BAKU. The media often seems to have the attention span of a firefly only without the good sense. However, the media faithfully covers events in Israel with a dedication that can only be matched by their reporting of the scores from yesterday's games on the sports pages. Sometimes, it seems like no rock thrown by Palestinians is too insignificant to photograph and no accusation of Israeli Army abuses too wild to report. The deaths resulting from the simmering conflict in the Holy Land pile up slowly over the years but, let's face it, they are low by the bloody standards of the world.

Nagorno-Karabakh is just one of these world conflicts that the world ignores even though its vortex has been just as cataclysmic for Armenia and Azerbaijan. Unlike Israel, it seems necessary to describe the location of Nagorno-Karabakh. During the time of the Soviet Union, it was an enclave largely populated by Armenians within the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan resulted in Armenia winning control of not just Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) but significant additional portions of Azerbaijani territory. As in Israel, this is another one of those "who has got the land deed?" conflicts where both sides claim that history proves that the territory can only irreducibly belong to them. Just like Eastern Europe after World War I, the Caucasus historically has been populated by a goulash of peoples that were so mixed that it is impossible to draw neat lines separating them.

The war over NK created hundreds of thousands of refugees. It generated such passions that virtually all Armenians were forced out of Azerbaijan in the face of anti-Armenian pogroms. All Azerbaijanis similarly had to leave Armenia and the regions formerly part of Azerbaijan now held by Armenia. Many accuse the Soviet/Russian KGB of fomenting this ethnic conflict.

Indeed, more than twice as many Azerbaijanis and Armenians had to flee their homes than Palestinians were displaced during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. For that matter, more Armenians and Azerbaijanis were displaced than the even larger number of Jews who sought safety in Israel from persecution in Arab states. The media still covers the plight of the Palestinians and their descendents even though they seem to have forgotten about the Azerbaijanis or the Armenians.

Unfortunately, the Azerbaijanis appear to be learning from the Arab treatment of the Palestinians rather than from how Israel or Cyprus dealt with similar refugee crises. No Arab state other than Jordan has granted citizenship to Palestinian refugees or their descendents. Although the world has donated seemingly endless sums of money, many Palestinians remain in refugee camps which serve to gain the world's sympathy at the plight of the Palestinians.

In contrast, a far smaller Israel has managed to absorb an even larger Jewish population. Greek Cypriots similarly managed to absorb large numbers of co-ethnics who fled the northern part of their island after its sad division. Even if Azerbaijan managed to reverse its defeats tomorrow, Azerbaijan would still need to build new housing as Armenia and the pseudo-independent state of NK has systematically destroyed the former homes of the Azerbaijani population. However, the building of new homes for refugees (called IDPs or internally displaced people to use the local lingo) goes very slowly.

Armenia's victory seems rather hollow. Its borders are sealed with both Azerbaijan and Turkey, rendering prostrate the economy of landlocked Armenia. Millions of Armenians, just like the Azerbaijani counterparts, have left their homeland in search of work. NK itself seems on the verge of becoming depopulated after having lost not only its entire Azerbaijani population but many of its Armenian residents. Some estimates indicate that its population is now only around 40,000--not even that of a decent-sized American suburb.

Of course, the conflict in the Caucasus pales compared the results of the seemingly endless--and only sporadically covered by the media--conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Millions have died there.