A hack by the name of Alexander Murinson has finally gone far enough (a la Donald Trump) to elicit a response, hopefully so scathing as to cause him to disappear from the public sphere… yes, I know, that’s wishful thinking.
This guy, who got a Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, otherwise a highly respected institution, is effectively accusing us, Armenians, the government in Yerevan, of plotting to use a “dirty bomb” against Azerbaijan. A dirty bomb is one that uses conventional, not atomic/nuclear, explosives but contains radioactive materials which act to poison/kill people. Murinson claims the Medzamor power plant would provide these dangerous substances. His ludicrous assertion appeared under the title “The other nuclear threat” in The Washington Times on May 3.
This is not Murinson’s first offense, nor am I the first to criticize his perfidy (see Harut Sassounian’s “Armenia’s Jewish Community Leader Lashes out at Pro-Azeri Propagandists” in the January 30 issue of the Armenian Weekly). He seems to have decided to be Azerbaijan’s white-washer, especially in the realm of that country’s relations with Israel.
So he has a puff piece appear about Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan who have lived there for 2,500 years (Jews in Azerbaijan: a History Spanning Three Millennia) in an Azeri propaganda publication. Isn’t that nice? But most readers in the non-Armenian, non-Azeri, non-Turkish world would never realize how irrelevant that is since Azerbaijan is a recent, artificial, construct. But his writings go far beyond mere history-used-to-make-murderers-look-nice pieces.
We have Baku to the Future: Azerbaijan, Not Armenia, Is Israel’s True Ally, co-written with Maxime Gauin appearing in Israel’s “Haaretz” newspaper, and many more including Armenia And Azerbaijan Adapt To A New Geopolitical Reality In The Near East (The Daily Caller); Op-Ed: Strategic Realignment and Energy Security for Israel (Israel National News); BTK Railway Project to Improve Economic Climate in Region, “Iran Targets Azerbaijan,” “A Welcome New Stage In Azerbaijani-Israeli Ties” (JerusalemPost); and “The Ties Between Israel and Azerbaijan,” “Good Relations between Azerbaijan and Israel: A Model for Other Muslim States in Eurasia?” co-written with Soner Cagaptay (another Turkish apologist). Some of these are analyses written through his affiliation with the Begin Sadat Center. You can see Murinson is steeped in the filthiest, sleaziest, of fields—Turkey, Azerbaijan, and energy (oil and gas).
Plus, Murinson is cited copiously by others which magnifies the impact of his delusional rantings. How did he get to be such an “authority”? He published a book that got him started… Turkey’s Entente with Israel and Azerbaijan: State Identity and Security in the Middle East and Caucasus, which caught everyone’s attention. At that time, he was lauding Davutoglu’s policy prescriptions. Later, with Turkey and Israel’s falling out, he changed his tune somewhat, but continues to sing Azerbaijan’s praises.
This seems to consistently include lying to smear Armenia and Armenians. He even asserted that the Armenian side started the April hostilities! Of course, he uses the canard about “Armenia occupying” Azeri territories, since it doesn’t suit him and his masters to recognize NKR’s existence in any way. In fairness, he is credited with revealing that on March 31, Azerbaijan got some anti-tank weaponry from Israel. It’s easy to connect that with the attack against Artsakh that started two days later.
All of this might even be “swallowable” in the context of nasty politics but for the fact that his bio on the Tel Aviv University’s Program in Ottoman and Turkish Studies describes his specializations thus: “Modern Turkish History, Nationalism, Turkish Foreign Relations (Middle East, Caucasus, Russia), the late Ottoman Period (Pan-Islamism, pan-Turkism).” Anyone who has studied the late Ottoman period and witnessed the rise of Pan-Islamism and its mutation into Pan-Turkism and all the evil the latter connotes, MUST know and understand Armenians’ situation. Yet, Murinson has cast himself firmly on the side of the murderous bearers of that ideology in today’s world. This man must be shunned and his work exposed for the mockery of scholarship that it is.
If it looks like I’ve given you a lot of reading to do, you’re right. Look at those articles, then contact the publishers and inform them that they are ruining their own reputations by providing a forum for someone who can’t get the facts straight. He must be trashed and his disreputability established. Let him go paint picket fences white instead!
Source: Armenian Weekly
Link: Malevolently Mendacious Mealy Mouthed Murinson