An interview with Israeli international law and policy expert Mikhail Finkel.
Let’s start with relations between Azerbaijan and Israel. How often do you think Israel has to look to the United States in its relations with Azerbaijan? What is the situation in general? Is this relationship happening in defiance of the US or is there a consensus that Azerbaijan is an important partner and this support is essential? Speaking of consensus, to what extent is Israel, its society, committed to this relationship? Is there a consensus in the society? Are Israelis united in the opinion that Azerbaijan is an important, necessary partner?
Of course, Israel is almost entirely dependent on the United States. Many people call us the 51st state, and there is some truth to that. However, I will stress that it is almost, but not one hundred percent, true. When it comes to our security and existential threats, Israel has very often throughout its history disregarded the US opinion, acting contrary to the US wishes, and even going against the US and risking an open confrontation. For example, during the 1967 war, Israel saw an American warship (USS Liberty) at sea recording talks between the Israeli military and we had information that it might be relaying their records to the Egyptians. Israel attacked the ship and smashed the deckhouse where the recording was carried out. Another example. US President Reagan was against us attacking the nuclear reactor Saddam Hussein was building. However, our Prime Minister Menachem Begin unilaterally decided to attack this unfinished reactor so that Saddam Hussein would not have a nuclear bomb, and the United States was informed later. Reagan was shocked. There are many examples of this kind. So, yes, in many ways we are dependent on the United States, we are the largest recipient of American military aid, $3.5 billion a year, half in weapons, half in money. Of course, he who pays the piper calls the tune. But at the same time, there are limits to this dependence.
As for Azerbaijan, we love it very much. Azerbaijan today is a country, which used to be a large part of the Khazar Khaganate, which at one time adopted Judaism: not just the elites, but the majority of the Khaganate, these are known historical facts. Khazar Khaganate saved Jews from discrimination in the Arab Caliphate, from the killings and pogroms in Byzantium, and we are immensely grateful to the Khazars, the ancestors of Azerbaijanis, for this. We remember that there has never been a single pogrom in the territory of Azerbaijan. It is a hospitable, beautiful and cordial country. We understand that both Heydar Aliyev, who was a true hero, and the current President of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, are great men, strategists, politicians, geniuses, I would say, and our close friends and allies.
Can we not look to the United States? No, we cannot. Of course, we inform the US, we consult with the US, but again, we handle the most important issues on our own. And we need Azerbaijan very much as an ally, as a state that is the closest to us. And, of course, we not only have common positive aspirations and ambitions, but, unfortunately, we also have common enemies. It so happens that the Democratic Party today has become very lukewarm towards Israel. And it is lukewarm towards Azerbaijan too, it is pro-Armenian. But the Republican Party is much better disposed to Israel today, in recent years, and to Azerbaijan as well; it is more open to Azerbaijani arguments, to the Azerbaijani side. This is something we have in common.
However, I do not see any change, any fluctuation in the attitude of Israel toward Azerbaijan depending on who comes to power in Israel or in America. This attitude is consistently good. Regardless of which Israelis you ask, those of them who are actually interested in politics, well-informed people, all of them support Azerbaijan, they all understand the strategic importance of our partnership with Azerbaijan. But I must stress that not all Israelis know about it, and a lot more needs to be done to raise awareness among all Israelis about our important and close ally, Azerbaijan.
Iran claims that like Ukraine, we will be left alone to face Iran if the latter starts a war with us. Take a recent article in The Tehran Times saying that we should learn lessons from the Russian-Ukrainian war. I am not sure what exactly the Iranians mean by “leaving Ukraine alone” against Russia, but that is beside the point. What is the average Azerbaijani supposed to think, reading these threats coming from Iran, and not only Iran?
