsibilities of the Prime Minister.

Pashinyan’s security agents silence all those who disagree with his defeatist ‘peace plan,’ whether they live in Armenia or the Diaspora. Patriotic Armenians and non-Armenians who support the Armenian Cause are banned from visiting Armenia, while the inhabitants of Armenia are harassed and arrested if they dare to protest or criticize Pashinyan. In the meantime, Turkish denialists and extremist grey wolf members are free to roam Armenia and insult the memory of Armenian Genocide victims at the Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.

This is the exact opposite of what a democratic country should be, where freedom of expression is the basic right of the people. Regrettably, a man who came to power claiming to establish democracy and democratic freedoms has done the exact opposite. All powers and decision-making authority is concentrated in the hands of one man who consults no one and listens to no one. Neither the Ministers nor the Parliament nor the President nor the courts have any say in Pashinyan’s autocratic decisions.

Last month, I wrote about two groups of ‘Righteous Jews’ who urged the government of Israel to intervene with Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor.

The first group of 17 Israelis, including Rabbis, journalists and scholars, sent a letter to the Foreign Minister of Israel on January 15, 2023. The second group of 35 Israelis, including Rabbis, scholars, journalists, a former Cabinet Minister and Knesset Member, architects and scientists, sent a letter to the President of Israel.

Contrast the righteous actions of the above two Israeli groups to the immoral behavior of 500 European Rabbis who are planning to hold a conference in Azerbaijan in November at the invitation of Pres. Ilham Aliyev, the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported. The visit is organized by the Orthodox rabbinical alliance in Europe that unites more than 700 religious leaders from communities across Europe.

“Azerbaijan is a place with a special memory for the Jewish people, and is home to one of the most unique Jewish communities in the world,” said Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis who met with Aliyev earlier this year.

Rabbi Goldschmidt’s words were followed by the ridiculous statement of Elchin Amirbayov, the representative of Pres. Aliyev: “The fact that this European rabbinical conference will be held here in Baku is recognition of people feeling safe here; it is just the right place.” Equally ridiculous was the statement of Rabbi Zamir Isayev of Baku, who told JNS that Azerbaijan “is much safer than any country in Europe.” These Rabbis must have forgotten that just two months ago a terrorist group plotted to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Baku.

JNS reported that “the planned trip comes amid burgeoning relations between Israel and Azerbaijan that developed from a centuries-long affinity between the two nations into an unprecedented strategic partnership.” How could relations between Israel and Azerbaijan have a “centuries-long affinity” since Azerbaijan became a state only in 1918 and Israel in 1948?

In fact, relations between the two countries are not based on ‘affinity’ at all, but on Azerbaijan supplying almost half of Israel’s energy needs, while Israel sells to Azerbaijan over $5 billion of arms — 70% of its sophisticated weapons, including illegal cluster bombs — which Baku used during the 2020 War to kill and injure thousands of Armenian soldiers.

Rushing to gloat over the pending arrival of European Rabbis in Baku, Aze.Media published an article under the title: “A rabbinical conference in Muslim Azerbaijan,” reporting that “the Azerbaijani nation prides itself on having a rich multi-culturalism policy, which gives equal respect to all faiths and religions living in Azerbaijan.” This is a complete lie as all minorities in Azerbaijan suffer from discrimination and massive violation of human rights. Native Azeris themselves are victims of prosecution by Azerbaijan’s government in case they say anything critical about Pres. Aliyev.

Azerbaijan’s love affair for Israel and Jews has a much more sinister agenda than the simple exchange of oil for weapons. It is prompted by Azerbaijan’s anti-Semitism under the false belief that “Jews control everything in America,” and if Azerbaijan is nice to Jews, then they will influence the United States to have a pro-Azerbaijani stance. This is Baku’s obvious plan to counter the Armenian ‘lobby’ in the United States.

While Turkey and Azerbaijan woo American Jews and Israel hoping to benefit from their lobbying in the United States, it is unwise of Israel and Jews to go along and reinforce the anti-Semitic attitude of Azeri officials. The group of immoral European Rabbis is under the mistaken impression that Azeris welcome them with open arms because of their love for Jews. These Rabbis do not realize that they are simply allowing themselves to be exploited by Azerbaijan for its perceived political gains.

Even though Israel opened its Embassy in Baku in 1993, Azerbaijan established its Embassy in Tel Aviv in 2023, only after announcing the opening of its representative office in Ramallah, West Bank, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, to counter the backlash from many Muslims within Azerbaijan and around the world.

French historian Marc Knobel wrote an indignant article in Le Point French newspaper on August 8, harshly criticizing the European Rabbis’ planned trip to Baku. Knobel wrote: “Gentlemen Rabbis, I am ashamed and I am Jewish.” Importantly, he reported that Haim Korsia, the Chief Rabbi of France, will not accompany the other Rabbis to Azerbaijan “to flatter the dictator of Baku and will not allow himself to be bribed by such a regime.”

