Just a few weeks
ago, in parshas Noach, we read about Mt. Ararat,
where Noah’s tevah rested as the
waters of the mabul receded and mankind
began anew. Nestled within the Caucasus
mountain range, where Turkey,
Armenia,
Azerbaijan,
and Iran
meet, Mt. Ararat is a stone’s throw from a renewed
war between Armenia
and Azerbaijan
over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Although we might discount
this war as a remote conflict between two obscure states over an even more
obscure province, it has important implications for Israel as well as for both regional
and world superpowers. An understanding of this war and its players may better
prepare us for scenarios that this long dormant conflict could potentially
ignite, such as a broader Middle East war.
Azerbaijan
The break-up of
the Soviet Union, in 1991, and the subsequent independence
of its member states revived long-repressed nationalisms and conflicts. This
was especially true of the neighbors, Christian Armenia and Shiite Muslim
Azerbaijan. Under the Soviets, the province
of Nagorno-Karabakh had
been a semi-autonomous region within Azerbaijan, although the majority
of its population was Armenian. Within a month after the Republic of Azerbaijan
proclaimed its independence in August, 1991, an election was held in the
disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. The Armenian majority chose to secede from Azerbaijan
and formed the independent Republic
of Artsakh. This sparked a
war between Armenia
and Azerbaijan
as Armenia
supported its brethren in the renegade republic while Azerbaijan fiercely opposed the
secession from its territory.
When the war ended
in a stalemate, in 1994, the secessionist
Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)
and seven adjacent districts became de facto independent, although they are
still recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan, with their final status
to be determined in negotiations facilitated by the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Since then, Azerbaijan and Armenia have remained hostile to
each other, and on September 27 of this year, Azerbaijan launched a full-scale attack.
Friends and Enemies
Upon its
independence, Azerbaijan
sought to cement long-term relationships with both Turkey and Iran. The Azeris, who descend from
Turk tribes, are linguistically and ethnically tied to Turkey. However, as Shiite Muslims
(as opposed to the Turkish Sunnis), they are religiously tied to Iran.
In the Soviet era,
leader Heydar Aliyev consolidated power, turning Azerbaijan into a secular republic
in name, while actually becoming a military dictator. (His son Ilham, the
current ruler, inherited the leadership in 2003 through a hotly contested
election challenged by international authorities as not meeting democratic
standards.) As a former Soviet leader turned nationalist, Heydar Aliyev
navigated his country on an independent path, upholding nearly a century of
Soviet Russian-imposed secularism while fostering nationalistic friendliness to
Azerbaijan’s
brethren living in Turkey
and Iran.
Both Turkey
and Iran
were eager to use their influence over the newly independent country. Iran,
however, grew disillusioned with Azerbaijan’s secularism and its rejection
of radical Shiite theocracy and directed its support toward Armenia. Iran also feared that the fomenting
of Azeri nationalism among its own population, 40 percent of which is Azeri, would
cause them to call for their province to secede from Iran and become part of Azerbaijan.
To demonstrate
Azerbaijani independence, Aliyev turned to Israel to upgrade the country’s
military and economy. Israel
has sold advanced weaponry to Azerbaijan
as a counterweight to its enemy Iran,
while Azerbaijan
supplies over 25% of Israel’s
oil consumption from its newly developed oil fields and pipelines.
This blossoming of ties between Israel
and Azerbaijan
became another bone of contention with Iran, a country openly declaring
its determination to destroy the Jewish state and pursuing a nuclear arsenal for
that purpose. For its part, Israel
sought to frustrate Iran’s
nuclear plans by courting an Azerbaijani alliance. It has succeeded in building
its own military base in that country, both to monitor Iran’s clandestine nuclear
facilities and as a potential launching pad for attack.
In 2019, in a daring midnight operation, the Mossad safe-cracked a
well-secured vault in a Tehran
warehouse and retrieved truckloads of nuclear weaponry documentation. Following
the Mossad’s departure from the warehouse, a burglar alarm at 5 a.m. alerted sleeping guards, and the Iranian
military and police gave chase. However, the Mossad’s convoy was already
crossing the Azerbaijani border. From there, the top-secret documents were
successfully relayed to Israel.
The document depository exposed Iranian treachery regarding the Obama
administration’s 2016 Iran
deal and proved the fact that Iran
was secretly making nuclear bombs in violation of international agreements. It
also unveiled Israel-Azerbaijan cooperation.
Complications
Iran’s
Islamic Republic, which shares a minor border with Armenia, courted that
country as a counterweight to pro-Israel Azerbaijan – this despite Iran’s
Shiite religious commonality with the Azeris and despite the expulsion by the
Armenians of a million Shiite Muslim Azeri refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh during
the first war (1991-1994). To further persuade Armenia of its neutrality, if not
friendliness, Iran
has taken a benign stance toward its own population of Christian Armenians, although
it represses Jews and most other Christians. Since the outbreak of the current fighting,
Iran
has offered mediation to end the stalemate, an offer of which both countries
are wary.
