Category: 2022

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief
=================================================
Thursday 10 February 2022
AZERBAIJAN: State takes direct control of mosque leadership
The State Committee for Work with Religious Organisations will take over
naming imams in all mosques from the Caucasian Muslim Board if amendments
to the Religion Law awaiting their second reading in Parliament are
approved. The amendments would also give the State Committee the leading
role in re-appointing all imams every five years. Commentator on religious
issues Kanan Rovshanoglu notes that the Caucasian Muslim Board "will
completely lose control over mosques", just as it has already lost control
over Islamic higher education. He argues that Islamic communities
themselves should choose their own imams. Another amendment would remove
the possibility for non-Muslim communities to have a "religious centre" or
headquarter body.
AZERBAIJAN: State takes direct control of mosque leadership
By Felix Corley, Forum 18
Further amendments to the much-amended Religion Law now in Parliament will
– if adopted in current form – hand responsibility for naming prayer
leaders in all mosques from the Caucasian Muslim Board to the State
Committee for Work with Religious Organisations. The State Committee
already oversees all Muslim educational establishments, censors religious
literature of all faiths and approves or bans the building or renovation of
any place of worship. "The State Committee is collecting all the power it
can over the Muslim community," exiled human rights defender Arif Yunus
told Forum 18.
Kanan Rovshanoglu, a journalist and commentator on religious issues, argues
that Islamic communities themselves should choose their own imams and then
inform officials of who they have chosen. He noted that the Caucasian
Muslim Board "will completely lose control over mosques" when the
amendments are adopted. He told Qafqazinfo news website that the state
takeover of the Board's powers has been underway for several years (see
below).
The amendments would also give the State Committee the leading role in
re-appointment of all imams every five years, with only the "involvement"
of the Caucasian Muslim Board. This is a reversal of the State Committee
and Muslim Board roles when the state mandated re-appointment of all imams
in June 2021 amendments to the Religion Law (see below).
The amendments would re-designate the Caucasian Muslim Board not as the
"organisational" centre but the "religious" centre for Azerbaijan's
mosques. The regime does not allow independent mosques to exist (see
below).
Another amendment would remove the possibility for non-Muslim communities
to have a "religious centre" or headquarter body. However, this term is
poorly defined in the current Religion Law and the implications of the
change remain unclear (see below).
The latest Religion Law amendments were announced only on 27 January, when
they were discussed in the Milli Majlis (Parliament) Public Associations
and Religious Organisations Committee. The text of the amendments was then
published on the Milli Majlis website. The amendments were adopted in their
first reading on 1 February. No dates have been set for the second and
third readings (see below).
The state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ) appeared to accept
the stripping of further responsibilities from it. The Board "calls on
believers and clergy to unequivocally comply with all provisions of the Law
in case of adoption of new amendments" to the Religion Law, it declared in
a 27 January statement (see below).
Forum 18 was unable to reach Public Associations and Religious
Organisations Committee Chair Fazail Ibrahimli or other Committee members
on 9 February. Staff of the Committee refused to discuss anything with
Forum 18. Another Milli Majlis deputy, Siyavush Novruzov, former Chair of
the Committee who now chairs the Regional Affairs Committee, declined to
comment on the amendments. "I haven't read them," he told Forum 18 (see
below).
Gunduz Ismayilov, a Deputy Chair of the State Committee, addressed the 27
January Milli Majlis Committee about the amendments and was present during
the first reading on 1 February. An aide to Ismayilov refused to put Forum
18 through to him on 9 February (see below).
On 16 June 2021, President Ilham Aliyev signed into law earlier Religion
Law amendments 
(
 ) which
introduced a new requirement for the State Committee for Work with
Religious Organisations to approve the appointment of all non-Islamic
religious leaders.
It appears that the Moscow Patriarchate chose a candidate to succeed the
late Archbishop Aleksandr (Ishchein) as Russian Orthodox bishop of Baku in
2021, but failed to get approval from the State Committee. "The rejection
came from the Presidential Administration," Arif Yunus told Forum 18 (see
below).
Meanwhile, the United Nations Human Rights Committee made public two
further rulings in November and December 2021 finding that Azerbaijan had
violated the rights of Jehovah's Witnesses to freedom of religion or belief
(see forthcoming F18News article).
Increasing number, expense of state religious affairs officials
State funds spent on the growing network of officials employed by the State
Committee to control the exercise of the right to religion or belief
continue to increase. State funding is now more than three times the level
of eight years ago.
Under a 3 December 2021 Presidential Decree, state funds allocated to the
State Committee for its own activities in 2022 amount to 4,014,799 Manats
(21 million Norwegian Kroner, 2 million Euros or 2.4 million US Dollars).
