A national staff member of the activist group Code Pink, which protests Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, is active in a group that promotes Armenia’s occupation of a region of Azerbaijan.
Nancy Kricorian is a leading proponent of boycotting Israel, especially products made by Ahava Cosmetics, calling them products of “illegal Israeli settlement.” Her husband, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and producer James Schamus, is on the board of directors of the organization Jewish Voices for Peace, which also promotes boycotts of Israel due to its settlement policy. But Kricorian is also on the executive committee of the Armenian Tree Project (ATP), a group that promotes the settlement of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was illegally seized by Armenia from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s.
According to ATP’s website, its work “throughout Armenia and Karabagh is incredibly important. Armenia faces environmental and demographic threats.” To combat these threats, ATP has provided agricultural training to Syrian-Armenians seeking to settle in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.
In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 62/243, which reaffirmed “that no State shall recognize as lawful the situation resulting from the occupation of the territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining this situation.”
Kricorian’s support for the settlement of occupied territories in Central Asia, but not in the Middle East, was uncovered by Northwestern University Law School Professor Eugene Kontorovich, in conjunction with researchers for the Kohelet Policy Forum.
“This demonstrates not just the hypocrisy of the BDS movement, but its complete lack of principle,” Kontorovich told The Tower. “They do not object to occupation, settlements, or violations of international law – they object to Jews living or doing business in Holy Land. That a prominent BDS activist is involved in settlement activity in areas internationally-recognizes as occupied shows how pretextual their international legal objections to Israel are.”
Kricorian is not the only one to turn a blind eye to the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh while simultaneously demonizing Israel over disputed territory. The chairman of the French telecom giant Orange suggested in June that his company would stop doing business with Israel, even as it promoted its business in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.
[Photo: armenianproject2015 / YouTube ]