Category: 2019

Zourabichvili’s statements in Baku

It is difficult to say to what extent this was pre-planned. Nevertheless, it can be said that whatever happened opened the door to sincere talk and the actions that followed, which is sure to result in nothing other than mutual benefit.

What particularly is meant here is open conversation about the problem of conflicts in the region, which took place in Yerevan between President Zourabichvili and leading office-holders of Armenia.

The Georgian President’s visit to Armenia took place after her visit to Azerbaijan, where some wordings in Madam President’s statements allowed Baku to voice the conclusions that Tbilisi was now unambiguously “showing support” for Azerbaijan’s “territorial integrity” in the form desired by the [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev regime.

In particular, according to the press, in Baku, Zourabichvili told Aliyev: “We restored our countries’ independence almost simultaneously, suffering similar tragedies.” Then, she said that under “similar tragedies” she implied precisely “occupation of territories”. “Occupation lines are open wounds for you, too,” the Georgian president continued, also saying that she was satisfied with the fact that Georgia and Azerbaijan “managed to strengthen their states and develop economies despite occupation”.

Response in Yerevan

The theme was continued in Yerevan and it cannot have failed to be continued. It became known from official information that in the context of regional security, the issue was touched on during the meeting with National Assembly Chairman Ararat Mirzoyan.

“The National Assembly chairman addressed the problems of regional security. Regarding the problem of [Azerbaijan’s breakaway] Nagorno-Karabakh, the parliament speaker emphasised that the authorities of the Republic of Armenia showed support for peaceful settlement of the conflict in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, adding that being a member state of the OSCE, Georgia had joined the settlement [process] in the Minsk Group format. “We should take efforts to make sure that measured and neutral wordings further serve as guidelines in all statements on Nagorno-Karabakh,” Ararat Mirzoyan emphasised. In this context, he voiced concern over the Turkish, Azerbaijani, and Georgian foreign ministers’ joint statement, which was issued on 29 October 2018 and which mentioned only one of the principles of conflict settlement. According to the National Assembly speaker, some wordings, which the Georgian president used during her recent visit to Baku, aroused concern in Armenian society. In this context, the parliament chairman considered the Georgian president’s generalised approach to different conflicts as unacceptable,” an official report of the Armenian National Assembly said.

Zourabichvili effectively ‘denied’ statement in Baku

Indeed, Armenia’s position is absolutely understandable and justified. However, there are also “stumbling blocks”, which have been left on the way of Armenian diplomacy over the past years and completely irresponsibly, too.

For her part, President Zourabichvili responded to this, which was not mentioned in the Armenian official report, but was published by the Georgian Public Broadcaster. According to the Georgian president, cooperation between the parliaments of the two countries on conflict issues was extremely important. “You also mentioned our cooperation on conflict issues and this is extremely important. For our region, these conflicts are probably the factors limiting our joint progress. As you are well aware, there are two occupied territories in Georgia and if we are speaking about the country’s interests , our main and only interest is that our sovereignty and territorial integrity be recognised and not only verbally, but in practice. From this point of view, it is extremely sad that delegations from Nagorno-Karabakh are visiting Abkhazia and ‘South Ossetia’, raising the issue as if these are similar conflicts and finding some symmetry. This is extremely sad and painful to us. We think that this does not demonstrate the benevolence, which should be in relations between our countries,” Salome Zourabichvili responded.

This is an extremely important statement, by which Madam President effectively denied the statement she had previously made in Baku. It follows that according to the statement made in Yerevan, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the conflicts in Georgia are nevertheless dissimilar and there is no symmetry.

In other words, this might outwardly look as a diplomatic “shootout”, but in actual fact, these are quite important statements and to official Yerevan’s and Tbilisi’s credit, they were made, albeit belatedly.

Georgia ‘stabilising factor’ in region

After all, what do Georgia and Armenian want from each other regarding the issue? In fact, not more than what has been documented in their official positions and international developments, and no deviation from all that has officially been documented so far.

