PSCRP-BESA Reports No 7 (September 29, 2023)
The establishment of Azerbaijani control over the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has given rise to a wave of anti-Semitism in Armenia. The following anti-Semitic elements can be identified in contemporary Armenian public discourse.
- Dislike towards Israel, stemming from Israel’s support for the modernization of the Azerbaijani army (although several other countries, including Turkey, Russia, and Belarus, also contributed to this modernization).
- Active use by Armenian authorities and political organizations of the rhetoric of “genocide,” equating the current sufferings of Armenians with the Holocaust of Jews during World War II. In this case, it involves the practical use of the memory of Holocaust victims to achieve political goals.
- Attacks on Azerbaijani (Mountain) Jews.
- Utilization of Aryan metaphor, including in the context of sympathizing with the Aryan theory of German Nazis.
- Sympathy towards Iran in its confrontation with Israel, based on the idea of “Aryan unity” between Armenians and Iranians.
In the report by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs regarding anti-Semitism in the Diaspora from September 10-17, 2023, parallels were drawn between the events of August-September 2023 and those of 2020, when during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenia leveled numerous accusations against Israel, particularly regarding its support for Azerbaijan, especially in terms of arms supplies. The Ministry notes that the war of 2020 significantly escalated the level of anti-Semitism in Armenia, manifested in cases of vandalism and a rise in anti-Semitic discourse on social media.
Currently, a widespread campaign, supported by the Armenian state and Armenian lobbying groups in the United States and France, draws parallels between the Holocaust and the situation of Armenians in Karabakh.
In an interview with the Agency France-Presse, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan stated, ‘Let’s go back to the Holocaust (…) Did Hitler come to power and the next morning took out a sword and started persecuting Jews on the streets? It lasted for years, it was a process (…) Now in Nagorno-Karabakh, they have created a ghetto in the most direct sense of the word’[1].
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a US lobbying group, has released a video on this matter[2]. The video claims that Azerbaijan is repeating the Holocaust, this time targeting the Christian population of Armenia. Rabbi Zamir Isayev from Baku expressed his concern that “Armenian lobbyists in the US illustrate what is happening there not with real footage, but with shots from the Dachau concentration camp[3].”
Armenian activist Gev Iskajyan, writing in English on X (formerly Twitter), stated: “By allowing a few trucks of flour to enter, Azerbaijan and the rest of the world aren’t solving anything. They are trying to turn Artsakh into a docile and dependent ghetto. Just enough food not to die, but nothing else that can constitute a dignified life. Genocide by attrition[4].”
Another Armenian activist, Garo Kevorkian, also conveyed a similar sentiment, writing in French on the same social network: “Should Armenians die in silence? After creating a ghetto, now Azerbaijan decides to finish the job and threatens to invade Armenia. They kill Armenians, they kill Christians, they kill the only democrats in the Caucasus.[5]” While the campaign comparing the situation in Karabakh with the Holocaust primarily targets a Western audience, similar posts highlighting the ongoing “Armenian genocide” have also surfaced in Russian on Facebook.
On August 25, 2023, Rabbi Zamir Isayev from Baku posted on Facebook «Contempt for the Holocaust as a Tool of our Enemies[6]». Не condemned the misuse of Holocaust memory by Armenia and Armenian lobbies in the West. “For example, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan said in an interview with AFP that Azerbaijan has “created a Ghetto, in the most literal meaning of the word” in the enclave and this is apparently an effort to prepare for a new Holocaust. Former enclave “prime minister” Vardanyan (one of Putin’s wallets at the time) went even further: according to him, the “suffering of Armenians” is greater than that of the Holocaust victims because Jews were not slaughtered in their own land…” Isayev also pointed out Armenia’s connection with Iran and the similarity in the misuse of the genocide idea in the rhetoric of both Yerevan and Tehran. He wrote, “Today, Iran calls Azerbaijan a ‘Zionist base in the Caucasus’ and threatens to destroy the country because of its close ties with Israel.” Zamir Isayev recorded a corresponding video message[7].
The appeal by Zamir Isayev received support from over 200 rabbis. Fifty leading rabbis from 20 European countries, including France, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Gibraltar, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, and Ukraine, stated: “Expressions such as ‘ghetto,’ ‘genocide,’ ‘Holocaust,’ and others (…) are inappropriate for use in the jargon employed in any political disagreements.”[8] The rabbis also expressed concern about Armenia’s close ties with Iran, “a country that constantly, openly, and publicly calls for the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world[9].”
Following the publication of the letter on social media in Armenia, a significant increase in anti-Semitic remarks in the social networks was observed. Here are a few examples (it’s important to note that in all the examples below, the term “Jew”(zhid) is originally used in Russian, carrying an additional negative connotation).
