YULI EDELSTEIN, “ALL TRAGEDIES ARE TRAGIC IN DIFFERENT WAYS”
Vestnik Kavkaza
Sept 3 2012
Russia
Author: Interview by Petr Lyukimson, Israel, exclusively to VK
The recent visit of Israeli Minister for Information and Diaspora
Yuli Edelstein to Georgia and Armenia caused controversial comments
in the media and political circles in Israel and Azerbaijan. It went
so far that in Azerbaijan the media spoke about the need of a special
statement by the Israeli Foreign Ministry about the statements made
by Edelstein while in Armenia. However, as reported in the Israeli
Foreign Ministry to VK, they are not going to make any statement
because the minister’s statements were quite correct, but each side
heard what it wanted to hear. The reporter of VK asked the minister
Yuli Edelstein what actually happened in Yerevan and what the goals
pursued by his visit to the South Caucasus are.
– Mr. Edelstein, let’s start with the purpose of your visit to Armenia
and Georgia. What brought you to this area?
– I arrived in Yerevan on the invitation of the Minister of Culture
of Armenia to sign an agreement on cultural cooperation between
our two countries. At the same time there was the celebration of
the 20th anniversary of the revival of the Jewish community, and
therefore part of our delegation also included a number of Israeli
artists. As you know, the agreement was signed, it was of great
interest, and in early 2013 Armenia will hold first Days of Israeli
Culture, and then there will be similar actions in Israel. In Georgia,
I was officially on the invitation of the Minister of the Diaspora,
to reflect on ways to intensify cooperation in this area, but at the
same time there were meetings at the Ministry of Culture, we also
reached an agreement on cultural exchange, and in November Days of
Israeli culture will be held in Tbilisi, again with the hope that in
a very short time we will organize the Days of Culture of Georgia in
Israel. Also, of course, there were meetings with representatives of
almost all the existing Jewish organizations in Georgia, and these
meetings were also extremely interesting and productive.
– Now I’m beginning to understand why your visit to Azerbaijan was
so carefully watched. Usually, when going to the South Caucasus,
Israeli ministers try to visit all three countries of the region…
– Not necessarily. Moreover, as far as I know, cooperation with
Azerbaijan in general is established, in Israel there is considerable
interest in Azerbaijani culture and, of course, no one is going
to overlook Azerbaijan. I think sooner or later I will visit this
country. Azerbaijan also has Ministry of Diaspora, and, of course, we
have a ground for cooperation in this area. By the way, we in Israel
the word “diaspora” is clearly associated with the adjective “Jewish.”
However, in reality the Ministry or other agencies for Diaspora
exist in many countries, because there is now Armenian, Azerbaijani,
Polish, Korean, and many other diasporas all over the world. And the
Ministries of Diaspora of these countries are strengthening ties with
their own tribesmen. It is no secret that Israel has a great experience
in this area, which we are willing to share, at the same time trying
to learn everything positive that has been accumulated in this field
in other countries. No doubt, these relations will also be developed
with Azerbaijan. Of course, it can always be asked why someone has
not arrived to this or that country, but remember that in Israel,
a lot of work is always waiting for me, and I have to go home.
– In recent years, Israeli politicians often visit the South Caucasus.
Why is this so? What is the place occupied by these countries in your
system of government priorities?
– Our activity in the Caucasus has two aspects. Being not only Minister
of Diaspora but also Minister of Information, I should note that the
atmosphere and the attitude toward Israel in the three countries of
the South Caucasus is strikingly different from that of many other
parts of the planet. Paraphrasing an old Soviet anecdote, we do not
have to convince anyone in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia that “we
do not lynch Negroes,” that is, that Israel us a democratic state
which carefully monitor the human rights situation, in which there
are not any ethnic cleansings, apartheid and other things invented
by our detractors. That is, during visits to the Caucasus we do not
have to listen to all this nonsense, to explain how they are far
from reality, and we can fully engage in concrete actions, that is,
to establish bilateral cooperation in various fields.
Incidentally, not so long ago was Minister of Agriculture Orit Nuked
visited Georgia and Armenia and signed an agreement on cooperation
with these countries in her area. A couple of weeks before Tourism
Minister Yisrael Katz also visited Georgia and signed the agreement
on “open skies”, that is, on increasing cooperation in the field of
civil aviation. That is, coming to the Caucasus, we do not just kick
a dead horse; we do take action, quickly yielding fruit. But this is
only one aspect.
The second point is our regional and geopolitical interests. The South
Caucasus countries border Iran and this state is in some way trying to
impose them its influence. Of course, we are not going to interfere
in the internal affairs of these countries, but at the same time,
if we do not keep our finger on the pulse and give up the cooperation
and friendly relations with them, Iran will use it immediately.