At least, since the early 1990s, Tbilisi has maintained a balanced position regarding the recognised parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Armenia and Azerbaijan, and residents of Artsakh [Armenian name of Nagorno-Karabakh] have been able to, say, visit Georgia without hindrance as tourists or develop some other activities, which foreigners are allowed to. The thing is that apart from the fact that there are areas in Georgia densely populated by [ethnic] Armenian and Azerbaijani minorities, Georgia is Armenia’s main link to the outside world and a “lifeline route” for Azerbaijani hydrocarbons. And Tbilisi can have no position other than maintaining a balance and by doing so, taking upon itself the role of the most important stabilising factor in the region.

Armenia expects ‘balanced position’ from Georgia

As for Yerevan, it has never questioned Georgia’s territorial integrity, including Abkhazia and “South Ossetia”, even when “our centuries-old friend [Russia]” switched to open pressure, as this was the case in 2008, when Moscow invaded Georgia, and afterwards. And although Russians managed to persuade [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad to recognise their “independence”, joining the “honorary club” together with Vanuatu and Nicaragua [which also recognise their independence], they failed to do the same even with [former Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan. Yerevan has never and by no means insisted that Georgia openly take a “pro-Armenian” position and that if this does not happen, we will take steps against it, say, regarding the Abkhazia and “South Ossetia” issues. Understandably, the most “pro-Armenian” policy, which Armenia expects Georgia to pursue, is a balanced position, benevolent neutrality, and extension of bilateral relations in the fullest range – from economy to security. In Tbilisi, they are perfectly aware of this and they have always supported this approach.

Karabakh, Armenia, and Georgia’s territorial integrity

Indeed, occasional official visits from Artsakh to Abkhazia and “South Ossetia” and the shameful practice of “congratulations” on different occasions is a separate story, which undermines relations between Armenia and Georgia, threatening Armenia’s positions, delivering a blow to Artsakh’s interests and international reputation, playing into Russia’s hands, and also giving Baku a reason and an opportunity to push this in relations with Georgia as an argument in support of why Georgia should sign a joint statement on territorial integrity with Ankara and Baku. However, this is a matter of our internal discussion.

Indeed, the reality is that the conflicts are not only different and asymmetric, but also it is just insulting for Artsakh to be considering them as symmetric. It is also extremely noteworthy that during President Zourabichvili’s visit, Acting OSCE Chairman and Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak also visited Armenia. Apart from official contacts with the Armenian leadership, Lajcak also held an important and useful meeting with Artsakh foreign minister Masis Mayilyan. This is absolutely unimaginable in the case of Abkhazia and “South Ossetia” and this most accurately highlights, where they are and where we are, particularly as our [Karabakh’s] independence has been recognised by seven US states, including California, whose GDP twice exceeds that of our “strategic partner [Russia]”. Why do you travel, say, to Tskhinvali? What do you want to do or prove there? And what do you want to happen afterwards?

We should after all make it possible that delegations from [Nagorno-Karabakh capital] Stepanakert [Xankandi] visit Tbilisi, Chisinau, and Kiev, exchanging congratulations sent from Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, rather than corrupt and criminal outlaws remaining on the Kremlin’s commodity subsistence. Artsakh is an exceptional conflict in the post-Soviet area, which implies an exceptional decision. And this has nothing to do with the territorial integrity of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, which we unconditionally recognise. This has nothing to do with Azerbaijan’s “territorial integrity” Baku-style, which, for its part, has nothing to do with reality and just seriously conflicts with common sense and morality.

And lastly, the Georgian president’s visit to Yerevan has served for Yerevan as an impetus towards finding ways to “stock-taking” their foreign policies, clearing out rubbish, which relations between Armenia and Ukraine are full of and which have a similar vicious origin, leaving Armenia outside brackets in many processes, serving Russia’s exceptionally imperial interests exceptionally at the expense of our state’s reputation and delivering a straightforward blow to Armenia’s interests.

The international community considers the territorial integrity of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova in a single package, which is not subject to bargaining in the context of occupation on Russia’s part. And it is high time to understand that no steps should be taken to allow Baku to squeeze the thesis about “territorial integrity” into the same basket and [help] perceive Armenia as Moscow’s satellite. These conflicts are the most important indicators and there is every reason for agreement on not voting against each other at international platforms (after all, there is an “abstain” button or it is also possible just not to vote), being in keeping with the position of the international community in the case of post-Soviet conflicts and in keeping with the tripartite co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group in the case of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict rather than in keeping with the whims of the Kremlin’s and Baku’s kleptocracies.

