Israel-Azerbaijan: Despite the Constraints, a Special Relationship

relations between the two countries, as long as they do not prompt the actors for adventurist policies, are consistent with the interests of the US and the West. It can even be asserted that Azerbaijan is the Muslim country with which Israel currently enjoys the closest relations. This might seem surprising, given that Azerbaijan has a common border with Iran and that most of its population is Shiite (although it has a strong secular tradition). Nevertheless, after more than two decades of diplomatic relations, it appears that relations are at a peak. Following the visit by Israel’s Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon to Azerbaijan in September 2014, Haaretz published several op-eds about arms exports from Israel to Azerbaijan, a key aspect of the relationship. One contributor argued that continuation of Israeli arms exports to Azerbaijan was liable to help cause a renewed outbreak of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and lead to massacres by Azerbaijan against the Armenian population. 2 In contrast, articles written in response stressed the problems for Israel posed by the close relations between Armenia and Iran, and argued that Azerbaijan was a true partner of Israel. 3 The ethnic cleansing committed by the Armenians against the Azeris in the 1990s, the responsibility of the Armenians for the failure to reach a solution to the dispute concerning