By SETH J. FRANTZMAN

Everyone watching the scenes of Armenians forced to flee their ancient lands in Nagorna-Karabakh and see how the “international community” did nothing to help them (not even any UN monitors or observers of international presence) understands that in today’s world minorities have no rights and the only thing that guarantees a country’s safety is to stockpile massive amounts of weapons.

This is what ethnic cleansing looks like… shameful that we allow this to happen in Europe in the 21st century… I am ashamed of what the EU has become. https://t.co/gKiym3FmWf

— Diogo Pinto (@joaodiogopinto) September 25, 2023

It’s important to remember that when you look at the conflicts waged against Israel that the international community also plotted to do this to Israel. They wanted to cut off arms for Israel as the country was declaring independence, they wanted to make sure that five countries, armed mostly by Europe, would invade and destroy the country. They carved up Israel into a bunch of little ungovernable spaces in the 1947 partition plan; the goal was a non-contiguous state, much like the Russians did in the South Caucasus during the Soviet era and how colonial powers always rule through divide and conquer.

What the international community did not contend with was the planning of the authorities under the Mandate who had prepared themselves for war and conscription on a massive scale. And those people understood exactly what was coming. They knew that the West expected them to be blockaded and then forced into the sea. Even today western academics say “river to the sea.” They have not given up the “dreams” of the war of 1948. The “one state solution” crowd wants to see done to the Jewish minority in the Middle East what is being done to Armenians.

The difference we know is that Israel won in 1948 and found friends in the West and although like Armenia it had a diaspora to rely on, it had the initiative to pursue weapons at all costs…and achieve victories. Armenia, isolated by the Soviets, carved up; and then in the 1990s forced to be dependent on Moscow and surrounded by western-backed Ankara and others…had few chances.

So today when we look back it’s clear that many wanted Israel to turn out a different way. They wanted it to rely on “international” agreements and “peacekeepers” for the Golan and Sinai and that it would rely on the “rules based international order”…it would be embargoed or sanctioned or isolated and blockaded. Energy deals would go around it…pipelines bypass it. Trade would go around.

But Israel had other plans, a periphery doctrine, outreach to key countries in Asia. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew once said “you know, some people think: Oh well you know, we are a small place – they can put the screws on us. It is not so easy. We are a small place in size yes, geography. But in the quality of the men, the administration, the organisation, the mettle in a people, the fibre – don’t try.”

Like Singapore Israel refused to be “squeezed” and eventually succeeded.

But today we still hear the voices of “one state solution.” What is their solution? It’s the solution they handed to Armenians. They want Israelis, who now number some 10 million, to sit down in one state with Hamas and extremist groups…because the goal of one state is always war and genocide until ethnic cleansing.

One state concepts are genocide. River to the sea is the slogan of genocide.

They said it in the 1940s. They said “let’s have one state.” But Ben-Gurion and other founders of the state understood that they had to have a state at any cost. Not a “binational” state, not genocide, not to be herded and blockaded and removed.

So when anyone looks at the Armenians being forced out of their lands…it’s worth noting the international community did this…Russia, the West and everyone did this to Armenians. They have done this to Kurds. They have done this to every indigenous minority community in the Middle East (and in most of the world). The UN powers did this.

Only a few countries stood against it and figured out how to resist it and to even grow despite this. Others relied on “international law” and “human rights” and even “democracy” and where did it get them? Do you think the democratic beliefs of the Armenians in Nagorna-Karabkah got them anything? It got them “concern” as 2,000 years of their life there was erased in a week.

Believe in the international community if you want. But anyone who believes in it too much and not in the power of weapons and demographic growth and power, will find that they are believing in smoke and mirrors. The international community has never stopped a genocide or ethnic cleansing. In fact, since the UN was founded, there is an exponential growth in ethnic cleansing of indigenous minorities. Consider Afrin, the Kurds lived there for hundreds of years. But it was a NATO member that destroyed their peaceful life. Who helped the Yazidis or Assyrians or other ancient groups?