Israel's Position on Nagorno Karabakh

MK Yosef Shagal
(Yisrael Beitenu)

Yesterday, the following item appeared on PanARMENIAN.net, with the usual spelling mistakes and grammatical idiosyncracies:

With the absence of Azerbaijani Embassy in Israel it’s incorrect to speak on delicate topics such as the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Knesset member Josef Shagal said in Baku. In his words, Israel doesn’t have official stance on the conflict, as Azerbaijan did not express its position on the Palestine-Israel conflict and did not support the military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Once nobody could believe that Israel will withdraw troops from Sector Gaza Strip. However, it became a reality as a consequence of certain processes. I am sure, the same will happen with the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The day will come when positive tendencies will lead to resolution of the problem. I wish the conflict be settled peacefully,” Shagal said, reports Zerkalo Baku-based newspaper.

It is not immediately apparent why this is news, but the person in question, Yosef Shagal caused a bit of a scandal last time he opened his mouth about South Caucasian affairs on May 15, 2005. Back then, the former Baku native, who emigrated to Israel in 1990, announced that "Israel supports a fair position of Azerbaijan in the Upper Karabakh conflict." For good measure, he went on to promise Israel's support in canceling the Congressional arms embargo on Azerbaijan, enacted by the U.S. House of Representatives in in 1992 (Sami Rozen, Axis). Unfortunately, these remarks were taken quite seriously in the region, and, some analysts argue, used by the Iranians to pull Armenia closer toward them (Ibid.).

Never mind that at the time, Shagal had no official government position whatsoever, and that he was a rookie backbencher of an upstart (though significant) opposition party, Yisrael Beitenu, composed of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, including a number of outright racists such as its chief, Avigdor Lieberman. In the wake of Shagal's bizarre and unauthorized comments - which seemed to represent only his own private foreign policy - Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni canceled her trip to Azerbaijan, which has not hosted an Israeli minister since 1998, in order not to convey the impression that the government endorses Shagal's position.

Things have changed slightly since 2005. Now, unfortunately, Yisrael Beitenu is a member of the governing coalition, though its representatives, with the exception of Lieberman, named Deputy PM and Minister for Strategic Affairs, work mostly in insignificant committees. No doubt, Lieberman made sure that Shagal would toe the line this time. The Knesset member even threw in Israel's dissatisfaction with Azerbaijan's line during the war with Hizbullah in the summer.

While searching for information on Shagal, I discovered an interesting document. It is a protocol of a meeting with Jewish organizations from the former Soviet republics, which took place at the end of the war, in August 2006, in Israel (the organizations had come one a solidarity mission). Present at the meeting was the head of the Jewish community in Armenia, Rimah Verpapitian-Feller (sp?) Rimma Varzhapetian-Feller (thanks for the correction, Anonymous) as well as a certain Genady Zalmanovitch, head of the Azerbaijani Jewish community. While the former did not speak during the meeting, Zalmanovitch went on in quite some detail - he finally stopped, after protests from the audience - about Iran's discrimination against Azeris and the comparably privileged status of Armenians in the Islamic Republic. Zalmanovitch began his long-winded speech by admitting that he "sometimes offend[s] the representative from Armenia." What is more interesting, however, is that Zalmanovitch highlighted that "Lebanon recognized the Armenian Genocide [literally, "the Armenian Shoah or Holocaust"; לבנון הכירה בעקרון בשואת הארמנים] , while Turkey and Azerbaijan opposed this."