In 2014, the state had allocated 1,228,964 Manats to the State Committee
for its own activities.
The State Committee employs a growing number of staff (174 at the latest
count) to control the exercise of the right to religion or belief, both at
its headquarters and its regional branches.
In 2014, the State Committee headquarters in Baku had 4 senior officials
overseeing its activity. Under them it had 6 departments each with their
own activity. It had 9 local branches, employing 29 officials in 7 of them,
plus further officials in Baku and Sumgait.
In February 2022, the State Committee headquarters in Baku has 6 senior
officials overseeing its activity. Under them it has 9 departments each
with their own activity with a total of 79 officials. It has 15 local
branches, employing 89 officials.
Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, an exclave of Azerbaijan, has its own
State Agency for Work with Religious Organisations with its own staff.
Ever-increasing state control of Islam
While the regime keeps all religious communities under control, it has been
particularly tightening its control over mosques in recent years. Almost
all the remaining Sunni mosques were closed, including in Baku and Ganca.
In 2018, the State Committee took over control of higher Islamic education
from the state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ). The Azerbaijan
Theological Institute, established by a Presidential Decree of 9 February
2018, is the only higher educational establishment the regime allows to
operate.
The regime closed Baku Islamic University, operated by the Caucasian Muslim
Board, later in 2018. The state does not recognise as valid the 3,500
diplomas the University awarded between its foundation in 1989 and its
closure.
The first graduates of Azerbaijan Theological Institute are due to complete
their studies in 2022 and the state will then appoint them to lead mosques.
Since Religion Law amendments in December 2015
(
 ), Article 21 has
banned both Azerbaijani citizens who had studied abroad and non-Azerbaijani
citizens from conducting Islamic rituals. (From 2018 the State Committee
could give foreign-educated clergy permission to conduct Islamic rituals.)
A new Criminal Code Article 168-1 ("Violation of the procedure for
religious propaganda and religious ceremonies") was also introduced at the
same time 
(
 ).
Imam Sardar Babayev was the first and only person known to have been
punished under Article 168-1. He was jailed between February 2017 and
February 2020 
(
 ).
Imam Babayev was among five prominent Shia preachers detained on 19 October
2021. He is now facing further criminal prosecution. The other four were
freed after questioning, one after several hours and three after a week.
Another Shia preacher was detained and questioned on 29 October 2021 (see
forthcoming F18News article).
A court jailed a Muslim from Lokbatan for two weeks in November 2021 after
police halted a protest against the replacement of an imam (see forthcoming
F18News article).
Amendments prepared as usual in secret, no legal review sought
As with the June 2021 Religion Law amendments
(
 ) and those in earlier
years, the regime prepared the latest Religion Law
(
 ) amendments in secrecy
and with no public consultation.
The regime did not seek a review of these amendments
(
 ) from either the
Council of Europe's Venice Commission or the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights. The two inter-governmental organisations, often together, provide
reviews of laws and draft laws on request.
Inter-governmental organisations have repeatedly criticised the regime's
restrictions on freedom of religion and belief and other human rights
(
 ). Both the Council of
Europe's Venice Commission and the OSCE have drawn extensively on their
highly critical October 2012 Joint Opinion on the Religion Law
(
 )
in the OSCE/Venice Commission Joint Guidelines on the Legal Personality of
Religion or Belief Communities 
(
 ).
Amendments awaiting second reading
No election in Azerbaijan – including February 2020 Milli Majlis
(Parliament) elections - has ever been found to be free and fair
(
 ) by Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election observers.
The latest Religion Law amendments were announced only on 27 January, when
they were discussed in the Milli Majlis Public Associations and Religious
Organisations Committee. The text of the amendments was then published on
the Milli Majlis website.
The 27 January Milli Majlis Committee meeting, chaired by Committee chair
Fazail Ibrahimli, was also addressed by Gunduz Ismayilov, a Deputy Chair of
the State Committee. The head and another official of the State Building,
Administrative and Military Legislation Department were also present.
Among Milli Majlis Committee members present for the discussion was
Javanshir Pashazade, younger brother of the head of the state-controlled
Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ) Sheikh-ul-Islam
Allahshukur Pashazade.
"The deputies said the amendments would serve to improve activities in this
area," the Milli Majlis claimed about the 27 January Committee discussion,
"and spoke about their importance in terms of state-religion relations."
Forum 18 was unable to reach Committee Chair Ibrahimli or other Committee
members on 9 February. Phones of aides went unanswered or, in the case of
Malik Hasanov, his aide said he was out of the country. Staff of the
Committee refused to discuss anything with Forum 18.