I will stress that your President is a very wise man. He is not doing what Ukraine has been doing all these years. Let’s go back and refresh our memories. After the color revolution of 2004, when the Western Ukrainians came to power led by President Yushchenko, Ukraine began to pursue an openly anti-Russian policy, attempting talk of joining NATO, a military anti-Russian alliance, launched a war on the Russian language, stripping the Russian language of its status even as a regional language, and began glorifying many odious personalities who had collaborated with Hitler during the war and had been involved in pogroms and killings of both Jews and Russians in many conflicts before that, in the civil war and before that. This is the horrible rake that the wise Azerbaijan will never step on. Azerbaijan has multiculturalism, Azerbaijan has Russian as almost a second national language, a great number of schools, media in Russian, and so on and so forth.
Azerbaijan is pursuing a versatile, wise policy. And this is a credit to the country’s President. Wisdom, foresight, competence on the one hand, and friendship and alliance with Türkiye on the other, with the most powerful, strongest country in the NATO bloc, friendship with Israel, a friendship known only superficially, similarly to how one can see only the tip of an iceberg, with the bulk of its mass underwater, unseen. This cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel is fantastically serious, deep, and multi-layered. It is impossible to imagine even for a moment that Azerbaijan would be left on its own at the mercy of Iran. That will never happen. Türkiye will never leave Azerbaijan’s side. Nor will Israel. And your President is a very strong, fearless man, yet also very competent and very good at calculating his moves. I would even call him a great geopolitical chess player. He does not bow to anyone—not just for the sake of it, he is aware of his strength, his real capabilities and the allies he has. I do not believe Azerbaijan is in any danger now or in the future.
Our relations with Türkiye and yours. You will agree that this is a delicate and sensitive issue. What to do? How to act? It is not easy for us to watch you and Türkiye fight all the time.
To you, Turks are a brotherly people, by blood, by ethnicity, by culture. They are family. To us, Turks are a people to whom we are very grateful. Remember that the Turkish sultan Bayezid II saved and took out of Catholic Spain in the 15th century a lot of Jews who had been exiled for refusing to convert to Christianity by force. We remember this. We remember the Turkish diplomats who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. We remember the great role of Ataturk. And we have always had great relations with Türkiye, with the Turkish people, with Turkish businessmen. We have a problem with only one person. His name is President Erdoğan. We have issues with him. The only difficult period in our history has been during Erdoğan’s presidency. He repeatedly insulted Israel, he called us a fascist state, an apartheid state, he met many times with representatives of Hamas, a terrorist organization. Hamas had its headquarters in Türkiye for many years. He helped Hamas, sent aid to the Gaza Strip, which Hamas oversees and runs. At the same time, he demanded that Israel cut off all contacts with those organizations and movements that Türkiye considers terrorist.
And recently, thank God, everything has been reconciled. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan personally deserves much credit for this. He has very often been the mediator, the diplomat who has kept this cold situation between Israel and Türkiye over the last 15 years from deteriorating to a severing of relations. Ambassadors were recalled, the situation was very dire; and yet business between Israel and Türkiye was booming and growing every year. And just recently, three days ago, Erdoğan came out again and said that the entire Muslim world must unite against Israel. Why? Because our police entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount after Arab terrorists started throwing rocks from there and shooting firecrackers at Israeli civilians. There are many videos of the Israeli police that show them attacking police officers. And yet, we are accused of entering the mosque for no reason during the month of Ramadan, desecrating all that is holy. But how do we benefit from that? Why would we do it? Why would we poke the bear? No one is looking for answers to these questions. And Erdoğan is saying that they must unite against us. Then he calls our president as if nothing had happened and says, no, everything is fine, I was misunderstood. This is most likely an election stunt. But how are we supposed to take it? What does it look like from the outside? It seems to me sometimes that Israel’s patience is infinite.
Why is the collective West so comfortable with the intimate relationship between Armenia and Iran? Did Orientalists do a good job creating such a positive image of Iran which they piggyback on? After all, all normal people understand that Iran is not the Achaemenids, not the Sassanids. Today’s Iran is a conglomeration of peoples that were ruled by Turks for the last thousand years. Why are they so beloved in the West? Where is this soft spot for Iran coming from?