The 500 immoral European Rabbis, instead of siding with the starving 120,000 Artsakh Armenians, are selling their souls to the devil in Baku.

There are pro and anti-Armenian individuals in every nationality. Jews are no exception. There are Jews who support us and those who oppose us. We should not generalize and paint everyone with the same brush. Armenians should not treat every Jew as an opponent just because the Israeli government denies the Armenian Genocide and sells billions of dollars of arms to Azerbaijan.

Armenians have the right to criticize the Israeli government and Jews who are anti-Armenian. I severely condemned Israel’s denial of the Armenian Genocide in my 2015 lecture at an Israeli University. After the lecture, I met with the President of Israel Reuven Rivlin and told him that the government of Israel, whose own people were victims of genocide, should have been the first country to recognize the Armenian Genocide, not the last. Pres. Rivlin told me that he recognized the Armenian Genocide and blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for denying it.

I just received copies of two letters sent by a group of righteous Israelis to their country’s top officials, requesting that they intervene with Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin Corridor.

The first letter was sent to Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on January 15, 2023, asking for his assistance to prevent “a grave humanitarian crisis and loss of life” due to Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor. The 17 prominent Jewish signers of the letter, including Rabbis, journalists and scholars, wrote: “We believe that you, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, through your ties with your counterparts in Azerbaijan and Russia, can help to avoid this grave humanitarian crisis. Therefore we ask that you approach them urgently to work for the lifting of the blockade of the Lachin Corridor.”

The second letter was sent on August 11, 2023, to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog who had recently visited Azerbaijan. The letter-writers requested him “to make a personal appeal to your counterparts in Azerbaijan and demand their immediate removal of the blockade of the Lachin Corridor.” The 35 prominent Jewish signers of the letter, including Rabbis, scholars, journalists, a former Cabinet Minister and Member of Knesset, architects and scientists, wrote: “The State of Israel enjoys close ties with Azerbaijan, the state which is responsible for this crisis, and has the ability to resolve it. These ties obligate the State of Israel to take a clear stand, and not to stand idly by…. The aid that we [Israel] provided [to Azerbaijan] means that we have a special responsibility not to be a bystander, and also gives us an important opportunity to have a positive impact. We cannot remain silent, especially in light of our historic and multilayered connection with the Armenian people.”

Beyond these letters, hundreds of Jews and Armenians in Israel held several protests during and after the 2020 Artsakh War. One of the protests was in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, criticizing the sale of Israeli arms to Azerbaijan. Some of the protesters held models of drones with blood stains painted on them with the words ‘Made in Israel.’

Avidan Freedman, one of the founders of Yanshoof, an organization dedicated to stopping Israeli arms sales to human rights violators, published an article in The Times of Israel on August 13, 2023, titled: “The Artsakh humanitarian crisis is our responsibility. Here’s why.” He wrote: “Israel provided Azerbaijan with 69% of its arms in the period between 2016 and 2020. During the 2020 Artsakh War, a senior Israeli military source asserted that ‘Azerbaijan would not have been able to continue its operation at this level without our support.’” Freedman concluded: “the current humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh was enabled by Israeli support…. The emerging humanitarian crisis, Israel’s military support of Azerbaijan, and the Jewish people’s historic and moral connection to the Armenian people combine to create a clear moral responsibility. Israel must take a moral stance and call on Azerbaijan to immediately lift its blockade of the Lachin Corridor.”

To illustrate the depth of pro-Armenian sympathies among some Jews, I would like to quote Dr. Israel Charny, one of the signers of the above mentioned two letters. He is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem-based Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide and author of “Israel’s Failed Response to the Armenian Genocide.” In 2009, Charny and I were invited to speak at the UK Parliament. Since he could not attend due to illness, he submitted his speech in writing. Here is an excerpt: “No less than the arch fighter for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Shimon Peres, now President of Israel, then serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister, twice went notably out of his way to insult the history and memory of the Armenian Genocide.”

In 2001, Charny sent a scathing letter to Peres: “You have gone beyond a moral boundary that no Jew should allow himself to trespass…. As a Jew and an Israeli, I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.”

In response to an “especially insulting” denial by Peres in 2002, Dr. Charny sent him one of my editorials in The California Courier, with the following note: “I am enclosing with great concern for your attention an editorial in a leading US-Armenian newspaper calling on Armenia to expel the Israeli Ambassador [Rivka Cohen, after she denied the Armenian Genocide]. For your further information, the author of this editorial, who is the head of the United Armenian Fund in the US — comparable to our United Jewish Appeal — was for many years a delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.”

