The misunderstanding of Israeli wine in Armenia

How a wine shelf explains the failure of diasporas and lobbyists

Much as I try to avoid being too much a cliché or parody of myself where it comes to combining cycle touring, gentrified tastes, and political observations of the world, a selection of Israeli wines, found in a very nice wine bar in Yerevan, left me unable to resist writing on the contradictions of Armenian nationalism.

This nationalism, and the way it looks at countries deemed friendly or unfriendly, is shaped primarily but not entirely though its diaspora and their lobby groups, so anything here should be taken more as criticism of these actors than people in Armenia.

Further motivation to write on this subject was provided when US-Armenian lobbyists – a group even more divorced from reality than the averagely unhinged member of US society – were recently successful in pressuring Disney to drop a programme it made about Atatürk (naturally you won’t be hearing much about ‘cancel culture’ from most of the usual mouths-for-hire on this subject).

At a time when Azerbaijan and Armenia are at a dangerous state of impasse, and the Turkish position remains a commitment to normalising both its own relations with Armenia and pressing for those between Armenia and Azerbaijan to also be normalised, the US-Armenian diaspora, who live predominantly in California, and who use most of its influence to contest history, represents a familiar letdown of Armenian-Armenians living in modern day Armenia. It is impossible to overstate how much better-served Armenia would be if those outside what is a considerably isolated country used their influence to make gains – trade, commerce, open borders with neighbours – in the present time, so that those in Armenia might enjoy some of the advantages of modern life that US-Armenians get to take for granted.

But anyway, back to the wine shelf.

Although Armenian-diaspora dislike of Turks and Türkiye can generally be presumed to go well beyond the level of antipathy felt by Armenians inside the actual country, it isn’t entirely absent here either. A couple of British touring cyclists I met in Yerevan told me of an unpleasant exchange with an Armenian shopkeeper when they, from the bottom of a wallet, accidentally had a Turkish kuruș among the coins with which they tried to pay. I need no convincing that the singularly most unpleasant, untrustworthy and aggression-prone subset of the human race is the airport taxi driver (another reason to mistrust the many Western correspondents who base their worldview on what their taxi driver says!), but nonetheless mine from Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport was dislikeable and aggressive in ways that go beyond only the normal unpleasantness.

There are other instances it seems unhelpful to document, but, most of all, in Armenia there is at times an unpleasant feeling of something kept needlessly prominent when two peoples – however much they as individuals might not want to, or might not subscribe to such views – are left to live the presence of one another through a historical and nationalistic prism.

Armenians I’ve spoken to who visited (or live and always lived in) Türkiye have said similar things, as have a few Turks I have met in Armenia, while my own feeling at times in Armenia, particularly in conversations that turn to background or the fact I arrived from Istanbul, is warped as a result of being overly familiar with the idea that your interaction with a place is to be mediated through events of a century ago and that took place in the carnage of First World War and collapsing Ottoman Empire. This – which isn’t to deny either history or the utility of its observation – is just a statement of fact, just as it probably wouldn’t be very helpful to insist on German-Polish or German-French relations today being mediated exclusively through the prism of World War II and all of its atrocity.

But again, back to the Israeli wine, which is on sale in Yerevan and by Armenians, so I can’t blame the diaspora entirely for its presence, but its welcome on that shelf still traces upwards to a foreign-policy attitude that is, predominantly, generated not at home but by Armenian lobbyists in the West.

Azerbaijan-Israeli military ties

Putting aside the fact that there is no mention on the shelf of Palestine (odd given a recent Armenian concern with occupied territory), it wasn’t totally surprising that my tentative question, after a few glasses, of whether there was any Turkish wine, was met for sure with politeness but also without enthusiasm. Given a growing Turkish wine industry in the east of the country close to Armenia, and given that Turkish-Armenian trade does already exist, it didn’t seem hopeless to ask if some had made it over the border and into a relaxed, bohemian and internationalist-seeming establishment. One day, inșallah.

