Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan expressed his condolences on his Twitter page regarding the explosion in the coal mine of Bartan, Turkey, addressing the post to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

“Sincere condolences to all those who lost loved ones in the Barton coal mine accident. I wish a speedy recovery to all the wounded,” Mirzoyan wrote.

“Determination to be wrong is the true path”

This judgment was the “belief” of the person who came to power due to the events of April 2018, as a result of which we are on the way to completely losing Artsakh. On the road, which, according to his testimony, he recently began to see the implementer of the idea of ​​handing over Artsakh to the enemy at the cost of several thousand victims. A road, at the end of which we may lose all of Armenia, if everything goes exactly as the author of the judgment has planned. The only way to avoid that is to remove him from office by all means possible and impossible.

“An army of sheep (or donkeys) led by a lion is always stronger than an army of lions led by a sheep (or donkey)”
This saying is present in the folklore of a number of peoples (Chinese, Romans, Arabs) used by famous generals of the past: Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, etc. The truth of this saying was proved by those generals. It was also proven in the 44-day war in 2020, thanks to a “commander-in-chief” whose presence we should have “no qualms about”, as one of his servile henchmen put it. It proved literally, because if before that we called the enemy soldiers sheep, today they return the same to us. And that’s because of Pashinyan Nikol, who attributed the success of the 2020 Tavush July Positional March to himself.

“Woe to the losers”

The author of this winged speech is Brenos, leader of one of the Gallic tribes, who lived in BC. In 390 he defeated the Romans. The latter convince Brenos to end the war by receiving a military fine. The Gaelic leader agrees, but presents false balances to weigh the gold he received as a war penalty. And when the Romans complain of injustice, he utters “Vae victis” and puts his heavy sword on the scales, making them heavier. But the story does not end there. At that moment, the army gathered by the Roman general Camillus appears at the gates of the city. The latter addresses the audience, saying: “The homeland should be liberated not with gold, but with iron…” And drawing his sword, he places it on the other side of the scale. With that, Camillus, endowed with dictatorial powers, annuls the decision of the consuls. In the end, the Gauls are defeated. Unlike the ancient Romans, we still can’t get off the losing streak. The reason is the absence of a military leader with the thinking of Camilos in today’s Armenia.

“The power of the Armenian army was a myth”

Due to the events of April 2018, the mentioned is a false and extremely dangerous judgment thrown into the public by the person holding the position of the RA Prime Minister and his ruling group. Who, with his hypocrisy, wreaked havoc in our army. If it were not false, Shamil Basayev, the leader of the Chechen movement, invited by the Azerbaijani authorities in the first Artsakh war, would not have left for Chechnya after the defeat of his squad. And later he would not declare that fighting in Artsakh was pointless, because it was almost impossible to defeat the Armenians. And after that, the Armenian army would not show its strength once again in the April 2016 four-day war, forcing the enemy to appeal to Moscow for a cease-fire. This means that it was not the Armenian army that was defeated in the 44-day war of 2020, but it was betrayed by its leadership. The leadership which was embodied in a person called “Commander-in-Chief”. As well as in the persons of incompetent colonels and generals promoted by him. Who had replaced the heroic military commanders of the Artsakh victorious war.

Vakhtang Siradeghyan

The Grand Council of the Swiss Canton and Republic of Geneva adopted a resolution on October 14, which is calling on the Swiss Federal Assembly (parliament) to condemn Azerbaijan’s latest aggression against Armenia and take measures so that the actions of Azerbaijan are not funded from the revenues received from the sale of Azerbaijani raw materials in Switzerland. report ARMENPRESS.

The resolution also calls for recognizing the right of Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination and doing everything possible for the repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war.

The resolution entitled “For the Survival of Armenia” has been initiated jointly by a number of members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic People’s Party of Switzerland.

Western leaders must realize that the threat to democracy in Yerevan isn’t the Kremlin; it’s Baku’s belligerent expansionism.

By Alex Galitsky,

For decades, Azerbaijan has been positioned as a Western bulwark against Iran and Russia, often at the expense of Armenia. The result has been the abandonment of one of the region’s only democracies to the whim of one of the most belligerent authoritarian regimes on Earth—forcing Armenia to become more dependent on Russia.

Despite Robert Cutler’s assessment in his recent Foreign Policy piece “Putin Is Turning Armenia Into a Russian Outpost,” the greatest threat to Armenia’s “liberal project” isn’t its alliance of necessity with Russia—it’s an expansionist Azerbaijan, which continues to use military force to consolidate territorial gains and circumvent multilateral diplomacy.

Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia has faced a constant threat to its security. The Nagorno-Karabakh war in the early 1990s left the fledgling state locked in an intractable conflict for decades while Azerbaijan and its patron Turkey imposed a blockade against 80 percent of Armenia’s land borders. Over the course of the next decade, Azerbaijan—with considerable economic support from the United States and Europe—would begin consolidating regional pipeline networks that deliberately sought to bypass and isolate Armenia.

Facing unilateral economic blockades, a volatile security environment, and an ambivalent West, Armenia was forced into a position of dependence on Russia.

Facing unilateral economic blockades, a volatile security environment, and an ambivalent West, Armenia was forced into a position of dependence on Russia. This deepening reliance on Russia, however, was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy due to U.S. foreign policy toward the region. Extensive energy investments by the West in Azerbaijan and Turkey accentuated Armenia’s economic isolation as well as the security threats it faced by emboldening Baku. This, in turn, forced Armenia deeper into the orbit of Russia’s regional security architecture—as Russia is the only force capable of projecting military power in the region. In short, Armenia has been treated as collateral damage in the West’s attempted containment of Russia and Iran.

But with Russia preoccupied with its invasion of Ukraine and its considerable military losses, Azerbaijan has grown even more emboldened and has shown it is willing to test the red line of Russia’s peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh by its indigenous Armenian population) as well as that of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Armenia is a member. Although Russia’s largely symbolic peacekeeping presence in Nagorno-Karabakh undoubtedly prevented the wholesale ethnic cleansing of the region at the conclusion of the 2020 war, Baku’s brazen assault on sovereign Armenian territory from Sept. 12-14, in the southern regions of Vayots Dzor and Syunik, has exposed the limits of Russia’s capacity to fulfill the role of Armenia’s security guarantor.

Azerbaijan’s unprovoked attack on civilian populations well within the undisputed borders of Armenia—including the town of Martuni, just 42 miles  from the capital, Yerevan—is in many ways a direct byproduct of the impunity Baku has enjoyed in the West, reflecting both an inability and unwillingness on the part of the U.S. government to hold its despotic partners in check. To this day, Azerbaijan has yet to be held responsible for the perpetration of major human rights abuses and war crimes—including the deliberate targeting of civilian populations with prohibited weapons, the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage sites, and the prolonged detention and torture of Armenian prisoners of war.

In fact, not only has Azerbaijan not faced any material consequences for its aggression, but it has been rewarded by the international community. Between fiscal year 2018 and 2019, the United States allocated over more than $100 million in military aid to Azerbaijan. Despite condemning this allocation on the campaign trail, U.S. President Joe Biden has since twice waived restrictions on military aid to Azerbaijan as stipulated under Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. And in early 2022, the European Union provided Baku with a $1.96 billion investment geared toward energy security and later vowing to increase its gas imports from Azerbaijan amid concerns that Russia would cut off Europe’s gas supply. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen even went so far as to describe Azerbaijan as a “trustworthy” partner.

Yet if the purpose of the West’s containment strategy is to push back against the type of authoritarian expansionism Russia is undertaking against Ukraine, it’s hard to imagine how investing in a state like Azerbaijan—a corrupt, authoritarian regime that outcompetes Russia and Iran in the race to the bottom on human rights—projects a message of democratic solidarity, particularly when it comes at the expense of a fledgling democracy like Armenia.

Armenia has consistently demonstrated its capacity to maintain an independent domestic and foreign policy, even in the face of considerable pressure.

Cutler’s argument also conveniently eschews the deep political and economic ties that exist between Azerbaijan and Russia. On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, signed an allied partnership agreement, which vowed to increase cooperation between the two countries, particularly in the sphere of energy.

In fact, the agreement came just days after Russia’s state-owned oil company Lukoil spent $1.5 billion to increase its stake in Azerbaijan’s largest gas field, bringing its ownership to 20 percent. Lukoil also holds a 10 percent stake in the South Caucasus Pipeline—as does the National Iranian Oil Company—which is a central node in the European Commission’s Southern Gas Corridor project designed to bypass Europe’s reliance on Russian energy. Azerbaijan has also used its extensive international money laundering networks to funnel millions of dollars into Russian government-linked arms exporters as well as U.S.-sanctioned Iranian companies.

