BEIRUT—From Lebanon to Los Angeles, the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is galvanizing the Armenian diaspora and adding a new international element to the deadly conflict in a disputed enclave between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
As clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces continued for the third week, young men rode through the streets of Beirut’s largely Armenian Bourj Hammoud neighborhood waving Armenian flags. More than 7,000 miles away, Armenian Americans blocked roads and highways in Los Angeles; organized shipments of money, medicine, and food; and demanded action from the U.S. government. For the estimated 7 million Armenians flung to far corners of the globe, the latest conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a nearly unprecedented impetus to mobilize and unify—with reports of young Armenians even going back to an ancestral homeland few have ever seen to do battle.
