A Jewish Perspective On The Khojaly Genocide

According to Avraham, “What makes this declaration even more problematic is that it happened around February. On February 26, the Azerbaijani people commemorate Khojaly Genocide Day.  Khojaly is one of the many towns in Karabakh that was completely destroyed by the Armenians during the First Karabakh War. However, what makes Karabakh iconic is that within a period of one day, the Armenians in massacred 613 innocent men, women and children for the crime of being Azerbaijani.”

Rabbi Israel Barouk wrote in “Khojaly: A Crime against Humanity, ”Six Khojaly families were completely wiped out; 26 children lost both parents, and 130 children lost one of their parents. Of those who perished, 56 people were killed with particular cruelty: burning alive, scalping, beheading, gouging out of the eyes and bayoneting of pregnant women in the abdomen.”

Azerbaijan has said that as many as 1,000 refugees were killed as they tried to flee. Others froze to death in the bitter cold winter or starved. Literally, the Armenians created conditions so that the residents of Khojaly would perish and would have no chance of survival.   

Serzh Sargsyan, who was the military commander of the Armenian Forces in Karabakh up until 1992, proclaimed in an interview with a Western journalist: “Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us. They thought that the Armenians were not people that could raise their hand against the civilian population. We needed to put a stop to that.  And that is what we did.” 

Avraham pointed out that “In France, he actually admitted that he perpetuated the Khojaly Genocide – a premeditated intent to murder part of the Azerbaijani population… Sadly, not only the Illinois Holocaust Museum but the US Congress, the French Parliament, the United Nations and other international players remain deafly silent about Khojaly. Furthermore, they were silent as Armenia occupied one fifth of Azerbaijan in violation of four UN Security Council resolutions for thirty years.  Yet when Azerbaijan sought to reclaim her land, then they created an uproar.”   

Avraham claims that Israelis are in the same situation as Azerbaijanis: “During the Second Intifada, we were accused of starting a massacre in Jenin, when we wanted to stop the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada. Whenever Israel defends itself against qassam rocket attacks and incendiary balloons fired from Gaza, we are accused of creating anti-Semitism in America and Europe… we can relate to what the state of Azerbaijan is dealing with and have sympathy for what they are dealing with, as both countries are facing a biased West, who sides with the perpetrators rather than the victims.”

She concluded, “For this reason, a Holocaust museum must think twice before they buy into what Armenian propagandists claim about a specific situation.”