Despite the claim that Armenia’s dependence on Russia makes it vulnerable to Moscow’s influence, Armenia has consistently demonstrated its capacity to maintain an independent domestic and foreign policy, even in the face of considerable pressure. Despite the observable pattern of Russia’s authoritarian diffusion in the post-Soviet world, Armenia has been able to develop and consolidatedemocratic institutions. Despite its security reliance on Russia, Armenia has participated in NATO-led peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And in spite of its economic dependence on Russia, Armenia has pursued deepening ties with the European Union—ratifying a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement in 2017 and expanding economic ties that have made the EU one of Armenia’s primary trade partners.

On the diplomatic front, Armenia has also recently sought to draw a clear line between itself and Russia in the context of the invasion of Ukraine. Yerevan sent a clear message to Moscow by refusing to fall in line on United Nations General Assembly votes condemning Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, choosing to abstain. Azerbaijan, which has considerably less to lose and has routinely sought to position itself in the pro-Western camp, has consistently chosen to be absent on those votes.

This comes as no surprise. Azerbaijan’s recent invasion of Armenia’s sovereign territory is indistinguishable in form and substance from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As of this week, Azerbaijan now occupies around 3.9 square miles of Armenia’s internationally recognized territory, where it controls strategic road networks and transport corridors, inhibiting freedom of movement throughout the country. Armenia’s Human Rights Defender reported that during the assault, Azerbaijan deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and forcibly displaced thousands of civilians. Over a dozen prisoners of war have been taken captive by Azerbaijan, with horrific videos surfacing of the abuse, torture, and summary execution of Armenian captives.

Azerbaijan’s actions demonstrate a flagrant disregard for the fundamental precepts of international law and a commitment to undermining international conflict mediation efforts. While paying lip service to peace talks, Azerbaijan has continued to use military force to pressure Armenia into additional concessions. Immediately before its assault on Armenia’s sovereign territory, it took control of the Lachin corridor—the main artery linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. In doing so, it displaced hundreds of families and placed at risk vital humanitarian supply lines by leaving Armenia with little more than a dirt road to access Nagorno-Karabakh’s increasingly at-risk Armenian population.

Hi. I am Azerbaijani political blogger Manaf Jalilzade. I have been fighting against the terrorist dictator Aliyev regime for many years. The Aliyev regime attacked me in the country where swiss I live and brutally beat me. Besides, they brought me to court 

and now he is doing everything to deport me to Azerbaijan. I need a very strong lawyer to protect myself from this terrorist regime and defend my rights. And in Switzerland, a lawyer is terribly expensive. 

I need the support of my friends because my personal budget is not enough. I plan to get a lawyer and start my own organization with the money to be raised. the organization to be created will only work against the Aliyev regime. With this organization, I will fight the terror of the Aliyev regime against people in Azerbaijan and outside Azerbaijan

Source: https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-young-bloggers-fight-against-a-dictator?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

Sincerely, Manaf Jalilzade

Organizer

Jalilzade Manaf 

Organizer

BernContact

Koryun Simonyan,

“Plan Project Institute” LLC, owned by Bagrat Badalyan, Deputy Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, has signed a contract with the state worth around 208 million drams.

In the period from September 1 to 30, 2022, i.e. within just 1 month, Badalyan’s company signed 9 purchase contracts with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, three of which are large, worth 56 million, 89 million and 30 million AMD. It should be noted that this company is engaged in the provision of copyright control services, that is, it monitors the execution of construction and road construction works carried out by the Ministry, prepares relevant documents, conducts studies, in other words, it carries out the construction paperwork and supervises the construction works.

Bagrat Badalyan is the shareholder of 88.13 percent of this company, which he acquired in 2020, when he was the adviser of Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan. Before Badalyan became a shareholder in this company, in 2019 from January 1 to 2020 on April 15, only one state purchase contract was signed with “Channakhits Institute” LLC, with a contract price of 431 thousand drams. And in 2018, 3 contracts with a total price of 11 million 949 thousand drams. In other words, before the acquisition of this company by Badalyan, the company signed a contract with the state for 19 times less value in 2 years than now – in 1 month, and that was only with 1 state department. By the way, most of the contracts were concluded by the procedure of purchase from 1 person, without a tender.

In fact, it turns out that the government transfers astronomical sums of money from the state budget to a company owned by a person holding a high position in the same government. As the opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan used to say: “Isn’t corruption a big animal with a face and a tail? This is corruption.”