Siyavush Novruzov, former Chair of the Public Associations and Religious
Organisations Committee who now chairs the Regional Affairs Committee,
declined to comment on the amendments. "I'm no longer chair of that
Committee," he told Forum 18 from Baku on 9 February. Asked whether he will
vote for them on second reading, he responded: "I haven't read them. I will
decide then." Phones of other deputies went unanswered the same day.
After the Milli Majlis Committee approved the amendments, they were sent
for consideration by the full parliament. They were adopted in their first
reading on 1 February, according to the Milli Majlis website. Ismayilov of
the State Committee was also present for the first reading.
The Public Associations and Religious Organisations Committee held a
meeting on 9 February to prepare for the second reading of the amendments.
No dates have been made public for the second and third readings.
In an interview with news website Report on 4 February, Ismayilov of the
State Committee claimed that the Milli Majlis had initiated the amendments.
An aide to Ismayilov at the State Committee put the phone down on 9
February after Forum 18 asked to speak to him about the amendments.
State to directly control all mosque leader appointments
The further amendments to the much-amended Religion Law awaiting their
second reading in Parliament will – if adopted in current form – hand
responsibility for naming prayer leaders in all mosques from the
state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ) to the State
Committee for Work with Religious Organisations. The State Committee would
then inform the Board of who it has appointed.
In Article 8 of the current Religion Law, the Board names imams and then
informs the State Committee of their appointment.
Gunduz Ismayilov, a Deputy Chair of the State Committee, defended the
proposed role of the state in naming imams. "It is true that according to
our Constitution, religion is separate from the state and Azerbaijan is a
secular state," he told Report in his 4 February interview. "However, the
appointment of a cleric by a state body does not contradict the principles
of secularism and secularism."
Ismayilov claimed that setting out the provisions of Sharia law and naming
imams are different. "The state does not interfere in the Sharia and
doctrines by appointing a cleric," he claimed. He cited the state
appointment of imams in Turkey. "Muslim clerics have been appointed by the
Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) since Ataturk. Mosque imams are
civil servants in Turkey."
Kanan Rovshanoglu, a journalist and commentator on religious issues, argues
that Islamic communities themselves should choose their own imams and then
inform officials of who they have chosen. He noted that the
state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ) "will completely lose
control over mosques" when the amendments are adopted.
Rovshanoglu pointed out to Qafqazinfo news website on 28 January that first
the Caucasian Muslim Board named imams, then it named the imams but had to
inform the State Committee or all appointments, and now the State Committee
will make the appointments.
The amendments to Article 8 of the Religion Law would also give the State
Committee the leading role in re-appointing all imams every five years,
with only the "involvement" of the Caucasian Muslim Board. This is a
reversal of the State Committee and Muslim Board roles when the state
mandated re-appointment of imams in June 2021 amendments to the Religion
Law 
(
 ).
Another amendment to Article 8 of the Religion Law would re-designate the
state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ) not as the
"organisational" centre but the "religious" centre for Azerbaijan's
mosques. This would mean in effect that the Board no longer has any power
over how individual mosques are run, with all decisions taken by the State
Committee.
The State Committee already controls all Muslim educational establishments,
imposes state censorship of all religious literature of any kind, and
approves or bans the building or renovation of any place of worship
(
 ). "The State Committee
is collecting all the power it can over the Muslim community," exiled
historian and human rights defender Arif Yunus
(
 )
told Forum 18 from the Netherlands on 8 February.
Rovshanoglu told Qafqazinfo that the state takeover of the Board's powers
(
 ) has been underway for
several years and pointed to the State Committee's 2018 decision to take
direct control over Islamic education. "From now on, the Caucasian Muslim
Board will be a public organisation that only issues religious fatwas and
significant calendar items."
Caucasian Muslim Board appears to accept stripping of further
responsibilities
The state-controlled Caucasian Muslim Board
(
 ) appears to accept the
stripping of further responsibilities from it. The Board "calls on
believers and clergy to unequivocally comply with all provisions of the Law
in case of adoption of new amendments" to the Religion Law, it declared in
a 27 January statement on its website.
"As a religious centre," the statement added, "the CMB, in cooperation with
the relevant executive body of the state [State Committee], is always
closely involved in the implementation of state policy in the religious and
spiritual sphere and will continue to contribute to ensuring a high level
of religion-state relations."
Gunduz Ismayilov, a Deputy Chair of the State Committee
(
 ), welcomed the Board's
27 January statement accepting the stripping of responsibilities from it.
"With this statement, the Caucasian Muslim Board demonstrated its
commitment to our statehood and national interests," he told Report in his
4 February interview.
No official of the Caucasian Muslim Board was available on 10 February to
discuss with Forum 18 the impact of the new amendments now in the Milli
Majlis.