– What happens to the Jewish communities in these countries? More
than once I have heard that the Jewish communities in Georgia and
Azerbaijan are dying, they have no future. Is this opinion true?
– You just reminded me of the great Jewish writer joke Bashevis-Singer
who said that Yiddish is like the Jewish people: it is dying all
the time, but it will never finally die. Of course, the numerousness
and prosperity experienced by the Jewish community in Azerbaijan and
Georgia before (Armenian Jews have always been very few in number)
are not the same now. By the way, this prosperity can be explained
to a large extent by the fact that in these countries there almost
was not any anti-Semitism – in contrast to, for example, Russia and
Ukraine, where I once lived. Yes, these communities are much fewer in
number now. However, we gradually said goodbye to illusions that in
the foreseeable future, all the Jews in all countries would move to
Israel, and the Jewish diaspora will disappear. Therefore the Ministry
of Diaspora was created relatively recently in order to maintain
contact with the community, so that no one said, “But they are only
500 or even 2000 people, why should we take care of them? ‘. Today
we believe that every Jew is important to us, and we understand that
life is more complicated than slogans and even in those countries where
Jews have hard times, they do not hurry to give up everything and go to
Israel. Therefore it is so important to us to maintain religious and
cultural ties with all the communities, it is important to work with
Jewish youth – because if we leave this work, we will lose the Jews.
– The political elite and the media of Azerbaijan took your statement,
made during a visit to the Museum of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan,
with considerable concern. Many people in Baku see this as one more
step towards official recognition of the tragic events of 1915 as
genocide of the Armenians. Is this view true?
– Let us start with the facts. I actually visited the Armenian Genocide
Museum and laid a wreath at the memorial to the dead, and then I
made a tour of this museum. I still think that this is absolutely
right. It would be unacceptable if, in response to an invitation to
visit this museum, I would have said, “Sorry, I cannot, because in
this matter, our countries have different political and geopolitical
interests.” During the tour, I saw that the management of the museum
changes the exposure, and I noticed that in this field Yerevan museum
definitely has something to learn from the Holocaust Memorial Museum
“Yad Vashem”, and these two museums would do well to cooperate. I
personally think that this cooperation seems to be useful.
– Armenian media, as well as Azerbaijani media basing on the recent
reports, claim that you compare the Holocaust with the events of 1915
and almost equalized them.
– I did not say this. Our position on this issue is clear: we are
certainly against comparing the Holocaust and equating it to any
other tragic event in world history. For example, three years ago,
I paid a visit to Lithuania and Latvia, and a little before in Europe
it was decided to celebrate the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of
Nazism and Stalinist terror. I think I will not surprise anyone if
I say that the Stalinist terror was nothing less in its scope and in
its devilment than Nazism. Yet at all the press conferences and in all
my speeches, I have emphasized that the Holocaust is the Holocaust,
it stands alone, but this does not mean that we should forget the
victims of Stalinism. Thus, we can work together, we can discuss it,
but, to paraphrase Tolstoy, all tragedies are tragic in different
ways and should not be compared with the events in Turkey, Rwanda,
Nanchine and elsewhere.
– Are there, in your view, the parallels between the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh?
– Probably, certain parallels may exist, but I do not think it’s
worth doing – just as it is not necessary to draw parallels between
the Holocaust and other tragic events of world history. Oddly enough,
drawing parallels not only does not help resolve these conflicts,
but also prevents this, because any inter-ethnic, inter-religious,
regional conflict is a unique combination of several factors.
Universal way to solve the conflict does not exist. Academic articles
on such comparisons are useless.
– What is your general feeling of visiting Armenia and Georgia? Are
those who speak of “Georgian miracle”, the unprecedented economic
boom in this country, right? And is there a feeling that Armenia is
really jammed in the “grip of the blockade?”
– Let me remind you that my visits to both countries were not long – I
was there for two days. I could not see and understand a lot of details
during my visit. But I really felt that Georgia is on the rise. The
pace of new construction and infrastructure development in Georgia
is enormous, and this is one of the surest signs of prosperity. But
in Armenia, by the way, there is also quite a lot of building., I
have not noticed any signs of economic collapse. Quite the contrary:
the republic is full of multilingual tourists, and at least tourism
is not in decline.
– What is the role of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in the
information war waged by Israel?
– Speaking of the support in the international arena, as it is known,
Georgia has repeatedly supported Israel’s position in international
forums, while Armenia and Azerbaijan have not provided their support
to Israel yet. We hope that our more and more activated relations will
change this. At the same time, the fact that such a significant Muslim
country as Azerbaijan is on friendly terms with Israel is important
and is a model for building relationships with other countries in
the Islamic world. Our friendly relations with Azerbaijan, Georgia
and Armenia clearly show that Ahmadinejad and his supporters and
accomplices have no special influence not only in the whole world,
but even in their region. And this is also very, very important.
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