“Dear Sirs Jewish Rabbies! It is not your cup of tea to define with whom we should make friendship! And we don’t give a damn how many of you, 19 or 119 countries, Jewish rabbis sent a letter. You are not Jews! You are terrorists #1. And all the problems in the world come from you. We consider you as our enemies, since with your dirty hands our people were killed. »[10].
«You scum, does denying the Armenian Genocide by Jews not diminish human dignity?! But who am I kidding—Jews have no dignity, and how would they even know what humanity is»[11].
«They have always distorted reality. Jews and Turks, and also their continuation – Azeri people – they have always tried to re-write history for their anti-human purposes”[12].
Numerous calls for violence against Jews in Armenia have been recorded on the internet. There have been repeated expressions of the wish for a new Hitler to be born or to appear among the Armenians: «How we miss Hitler now, he would have calmed them down quickly»[13].
On September 11, Baku Rabbi Zamir Isaev wrote on Facebook, “I urge Jews remaining in Armenia: in a country where you are threatened because other Jews in another country have a different opinion, it is simply dangerous for you to stay. I understand that there is immense pressure on you to publicly oppose the views of leading rabbis in Europe, Israel, and Muslim countries who are outraged by the use of the Holocaust theme in Armenian propaganda[14].”
In the Armenian social networks, there have been also recorded statements friendly to Iran. “In the last month, Erdogan and Putin did everything to get Iran’s approval to attack Armenia. But the Iranians sent them away, so now the Turks, Jews, and the Kremlin will flood the network with so much disinformation and fakes to sow discord between Yerevan and Tehran”[15].
In Armenia, there are politicians attempting to exploit the wave of anti-Semitism for their own interests. Paradoxically, they are found not only among Putin’s supporters but also among those who advocate for Armenia’s Western orientation. Vladimir Pogosyan is a prominent figure in this regard. He served as an advisor to the former Chief of the General Staff of Armenia, Onik Gasparyan (June 8, 2020, to March 10, 2021). It was during Gasparyan’s tenure that the Second Karabakh War took place.
As early as 2020, Pogosyan stated in a Facebook post that ‘there is no difference between today’s Israel and Germany of 1933.’ He emphasized that Armenians would seek revenge against those who built the Azerbaijani army, meaning Turkey and Israel[16]. Interestingly, Pogosyan at that time refrained from criticizing Russia, which supplied Azerbaijan with far more weapons than Israel did.
Pogosyan’s post received mixed reactions from his Facebook followers. Later, he deleted it, possibly not voluntarily but under pressure from the Armenian leadership[17]. The latter was concerned that the post would provoke a conflict with Israel.
Subsequently, Pogosyan continued his political career. In one interview, he stressed that Armenians are ‘Aryans’ and should align themselves with Aryan Iran[18].
After Azerbaijan regained control over Karabakh with relatively friendly neutrality from the Russian peacekeepers in the region, Pogosyan stated in an interview with an Armenian television channel that Moscow is controlled by oligarchs, ‘mountain Jews from Guba[19].’ Thus, he began propagating well-known myths of ‘all-powerful Jews’ within the framework of global anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Interestingly, Pogosyan used this thesis to discredit Putin’s supporters in Armenia, who, according to his logic, act according to the ‘Jewish conspiracy.’
Pogosyan also claimed that the pressure on Armenia to open a transport corridor through Zangezur is coming from Turkey and Azerbaijan, which corresponds to reality. Then, somewhat inexplicably, he stated that China and Russia support them (which is not true because this route does not correspond to their interests). Following a conspiracy theory style, he pointed out that behind all this there are “the Jews”, who, as it turns out, not only control Moscow but also Beijing.
After that, Pogosyan declared that an alternative to this geopolitical “threat” to Armenia is an equally strange alliance involving Armenia, France, the USA, India, and Iran[20]. It’s clear that, in reality, such an alliance between the USA and Iran is impossible. Furthermore, Pogosyan advocated for imposing state control over the media in Armenia and promoting a unified nationalist ideology (in the spirit of Hitler’s ally and ideologist of radical Armenian nationalism, Garegin Nzhde). In doing so, he essentially undermines the main argument of the Armenian leadership—that the level of democracy in Karabakh and Armenia is significantly higher than in Azerbaijan.
The surge of anti-Semitism in Armenia is driven by specific political circumstances related to the new Karabakh crisis. Currently, the Armenian leadership under Pashinyan is in the process of shifting its alignment from an alliance with Russia and Iran toward closer ties with the US and EU, primarily with France. The international community and the government of Israel need to help the Armenian political elite to realize that using anti-Semitic slogans and spreading anti-Semitic sentiments in the country will not contribute to achieving this goal.
Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman, PhD, D.Sc., is an affiliated research fellow, the PSCR Program at the Begin-Saadat Center