No "religious centres" for non-Muslim communities
An amendment to Article 12 of the Religion Law, which covers how
communities apply for registration, would remove any role for "religious
centres" or headquarter bodies in registration applications by individual
communities.
Under Article 12, registered individual religious communities are allowed
to operate only at their legal address.
As at present 
(
 ),
communities seeking state registration would have to prepare a statute
approved at a members' meeting, and collect the full details of their 50
adult founders, "indicating their citizenship, place of residence and date
of birth, copies of identity documents, basics of religious education,
including religious information on the history of the community, the forms
and methods of its activities, traditions, attitudes to the family,
marriage and education, and restrictions on the rights and responsibilities
of members of the community". The communities would then submit their
application with all this information directly to the State Committee.
The amendment to Article 12 also removes any specific mention of "religious
centres" when it sets out how religious organisations apply for state
registration. This appears to remove the possibility for non-Muslim
communities to have a "religious centre" or headquarter body. However, this
term is poorly defined in the current Religion Law and the implications of
the change remain unclear.
The Russian Orthodox Church has only one registered organisation – its
Baku diocese – which has seven constituent parishes. Russian Orthodox
clergy in Baku declined to discuss with Forum 18 on 9 February whether the
amendments might affect the functioning of their parishes.
Jeyhun Mammadov, a Milli Majlis deputy who is on the Public Associations
and Religious Organisations Committee, claimed to SIA news website on 28
January that the requirement that religious communities send their
applications directly to the State Committee "will speed up the
registration process".
Despite this claim, the State Committee has repeatedly rejected or ignored
registration applications
(
 ) from religious
communities it does not like. Independent mosques, Protestant Christian
communities and Jehovah's Witness communities are among those whose
applications have failed.
A Jehovah's Witness community in Azerbaijan's second city Ganca applied for
state registration in July 2010. In May 2016 the State Committee rejected
the application with objections "that were not legally valid in our view",
Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 on 10 February 2022. A Jehovah's Witness
community in the northern town of Qakh applied for state registration more
recently. Both communities are still waiting for registration.
"We would like to have national registration in order to address the
problem of communities where the number of members does not meet the
numerical threshold to apply," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. They note
the almost complete removal of references to a "national centre" in the
latest Religion Law amendments.
Conflict over naming new Russian Orthodox bishop?
Under the Religion Law amendments signed into law in June 2021
(
 ), all non-Islamic
religious communities need to get approval for any new leader from the
State Committee.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Diocese, Archbishop Aleksandr (Ishchein),
died on 10 June 2021, six days before President Aliyev signed the new
amendments into law.
By the time of Archbishop Aleksandr's funeral on 13 June 2021, the Moscow
Patriarchate had named Archbishop Feofilakt (Kuryanov) of the Russian
diocese of Pyatigorsk in addition as temporary administrator of the Baku
diocese. Archbishop Feofilakt has also been temporary administrator of the
Russian Orthodox deanery of Turkmenistan since 2008.
It appears that the Moscow Patriarchate chose a candidate to succeed
Aleksandr as bishop in 2021, but failed to get approval from the State
Committee. "The rejection came from the Presidential Administration," Arif
Yunus told Forum 18.
Russian Orthodox clergy in Baku declined to discuss with Forum 18 what is
obstructing the naming of a new bishop to the Baku Diocese. (END)
Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Azerbaijan
(
 )
For more background, see Forum 18's Azerbaijan religious freedom survey
(
 )
Forum 18's compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments
(
 )
Follow us on Twitter @Forum_18 
(
 )
Follow us on Facebook @Forum18NewsService
(
 )
All Forum 18 text may be referred to, quoted from, or republished in full,
if Forum 18 is credited as the source.
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© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855.
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Green Left
By Peter Boyle
February 10, 2022
The Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society-Australia launched an
online petition calling on the Australian government to de-list the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a “terrorist organisation”.
Solidarity groups such as Australians for Kurdistan, Rojava Solidarity
Sydney, North and East Syria Solidarity as well as progressive
political parties, including the Greens and the Socialist Alliance,
are showing support for the campaign.
The PKK has been fighting for the freedom of the Kurdish people, who
are an oppressed minority nationality in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
While the PKK has carried out an armed struggle since 1984, it has
also implemented at least four unilateral ceasefires, the first in
1993 and the latest in 2013 when it began withdrawing its armed units
to camps in northern Iraq.
The PKK has dropped its demand for an independent Kurdish state and
instead calls for autonomy within a democratised Turkey.
