Israel exports ethnic cleansing worldwide

JVL Introduction

We repost two articles below.

The first is from The Wire, Jewish Voice for Peace‘s newsletter. It draws attention to the role of Israeli-supplied weapons to the Azerbaijani regime, used in their ethnic cleansing of the predominantly Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh in recent weeks. It finds an immediate parallel in the cleansing of Palestinians in the Nakba.

The second article is Haaretz’s lead editorial from 1st October. It too pulls no punches, as it highlights Israel’s pro-Azerbaijani role in this cleansing.

It asks if the CEOs of the arms supplying companies “see the ethnic cleansing and the horrific war crimes, or just the bottom line of the companies they head?”

And it points out that Azerbaijan’s head is not the only tyrant to benefit but follows other heads of dictatorial regimes Israel has helped in the same way: the apartheid regime in South Africa, the generals in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, the regime in China and the Shah of Iran.

RK

Israel exports ethnic cleansing worldwide.

The Wire, Jewish Voice for Peace’s newsletter, 4th Oct 2023.

We’ve been watching with heavy hearts as over 100,000 Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh, following a two-day offensive by the Azerbaijani military, in which hundreds of Armenians were killed or wounded. This forced exit is ethnic cleansing — and it’s all too familiar.

Internationally recognized as a territory of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh is a predominantly Armenian region, effectively under Armenian control in recent decades. Since last December, its residents have been under blockade, causing shortages of essential goods like food, fuel, and medicine.

Residents began fleeing in droves during Azerbaijan’s military offensive last week, fearing that conditions would worsen with the collapse of the local Armenian government. Whole communities made refugees, fleeing under the threat of violence — we’ve seen this before.

The Nakba, the violent displacement of Palestinians from their land that led to the establishment of Israel, looked chillingly similar to the flight of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Israel supplies nearly 70% of Azerbaijan’s weapons imports. The Israeli arms industry developed this technology over decades of killing and dispossessing Palestinians — and then it exports these weapons worldwide.

The Nakba is ongoing to this day, as the Israeli government and Jewish settlers continue to push Palestinians off their land through the constant threat of settler violence, attacks by the Israeli military, and a discriminatory legal system.

The Israeli apartheid regime oppresses Palestinians at home and supports ethnic cleansing and displacement of populations worldwide. It’s never been more clear that our liberation is bound up together, and that a world without Israeli apartheid is a safer world for all of us.

[The Wire then links to this Haaretz editorial below.]

Israeli Weapons Industry’s Bottom Line: Ethnic Cleansing

Haaretz Editorial, 1st Oct 2023

Nearly all the Armenian residents of Nagorno-Karabakh have become refugees overnight, following a blitzkrieg by the Azerbaijani army which put an end to the district’s independence.

More than 100,000 victims of ethnic cleansing have had to abandon the towns and villages their families have lived in for generations, fleeing to Armenia across the border. More than 100 years after the Armenian holocaust under the Ottoman Empire, members of this small nation are again running for their lives in fear of occupation and oppression.

However, Azerbaijan was not alone in this campaign. Israel supplied Azerbaijan’s army with the best and most advanced weapons that enabled the cleansing operation. This included surface-to-surface missiles, offensive drones, guided rockets, air defense systems, artillery, mortars, tank upgrading equipment, assault rifles, naval vessels, anti-tank missiles, and, obviously, cyber and espionage tools.

As reported in Haaretz (March 6), Israel allowed an airlift from the Uvda airbase to Azerbaijan to carry huge amounts of armaments and ammunition, on their way to the Nagorno-Karabakh front. Unlike other customers of Israel’s defense industry, who wish to keep their relations with Israel under wraps, Azerbaijan’s ruler Ilham Aliyev actually enjoyed boasting about his blue-and-white weapons systems.

Now that the results of the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh are evident to everyone, it’s appropriate to ask the heads of Israel’s defense industries and all the people who supported, aided and enabled the billion-dollar deals with Aliyev: How do you feel when you see Armenian families running for their lives, the terror in the eyes of children, the new refugee camps in Armenia?

Do Michael Federman (Elbit Systems), Yuval Steinitz (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems) and Amir Peretz (Israel Aerospace Industries) see the ethnic cleansing and the horrific war crimes, or just the bottom line of the companies they head? Do they feel any empathy toward the victims or are they engaged only in calculating the dividends their investors will receive, the royalties paid to the government and the bonuses they’ll be paid? What passes through the head of Rachel Klein, the director of the Defense Exports Control Agency, who spearheaded a “reform” that loosened the regulation of such exports? Is she happy that all the forms were correctly filled, or does she feel a twinge in her heart?

Aliyev is not the first tyrant whose army relies on weapons from Israel. He was preceded by the heads of the apartheid regime in South Africa, the generals in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, the regime in China and the Shah of Iran. Azerbaijan supplies oil to Israel and helps it in its confrontation with Iran.

And yet, despite these precedents and the strategic justifications, Israel’s partnership in the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh requires a change in Israel’s export policies, and the curbing of sales to aggressive dictatorships. Israel must also provide aid to Armenia to help the country absorb the refugees.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.