Ironically, the Israeli-Azerbaijan
alliance boosts Turkey,
whose Islamist government has long been a thorn in the Jewish state’s side. Azerbaijan
is a member of regional Turkish countries, which built an oil pipeline through Turkey
to be less dependent on another export pipeline through Russia. Turkey backs Azerbaijan as a counterweight to
Russian-backed Armenia,
its historic rival, and is accused of egging on Azerbaijan to recapture its
territory from the renegade Armenians.
Since Turkey’s 2018 election, the Turkish
Freedom and Justice party has consolidated its power and moved the country on a
course of radical Islamist revival. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
used a 2016 attempted military coup to purge his secularist internal rivals and
deepen its anti-Israel rhetoric. It openly supports Hamas and the Muslim
liberation of Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, throughout the recent fighting, Turkey has been silent on the key
weaponry Israel
provided to the Azeris. And despite its close ties with Turkey, Azerbaijan demonstrates its
independence in foreign policy by recognizing its Turkish and Shiite
affiliation regionally while maintaining its secularist government orientation
and its friendship with Israel.
Armenia and Israel
Armenia prides itself on
being an ancient nation, asserting that it was among the first to embrace
Christianity. It claims the biblical Mt.
Ararat and has adopted it
as its symbol, including on its flag. While Mt. Arafat
is just inside Turkey,
it overlooks Armenia
and can be seen towering over the Armenian capital Yerevan just an hour’s drive away.
Historically, Christian Armenia, awash in a Muslim sea, naturally affiliated with
its Christian patron, Russia,
extending into the secular Soviet era. In 1915, during World War I, the Ottoman
Empire, at war with Russia, suspected the Armenians within its borders of
siding with the enemy, and unleashed a brutal massacre agains them implemented
by its Kurdish mercenaries. The genocide went on until 1920, with
one-and-a-half million Armenians ultimately killed. The massacre has ever since
been a rallying cry by Armenians against Turkey, the Ottoman
Empire’s successor.
Like other Soviet republics, Armenia
had declared its independence in 1991. As mentioned above, upon independence,
it supported the insurrection of the Armenians living in Azarbaijan’s
autonomous Nagorno-Karabakh region, sparking the 1991 Armenia-Azerbaijan war. At
that time, Armenians went on their own rampage of massacre and expulsion, which
cost the lives of 30,000 Azeris and created a million refugees. UN Resolutions
822, 853, 874, and 884, calling for the withdrawal of all Armenian forces from
Azerbaijan, were never fulfilled, leaving Armenia and its allies dominating 15%
of Azeri territory. After this July’s border skirmishes, attributed to Armenia,
Azerbaijan
unleashed all-out war in late September to recover its internationally
recognized territory.
Meanwhile, Israel, despite valuing its
strategic relationship with Azerbaijan,
had upgraded its relations with Armenia
over the past year. Armenia
was wary of formalizing relations with Israel and only agreed to exchange
ambassadors last year. Armenia’s
president, Armen Sarkissian, made a landmark visit to Israel earlier this year. He spoke
about the bonds between the nations, born of their shared experience of
genocide. Israel
and Armenia
“share common history through painful and sad times with the extinction of
millions in the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide,” he declared. However, despite
numerous attempts in the Knesset to officially recognize the 1915 Armenian
massacre as genocide, Israel has not gone farther than President Rivlin’s
declaration citing it as “terrible mass slayings” when marking its centennial. While
it would seem that Israel
would be eager to condemn the genocide, it does not want to further jeopardize
relations with Turkey,
which, despite its enmity, remains one of Israel’s major trading partners.
Israel’s Balancing Act
Israel has tried to
balance its relations to rivals Armenia
and Azerbaijan,
gravitating toward Azerbaijan
due its strategic value. Azerbaijan
has a longer border to Iran
and a willingness to cooperate in checking Iran’s growing nuclear capability.
As Israeli-Azerbaijan ties accelerated, the Azeri president played host to Netanyahu’s
trip to Islamic Central Asia last year. The trip was meant to score regional Muslim
acceptance, denying the contradiction between Jewish statehood and Islam. The
visit angered Iran
as Netanyahu gloated over Israel’s
strategic win right in Iran’s
backyard. Israel
rewarded Azerbaijan
by upgrading its military defense capabilities through a supply of Israeli
sophisticated weaponry, especially drones. With its upgraded weapons, the Azeri
military renewed warfare this September to regain Azeri lost territory,
especially in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azeri leaders credited Israeli weaponry as
contributing to their battlefield successes, sparking Armenia to recall its newly
assigned ambassador to Israel
in protest.
Yet Israel, despite needing Azerbaijan
in its war against Iran
(and its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies), does not want to upset Armenia. Anti-Turkish Armenia
is seen as a counterweight to the growing Turkish-backed radical Muslim
influence. This past October, the Turkish President declared, “Jerusalem is ours” to
voice his Muslim hostilities against Zionism, and the media just disclosed a
Hamas cyber-espionage center operating from Turkey against Israel.
Domestic Israeli opinion has veered toward
sympathy for Armenia
not only because of Turkey’s
hostile stance toward Israel
but also because of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians. Azerbaijan’s renewal of hostilities
sparked Israeli intellectuals to sign a declaration of support for Armenia.