Ամբողջական հոդվածը կարող եք կարդալ այս հասցեով՝ : https://hraparak-am.translate.goog/post/c5d8b806455413c39c35e4ba613d18e1?_x_tr_sl=hy&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui,sc

© 2008 – 2021 «Հրապարակ օրաթերթ»

Human Rights Watch (Berlin, October 14, 2022) – The execution of Armenian prisoners of war (POWs), apparently by Azerbaijani forces during fighting between the countries in September 2022 is a war crime for which there needs to be accountability,

Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch analyzed a video posted on social media in early October showing the extrajudicial execution of at least seven Armenian POWs, apparently by Azerbaijani forces.

Azerbaijani authorities should ensure that the investigation opened by their prosecutor’s office is effective and leads to accountability for the soldiers and commanders responsible.

“Killing soldiers who have surrendered is a heinous war crime,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Azerbaijani authorities have opened an investigation that, in addition to leading to accountability, needs to be a key element in ensuring that such outrages never happen again.”

The killings took place during fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that broke out in mid-September, when Azerbaijan made incursions into Armenia and along the border. The fighting was one of several breakdowns of the Russia-brokered 2020 truce that ended hostilities over the unresolved conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

On October 2, Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office stated that the military prosecutor’s office had started a “comprehensive investigation” into the video of the executions to determine whether it was authentic, and if so “to identify the servicemen shown on them…. As a result of the investigation, legal measures will be taken.”

Human Rights Watch verified the 40-second video through a variety of techniques, including by consulting with weapons and medical experts, analyzing the language heard in the video, and using reverse search image engines to establish if the video had been posted online before mid-September.

The earliest appearance online of the video was on Telegram, posted just before midnight CET on October 1. It shows at least 15 soldiers, who appear to be Azerbaijani, rounding up a group of eight unarmed men wearing Armenian military uniforms. The camouflage pattern on the soldiers’ uniforms is consistent with the Azerbaijani army, but no insignia are recognizable. One soldier in an apparent Azerbaijani uniform is also wearing what appears to be a backpack with a radio in it, which further corroborates findings that they are Azerbaijani forces.

Nineteen seconds into the video, one soldier starts to fire with a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle into the group of unarmed men seated on the ground. A shout of “don’t shoot,” (vurma in Azeri) is heard just after the shooting starts. At least two other soldiers join in the shooting. The shooting is at close range and lasts for an initial 12 seconds. Sporadic rifle fire continues thereafter until the end of the video.

The shooting appears to kill at least seven of the men. Rohini Haar, an emergency physician with expertise in health and human rights, who is an adjunct professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health, told Human Rights Watch that the likelihood of survival from sustained close-range automatic and semi-automatic rifle fire in this manner is low.

On October 2, a Twitter account reported that the location of the executions was between Mount Mets Ishkhanasar and Small Ishkhanasar Mountain, close to Lake Sev, on Armenia’s southeastern border with Azerbaijan. Human Rights Watch contacted the account owner to request information. The account owner replied to ask why Human Rights Watch was reaching out but did not reply to any questions. An investigation conducted by the French newspaper Libération, published on October 5, found that the video had been filmed along the same ridge identified by the Twitter account.

Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery taken on September 13 and 14 from this location and applied a variety of techniques, including 3D modeling, geolocation, and photogrammetry, which involves taking measurements using photography to establish exactly where the video was recorded. Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify the exact location of the executions.

Satellite imagery captured at 9:19 a.m. CET on September 13 shows smoke plumes and burn scars on the area of mounts Mets Ishkhanasar and Small Ishkhanasar. 24 hours before, on September 12, no signs of active fires or burn scars were visible on satellite imagery. The deputy mayor of Goris, a town in southern Armenia about 15 kilometers from Mount Mets Ishkhanasar, reported fighting in the area on the afternoon of September 13.

The Armenian Ombudswoman’s office told Human Rights Watch that the incident took place on September 13 between 6 and 7 a.m. local time. The low position of the sun in the video indicates it was filmed at dawn or sunset. The lack of snow on the mountains is also consistent with late summer for the region.

One male voice is heard throughout the video. Human Rights Watch could not determine whether the speaker was the person filming the scene. The male voice, speaking in Azeri, repeatedly urges, “Don’t shoot!” (vurma) and “stop” (saxla). At 30 seconds into the video, what appears to be the person filming the scene also lifts a Kalashnikov-type rifle and fires several times into a body of one of the prisoners of war lying on the ground.