The preamble to the petition states: “The PKK seeks to enter into
direct negotiations with the Turkish government. Its acknowledged
leader, Abdullah Öcalan, jailed in Turkey since 1999, will play a key
role in any such negotiations and the PKK wants his harsh conditions
of imprisonment significantly eased to facilitate this.”
The federal government first added the PKK to the list of prohibited
organisations in 2006 after Turkey’s dictator President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan visited Australia. It was re-listed in August 2021.
Listing as a “terrorist organisation” means it is illegal for
Australian citizens to belong to the PKK, raise funds or actively
support it. This imposes a serious restriction on the freedom of
political expression of Kurdish Australians and their supporters.
The Australian Federal Police and ASIO have previously raided the
homes and community centres of the Kurdish community in Melbourne,
Perth and Sydney. Kurdish-Australian journalist Renas Lelikan was
arrested and charged with being a member of the PKK in 2016 after
being in the Middle East reporting on the Kurdish freedom struggle.
While he was eventually convicted of being a member of the PKK, in
sentencing Lelikan in 2019, NSW Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum
recognised that “the ideology of the PKK as expressed in the writings
of Abdullah Öcalan has more in common with the values of our democracy
than it does with extremist violent jihad. It is based on the notion
of 'democratic confederalism', which Öcalan describes as being 'open
towards other political groups and factions … flexible,
multi-cultural, anti-monopolistic, and consensus-oriented' and an
ideology of which 'ecology and feminism are central pillars'."
While the government’s listing of the PKK left the court no choice but
to convict Lelikan, McCallum said “there was no available evidence
that the PKK seeks to harm Australians or Australia’s democratic
institutions. Nor is there evidence to suggest that Australia faces
any threat from the PKK.”
“Whilst I accept that support for terrorism is inherently serious, the
ideal of self-determination espoused by the PKK is not the most
dangerous ideal of our times. That assessment confirms my overall
characterisation of the present offence as being towards the lowest
order of seriousness.”
The supreme court of Belgium ruled in 2020 that the PKK was not a
terrorist organisation.
After the Australian government first listed the PKK as a terrorist
organisation, two Labor MPs on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on
Intelligence and Security issued a minority report dissenting from the
proposed re-listing. That was the first and only time the Committee
has been divided over whether an organisation should be listed.
Greens MPs and independent MP Andrew Wilkie have supported the calls
for de-listing.
NSW Greens MP Jamie Parker told Green Left: “The PKK poses no risk to
the people of Australia. The listing denies the important role they
can play in a peace process and their key role in the defeat of ISIS.
“The Australian Greens opposed the original listing of the PKK under
the John Howard government in 2005.
“The PKK played a key role in the defeat of ISIS forces on the ground
in Syria with the support of the United States.
“Delisting the PKK would give extra impetus to a peace process between
the Kurds and Turkey. The leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, can play
an important role in a peace process and should be released from his
inhumane imprisonment.”
Melbourne-based activist and Co-Chair of North and East Syria
Solidarity Fionn Skiotis told Green Left that the new petition was
part of an international campaign. The Belgian supreme court decision
was “one of the first cracks in the crumbling of this ridiculous
labeling of the PKK as a terrorist organisation, which it is not”, he
said.
The labelling of the PKK as a terrorist organisation helps the Turkish
state continue its oppression of the Kurdish people.
“In Turkey, people can be sent to jail for something as simple as
saying a Kurdish expression or singing a Kurdish song because this can
be presented as some form of support for ‘terrorism’.
“Many Kurdish politicians who have been democratically elected have
been removed from office and jailed because they are claimed to be
supporting PKK ‘terrorism’.
“It is used in an international context by Turkey to justify its now
very open warfare against the Kurdish people right across Kurdistan.
“The recent attacks in North and East Syria and in Shengal in Iraq and
in Kurdish areas in Turkey are justified by Turkey as acts in pursuit
of ‘terrorists’.
“As long as the listing of the PKK remains in countries like Australia
and its allies in the West, Turkey will be able to use that excuse to
continue its war on the Kurds.”
 

AL-Monitor
February 9, 2022
[Taking relations with Ankara one step at a time, Jerusalem could opt
for a soft-diplomatic multi-national alliance with Turkey, Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.]
Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Herzog met Feb. 3 with
Turkish Ambassador Hasan Murat Mercan, considered a close associate of
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The two met at a dinner hosted by Azerbaijan ambassador to Washington
Khazar Ibrahim, who also invited the ambassadors from Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan.
It was an unusual event. Israel maintains diplomatic relations with
all the four countries, but ties are complicated.