And Israeli Knesset members, to win Armenia allegiance, attempted but
did not succeed in passing a resolution labeling the Armenian massacre by the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
It is the historical Ottoman
Empire that Turkish Islamist leader Erdogan seeks to revive through
his consolidation of power and his overtures to radical Islamist players in Libya,
Syria,
and Gaza. Turkey
has expanded aid to Hamas-ruled Gaza
and frustrates a developing alliance between Israel and Cyprus and Greece, Turkey’s traditional rivals, for a Mediterranean
natural gas pipeline. Israeli compensation for Turkish casualties suffered during
its Gaza aid
flotilla fiasco in 2010 failed to win much beyond restoration of the Turkish
ambassador to Tel Aviv. Erdogan continued his anti-Zionist rhetoric, forcing Netanyahu
to lash out against Turkish hypocrisy, citing Turkey’s military occupation of
parts of Kurdish and Cypriot territories and its denial of their independence.
Russian
Roulette
Russia remains the wild
card in the present Nagorno-Karabakh war. Russia played mediator, negotiating
the ceasefire which both sides accuse the other of violating. Russia has established a strategic
foothold in the region through reversing the Syrian civil war at the behest of
its longtime ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With Russian intervention,
Assad was able to quell Sunni Muslim insurrection dominated by Islamists,
including the Islamic State Caliphate (ISIS), which occupied a significant part
of the country.
While Russia’s help (along with the U.S.) in
expelling ISIS from the region benefits Israel,
the area is now subject to expanding Iranian influence. Iran is actively forging a growing
land corridor for the transport of weapons and troops from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, to Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon.
Hezbollah continues to use Lebanon
to attack Israel
despite a UN ceasefire ending the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.
Israeli pre-emptive military strikes against
Iranian and Hezbollah soldiers in Syria are meant to reverse that
development, yet Israel
must be wary of the Russian military. Israel-Russia consultations are frequent
to avoid air mishaps over Syria,
however, unforeseen events could spark an Israel-Russian confrontation similar
to the Turkish-Russian confrontation in 2015, when Turkey shot down a misguided
Russian military aircraft straying into its territory, killing the Russian
pilot. The incident almost sparked war with Russia.
Now that the
Islamic State has been crushed, Eastern Syria
is a vacuum of warring Kurdish and Turkish forces in their battle for or
against Kurdish independence. With its own base in Iraqi Kurdistan, Israel
champions Kurdish independence as a check on traditional radical Arab Muslim
hostility, especially among both Shiite and Islamic State-prone Sunni Iraqis.
Israel is indeed in a
pickle in the recent Azeri-Armenian war. It certainly does not want to embolden
its enemy Turkey,
which is accused of encouraging Azeri attacks, but it needs Azerbaijan to fend off Iran. Israel
also doesn’t want to embolden Russia,
a long-time ally of Armenia
and historical rival to Turkey.
The Russian presence in Syria,
invited by Assad to save his dictatorship from the Sunni Islamists, comes along
with Iranian Shiite mercenaries, including Hezbollah, which is devoted to
destroying Israel.
The tug of war between Israel and Iran is likely to heat up as the
Iranian economy plunges due to U.S.-imposed Western sanctions because of its continued
pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran
is also feeling the pressure of encirclement by Israel as the Jewish state expands
its military-strategic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain,
Iran’s
neighbors. The new Arab-Israeli peace pacts enable Israel to further monitor, if not
attack, Iran
nuclear facilities. Despite these positive developments, Israel must take into consideration
that Iran
receives Russian support for its help in Syria. Israel’s defending itself against Iran may
spark Russian intervention.
Gog uMagog?
This
obscure war in Nagorno-Karabakh has the potential to ignite a dangerous
Israel-Russian confrontation foreshadowing the War of Gog and Magog. In
Zecharia 14:1-21, it talks about the future war in which an alliance of
northern invaders enters Eretz Yisroel targeting Yerushalayim, and the Yad
Hashem turns against them on Israel’s
behalf. Russia,
one of the northernmost countries in the world, is currently trying to dominate
the region through its proxies in Syria and its alliance with Armenia. Their actions in Syria,
to the northeast of Eretz Yisrael, and in the Caucasus regions, even farther
northeast, indicate a possible attempt to seize Yerushalayim in any conflict. Belligerent
Turkey,
also to Israel’s
north, vows to restore Yerushalayim to Islamic rule. The script for the War of Gog and Magog is
potentially set. We must continue to daven for siyata d’Shamaya that Hashem should intervene and save us with
Yerushalayim in any such conflict as promised by our Torah prophets.
Rabbi Moshe Goldstein,
a graduate of Columbia
University’s School of International Affairs, served during the
1990s as a foreign policy specialist at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of
International Affairs analyzing expanding Central Asia
Energy Markets, including in Azerbaijan.
Currently in Hevron for Parshas Chaye Sarah, he is now a member for this winter
zman at the Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim Kollel, Jerusalem.