One should understand that there is positive bias and there is negative bias. The Western world’s positive bias towards Armenians stems from the premise that Armenians are a Christian people, bearers of Christian civilization. They love them because they are Christians, just like Westerners. They believe that Armenians are the oldest people, the very first people to be baptized. This mantra is being repeated all the time. They believe that it was thanks to Armenians that Christianity began to spread and came to the West. And for Muslims, for Jews and for Turks, they have Islamophobia, antisemitism, negative bias, and no matter what we do, we will still be the ones they dislike and suspect, and they will justify Armenians no matter what Armenians do. Well, they will say, in an environment like this, what can this poor country do, they have to trade with Iran. Of course, this is not good, but anything will do to save this ancient, great nation, the first Christian country. It is all right to turn a blind eye. And why would we even be surprised if just a few months ago, the Biden administration wanted to lift all economic restrictions, all sanctions on Iran so that they could have Iranian oil, so that they and their European partners would not have to rely on Russian oil supplies? Iran blew them off. If it had not, all sanctions would have been lifted and they would be working with Iran just fine. Then they went to Venezuela. Venezuela blew them off, too. They swallowed it and kept the sanctions in place. This is it. You have to understand that.
They do have a kind of soft spot for the great history of ancient Iran, Persian history. But when average Westerners think of Iran today, they think the Ayatollah regime, they think miserable women wrapped in black and bearded men in turbans, they think terrorism. However, it is not ordinary people who determine government policies, but politicians. And politicians, as you know, are people who are not always guided by some ideals, honesty or some such principles of goodness. Everything here is guided by profit and pragmatism. So, while yes, on the one hand, Iran is a regime that sponsors terrorism, a terrorist regime, and everybody knows that, on the other hand, if economic benefits prevail, they will turn a blind eye to anything and act like that American president who once said about Pinochet: “He may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch.” It is just that so far Iran is not going along with these attempts to find common ground with the Western world.
Do you think that the West is essentially against Israel doing anything about Iran at all? It is as if the West could not care less if Iran has nuclear weapons.
Let’s just say that European reasoning is exactly as you say, and it makes absolutely no difference whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not. Europe believes that this is essentially Israel’s problem, but Israel must not be allowed to be strong. Israel should be like a weak and dependent little Jew, like Kuprin’s character Sashka in “Gambrinus,” this battered, downtrodden, self-conscious poor violinist. When Israel is strong, powerful, it makes everyone nervous. That is a tear in the matrix of the European brain.
The situation in America is different. In particular, the Republican Party believes that Iran must be stopped by any means. But the Democrats are willing to flirt with Iran. In exchange for what? For oil, for Iran to be their son of a bitch who would obey them, at least indirectly. And in general, the liberal left is open to a deal with anyone, even the devil himself. I must stress here: Israel will not listen to anyone. Because Iran has said that the first nuclear bomb will be dropped on Israel. Iran denies the Holocaust, Iran holds an international contest every year for the best Holocaust caricature, Iran sponsors the terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad… Iran blew up the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in Argentina in 1994, killing 85 people, Jews and non-Jews, not citizens of Israel, and wounding 300. The IRGC was behind it, this is Argentine intelligence data. Iran is a terrorist regime, and we will not hand over the ability to defend ourselves to anybody else. We are going to do it ourselves. When our intelligence and army and our political leadership decide that it is time, we will launch a preemptive strike, and once and for all strip Iran of all its nuclear ambitions. Just as we did with Saddam Hussein in 1980, just as we did with Bashar al-Assad in 2006 by bombing his unfinished nuclear reactor before release of radiation—the North Koreans were building it—so will it be done here.
Europe is indeed antisemitic, I can confirm that. Could it be that Azerbaijan’s proximity to Israel angers them too? Maybe this is also why they turn to the Armenians? Is our friendship and partnership unbearable to them?
Of course, this too, no doubt about it. Armenia is forgiven for everything, including the glorification of fascist Garegin Nzhdeh, whose giant monument stands in Yerevan, and the glorification of Wehrmacht General Droh. Meanwhile, demonstration of Nazi symbols or glorification of Nazis is punishable by 3 years in prison in the European Union today, in Germany, in Austria, and in other countries. But somehow it is all right, everything can be forgotten here. And indeed, for Europeans, Azerbaijan plays the role of the regional Jew in the Caucasus, a whipping boy of sorts. Look: no matter what you do, you are in the wrong. Then France comes, and Belgium, and everyone else, and they start telling you in a patronizing tone how to live your life. This is all too familiar to us.