Armenians should support their friends and criticize their opponents regardless of their nationality.

The United Nations Security Council is composed of 15 member states: Five are permanent members with veto power (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), and the other 10, have a term of two years, on a rotational basis.

The Security Council’s powers include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. It is the only UN organ with the authority to issue binding resolutions on member states.

With such extensive responsibilities, the Security Council is the right UN body to deal with Azerbaijan’s blockade of 120,000 Artsakh Armenians which risks their starvation resulting in genocide, according to the UN definition of that term.

Regrettably, the Armenian government, due to the mismanagement of its approach to the Security Council, mishandled this unique opportunity to get the UN body to adopt a resolution urging Azerbaijan to immediately unblock the Lachin Corridor. Otherwise, it would impose severe sanctions.

The proper way to have handled the petition to the Security Council would have been for Armenia to prepare the text of a draft resolution, meet with all 15 members, and try to get them to agree to the proposed resolution. Since the blockade has been going on for eight months, the Armenian government had plenty of time to do this work.

Without any preparations, petitioning the Security Council and expecting a positive outcome is unrealistic and self-defeating. The ambassadors of the 15 member countries always receive advance instructions from their foreign ministries on what to say during the UN meetings and if there is the pre-prepared text of a proposed resolution, they are told how to vote. Nothing is decided on the spot during the meeting and no action can be taken that has not been agreed upon in advance.

The Armenian government should have known these basic facts and have taken the proper steps before requesting a Security Council meeting in order to ensure a successful outcome. In this absence of such a preparatory work, it is not surprising that the Security Council did not adopt a resolution to warn Azerbaijan that unless it unblocks the Lachin Corridor immediately, severe sanctions will be imposed.

During the meeting, all 15 member states delivered speeches, many of them urging Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin Corridor and resolve the issue through peaceful negotiations. The French Ambassador delivered the most favorable speech for Armenia, while the Russian Ambassador’s remarks were disappointing. When the meeting was over, everyone got up and went home without adopting a resolution and resolving the blockade. Azerbaijan and Turkey, which are non-members of the Security Council, repeated their myriad of lies about the Lachin Corridor, denying the obvious facts known to the whole world. To counter Turkey’s remarks, why didn’t Armenia arrange to have Cyprus or Greece attend the meeting to support its position?

Regrettably, the UN Security Council member states preferred to pursue their own narrow national interests rather than trying to save the lives of 120,000 starving Artsakh Armenians, thus abdicating their humanitarian responsibility and undermining the integrity of the United Nations Organization. Shamefully, the Security Council did not even bother to back up the two decisions of the International Court of Justice on unblocking the Lachin Corridor.

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who flew to New York on this occasion, gave a proper speech, urging the Security Council “to act as genocide prevention body and not as genocide commemoration, when it might be too late.” Mirzoyan asked that the UN dispatch an interagency needs assessment mission to Artsakh, which was ignored. Nevertheless, he failed to request that the UN Security Council order Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor and impose sanctions, if it did not comply. On the other hand, the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, did not bother to fly from Baku to New York, knowing full well that nothing will happen at the UN meeting.

Azerbaijan’s Ambassador falsely stated that since Artsakh is a part of his country’s territory, it can do as it pleases and no one has the right to interfere. The whole world knows that he is completely wrong. Human rights violations are of universal interest. They are of serious concern to the whole world and are not the internal issue of any one country.

While it is true that several Ambassadors urged Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin Corridor, regrettably, these requests were mere words which fell on deaf ears. Azerbaijan ignored all such requests, as it has rejected similar pleas from several heads of states, foreign ministers, the European Union, European Council, European Court of Human Rights, World Court, and Secretary-General of the United Nations. Words without action are meaningless.

To save face, Prime Minister Pashinyan told Armenians after the UN meeting that now the whole world knows that Azerbaijan, contrary to its denials, was blocking the Lachin Corridor. This is a meaningless statement as everyone already knew that the Corridor was blocked. That was not the purpose of the UN Security Council meeting. The purpose was to adopt a resolution and impose sanctions on Azerbaijan. Armenia failed to accomplish that important objective.

The UN Security Council meeting was much more than a missed opportunity for Armenia and Artsakh. Having raised and then shattered the expectations of Armenians that the Security Council will lift the blockade further demoralized Armenians worldwide. It would have been far more preferable for Armenia to take no action rather than make a half-baked attempt which caused more damage.

Since last week’s failed meeting, Azeri officials have boasted that no one at the UN believed Armenia’s ‘baseless accusations,’ as a result of which no decision was taken. Regrettably, Azerbaijan is now emboldened more than ever to take further aggressive steps against Artsakh and Armenia, knowing full well that no one in the world will take any action against Azerbaijan.