None of this is simply a case of my being sore at insufficient appreciation for, or availability of, Turkish wine in Armenia. It is more the oddity of Armenians disapproving of the idea of Turkish wines while being willing to promote Israeli wine, despite the Israelis having proven the most steadfast supporter and supplier of the Azerbaijani military.

When, fifteen years ago, Türkiye and Armenia were, with concerted efforts from the Obama administration, close to full restoration of ties for the first time since the 1990s, Azerbaijan threatened to break off its relations with Türkiye. In Baku, this demonstrated a level of Turkish interest in Armenian integration (particularly without Karabakh restored) that the Israelis have never shown interest in.

Not only have the Israelis been the most reliable military dealers to Azerbaijan across this time, they have also been reliable oppressors and evictors of the Palestinian-Armenian population of Jerusalem. An Armenian priest in Jerusalem was recently assaulted and spat at by Israeli settlers, Israeli theft of Palestinian-Armenian land in Jerusalem continues to gather pace, and longstanding vandalism of Armenian graves (something the Armenian diaspora consistently (perfectly validly) concern themselves with where it is reported in Türkiye) have also been a feature of Jewish extremism in Palestine.

The level of attention given to this litany of Israeli abuses by the Armenian diaspora and lobbyists is minimal to say the least, which is both unfortunate because they have a far louder voice than Armenians in Armenia or Palestine, but also demonstrates the fact that – with of course the many noble exceptions that always exist – the Armenian diaspora and its lobby groups are more concerned with hating Turks and Muslims than preserving the best interests of either Armenia or Armenians. This, again, seems unfortunate.

I say this not only because it would be nice for a little more vocal support for the Armenian population of Palestine, but because not even I could bring myself to suggest that the Armenian diaspora does not very genuinely dislike Azerbaijan. It is weird, therefore – and runs contrary to the goals of these groups – that they seem to have no interest in attacking the Israeli-Azerbaijan relationship, despite its incredible closeness and value to Azerbaijan.

Armenian insurance

At this stage there a couple of further things to lay out in broad strokes. The principal guarantor of Armenian security, whatever their differences since the 2018 Armenian Revolution, remains Russia. The secondary guarantor of Armenian security, particularly in the southern Armenian territories where access is currently being contested with Azerbaijan, is Iran; with whom Armenia shares one of its only two open borders, and sizeable minorities in both countries of Armenian-Iranians and Iranian-Armenians. There is also a sizeable Azeri minority within Iran, mostly happy as Iranians, but the utility of which helps explain (apart from its general willingness to sell weapons) Israeli interest in close relations with Azerbaijan as a country with the capacity to grow hostility against Iran.

There is little doubt that the Israeli wish, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent the Azerbaijani one, would be to conjoin more closely with Türkiye in creating a common front against Iran. It is my hope and belief that Türkiye would never be so blind to its own best interests, or Palestinian suffering, to pursue such a project. Meanwhile the Azerbaijani disinterest in Palestine - especially given its own history of being ethnically cleansed and militarily occupied in Karabakh - is a grave marker of Azerbaijan’s deficit in political principles.

Religion and foreign policy

In this part of the world, where most explanations are already saturated with people overemphasisig the salience of faith, I mostly avoid talking of religion, but here it is perhaps useful to outline a few things, if only to underline how mostly irrelevant religion is to all of this.

Part of the cultural connection between Russia and Armenia, aside from a shared Soviet history, is in Orthodox Christianity. To emphasise this, however, would be to ignore that Russia (guarantor of the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal after their 2020 war) is also perfectly amenable to Azerbaijan; a Muslim-majority country which is predominantly Shia in its denomination. That Azerbaijani-Iranian relations are very poor, despite both being Shia majority states, at least helps demonstrate how overemphasised Sunni and Shia divisions are by outsiders. That Türkiye and Azerbaijan of course share close relations, despite the Muslims of one country being mostly Shia and the other mostly Sunni, is further evidence of this sectarian distinction fascinated-over mostly by Westerners who are either paid to know better, or paid to stir up trouble.

One element in which religion seems to retain importance, however, is Christianity. This, however, is not really Christianity as a religion or as a faith, but more as a shallow identity useful to quickly upholding Western foreign policy positions.