With Turkey, relations have been cold for over a decade, though
Turkish leadership has been trying in recent months to change that.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called Israeli President
Isaac Herzog twice, first to congratulate him on taking office, and
then to express his condolences for the death of his mother. Herzog
called Erdogan to wish him well after the Turkish leader got infected
with coronavirus. In recent days, Erdogan said more than once that he
expects a visit from Herzog in Ankara next month.
Bilateral ties with Azerbaijan have been particularly warm for many
years. Still, following the Nagorno-Karabakh 2020 conflict and
accusations by Armenia that Israel supplied its rival with attack
drones and other weapons, these ties have come under public scrutiny.
Relations with Uzbekistan are of particular importance to Israel
because of its proximity to Iran. The Jewish community there is one of
the oldest in the world, and the two countries have nurtured
development cooperation projects in recent years. As token of
friendship and support, Israel’s ambassador to the country, Zehavit
Ben Hillel, delivered a significant contribution of anti-COVID medical
equipment to the children’s hospital of Tashkent last month.
Kazakhstan is also significant for Israel strategically. The two
countries maintain close contacts in the defense and intelligence
sectors. Israel’s newly appointed Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Edwin
Yabo, just marked 30 years to bilateral diplomatic ties.
Reportedly, Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, was the one
who initiated the meeting, after discussing it beforehand separately
with all parties. His idea was simple – to build up a soft-diplomacy
alliance in fields such as cultural exchange or preservation of Jewish
heritage in central Asia. When such a cooperation would be put in
place, the five countries could move to more ambitious multinational
cooperation in trade, energy and even security.
For Jerusalem, the idea is interesting. Deepening alliances with
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is strategically important
because of Iran, but also because of other issues such as purchasing
oil, selling security equipment, and enhancing Israel’s trade
relations. Getting Turkey into the picture, of course, has an added
value for Israel. It would enable Jerusalem to test the Turkish water
and see if Ankara is really sincere in its statements in favor of
rapprochement.
These statements, and the amicable phone calls placed recently between
the two presidents, were indeed put to test yesterday. Speaking to
reporters Feb. 8, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, "Any
step we take with Israel regarding our relations, any normalization,
will not be at the expense of the Palestinian cause, like some other
countries," apparently referring to the normalization agreements
signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Another negative sign was the Turkish decision yesterday to charge 16
people, among them Palestinians and Syrians, for espionage. The
decision followed the arrest last October of these students, with
Ankara announcing it had cracked a Mossad spy network. Israeli experts
and media claimed from the beginning the affair was fabricated, and
that Mossad did not operate any such ring. Jerusalem now wonders
what’s really behind this decision, and how come Cavusoglu made his
rather negative statement exactly on the same day as the indictment.
 

Jacobin
By Branko Marcetic
Feb. 10, 2022
After weeks on the sidelines, Bernie Sanders and other progressives
are taking a forceful stand on the Ukraine crisis. They’re navigating
a dangerous climate created by mainstream media — including liberal
outlet MSNBC — that casts antiwar opinion as disloyalty.
Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) weighed in on the standoff in
Ukraine with the most comprehensive stance he’s taken on the conflict
so far. Liberals, progressives, and socialists should all pay
attention.
Writing in the Guardian, Sanders places the blame for the crisis
firmly at the feet of the “liar and demagogue” Vladimir Putin and his
“gang of oligarchs,” but makes clear his unease with the “familiar
drumbeats in Washington” and the “simplistic refusal to recognize the
complex roots of the tensions in the region.” Pointing to not just the
devastating potential of war in the region, but the ruinous ripple
effects that even just imposing sanctions would have on ordinary
people in Russia and throughout the world, he urges all parties to
“work hard to achieve a realistic and mutually agreeable resolution” —
starting with taking seriously the “legitimate concerns” in Moscow
about NATO’s eastward expansion.
“To put it simply, even if Russia was not ruled by a corrupt
authoritarian leader like Vladimir Putin, Russia, like the United
States, would still have an interest in the security policies of its
neighbors,” Sanders writes. “Does anyone really believe that the
United States would not have something to say if, for example, Mexico
was to form a military alliance with a US adversary?”
Sanders is treading a very fine line in making a point that was once
mainstream and common sense, but has in the current political climate
become unspeakable: that maybe the US policy of enlarging the
anti-Soviet military alliance right up to Russia’s borders has not
been particularly wise or reasonable — and may, in fact, be a root
cause of the current tensions.
