Armenians have all the reasons to get closer to Israel. Small country, bordering Iran and Turkey should understand Israel, that is fighting for decades for its independency and trying to oppose the Iranian regime and its proxies. However, for some reason Armenia decided to stand on the wrong side of history. Just in the beginning of March, 2024 the Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikian discussed with his Iranian counterpart Muhammad Reza Ashtiani issues of Armenian-Iranian military cooperation in the South Caucasus during his official visit to Tehran.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan before a Victory Day military parade
(Photo: EPA)
While Yerevan has never criticised its Iranian friends or opposed its antisemitic and anti-Israeli rhetoric and activities, Armenian officials tend to criticise the official position of Israel on relations with their country. They obviously tend to ignore any steps that Israel takes toward Armenia and choose to emphasize the differences instead of the similarities. Even when Israeli brass harshly criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Armenian officials decided to leave it completely unnoticed.
Last week the Armenian Ambassador to Israel Arman Akopyan gave quite an extensive interview to the Israeli Russian-speaking online newspaper “Detaly”. The diplomat was asked regarding the rise of antisemitism in Armenia, since according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) his country is the most saturated with antisemitism among the post-Soviet countries, with anti-Jewish sentiments shared by 58% of its population.
It could be easily read between the lines of the Ambassador’s answers, that Armenia is not worried about the antisemitic sentiments that are spreading in the country or intending to do anything to protect the Jews who are living there. Furthermore, according to Akopyan’s words, he does understand the reasons for the antisemitic views in Armenia and even names the three of them: Supplies of Israeli weapons to Azerbaijan, non-recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Israeli government, and “armenophobic” actions that have “intensified” in Israel.
And since the Armenian diplomat has completely ignored in his interview the recent clash between the Prime-Minister Netanyahu and Erdogan, concerning the Armenian genocide, it can be assumed that all the other reasons and explanations are also quite inaccurate and biased. While trying to downplay the problem of antisemitism in Armenia, the Ambassador claimed that the attack on the synagogue was committed by some unknown foreigner and those who arranged and participated in the Yerevan’s Neo-nazi march on January 1st were just a “group of people, who arrived from abroad” and left the country. The problem is that there were three attacks on the Yerevan’s synagogue and none of the attackers has ever been apprehended by the local authorities. And the Neo-Nazi march has never been condemned by any of the officials whensoever. Even Akopyan himself in his interview called the march a “provocation” but avoided to criticize it.
“The investigation is ongoing and information will be provided upon completion”, - told the Ambassador. And I guess that his words were quite surprising not only for me, but also for the march organizer Hayk Nazaryan. Nazaryan is the leader of the Hosank Neo-Nazi organization – the Armenian Aryans, who openly lives in Yerevan and has never been hiding neither from the authorities nor from his social media subscribers. This Neo-Nazi leader who has never been arrested or investigated, stays in Yerevan and according to his social network accounts, visits a shooting range and gun selling shops, walking down the streets, takes pictures with his fans and even gives interviews to the central media.
He posts antisemitic slurs in his social media and on the official site of his Neo-Nazi organization, openly uses Nazi symbols and calls to act against Jews and Israel. Moreover, Nazaryan likes being compared to Hitler and never misses a chance to accuse Jews, like he did after the recent terrorist attack near Moscow, when he claimed that Jews were responsible for it.
It can be hardly believed that Armenian police is incapable of identifying and finding Nazaryan or those “foreigners” who made two attempts to burn the synagogue. The videos of these attempts have first appeared on Armenian-speaking Telegram channel ASALA-Young. And since everyone ignored their warnings after the first burning attempt, the second one was conducted freely, while the authorities left the site unprotected.
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Mount Ararat viewed from the Cascade Complex at sunset towering above Yerevan, Armenia
(Photo: GettyImages)
Meanwhile, a former advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia and an ex-assistant to the former chief adviser to the President of Armenia Vladimir Poghosyan filmed himself in an antisemitic rant, after the October 7 massacre claiming that he will assist Hamas and Hezbollah in killing Jews. His video, that was shared on the social media and spread all over the internet has never been condemned by Armenian officials. Moreover, recently he called to “deny Israel's right to have an army, nuclear weapons, and if it does not stop killing women and children, then the state should be under the control of international forces”.
It can be stated that Armenia, as an Iranian ally took a side – and this side is anti-Israeli, antisemitic. It is quite disturbing, since Iran doesn’t hide the fact that it is interested in seeing Armenia strengthening its position in the region and is ready to provide “any assistance” for that purpose. Moreover, as the Israeli research center Alma assumes, Armenia supports the Iranian effort in Syria and Lebanon, while functioning as a transit point for the Iranian air corridor route to these two countries. If this assumption is correct, the State of Israel and its Ministry of Defense, should take it into consideration, while making contacts with the Armenian officials. Armenian-Iranian close cooperation together with strong antisemitic views of Armenian population should not left unnoticed by the Israeli government and the proper conclusions have to be made, sooner rather than later.
- Dr. Elina Bardach-Yalov is a former Knesset member for the Yisrael Beiteinu party