By 301 Correspondent Kegham Balian
George Deek, Israel’s Special Envoy to the Christian World, says “We never got involved or took position in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, per se”, which led to the ethnic cleansing of Christian Armenians and their Churches from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
You have to admire that carefully placed “per se”. The amount of heavy lifting it does for Israel’s image in the Christian world would’ve been commendable had it not been a typical hasbara escape hatch, absolving Israel of any responsibility or accountability, and invariably collapsing under the weight of Israel’s own record during that war.
In no particular order:
⁃According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2016 and 2020, leading up to the 44 Day War, roughly 69% of weapons exports to Azerbaijan came from Israel, in a war that butchered 5,000 Armenian soldiers, barely adults. So neutral.
⁃The highly advanced Israeli weapons systems included loitering munitions (suicide drones) such as the IAI Harop and Elbit SkyStriker, Hermes 900 reconnaissance drones, Spike anti-tank guided missiles, and LORA surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
⁃Israeli weapons manufacturer Aeronautics Defense Systems used a suicide drone by attacking Armenian positions during a sale presentation at the behest of Azeri officials who requested a live demonstration.
⁃Israeli military personnel trained Azeri soldiers in piloting drones.
⁃Azerbaijan supplies 65% of Israel’s crude oil imports, which are pumped via the BTC pipeline through Georgia and Turkey. A clear energy security and arms agreement: you send oil, we give you weapons.
So neutral.
⁃In December 2023, Azerbaijan effectively blockaded the Lachin Corridor, the only route between Armenia and Artsakh. A starvation campaign ensued for 9 months, targeting hundreds of thousands of Armenian indigenous Christians: Food shortages, supermarket shelves emptied, families lining up for hours for a piece of bread. No fuel. No medicine. Cancer patients requiring urgent treatment were stranded. Malnutrition. Miscarriages.
George Deek was Ambassador at that time. He was there in Baku.
Did he voice concern for the besieged Christians in Artsakh? No. His country enabled it. Haaretz, an Israeli outlet, even published a bombshell report entitled “Israel’s fingerprints all over the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh”.
To quote the Special Christian envoy himself:
“When violence against a vulnerable minority is ignored because acknowledging it is politically inconvenient, there is a name for it: abandonment.”
For Israel, the defense of the Armenian Christian presence in Artsakh was politically inconvenient.
That is why they were complicit in the ethnic cleansing of 150,000 indigenous Christian Armenians from their 2,000-year-old homeland.