Human Rights Watch also analyzed several photographs posted to Telegram on September 13 at 10:30 a.m. CET, showing the bodies of nine apparently dead men in Armenian military uniforms. Human Rights Watch confirmed that at least two of the bodies are of men who appear in the video. The terrain in all the photographs is highly consistent with the terrain in the video.

International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, requires parties to an international armed conflict to treat POWs humanely in all circumstances. The Third Geneva Convention governs the treatment of prisoners of war, effective from the moment of capture. It protects POWs “particularly against acts of violence or intimidation, and against insults and public curiosity.” It is a war crime to willfully kill, mistreat, or torture POWs, or to willfully cause great suffering or serious injury to body or health. 

In addition to being bound by customary international law on human rights and humanitarian law, Azerbaijan is a party to the Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the last two of which strictly forbid extrajudicial killings.

“These soldiers had been captured and laid down their arms,” Williamson said. “Their captors had an obligation to treat them humanely, and instead it appears that Azerbaijani forces shot them in cold blood. Now they need to be held accountable.”

By NICHOLAS PORTNOY

The author expresses his thoughts and opinions on the Israel and Azerbaijan alliance.

On September 14, a gruesome video began circulating on social media. The video showed a naked woman – Anush Apetyan, a mother of three – whose legs and fingers had been chopped off and her eyes gouged out. One of her fingers was stuck in her mouth and a stone was placed in one of her empty eye sockets. 

The perpetrators of this egregious crime against humanity laughed and pointed the camera at her exposed genitalia. They also made sure to show dozens of other corpses, joyfully trampling over them, laughing and cheering each other on as they went.

This video was not posted by ISIS. It was not posted by al-Qaeda, Hezbollahor the Taliban – all internationally recognized terrorist organizations. Instead, it was filmed and publicized by the official representatives of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. It was initially posted on an Azeri-run Telegram page called “Khacherubka,” which translates from Russian, in which “khach” is a racist slur used to refer to Armenians, to “Armenian chopping board.” It quickly spread through Azerbaijani social media, gathering mass applause from tens of thousands of Azeris.

This is, unfortunately, just one glaring example of a continuous pattern of war crimes committed by Azeri troops over the last several years. It is not even the only video of its kind to have been publicized following clashes – initiated by Azerbaijan – that began on September 13, when its soldiers launched strikes against dozens of cities, towns and villages located within the internationally recognized borders of Armenia.

During these clashes, Azeri troops – with the support of Israeli and Turkish military technology – overran several Armenian border posts and occupied an estimated 10 sq. km. of sovereign Armenia, mainly in the directions of Vardenis and the gorgeous resort town of Jermuk. On September 30, another video was published by Azeri soldiers showing the execution, at point-blank range, of a group of Armenian POWs who had clearly surrendered and put their hands up.

These videos immediately gave Armenians flashbacks to the 44-day war of 2020 in which Azerbaijan – emboldened by support from Turkey and a sizable stockpile of Turkish and Israeli weaponry – launched a full-scale invasion of the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region, known to Armenians by its historical name: Artsakh. During that conflict, Azeri soldiers published dozens of photos and videos of themselves torturing, executing, mutilating and decapitating Armenian captives – soldiers and civilians alike.

In one video, Azeri soldiers decapitated a clearly malnourished Armenian POW while he was still alive. In another, an Azeri Special Forces soldier decapitated an elderly Armenian civilian as he begged for mercy. Another showed Azeri soldiers slamming an elderly Armenian man’s head to the ground and cutting his ear off. Yet another showed Azeri soldiers cheerfully stabbing Armenian POWs with skewers. 

For those who must see to believe, the videos of these atrocious war crimes can be found online. I must warn, however, that the footage is extremely graphic.

Being an Armenian Jew

Feeling sick to your stomach yet? Imagine how I feel. As an Armenian Jew, I have an immense amount of love and admiration for both sides of my ethnic lineage. I have visited both Armenia and Israel, and prior to the last several years, had a deep respect for both countries. Unfortunately, as much as it breaks my heart to admit it, I can no longer say I have a single ounce of respect left for Israel.

The fact that Israel was born from genocide makes it even more saddening that it has degenerated to the extent of supplying state-of-the-art weaponry to an authoritarian, genocidal regime that encourages – through state-sponsored Armenophobia – such vile acts of barbarism.