Armenia is, very certainly, very Christian - something that does not for a moment prevent it having a vital security arrangement with Iran. In the diaspora and lobbyist indifference to Israeli support of Azerbaijan, or Israeli brutalisation of Armenians in Palestine, there are hallmarks of a different and distorting element of religious foreign policy identity; the shallow piece of right-wing propaganda known as “Judeo-Christian”.

The political purpose of this theological myth is to imply Christians and Jews as kin (it is, also, arguably just shorthand for ‘white people’), despite the unquestionable reality that none have ever been so psychopathically determined to imperil or remove Jewish people as Christians. This rendering of history also denies that none have ever either shared in this sorry fate, or tried to help Jewish people avoid it, so much as Muslims and other peoples of the Arab world. “Judeo-Christian” can be seen, with even a little scrutiny, as a fallacy that allows Christians to tidy-away their own history as the world’s most tireless persecutors of Jewish people, and gives Israelis cover in the idea that they belong to some liberal world order even as they execute apartheid and settler colonialism in Palestine, as well as relentlessly trying to promote the conditions for war among Israeli regional rivals.

Intoxication by supremacy

In service of the following point entire theses or books could be written, but put simply, when you see a particular phenomenon play out frequently enough, it seems a disservice to over-explain its nuances. In short, by virtue of its Christian identity, the Armenian identity seems to have been swept-up in a Christian supremacy whereby it enjoys participation, however low-ranking and uncared-for, within the propagandistic construction of the “Judeo-Christian” world. Given that the Armenian diaspora is overwhelmingly in the US, it is sadly unsurprising to see how this might have come about. Given that actual Armenia is so far from this fictitious worldview, it is unsurprising that Armenians (with the exception of a rogue wine shelf!) tend to be far better appraised of who their allies are.

Given that Armenians also face US sanctions or Israeli war threats in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, as well as Palestine, it isn’t surprising that Armenians in this part of the world are aware of who their friends and foes are, but it is unfortunate that the world’s most influential Armenians are not.

The Armenian diaspora (and its non-Armenian blowhards) have successfully gained recognition for its versions of history in state legislatures, it has achieved boycotts of Turkish culture, it has achieved intra-NATO arms embargoes against Türkiye, including most recently Canadian refusal to license components for Turkish drones (something that caused multiple inconveniences in their subsequent sale to Ukraine).

It is strange that groups quite evidently good at what they do nonetheless seem so oblivious to the Israeli role in Armenian problems. Two explanations present themselves. The first – less depressing – is that the Armenian lobby are cynically-if-misguidedly calculating that it is simply better not to cross the more powerful Israeli lobby. The second – more depressing – is that the Armenian identity so enjoys its access to racist supremacy, and low-ranking membership in a club of nominally Christian countries, that they fail to notice that they’re manifestly acting against their own interests.

What does progress look like?

I say all this because the disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, not to mention the suffering in Palestine and for Armenians elsewhere, do need to be brought to a resolution, and in ways that we must hope can eventually be amicable.

Armenia itself is a small and isolated country of limited domestic means and limited global influence; I find it an unfortunate but forgivable failing if their appraisal of what ails them is not always perfect. The Armenian diaspora – wealthy in global terms, prominent, internationalised and of some influence – have no such excuse when so clearly failing in a cause they claim to champion.

For what it’s worth, and as is often so, people in the country of Armenia do (whatever the selection of one particular wine shop) in my limited experience seem more clear-eyed about all this, and particularly about Israeli involvement, than I’ve ever noticed in the overloud voices of the Armenian diaspora and its lobbying groups. Similarly, antipathy towards Turkish or Azerbaijani people is not at all universal in Armenia, and where it does exist can no doubt be improved through dialogue and better engagement on all sides with shared and painful histories. The same, of course, goes for dialogue inside Türkiye.

Returning to the initial subject, I obviously have no idea how the Israeli wine tastes because I don’t like stolen land varieties. The Armenian wines, as is gaining much more global attention, are really very good.