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October 11, 2014
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October 11, 2014Israel’s presence in the Russia’s Muslim region of the North Caucasus is quite complicated and hushed.
It is not accepted in Russian media and analysts’ community to raise this issue. However, the Muslim and some Caucasian media allow themselves to discuss this topic. In general, the discussion turns around the following points:
- The historical influence of the Jewish community in the North Caucasus;
- North Caucasus as an instrument of Israeli policy in the region;
- Caucasus as a spare for Israel for the Jews of the world.
Jews in the Caucasus
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Jews started to appear in the Caucasus after the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, this was followed by another wave of Jews who came after the destruction of Iran’s Mazdaki movement in 529 AD. Iran’s Jews engaged in the Mazdaki movement fled to the Caucasus to find a rich land and hospitable neighbors. Until the mid-19th century, Jews lived mainly in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan.
Some of their settlements were called “Jerusalem of the Caucasus” for their impact on the spiritual and cultural life of the Jewish communities in the region. Later Jews spread throughout the Caucasus, and then in other regions of Russia and Europe.
Caucasian Jews today are one of the richest and most influential communities in Russia. Names such as Zarah Iliev, God Nisanov, Telman Ismailov, and David Yakobashvili are symbols of the Jewish power in Russia. They are friends with the most influential politicians and oligarchs in Russia, Europe, US, and Israel. Caucasian Jews are powerful interest groups in Israel itself and, according some experts, there are evidences that some Jews in Russia are agents of the interests of world Jewry and Israel in Russia.
Jews in the North Caucasus, as well as in those in the whole of Russia, are a recognized and respected community. The same picture is in the states of South Caucasus, independent from Russia — Georgia and Azerbaijan.
But in Georgia and Azerbaijan, attitude toward the Jews to a large extent is carried over to Israel. Georgian ex-President Mikhail Saakashvili said that “hurting Israel means hurting Georgia.” “The only place in the world where I feel at home is Israel,” said Saakashvili.
Former President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev at a meeting with leaders of the Jewish community said: “To offend Jews in our country is a heinous crime. If someone stands against Jews and Israel, let him know that he has signed his own death warrant.”
Spare for Israel?
Israel’s interest in the Caucasus is existential. “The fact is that there is a growing fear in the Israeli society about the threat of an imminent collapse of the state of Israel in the near future,” says Russian analyst Maxim Shevchenko.
“And many of the Jews of Israel are looking for where they could move in such case. Caucasus, along with the Crimea and part of the German lands, is being seriously considered as the new home of the Jews of Israel after the collapse of the Zionist state,” wrote Daghestani journalist Ahmadnabi Ahmadnabiev.
The fact is that in the past the Jewish presence in the Caucasus was not restricted to its religious nature, they managed to head a large state in the region, the Khazar Khanate. All coastal and foothill areas in today’s Daghestan and Chechnya, Eastern part of Caucasus along Caspian Sea, constituted the backbone of the Khazar state.
Khazars were a Turkic people who created a reach and powerful state in the Eastern Caucasus before the arrival of Muslims to this region. Khazars capital Samandar is located inside the territory of today’s Chechnya.
The first Muslims in the Caucasus appeared in 642 AD and immediately got into a brutal fight with the pagan Khazar state. For almost 150 years, Khazars were able to hinder the progress of the Muslim army to the north from Caucasus. However, in the end they were defeated in the Caucasus and pushed far to the north to the river Volga. All this time the role of Jewish merchants at the Khazar state was growing.
In the late 8th and early 9th centuries, influential Jew Obadiah seized power in Khazaria and declared Judaism the state religion of the whole state. Hence, the Khazar population became a subordinate class to the Jewish elite who constituted the ruling party.
Jews in Khazar Khanate retained authority over several hundred years. In 969 AD, the Khazar state was destroyed by Russian prince Svyatoslav and the Turkic Khazars were dissolved in the surrounding nations. Meanwhile, Jews have continued to exist in the Caucasus as separate communities and settled all over Europe.