In 2015, Azerbaijan’s autocratic president, Ilham Aliyev, tweeted that “Armenia is not even a colony, it is not even worthy of being a servant.” For the last 30 years, the Azerbaijani regime – headed by Aliyev’s father before him – has cultivated a horrific breed of ethnic nationalism, built on a foundation of Armenophobia, at every level of Azerbaijani society. Children are taught that Armenians are nothing short of subhuman.

Following Azerbaijan’s partial victory in 2020, an “amusement park” was opened in Baku featuring burnt-out Armenian military vehicles and racist mannequins of chained-up, big-nosed Armenian POWs. Although Azerbaijan – after broad international condemnation – eventually removed the mannequins, the fact that they were placed there in the first place speaks volumes. In recent years, numerous reports have surfaced exposing the erasure of Armenian heritage sites, including ancient churches and tombstones, by the Azerbaijani regime.

What all these horrific atrocities have in common is that they all serve to demonstrate Azerbaijan’s commitment to wiping the region clean of Armenians and erasing all historical traces of Armenian civilization there spanning thousands of years.

When I visited Israel in 2016 through the Birthright Israel program, I did not yet know of the Azerbaijan-Israel alliance. I naively saw Israel as an opponent of terrorism and defender of the victims of Islamic extremism. It gave me pride to see a nation born from genocide build itself into a technologically advanced regional power, capable of defending itself against any external threat while also achieving incredible economic success and providing significant opportunities to its people.

Today, that illusion is shattered. Today, I see Israel as being complicit in modern-day ethnic cleansing. Today, I see Israel as having blood on its hands – the blood of innocent Armenians. Armenia, much like Israel, is a tiny nation that has endured the bitter sting of genocide and continues to survive and prosper. Roughly 100 years ago, beginning in 1915, Turkey – a country with which Azerbaijan shares an official policy called “two countries, one nation” – carried out a horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing against its Armenian minority population.

Over the course of a few years, 1.5 million Armenians were systematically massacred, and roughly 500,000 were forced to flee. Yet Israel has still not formally recognized the fact of the Armenian Genocide.

TODAY, AS MUCH as it pains me to say it, I feel nothing but shame when I think of Israel. Although the Israel-Azerbaijan alliance might have been rationalized prior to 2016, when Azerbaijan first began using Israeli technology and weapons to kill Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh, it surely no longer is. Israel can no longer justify this partnership with its need for a reliable energy provider.

Following the normalization of relations with the Arab states, there is nothing stopping Israel from buying oil and gas from countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Not even Azerbaijan’s potential to serve as an anti-Iranian vessel, or the fact that Jews have long lived in Baku, can justify this alliance’s existence any longer.

From this point onward, every shekel’s worth of support provided by Israel to Azerbaijan serves as proof of Israel’s complete state of moral decay. From this point onward, the continuation of the Israel-Azerbaijan alliance can be seen as nothing less than Israel’s participation in modern-day acts of genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. From this point onward, Israel’s continued denial of the Armenian Genocide can be seen as nothing less than the lowest form of political prostitution.

Eventually, the world will come to condemn Azerbaijan. Eventually, the world will come to see the true face of the butchers in charge of that country. Eventually, it will become abundantly clear that those who stand with Azerbaijan stand on the same side of history as Hitler and the Nazis.

Fortunately, it isn’t too late. Although an alliance with Azerbaijan may serve to benefit Israel’s short-term geopolitical interests, an alliance with Armenia would be much more farsighted. Armenia, much like Israel, is a small nation boasting a prodigious amount of intellectual prowess. Much like Israel, information technology makes up a large chunk of the Armenian economy and is one of the country’s fastest-growing economic sectors.

In fact, the hi-tech sector is expected to become the largest branch of the Armenian economy in the next several years. Together, there is no limit to what these two incredible nations can achieve.

I have a dream; a dream in which Jews and Armenians, two small, genocide-surviving peoples with thousands of years of history, can work side-by-side to fight genocide and extremism in the modern age. In this dream, Armenian Jews such as myself can finally stop feeling shame and revulsion at the thought of one of their ancestral homelands actively supplying weapons to those who wish to wipe their other ancestral homeland off the face of the Earth. Please, Israel: Help bring my dream to fruition instead of contributing to my nightmare.

The writer is a political scientist, former law student and current IT professional residing in Colorado.