Sanders’s op-ed comes as progressives in Congress have been
increasingly vocal against Washington escalation in Ukraine. Last
week, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MT) warned the Democrats’ bill to
send $500 million worth of military aid to the country — coming at a
point when even the Biden administration is joining the rest of the
world in admitting a Russian invasion may not actually be imminent —
simply “escalates the conflict without deterring it effectively.” Two
weeks before that, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
cautioned that “there is not a military solution to this problem,”
warning it could spark an energy crisis, and blaming it all on a
military-industrial complex “starved of revenue” since the Afghanistan
pullout.
Statements like these carry more than a small amount of political
risk, which is maybe why they took so long to materialize among the
Congressional left. Progressive lawmakers have had to navigate the
Ukraine crisis in a world still infected with the post-2016 viral
cocktail of anti-Russian hysteria and McCarthyite-style accusations.
The Worst People in the World Have a Point
You only need to look at how the Democratic Party and its affiliates
spent the year so far responding to similar antiwar and de-escalatory
arguments. Disappointingly, these initially didn’t come from left-wing
or even liberal lawmakers and pundits, but from the Right side of the
political spectrum.
There was the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, who proposed an “ideal
retreat” for Washington that would see “NATO expansion permanently
tabled,” among other things. Former Trump official Michael Flynn, who
once upon a time appeared to have had surprisingly sensible foreign
policy views before the Internet drove him completely insane, wrote
that NATO’s eastward creep would be the “principal cause of a
devastating war.” More recently, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has gone
further than any elected official, explicitly questioning the idea of
including Ukraine in NATO, and warning that “our interest is not so
strong” in Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty that it would
“justify committing the United States to go to war with Russia.”
But maybe most prominent of all has been Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who
as far back as December 2021 was admonishing Republicans for goading
Biden into being more aggressive and using rhetoric that was “hotter
and crazier and more disconnected from reality.” Since then, he’s
continued to question Ukraine’s strategic value to the United States,
argue against war with Russia, and compare, accurately, Ukraine’s
entry into NATO to Mexico entering a military alliance with China.
Carlson’s broadcasts reportedly led some Republicans to adopt his same
position on the Ukraine crisis, a notable shift for a party that has
typically never met a war it didn’t want to charge into.
Carlson is, of course, a charlatan who, for all his populist rhetoric,
is a conventional neoliberal Republican on almost every issue. But he
also happens to be completely right on this particular matter. And
it’s telling that even as Carlson continued to broadcast vile agitprop
calling for the banishment of the homeless and fearmongering about
immigrants, it was his entirely sensible position on Ukraine that got
the most aggressive widespread pushback from the liberal-Democratic
side of the spectrum.
Late Show host Stephen Colbert accused Flynn of using Putin’s “exact
argument,” and called Carlson an “apologist” for a “murderous
dictator.” Carlson’s points were “in perfect alignment with the way
Russia’s beleaguered neighbor is being smeared on Kremlin-funded state
television,” wrote the Daily Beast, noting what it called “the tactic
of terrorizing American audiences with the possibility of nuclear
war,” as if this were a messaging strategy and not an objective fact.
Even pieces of ostensibly straight reporting framed such statements as
mere repetition of Kremlin propaganda. (Newsweek headline: “Tucker
Carlson Backs Russia, Compares Ukraine Joining NATO With China
Controlling Mexico.”)
It’s been much the same on CNN, where host Brianna Keilar accused
Carlson of having a “pro-Russia stance.” “Tucker’s propaganda is very
convenient for Russia,” the Daily Beast author told Reliable Sources,
ostensibly the network’s media criticism show. Ronald Reagan’s son
dipped into the same playbook on the network that the Right once used
to attack Reagan himself for turning to diplomacy with the Soviet
Union, suggesting that Carlson was one of a “number of people who
would take Vladimir Putin’s side over our own president.”
“I don’t want to throw around words like ‘traitor’ or ‘traitorism,’
but that’s coming pretty close,” he said. The apple clearly doesn’t
fall far from the tree.
But it’s on MSNBC where this kind of rhetoric is on overdrive, with
talking heads accusing Carlson of “shilling for Vladimir Putin,”
broadcasting a “very pro-Kremlin message,” of “doing the work of the
autocratic Russian government,” feeding people “Russian propaganda,”
and “rooting for Russia.” New Jersey Democrat Tom Malinowski came on
to complain that “I started getting calls from my constituents,
basically, saying: I have been watching Tucker and we’re being way too
hard on Russia. And why should we go fight a war for this unimportant
country, Ukraine, that’s far away?” The horror!
