Alwaght- The Israeli and Azerbaijani media in past few months have consistently promoted visit of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Baku. Netanyahu finally paid a one-day visit to Azerbaijan on Tuesday, December 13.
Historically, Benjamin Netanyahu is the first Israeli PM who takes an official trip to Azerbaijan. In August 1997, Benjamin Netanyahu, then PM of the Israeli regime, had a short night-time unofficial trip to Baku. His first visit to Azerbaijan was seen as a rare event in the history of diplomatic relations between the two sides. In that year, President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan met with the Israeli PM secretly at a late hour of night.
In June 2009, Shimon Peres, the ninth president of the Israeli regime, visited Azerbaijan. Avigdor Lieberman, the former foreign minister of the Israeli regime and current defense minister, took trips to Baku several times in 2010, 2012, and 2014. In 2013, Elmar Mammadyarov, the Azerbaijani foreign minister, paid a visit to Tel Aviv. Furthermore, in September 2014, Moshe Ya'alon, then defense minister, for the first time visited the former Soviet republic.
Although Azerbaijan has not yet opened a diplomatic representation office in the Israeli regime, the government has so far sent many delegations to the occupied territories, as at the same time Baku received many Israeli delegations. Without doubt, in terms of significant geological elements in South Caucasus, or Transcaucasia, Azerbaijan is a country with great influence without which implementing geopolitical and geo-economic plans in Transcaucasia is very strenuous if not impossible. Aside from the propagandistic and political aspects of the Tuesday visit by the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu decided that when he returns home, he returns with a bunch of tangible political, cultural, economic, military, regional, and international gains. As Aryeh Gout, the manager of the Organization for International Plans for Community and the representative of the Baku International Multiculturalism Center in Tel Aviv, put it “Netanyahu’s visit to Baku signals the strategic relations between the two sides.”
The goals
De-isolation of Tel Aviv
The Israeli regime for its occupation of the Palestinian territories, committing ongoing atrocities against the Palestinians, war crimes, and genocidal actions is living in isolation from the world. Its leaders try to travel to the Muslim countries and hold relations with them in a bid to step out of the isolation, for the final aim of covering up the regime’s crimes.
Step-by-step influence, well-calculated swamping
The Israeli regime, which adopts for years the policy of “alliance of the periphery” to ease the effects of the encirclement imposed on it by the surrounding Muslim countries whose people do not recognize an illegitimate state of Israel in West Asia, tries to get toehold in countries out of its vicinity. If we track the continued boost of economic ties between Tel Aviv and Baku in sectors such as oil and gas, investment, mining, industries, communication technologies, and cultural and training programs in Azerbaijan, we can come up with a mutual relation that goes beyond simple cooperation, amounting to attempts for holding a sway and gradually dominating Azerbaijan– and Caucasus region as a whole– by the Israeli regime.
The value of current trade between Tel Aviv and Baku is $3.5 billion. Azerbaijan, as a trusted oil supplier of energy sources, provides 40 percent of the Israeli oil. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transfers the oil from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea oilfields to the Ceyhan Port of Turkey through the Georgian territories. Furthermore, Azerbaijan launched a project to build a gas pipeline, dubbed Southern Gas Corridor, which sends big Azerbaijani gas supplies to the European countries.
At the same time, the human factor is decisive in bolstering the Israeli-Azerbaijani relations. Tel Aviv sees Azerbaijan’s government as doing perfectly its role of supporting and protecting a population of 20,000 Jews in Azerbaijan. Additionally, a large population of the originally Azerbaijani people are living in the old Israeli city of Acre. To save the legacy of the Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan in Acre, a center for coordination called “Tikvateynu”, or our land, with a cost of $1 million was built in the city. Its official opening ceremony is set to be held soon. Also, the Israeli government is set to start building second story of “Heydar Aliyev Azerbaijan House” in Acre, a symbol and an indivisible part of the multicultural and historical city of Acre.
Certainly, watching closely the news and developments of visits of the Israeli officials and lobbyists to Azerbaijan indicates that the Israeli regime wants to promote the idea to the world that Azerbaijan as a Shiite country after the Israeli regime provides the best living conditions for the Jewry, a sign of existence of potentials for peaceful coexistence of the Muslims and the Israelis. Announcing 2016 the year of multiculturalism in Azerbaijan and arranging massive plans to honor the Zionism under cover of the title of the year was in fact a scheme proposed by the Israeli cultural centers active in Baku to the government of Azerbaijan. Organizing the events of the year of multiculturalism aimed at telling the world that a symbol of multiculturalism is the respect and care the Azerbaijani government offers to the Zionist Jews and the related groups. The Israeli PM in fact in December wants to celebrate collection of fruit of the cultural project Tel Aviv did in Azerbaijan throughout 2016. Moreover, every year in late December, the pan-Azeri organizations, especially the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of Azerbaijan, hold a joint program in Acre, taking cues from Jewish diasporas, and particularly the Azerbaijani diaspora in the city, which is also a center for the Bahaists. A range of countries like Azerbaijan, the US, European states, Russia, and even some Arab countries take part in this cultural event. All these work for the multicultural policy of Azerbaijan promoted by the Israeli and Western centers.
Disturbing Iran-Azerbaijan relations
The Israeli press and their regional operatives published news of Netanyahu’s visit in a way as if a big development was to happen. But it should be remembered that the Israeli regime, the most serious threat to the Muslim world, is so hated among the Muslims that it cannot boost its face and buy credibility by a couple of visits of its officials to the Muslim countries or by creating gaps between the Muslim states. A plan to damage Tehran-Baku ties, which was part of this visit schedule, will meet with failure, because the civilizational relations of the two Muslim neighbors, as well as their common interests in terms of firmness go beyond the illusion-based calculations of Tel Aviv. Even more, the Iranian and Azerbaijani leaders are well aware of the ploys of the Israelis to fan sectarian, ethnic, and religious tensions and provoke Kurdish, Azeri, and Armenian ethnic groups. They will not allow damage to the Tehran-Baku relations at any cost. Following the Iranian nuclear deal with the West, the Israeli regime paradoxically tried to use Azerbaijan as a launching pad for anti-Iranian security measures while at the same time pretended that Tehran, the West, and Tel Aviv have a peaceful political coexistence in Azerbaijan in a bid to destroy Iran’s spiritual influence in Azerbaijan.