March 22, 2019 Friday 1:29 PM GMT

The New York Times

Thursday

 

by Bari Weiss

 

 

FULL TEXT

 

TEL AVIV – Imagine if Joe Biden and Colin Powell announced that they were setting aside partisan politics and forming a new centrist party to save the country from Donald Trump. Then imagine that they were so serious about their goal that they promised to share power, rotating the roles of president and secretary of state.

 

Could they win?

 

That is the question Israeli voters are asking themselves. Last month, Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff of the army and a political rookie, and Yair Lapid, a former journalist and finance minister, came together to form Blue and White. (Mr. Gantz would serve as prime minister first, with Mr. Lapid as foreign minister.) The centrist party is named after the colors of the flag; its candidates are an all-star lineup of top military brass; and polls so far have put Blue and White neck and neck with Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud.

 

Over a week, I met many voters who say they will cast their ballot on April 9 for the centrists. Why? To a person, the answer boiled down to two words: Not Bibi.

 

I met Mr. Lapid on Thursday evening for tea at a North Tel Aviv cafe. When I ran this anyone-but-Bibi read of the election past him, he shot back that it was “dead wrong.”

 

In the hour that followed, Mr. Lapid, who calls himself a barometer of the Israeli center, made his case to me.

 

Voters are turning to his party because they are looking for basic morality, he said. While the sitting prime minister faces three charges of corruption, the men of Blue and White (the top eight of the 10 politicians on the list are men) are motivated by “old-fashioned, duty calls politics.” While Mr. Netanyahu’s message is one of division, Blue and White speaks about unity. And while Bibi has forged an alliance with the explicitly anti-Arab party Otzma Yehudit, Mr. Lapid said that a “racist” party “cannot be a part of a government in this country.”

 

The second difference between the men of Blue and White and Bibi, said Mr. Lapid, is how they see the role of Israel in a world in which democracy is on the decline. While Bibi has aligned himself with right-wing populists like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Viktor Orban of Hungary, Mr. Lapid sees common cause with liberals like France’s Emmanuel Macron and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands. He hopes such politicians represent “a comeback of civil, moderate” leaders who understand “the risks and hazards of populism.”

 

Chief among those hazards is anti-Semitism.

 

Mr. Lapid said he is “very upset” by what he sees happening in Hungary – the country where his father survived the Nazi genocide. Given his concern with Mr. Orban’s historical revisionism, the way the autocrat has demonized the Jewish philanthropist George Soros, and his general xenophobia, what does Mr. Lapid make of the fact that Israel’s current government has cozied up to the Hungarian leader?

 

“A country as small as Israel, facing our magnitude of threats, cannot be that picky about the way other countries decide to govern themselves,” he began. But, he added, “we also have a moral duty. I pushed forward in the last Knesset a recognition of the Armenian Holocaust even though this is not the right practical move opposite the Turks. Because there is a point where you say enough is enough.”

 

He was far more careful when I turned to the subject of Donald Trump. “I am, like any other Israeli, thankful for President Trump. I sat at the opening of the Embassy in Jerusalem with tears in my eyes,” he said.

 

What of Mr. Trump’s recent flurry of statements about how the Democratic Party has become anti-Israel and anti-Jewish? “I’m going to say this as politely as I can,” Mr. Lapid said. “He was wrong. I don’t think you can say that Eliot Engel and Jerry Nadler and Ted Deutch and Chuck Schumer don’t like Israel. They are the most pro-Israel people I know.” Mr. Lapid said one of his priorities if he wins would be to rebuild support for Israel among progressives. “Israel must be a bipartisan issue,” he said.

 

One of the casualties of Israel becoming an increasingly partisan issue has been American Jews themselves, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic and who see Israel’s rightward turn as betraying fundamental liberal values. In other words, American Jews find themselves stuck between B.D.S. – the boycott movement against Israel – and Bibi.

 

“I understand the fact that some kind of gap was opened between Israel and the diaspora,” Mr. Lapid said of this problem. “I think what unites us – culturally, morally – is way bigger than what separates us. And what we need to go back to is this vocabulary of one people.”

