Numerous Azerbaijanis left flowers and teddy bears outside the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Baku following the Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7.
Even though Azerbaijan is majority Shia Muslim and its neighbor is Iran, it sympathizes with the Jewish state. As Azerbaijani MP Rasim Musabeyli told the Voice of America: “We strongly condemn the attacks that have resulted in the deaths and injuries of a large number of civilians. In these difficult times, we stand with Israel.”
The Working Group for Azerbaijan-Israel Interparliamentary Relations issued a statement saying: “We condemn unequivocally and in the strongest terms the wide-scale attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip, accompanied by indiscriminate rocket strikes targeting civilian infrastructure objects, population centers, and civilians.”
They added: “We stand firmly with Israel in these hard times.”
We are in solidarity with people of #IsraelStrong ❤️???❤️??? pic.twitter.com/ZZm13lgsTS
— Tarlan Ahmadov (@TarlanAhmadov) October 9, 2023
Israel’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan George Deek tweeted: “Thank you to the Azerbaijani people for this heartfelt gesture of friendship. The flood of messages of love, the flowers at the embassy gate, and the posts on social media, this gives us strength in the darkest hour of our history. Thank you. We shall prevail.”
Azerbaijanis have suffered from rocket fire from Armenia in major cities such as Ganja and Barda, so they understand what Israelis are suffering today and have sympathy for their plight. When I was in Ganja last June, I visited an entire neighborhood that lay in ruins due to Armenian rocket terror.
The Azerbaijanis empathize with Israel because they have suffered from the same kind of terrorism as do Israelis, and in both cases, it was backed by the same source: Iran’s Islamic Republic.