Does Israel have a clear strategy for dealing with China? And a follow-up question: if your relationship with China is perfect, and China’s relationship with Iran is perfect, how do you unravel this tangle, how do you explain it to yourself?
It is a big mistake to think that our relations with China are perfect. China tried to buy some Israeli enterprises, and it succeeded. It bought about three big Israeli enterprises. After that we got a call from Washington, and our American handlers told us not to sell anything else in Israel to China. And that was the end of it.
China is relentlessly chasing all new Israeli high-tech innovations, and America is very zealous in making sure that we do not sell it anything of consequence, especially anything related to dual technology, i.e. civilian and military, especially military technology. The United States’ goal is to contain the development of China, its main geopolitical opponent and rival for world domination. We are not completely independent here; we have to submit every serious deal to Washington for approval. And if the “Roman prefect” approves, the deal goes through. If not, there is no deal. And very often the US ambassador comes to our prime minister or cabinet and brings to our attention what should be done and what should not be done, not just with regard to China, but in general. It also applies to the Arab-Israeli negotiations, and to the line of conduct with respect to Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and so on. All of this is dictated to us, and we sit like little children in a kindergarten, being told by grown-ups how we are to do it.
There is no other way. A small country will always depend on a larger one, a poorer one on a richer one, and the recipient of such large grants has to listen to the sponsor. This is why it cannot be any other way.
No, our relationship with China is not perfect, and, contrary to what some journalists think, a scenario where China comes out with a kindly Buddha smile and announces to the world that it initiated a peace treaty between Israel and Iran, or Israel and Saudi Arabia, is simply not possible. No one from our side will give such laurels to China, because Israel answers to the United States. Unlike Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has broken away from its submission today, and we remain in submission. China is even angry at us because we are not doing what China would like us to do. And China would just like to do everything for itself, be it with Iran, Saudi Arabia, which it needs as two big gas stations, be it with Israel as a source of brains and technology.
You have excellent relations with India. India has access to your military technology. Don’t you think that this technology, through India, could fall into the hands of our enemies? Should we be worried?
Yes, the information I have here is not exactly what Azerbaijan would probably like to hear. But let me start at the beginning. Pakistan does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, it does not recognize us as a country. And Pakistan is a powerful ally of Azerbaijan, it helped you a great deal, as you know, during the Second Karabakh Patriotic War. We have very bad relations with Pakistan for this reason. We have very good relations with India, because India does buy a lot of military technology, missiles, and a lot of other things for its army from us. India also buys a lot of our technology for agriculture, high tech, cybersecurity and so on. This is a large, rich, powerful country. And our relations with India are developing very well. But although India is a giant, it is a sleeping giant that is not a geopolitical threat and not a competitor of the United States, but is largely under the United States. It is a controllable sleeping giant. That is why America is not jealous about our relations with India, and the European Union cannot do anything about it at all. We have much worse relations with the European Union. I am not sure if you know it or not, but two weeks ago we did not let Mr. Borrell from the European Union into Israel because of his anti-Israeli hate speech. We simply did not let him into the country.
So, yes, our relations with India are developing very well. However, given our priority relations with Azerbaijan, I am sure we talk everything over with Azerbaijan and put certain conditions in our contracts with India so that India does not resell or give these types of weapons to third parties, in particular Armenia. This is why I do not think it can be done so easily. India will not go for it because Israel is very strong legally, and India does not need these lawsuits and possible multimillion-dollar fines. Also, Armenia is not a country that can afford expensive Israeli weapons. You may recall that about ten years ago Armenia turned down Israeli weapons because they simply had no money to pay for them. And buying Israeli weapons from India, which would resell them at a mark-up, making them even more expensive, is very unlikely, that would be too costly. I do not think that Azerbaijan has anything to worry about.
Interview by Alekper Aliyev
