When lobbying collides: Azerbaijan, Israel and Armenian American advocacy
On Dec. 9, 2025, Republican U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna introduced a bill in Congress that would end restrictions on aid to Azerbaijan. Luna’s bill, H.R. 6534, would lift longstanding restrictions under Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act and allow increased U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan.
The legislation has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It should be noted that in October 1992, Congress amended the Freedom Support Act to include Section 907, prohibiting any form of direct U.S. assistance to the Azerbaijani government. The measure followed lobbying efforts by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), which cited Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh).
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Prior to the 2009 fall out between Turkey and Israel over Gaza and Erdogan’s support for Hamas, the two countries had been allies since Israel’s founding in 1948, and the Jewish lobby had prevented the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the US Congress as early as 1975, until it was finally recognized by this body in 2019, and formally recognized by the US executive in 2021, after the Jewish lobby withdrew its “veto”.
The same “veto” tactic used by the Jewish lobby against Armenian interests in the US Congress is now being applied to relations between Azerbaijan and Israel. This will not change unless a spectacular fall out occurs between Azerbaijan and Israel (and by default the US), as happened between Turkey and Israel, and unless Armenia’s and Israel’s geopolitical stars align, and there is no sign of that happening.