Accusing Carlson of “pushing this kind of Russian message,” MSNBC’s
Ari Melber warned that while it may be “a dovish message and it may be
the foreign policy many would agree with,” people should know it’s not
the truth. For Melber, and on MSNBC as a whole, the reality presented
is one in which the Ukraine issue is a battle of democracy versus
autocracy, NATO has nothing to do with what’s going on, all of this is
entirely due to Putin’s domestic political concerns and imperial
mindset — vast oversimplifications that don’t really hold up if you
know the slightest bit of the country’s recent history.
There’s almost no alternative to these views on the network. MSNBC’s
long-serving progressive voice, Chris Hayes, has tended to avoid the
issue, and when he has tackled it, he’s interviewed figures like
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) — a man who stood shoulder to shoulder
with one of Ukraine’s leading fascists, as he announced his support
for the revolution that helped bring us to this crisis in the first
place. About the only exception is Mehdi Hasan, who has challenged
some of his more hawkish guests, and has said that Hawley has “got a
point” on explicitly limiting NATO expansion.
Unfortunately though, this reckless type of rhetoric is now more and
more seeping out from the toxic soup of cable news. The St Louis
Post-Dispatch, Hawley’s hometown paper, has now run two pieces by its
editorial board attacking him and Carlson from the right for being
insufficiently hawkish on Ukraine, accusing them of a “pro-Russia
stand,” criticizing Hawley’s “naivete regarding Russia” and for not
understanding “why containing Russian expansionism remains such a big
deal.” These op-eds have, in turn, been celebrated by even progressive
outlets like Raw Story and Huffington Post. A letter writer likewise
accused Carlson of disloyalty, and for siding with a “totalitarian
adversary” instead of a “liberal democracy” — something Ukraine most
certainly is not.
Now, the government is getting in on the action, too. Press Secretary
Jen Psaki accused Hawley of “parroting the talking points of Russian
propagandist leaders” and charged that anyone doing so is “not aligned
with longstanding bipartisan American values, which is to stand up for
the sovereignty of countries like Ukraine.” Even more shockingly, when
an Associated Press reporter asked a State Department official last
week to provide evidence, not simply assertions, that Moscow was
planning a “false flag” operation to justify invading Ukraine, that
official accused him of finding “solace in information that the
Russians are putting out.”
Don’t Do Them a Favor
It should hopefully be clear why this is so dangerous. If what Hawley
and Carlson are saying amounts to “siding” with Russia, parroting
Kremlin propaganda, and “disloyalty” and “traitorism,” then the same
applies to Bernie Sanders, Jacobin, and anyone else arguing against
war over Ukraine or pointing out NATO’s role in the tensions. Just
look at Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes, who responded to the Democratic
Socialists of America’s statement on the crisis by saying the
organization “sound[s] indistinguishable from Tucker Carlson,” and was
“siding with authoritarians against the democratic aspirations of
Ukrainians.”
Here is the poisonous fruit of the Russiagate nonsense, which even
some leftists humored, believing it to be a harmless way to undermine
Donald Trump in the short-term. Instead, what’s happened is that a
liberal establishment that endlessly compares Trump to the demagogic
Joseph McCarthy has now wholesale adopted McCarthy’s style of reckless
accusations and disloyalty charges, sprinkled with the Bush-era
tendency to equate opposing a war as being on the side of the enemy.
The result has been a marked hawkish turn on national security among
the left-of-center public. Tenuously construe anything as serving
Russia’s interests, and that idea becomes automatically illegitimate
in the eyes of a large chunk of the US public, the very strategy used
to undermine withdrawal from Afghanistan under Trump. What we end up
with is a powerful disincentive for any progressive official or
commentator to take the kind of stance Sanders has now taken. After
all, who wants the trouble of being blacklisted from cable news, or,
worse, face a news cycle accusing them of doing Putin’s work?
The irony is, this kind of rhetoric is doing high-profile figures like
Carlson and Hawley a favor, making them seem like far more reasonable,
moderate figures to a younger, more politically amorphous audience
than they actually are, just as they desire. Or to put it in a way
these media and political figures might understand: your coverage is
very convenient to Tucker, and is doing his work for him.
Carlson currently has a lock not just on Republican viewers, but a
surprisingly high number of independents and Democrats, too. This is
dangerous, because beyond every other noxious, neoliberal position he
holds, Carlson, like Hawley, Douthat, and others on the Right, isn’t
actually antiwar — rather, they simply prefer to pointlessly stoke
conflict with a different boogeyman in the form of China, and see
tensions with Russia as undermining that disastrous boondoggle.
The job of opposing war is too important to be left to right-wing
hawks like Carlson and Hawley. With Sanders and others now
increasingly speaking out, let’s hope it’s creating the political
space for progressives and leftists to follow suit. And let’s hope the
shameful rhetoric of those in the media and government who should know
better doesn’t undercut them.
 

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