Armenians did not always inhabit Artsakh. The lake Sevan, in the late-antique Parsarmenia, was about as far as Armenians ventured - and their language, as of Juanshir's tenure, was already divergent from the Grabar. Juanshir might even have been the one who enforced Grabar upon those breakaways, and further into territory of Adharbad(?): Atropatene to Greeks, Adharbadegan to Iranians.
The region did acquire an Armenian-speaking majority. The remaining Azeris, outside Artsakh, were conquered by Turks and no longer speak the Iranian language they'd had. Whilst it was under Tabrizi and Russian protection, its population was protected when their cousins in Ottoman Kurdestan... not so much.
The USSR split the southern Caucasus into a "republic" and then to three republics and "Autonomous" enclaves. The Soviets followed the great Western tradition of drawing nonsensical borders. In the Caucasus, one border went through "Azerbaijan" with Artsakh, perhaps, on the wrong side. The region revolted in the early 1990s and became an independent republic recognised by nobody.
After much misrule over in Armenia, Azerbaijan recently found its opportunity to contest the rebellion. The Israeli premier Netanyahu, no stranger to misrule, supplied Azerbaijan with material. Azerbaijan won the war; Artsakh is now Azeri-Turk. There are refugees. Some people outside the Caucasus care. Netanyahu doesn't.
Even before last night, not all Israelis think that Netanyahu is all that great. It also does not appear that Israel's support for a Muslim aggressor against a Christian nation has endeared them to the Muslims. I wonder today if Netanyahu wishes, at least, that he'd kept some of his armaments closer to home.
ISRAID 10/28: Cerno reminds us.
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