 

It is when Mr. Lapid talks about Jewish values and Jewish history that he is the most compelling. Doubly so when it comes to the subject of his father, Tommy Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who built a life in Israel as a journalist and then as a politician, and died in 2008.

 

“My father had a friend in the Budapest ghetto. His name was Thomas Lantos,” Mr. Lapid said. “After the Holocaust, they went to the same pier in the same harbor and Tom took a boat and went left and my dad took a boat and went right.” Mr. Lantos eventually ended up in California, where he became a Democratic member of the House of Representatives and head of the Foreign Affairs Committee. “They always felt that if they took the opposite boat, Tom would be the minister of justice and my father would be the head of the foreign committee.”

 

“We are the revolving door,” he said, an unusual but beautiful metaphor for Jews’ shared sense of history and destiny. “I was once a young journalist in this country. I could have been you and you could have been me. We share something that we don’t totally have the words for. This is what the anti-Semites hate. We have something they don’t understand.”

 

Ultimately, though, what drives Israeli elections is not fine words about Jewish peoplehood, any more than it is marijuana legalization or tax policy. It is security.

 

Anyone who has paid any attention to the past two decades of headlines – the Second Intifada, Hamas’s rise in Gaza, the failed Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war – should understand Israelis’ sense of vulnerability in the region. Mr. Netanyahu’s long experience reassures many voters who still see Mr. Lapid as a former TV personality lacking in real substance and Mr. Gantz as a political novice.

 

Mr. Lapid is aware of this. “Security will be the first demand every Israeli in his right mind will talk to you about,” he told me.

 

“There are several issues in which the majority of Israelis – 70 to 80 percent – think approximately the same,” he said. “We are all students of the disengagement of 2005, in which Israel did what the world asked us to do. We left Gaza. We dismantled the settlements. And I supported it at the time. But you know what? It was a mistake, doing it unilaterally. The only thing that happened is that less than a year later they voted Hamas into power. We left them with 3,000 greenhouses for them to build an economy and instead they built training camps” for jihadis.

 

So where does that leave the West Bank? Can the occupation go on indefinitely?

 

He paused. “It’s a very American question.” Because Americans think “everything is fixable.”

 

“Really, really wanting something or desiring something strongly is just not enough,” he said. “I’m not willing to see one Jew die because someone took an unnecessary risk in the name of values I really cherish. Like peace, like humanity, like people’s need for self-recognition.”

 

“We need to have the vision and the courage Menachem Begin had. But we also need to be very patient waiting for an Anwar Sadat on the other side. And there is no Sadat on the other side right now,” he says, referring to the Egyptian leader who made peace with Israel in 1979 – a cold peace that continues to this day.

 

In a way, this hawkish consensus is the story that Americans have missed about Israel. No serious contender for the prime ministership is talking about peace or an imminent two-state solution. Indeed, the fact that Mr. Lapid believes Blue and White can form “a unity coalition with post-Netanyahu Likud and Labor” shows just how far to the right Israel has shifted.

 

Two hours after I left Mr. Lapid, I heard the deep boom of the Iron Dome intercepting rockets over Tel Aviv. Back at the hotel, the receptionist showed me the bomb shelter, just in case. In the morning, I read that Israel had hit 100 targets in Gaza overnight.

 

“The Hamas rockets shot at Tel Aviv were a gift” to Bibi, a senior Israeli official, who asked for anonymity, told me the next day. “Netanyahu could fire back at a hundred Gazan targets without risking war. Hamas knows just how far it can push him, and he knows how far he can push back. The same cannot be said of Benny Gantz. If Blue and White is elected, he’s sure to be tested by Hamas and others, with untold consequences.”

 

Mr. Lapid thinks he and Mr. Gantz are more than up to the task.

 

“The Holocaust taught us that the only test of moral people is in immoral times,” he said. “This translates in Israel into daily dilemmas. You’re a young officer and someone is shooting at you and your soldiers from inside a hospital. What do you do? Who do you protect? How do you solve this problem? This tension between morality and survival is to me the core of 21st-century Judaism,” he said. “It is true in Pittsburgh. It is true in Tel Aviv. It is true everywhere. And I consider myself the keeper of this dilemma.”