That is why, according to Canadian analyst Lev Gunin, it turns out that the Caucasus, not Palestine, is the historic homeland for the Ashkenazi (European) Jews. According Gunin, current heightened interest of Israeli Jews to the Caucasus can be explained by their simple desire to return to “the paternal land.”
Israeli Tool
There are claims that Israel is using modern North Caucasus in their game against Iran, Armenia, and Russia. In order to create a beachhead in possible war against Iran, Israel strenuously provides independent states of the South Caucasus — Georgia and Azerbaijan — modern weapons and their military instructors.
Iranian magazine al-Hayat some-time ago published an extensive article on the presence of Israel in the Caucasus, indirectly calling this presence as colonization. The magazine cites the report of Iran’s parliament that the Caucasus is infested by agents of the Israeli secret services, who work against Russia and Iran.
However, the problem is that Israel cannot openly increase its influence in the Russian North Caucasus. In this situation, Israel should conduct economic, cultural, humanitarian, and expert expansion into the Caucasus. This expansion is carried out under the guise of cooperation programs in the field of economy, culture, science, security, etc. Israel is conducting this policy through relying on the large community of the Caucasian Jews in Israel who maintain links with the Caucasus region.
As for Russia, already there are experts offering to adopt the Israeli experience in the fight against “Islamic extremism.”
Russian journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova believes that this Israeli experience, in essence, means extrajudicial killings and reprisals against real and imaginary enemies of the system, blowing up houses of close relatives of “terrorists,” anti-Islamic hysteria, and so on. Kevorkova asserts that many Russian generals, influential politicians, and policy-makers in the North Caucasus regularly visit Israel for the exchange of expertise.
The influential website Caucasian Policy writes: “Many police officers of North Caucasian republics have received Israeli citizenship, and established informal relations with colleagues in Tel Aviv.”
According to the website, it is safe to say that in Dagestan and other Caucasian regions particularly macabre methods of pressure, arrests, interrogation, and extrajudicial killings designed in Israel have long been used.
Israeli Intelligence Penetration
Kevorkova mentions that the Interior Minister of Russia Viktor Kolokoltsev has recently visited Israel. “During the visit, he agreed that the Russian police will be trained by its Israeli colleagues,” she writes. “In Russia, it turns out, authorities are going to create tourist police based on the Israeli model. The decision to train Russian police in Israel was taken after a series of explosions in Volgograd,” states Kevorkova.
Moreover, a huge tourist cluster is to be built in the North Caucasus, covering seven regions, including Daghestan, Chechnya, Ingushetiya, Karachay-Cherkessia, and others; this project is supported by the Russian president. Moscow wishes to attract millions of tourists to the Caucasus through this project.
Security concept of the tourism cluster is developed by Israeli experts. Ex-director of “Resorts of the North Caucasus,” Alexey Nevsky, states: “The Israeli experts have proposed to develop and implement a comprehensive system in operation to protect tourists and local people alike.”
This was earlier stated by Mickey Levy, former General at the Israel Police and consultant of Elbit Security Systems Company, who came to Moscow as a member of the Israeli delegation at the invitation of the Russian side.
Caucasian and Muslim experts see in this project to be a penetration of Israeli intelligence agents in all regions of the North Caucasus. Analysts such as Heydar Jemal, Denga Khalidov, and Ahmadnabi Ahmadnabiev constantly write about this problem.
According to Canadian expert Lev Gunin, some reports show that thousands of jobs will be created in Caucasus for Israelis under this project. “Thousands Israeli intelligence and military agents: an entire army of occupation,” he states.
About how everything happens, the same General Levy informs clearly: “We have established a wall between Palestine and Jerusalem. In the mountains we used a lot of technology. At each one square kilometer, we have 500 cameras, in addition to the drones, balloons, sensors: there is no place that is not in sight. We see and hear everything that goes on 24 hours a day.”
“This is a real concentration camp for the Palestinians. But, who will play the role of Palestinians in the Caucasus?” writes Daghestani analyst Ahmadnabi Ahmadnabiev, appealing to Caucasian authorities; and resumes, “An answer, I hope, is clear.”
