Sassounian: Azeri-Israeli Propagandist Throws Stones from Glass House

The JNS.org website (Jewish and Israel news) posted a venomous, anti-Armenian article by Arye Gut with the bombastic headline, “Anti-Semitism in Armenia: A Clear and Present Danger.”

JNS.org identifies the author as “an Azerbaijani Israeli” who is “a board member of the Israeli-Azerbaijani International Organization, official coordinator of the ‘Justice for Khojaly!’ international campaign in Israel, and an expert in international relations.”

Dozens of Azeri and Turkic media outlets rushed to reprint this Armenophobic propaganda, stressing that it originated from a “popular” Jewish news source. The article may have been written in Baku, planted in Israeli and Jewish publications, and then reprinted in Azerbaijan to lead readers into thinking that it comes from an objective third-party source.

Gut claims that Armenia’s Jewish minority “shrunk dramatically” after the end of “a more tolerant” Soviet rule. He admits, as an afterthought, that “Armenia’s ongoing economic collapse” is equally responsible for the dwindling number of Jews “from more than 5,000 to just a few hundred.” Gut fails to mention, however, that during the same period over 1 million Armenians also left their homeland due to abysmal economic conditions.

The Azeri-Israeli author further accuses Armenians of “cultural violence,” referring to the existence of anti-Semitic books and TV programs. Yet, he grudgingly acknowledges that “such unfortunate incidents” occur “in many countries.” If that is the case, why is he singling out Armenia? Could it be that he has ulterior motives? As the “official coordinator of the ‘Justice for Khojaly!’ international campaign in Israel,” is Gut a paid agent or doing all this hard work—writing pro-Azerbaijan/anti-Armenia articles—out of the goodness of his heart?

Gut goes on to defame Armenians, claiming that “around 1.3 million out of 2.2 million adults in Armenia expressed anti-Semitic attitudes.” He misleads readers into thinking that he has personally interviewed 1.3 million Armenians, all of whom supposedly made anti-Jewish statements! What Gut is referring to is the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) flawed global survey that reported 58 percent of a random sample of 500 Armenians, interviewed mostly by telephone, expressed anti-Semitic views. As Gut’s figure of 1.3 million Armenians comes from the ADL’s survey, he should have also mentioned the results of the same survey for his beloved Azerbaijan—one of the worst violators of human rights in the world—which shows that 2.4 million Azeris harbored anti-Semitic sentiments, almost double the number of Armenians!

Since Gut is concealing Azerbaijan’s figures, let’s expose them here to see how they compare with those of Armenia, based on the results of the ADL’s 11-question survey:

1) 3.2 million Azeris and 1.5 million Armenians replied “probably true” to: “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the country they live in.”

2) 3.4 million Azeris and 1.6 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews have too much power in the business world.”

3) 3.2 million Azeris and 1.5 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews have too much power in international financial markets.”

4) 2 million Azeris and 1 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.”

5) 3.4 million Azeris and 1.3 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind.”

6) 2.5 million Azeris and 1.1 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews have too much control over global affairs.”

7) 2.5 million Azeris and 1.1 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews have too much control over the United States government.”

8) 2.4 million Azeris and 1.2 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews think they are better than other people.”

9) 2.3 million Azeris and 0.9 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews have too much control over the global media.”

10) 2 million Azeris and 0.8 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.”

11) 2.4 million Azeris and 1.4 million Armenians replied “probably true”: “People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave.”

The ADL’s global survey results are even more devastating for Turkey, where 34 million Turks out of an adult population of 49 million are found to be anti-Semitic.

Gut concludes his anti-Armenian diatribe by depicting the so-called “Khojaly massacre” as “one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century,” thereby raising the alleged killing of “613 people” in Khojaly during the Karabagh War to the level of 6 million victims of the Jewish Holocaust and 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide!

Gut must be unaware of Benjamin Franklin’s famous words: “Don’t throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass!”

Harut Sassounian

Harut Sassounian

California Courier Editor
Harut Sassounian is the publisher of The California Courier, a weekly newspaper based in Glendale, Calif. He is the president of the Armenia Artsakh Fund, a non-profit organization that has donated to Armenia and Artsakh one billion dollars of humanitarian aid, mostly medicines, since 1989 (including its predecessor, the United Armenian Fund). He has been decorated by the presidents of Armenia and Artsakh and the heads of the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches. He is also the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

4 Comments

  1. Israel will work with the devil to achieve an end and one should learn from that. THey are using Azeri lands and idiots to monitor and enter Iran for obvious reasons. Armenia is poor but our people are leaders, wealthy and poor and hard working with an elite educated class worldwide. Jews are not our competition and we do not need to compare ourselves to them except in the economy where they are superior. Once we have leaders and people that create jobs and Russia to support our military in full-we are equal-we are there in all ways except the economy sad to say- We do not fight with, kill or insult the Jewish culture or people. Our Armenians in the arab lands suffer cuz we do not support either side and tis sad we are strangled-as history has shown and current affairs tell the smart folks who the enemy is0- the militant dogs of islam that kill our people now and before- so the Azeris get a buck or two from israel and some idiot in azeri culture goes to town and tells them to publish the lies- the Jews consider us as arabs and yes- we are no more an arab than any good Jew. We love our Armenia, our culture and we are no enemy to Israel or the Jewish folks- they know-they are smart and so azeris kiss their own ass

  2. If this Gut guy is an anti-Armenian and a hater of Armenians himself, wouldn’t that neutralize his baseless claims and false allegations by his own statements?

  3. Armenian and most people of the near and middle east have always seen Jews as a people of the region…..Armenian have never as a whole been anti Jewish and still are not….historically both have experienced lifes’ short end of the stick….both are in survival mode…

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